Disclaimer:  Don’t own, so don’t sue.

I’m a Canadian so if you see more U’s than normal, that’s to be expected.

Pro Potter Mori1: Time Killing

Another spell whizzed pass him.  Harry tried to gather his thoughts but had to dive for cover as more spells flew by.

"Confringo!"  He roared at the closest target.  It hit an unsuspecting death eater in the thigh.  The Death Eater lost his leg in a shower of blood and gore.

Hermione gave him a startled and confused look.  Damn!  He forgot that he had never taught that curse to the DA.  Damn them for coming with him.  Why couldn't they have stayed behind like he asked?  

After his end of the year experiences, Harry had realized that he may very well have to fight solo again so he had trained himself to fight alone.  He had worked himself to the bone late at night while the others slept, working on any curse that could be found in a meager school library.  Although they weren't exactly powerful, they could keep a man down better than a simple stunner.

He had known that teaching the DA would cut into his own training time but he had realized that disappearing so often would have raised unwanted questions.  Mentoring others would allow him to keep in practice without making Ron, and especially Hermione, suspicious.  Keeping the age reasonable was supposed to ensure quick progress but the large group could only learn as quickly as the slowest member.

"Fucking Creevey's" he muttered.

The DA's glacial pace had really stifled his own development.  Merlin's beard!  They had only learned five spells all year.  Expelliarmus, Protego, Expecto Patronum, Stupefy, and Reducto.  Some should not even count as they had not exactly been new material.  Harry had taken it upon himself to go above and beyond what the others learnt.  If the others could catch up or just learn faster he would have more spells ready to teach. If not . . . well, he could just keep whatever he learned to himself.

Head low, Harry risked a glance around.  Twelve Death Eaters now stood in the Department of Mysteries and his group was cowering behind the shelves of prophecies.  Neville and Luna were doing great, better than he had expected.  Ron was standing a ways away, not even bothering to find cover.  It was a wonder he had not been hit yet, but it could have been because they were aiming at Harry's location.  A look at Ginny disgusted him.  Her back was turned to the enemy and she was looking at him pathetically for directions.

"Everyone - hey! Ron... RON! Listen to me. We've got to get away from here. They've got us pinned. Scatter on my signal."

"Harry, are you su..."

"NOW!"

Despite her initial protest, Hermione scattered with Ron, Luna, Neville, and Ginny like Harry asked.

Harry himself chose a different direction and raced towards the nearest door.  Zigzagging behind whatever cover he could find, he fired off a series of minor but fast spells over his shoulder.  A lucky tripping jinx hits one of his tails and the other pursuer plows into the first, sending them both to the floor.

'Twelve on six, I guess it makes sense to send two of them after each of us' Harry thought.

It bought him enough time to make it to the next room, but not before a cutter clipped his left shoulder and a splatter of blood now marked his passage through that aisle.

A quick colloportus let him look around and take stock of his new situation.  He was alone, thankfully, and there seemed to be a theme to this room.  Apparently, all rooms in this department had a theme.  The numerous time-turners meant that this room obviously contained space-time related items.  A quick healing charm mended the skin and stopped the bleeding before he ducked around a corner. Harry did not want his blood to give away his trail.

His foray into healing magic stopped after learning to heal shallow cuts and bruises.  That was all he felt comfortable trying on himself after practicing on transfigured animals.  His burn healing was spotty at best and he was not willing to burn himself just to attempt an unsure spell.  His bone mending skills were not even worth mentioning.

Before he could to much more, the door burst open.  Through the gap in the shelves, Harry saw the heads of Lucius Malfoy and a still-masked Death Eater.

"Come out Potter! We'll spare you if you give us the prophecy" Malfoy said. "You may even still have time to save your little mudbloods and blood traitors."

‘A prophecy?  So that’s what it was’ he thought.  He hated them, the only one he heard before was ambiguous, confusing, and damn near useless.

Quickly coming up with a plan, a mop of black hair came into view with the owner holding his wand in one hand and the sphere in the other.

