Princeps by Lomonaaeren

Chapter 2

Harry wakes in the middle of the night with the feeling that something is wrong, although he doesn't know what. He dresses hastily and runs out into his sitting room, thinking that someone might be trying to reach him through the Floo.

But there's no one there. Harry turns in a circle, frowning, and then conjures the sapphire dot with silver lines that represents the people who've sworn oaths with him.

One of them is glowing bright red, under attack. Harry touches it with his magic, and identifies it as the one representing Andromeda.

He also receives a strong picture of the location where she's fighting, as strong an image as a really good description of Apparition coordinates.

Harry sighs to himself over the way that his bond with his oathsworn is evolving, but only for a moment. Then he spins in place and goes to her, traveling effortlessly through the school's defenses that prevent Apparition. It's as if he's simply invisible to them.

He lands in a darkened clearing not far from the house that he remembers coming to in the second war in his world. Spellfire crackles and dances around the walls, and Harry can sense the weaknesses in the wards. Large cracks are spreading through them. They'll be down in a few minutes.

Harry takes a moment to orient himself, since it seems that neither Andromeda nor anyone else in the house with her—probably Ted Tonks and toddler Nymphadora—is in immediate danger. And then he strides around the corner of the house and launches himself at the two Death Eaters who are there.

One of them, from the flash of blond hair, is Abraxas Malfoy, who stumbles back from Harry with a startled oath. The other turns at once to face him and cackles in an unsettlingly familiar way.

"Miss Black, Mr. Malfoy," Harry says, in his best, coldest professor voice. "What exactly do you think you're doing?"

Abraxas stares at him without a word. Bellatrix, though, swings her wand on him and fires the same curse she was using to weaken the wards.

She doesn't come anywhere close to hitting him. Harry Apparates away from the spell and into place behind her. Then he locks his arm around her throat and wrenches hard to the side, driving her temple into his carefully-positioned wand. Bellatrix goes down, out cold.

Harry turns his attention to Abraxas. "This is the second time that you've been involved in an attack on one of my oathsworn, Mr. Malfoy," he says, and lets his voice descend into a deeper register. "I find it annoying."

Abraxas backs up in front of him. Harry assumes he'll Apparate away, but something, maybe the thought of the renown he could get if he defeats the man who dueled Voldemort, makes him cast a curse instead. It snaps open in front of Harry, a fanged net that will prevent him from casting any spells if it closes around him.

Harry raises an unimpressed eyebrow and reaches for the spell that's so deep inside him, he could probably cast it without a wand. "Expecto Patronum."

Prongs explodes in front of him, dashing forwards with lowered antlers. They tear straight through the net, and then he surges past it and tramples Abraxas with an easy motion. Abraxas cries out and then rolls over, gasping, his elbows braced against the ground.

He goes still when Harry pushes his wand into the back of his neck. "Stay down," Harry murmurs. "I would hate to have to tell your Lord about your death when he seems to depend on your money and Manor a lot."

"You wouldn't kill me."

"Not at the moment. But press further, and try me."

Abraxas scrambles for his wand, probably planning to Apparate now. Harry shakes his head and Stuns the bastard, then spends a few moments binding both him and Bellatrix with ropes thick enough to hold a giant. He turns around and scans the garden, but no one else is there, no matter how many revealing spells he casts. He supposes that this might have been some sort of training mission for Bellatrix, and Voldemort probably thought a senior Death Eater and one junior one were enough to handle a single pureblood and a Muggleborn.