"If I give you this... you'll call off your men, Malfoy?"

"Yes. Now give it here Potter."

"Catch."

Although his bone mending skills were non-existent, it did not mean the spells were useless.  With a little time and a lot of concentration, Harry could purposely pull a Lockhart. Harry could no longer fault the fraud for removing the bones in his arm since he never got the spell down himself.

With the sphere flying through the air and Malfoy's attention absorbed on it, Harry acted.

"Ossus Emendo2”

The spell struck Lucius in the hip, causing the bone to vanish and Lucius to collapse in a cry of pain.  The sphere, with nobody to catch it, broke against the stone floor.

"AAAAARRRRRGGGG..."

". . . approaches.  . . . Born to . . ."

"Pettrigrew!  Get him!"

". . . mark him as his equal . . ."

The other Death Eater moved towards him.

". . . Lord knows not . . ."

Pettrigrew? Wormtail?

". . . either must die . . ."

Harry gazed downwards.  A silver hand.

". . . seventh month dies . . ."

This battle had just turned personal.

"Incarcerous!"

Ropes flew towards his parents' betrayer but the silver hand cut through them with ease.

Wormtail quickly returned with a concussive blast.

Harry was forced to dive aside to avoid the area effect spell.  Deciding to up the ante, he fired back a series of confringos.  All chest level.

Unfortunately for Harry, Pettigrew's silver hand was magic resistant and he used it to simply bat away the incoming spellfire.

The return volley, an expulso, was met with a quick protego from Harry.  The shield held - barely - but was brought down by a dark purple curse that did not originate from Wormtail.

Harry looked around frantically in confusion and spotted the Malfoy scion on the ground but with wand in hand ready to cast again.  As Harry took aim to take the weaker target out of the fight, he was forced to duck as another of Pettigrew's curses flew overhead.

He swore.  It turned out that the ability to run from a horde of Death Eaters did not translate into taking down more than one in an even duel.  Even if it was just one and a half.  Realizing that a strategic retreat was in order he dove behind the next pillar before sprinting deeper into that chamber.

Although his skills grew, initiative would always be beyond him so Wormtail turned to Lucius for directions.

"What are you waiting for!  Go after him!  Make him pay for this humiliation."

That was enough to convince Pettigrew. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry looked at his surroundings carefully.  He could not recognize anything but the timeturners, and those would not help in this situation.  Thinking back to the battle, he recalled that the silver hand was Pettigrew's biggest advantage.  He would have to go around it.  But how?

As the traitor stepped into view, Harry let loose with another string of reductor curses.  He made a note of learning some better spells if he ever got out of this alive.

Putting Pettigrew on the defense, he watched as the silver hand continued to knock aside spells like bugs.  His opponent's erratic return fire was easily dodged and it seemed that multitasking was not yet one of Pettigrew's limited skills.  Continuing with the same spell, Harry noticed a misaimed curse forcing Pettigrew to dodge.

'The legs!'  Harry realized.  Switching to reductos, he aimed them at his enemy's lower legs and forced Pettigrew to put up weak shields as pieces of the floor flew at him.  It seemed like defensive magic - and multitasking and decision making - was beyond Pettigrew as his hand had made him complacent.

Harry continued to force Wormtail backwards looking for an opportunity to finish it.

There!  A particularly high flying piece of shrapnel that penetrated his shield caused Pettigrew to turn his head to dodge.

'Expelliarmus.' silent.

It snuck through Pettigrew's guard and sent him flying backwards without his wand.

"Incendio"His robes caught fire.

Then, something wholly unexpected happened.  Pettigrew, arcing backwards, hit and cracked the large bell jar at the end of the room.  His body began to de-age and re-age in a continuous cycle.  His metallic hand had fallen off.  A real hand grew back from the stump occasionally but the silver hand remained unattached.  Peter could do nothing as his body and mind changed, his priorities altering between capturing Harry and getting fed. The cycle started to speed up as the lights emitted by the jar started to fluctuate wildly.

Harry could only watch, transfixed, as his father's ex-friend was trapped in a vicious cycle while his robes kept on burning.  He had not yet noticed that the small crack Pettrigrew's head caused had begun to spread.  With a grim sense of satisfaction, Harry stood watching the skin shrivel and flake, watching the flesh charred and crumbled, and enjoying the sound of a scream petering into nothingness.  

Suddenly, a loud crack caught his attention and he noticed that the jar no longer seemed stable.  Quickly backing away, he was barely able to roll behind a grandfather clock as the jar finally exploded, having been used in such unstable conditions.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  When Harry looked back, that was all that remained of Pettigrew.  That, and the claw.

He picked up the appendage as a memento and stuffed it into his pocket.

'Hopefully the Order is here by now' he thought, 'come to protect their precious weapons.  Couldn’t have been a very good one if it broke so easily.’

Painfully, Harry made his way back towards the entrance.  He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Malfoy struggling to get up.  This Death Eater, this one man had single handedly ousted Dumbledore from Hogwarts.  He had nearly killed Harry last year in the graveyard.  He could buy his way out of Azkaban again.  He had to die.

A silently cast silencio ensured the element of surprise.

Harry took a moment to look around.  The room was quiet except for the ticking of the clocks and the occasional sputter of sparks caused by the fight's destruction.  Nobody else was here.  From the silence, Harry could guess that the other fights were coming to a conclusion as well.  Had they won?  Had his friends held off the enemy?  Did the Order arrive yet?  Or had his friends fallen one by one.  There was only one way to know and the quicker he finished here, the quicker he could help his friends . . . or get it over with.  

Looking at his face down target, Harry calmly put a foot on Malfoy's lower back, forcing him to the ground and cast two quick reductors between the shoulder blades.  The first blew apart the spine and rib cage, sending bone shards into the Death Eater's heart and lungs.  The second reductor ensured the job.  There was no way anybody could live after that.  

Lucius didn't deserve the honour of dying face up and Harry didn't care to bestow it.  Such Gryffindorian concepts held no place in battle.  You did what was necessary to stay alive.  To win.

A morbid sense of pride filled him as he thought about it.  He had just tied up one of the Ministry’s loose ends and one of his own.  It felt good.

He stood straighter and started walking back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry cautiously reentered the Hall of Prophecies.  The scene that met him was odd yet comforting.

A couple order members were standing guard over the stunned and bound forms of nine Death Eaters.

His friends were all there.  He could see Hermione lying on the ground and her chest frequently enough to show a stable condition.  Ron was fine physically and Neville looked as though his nose was broken.  Neville would also twitch occasionally.  Luna and Ginny appeared miraculously unscathed.

Harry would get their stories later. A couple of the adults had finally noticed his entrance.

"Harry! Thank God you're alright!"

The man rushed towards Harry and Harry almost stumbled right there.

Sirius.

Sirius was alright. He had been worrying even though Malfoy had revealed that it was a trick.

Sirius.

Pettigrew.

He nearly stumbled again as the implications to his actions finally hit him.

"Sirius, I . . . I killed today."

"It’s alright Harry, the Death Eater deserved it. It was either you or them. You did good kid. Do you know who it was?"

"One was Lucius Malfoy. He . . . he would've just bribed his way out of Azkaban again.”

Harry took a shuddering breath to steady himself.

How does one tell their godfather that his temporary life as a fugitive just turned long term - if not permanent?

”The other one . . . the other . . . he kept his mask on. I couldn't tell."

One doesn't.

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1:  Title of the fic was inspired by “Dulce et Decorum Est” a poem by Wilfred Owen

2:  Ossus Emendo: lit. Bone, I approve.  According to the HP wiki, ‘Brackium Emendo’ was the spell Lockhart used in 2nd year in an attempt to fix Harry’s arm.  I switched the ‘Brackium’ (forearm) to a general term for bone.

AN:  This was my first story so comments and criticisms will be much appreciated.  

Thanks to the folks at DLP for helping me along with plot holes and grammar.

Part 2 of the fic will be posted in a couple days.