Harry Potter fanfic--Student Teacher at Hogwarts
by Terri Wells

Chapter 20 - Memory Interlude

July 27, 2001 Afternoon

Harry was shocked when the headmaster listed the names of the prefects...and his name wasn't among them. Why had he not been made a prefect? Hadn't he proven over and over again his ability to handle a whole variety of situations...many of them life-threatening? True, he'd had help, but Harry couldn't see any reason for choosing Ron over himself as prefect. Ron's grades were no better than Harry's, and if it was a matter of who followed the rules more consistently, well, neither one could be said to be any better than the other.

It wasn't until the representative from Buffalo Gap finished explaining his mission that Harry understood why he'd been summoned to this meeting. Mr. Gleeson must have told Professor Dumbledore what his mission was before the meeting, of course. Harry focused in on the cowboy wizard's statements that his people needed to know the truth about Voldemort's return. They need proof, Harry thought. A photo, an eyewitness account, something... Then, with a rush of emotions he couldn't begin to name, They need ME. The headmaster needs me; without me, he won't get Buffalo Gap!

A full court Quidditch game played in Harry's stomach as he and the other three wizards walked to the nearest classroom. He hadn't lied when he said he didn't want to answer Gleeson's questions. He was still taking a little of Victoria Figg's potion nearly every night for dreamless sleep; he never wanted to see that graveyard, either in his dreams or in real life, ever again. The four sets of footsteps on Hogwart's stone floors echoed off the walls, matching the frantic rhythm of Harry's heart. Gleeson's boots sounded especially loud, even next to Moody's wooden leg and walking stick.

"Right fine school you've got here," Jim Lee commented, looking at the moving paintings on the walls.

"Thanks. Er, do the schools in your country not have moving pictures?" Harry asked, more to distract himself than anything else. In fact, he was trying all sorts of tricks to distract himself, but none of them were working. Trying to focus on Moody or Lupin, for example, didn't help at all. Moody, especially, kept staring at Jim Lee Gleeson -- not simply with his usual level of suspicion and vigilance, but as if trying to remember something.

Jim Lee chortled; it was a surprising sound that made Harry jump, since it was nearly loud enough to have come from Hagrid. "Not these kind of moving pictures! Though Texas E & M has its share of ghosts," he added, nodding and raising his hat to a lady ghost as they passed her in the hall.

"Texas E & M?" Harry asked. He'd seen teachers from the Salem Witches' Institute at the Quidditch World Cup, and of course he'd met students (and the headmasters) from Beaubatons and Durmstrang when he competed in the Triwizard Tourney. He'd heard some vague mention of other wizarding schools, but this was the first time he'd heard of more than one in the same country.

"Yup, good ol' Texas Enchanter and Magician! Best wizarding school in the United States, never mind what those uppity folks in Salem say." Jim Lee grinned, as if at a private joke.

Mad-Eye Moody cleared his throat. "Here we are," he said, indicating a closed wooden door to his left. Harry groaned inwardly; this was one of the doors one had to tickle in the right place before it would let you in. The last thing he needed right now was a giggling door. But Remus did the honors, saving Harry the trouble; after a surprised look and a bewildered shake of his head, Jim Lee followed the other three wizards into the room.

"Make yourself comfortable, Harry -- er, sorry, can I call you Harry?" Jim Lee fumbled.

Harry settled into a chair, and was dimly aware of Moody and Lupin taking up positions off to his sides. He remembered the last person who'd asked him that question: Rita Skeeter. Then as now, it was the prelude to a number of questions he really didn't want to answer. "No," Harry replied.

Jim Lee shrugged, barely put off by the comment. "Well, then, sir," he said politely, taking a seat himself, "what shall I call you?"

"We address students by their last names at Hogwarts," Lupin cut in gracefully. Harry nodded; Jim Lee shrugged, as if the matter was of no consequence to him.

"If I can call you Potter, then..." Jimmy asked Harry. Harry nodded again. He didn't want to speak until he absolutely had to answer the American wizard's questions.

The cowboy put his hand into his shirt pocket and removed a folded-up piece of parchment. He unfolded it; to Harry, it looked well-traveled. Harry noticed that Jimmy Lee looked pretty well-traveled, as well; there were white hairs among the red, and lines on the wizard's tanned face. Jimmy nodded as he consulted something written on the parchment, then refolded it and slipped it back into his pocket. "Okay," he began, looking directly at Harry. "`Bone of the father...flesh of the servant...blood of the enemy...' do these words mean anything to you?"

Harry gasped; at that moment, his scar erupted in agony. He was dimly aware that he'd slid from his chair, as all around him, the room faded away. Before Jim Lee had finished speaking, Harry Potter was no longer safely sitting in a Hogwarts classroom, with two wizards prepared to defend him from harm. It was night, and he was back in the graveyard; he could feel the chill in the air, smell death all around him. He was struggling against the rope that bound him to Voldemort's father's gravestone, staring at the gigantic snake that slithered nearby...and worse, watching Wormtail push forward a tremendous cauldron, while something inside a bundle of robes nearby tried to free itself..."No!" Harry wanted to shout, but the gag in his mouth prevented any sound from escaping. He was back, it was happening all over again, and he would be helpless to stop it...

"Bunyan's boots! What in the Sam Hill is going on?!" exclaimed Gleeson.

"That's what I'd like to know!" Lupin shot back. Harry couldn't turn his head to look, but he could somehow sense that Gleeson, Lupin, and Moody were all with him.

"Did you plan this, Gleeson? Is this why you wanted to be alone with Potter?" Moody demanded.

"I swear, I had no idea this was going to happen!" Jimmy replied, and, to Harry's ears at least, he sounded as surprised as Harry.

To the young wizard's horror, the scene played on as it had that night, as bones from Thomas Riddle's grave, flesh from Wormtail's body, and blood from Harry Potter himself went into the cauldron. Again, Harry lived through the agony of watching the contents of the cauldron sparkling, the blinding light...Please, let it fail, let something go wrong... but of course everything went exactly as it had gone that night, and Voldemort rose from the cauldron.

"I've seen enough...more than enough! Potter, get us out of here!" Gleeson exclaimed, walking in front of Harry to get his attention.

Harry stared at him blankly. How am I supposed to get us out of here?! You brought us here in the first place! he thought, and would have shouted if he did not have a gag in his mouth.

"He hasn't learned that yet," Lupin cut in quietly. "Dealing with thoughts and memories like this isn't taught here until the seventh year."

Jim Lee cursed, then turned back to Harry, a pleading look on his face. "Come on, Harry, don't get lost in your thoughts! Remember where you are! THIS ISN'T REAL! You're just reliving it, like a dream! Remember? You're in a classroom, at Hogwarts, it's broad daylight...come on, you can do this..."

Lupin shook himself, then joined his voice to Jimmy Lee's, as if the two wizards were trying to drown out Voldemort's words to Harry..."Yes, remember, the cold feeling of the stone floor you're sitting on...the bright warm sun through the window...the musty smell of the classroom..."

Both wizards went on talking, and suddenly Harry began to feel a change. He could move again; looking down at himself, he saw that he had walked through the bonds that tied him as if he were a ghost. Even the gag was no longer in his mouth. Looking back at where he had been, he saw himself still tied to the gravestone.

"Don't look back!" Jimmy shouted. "Come on, Potter, take our hands and take us away from here!"

Harry shook himself. Was this what it felt like when Dumbledore took me out of his Pensieve? he wondered. He reached out his hands; Jim Lee grabbed one, Mad-Eye Moody grabbed the other, and Remus Lupin took hold of Harry's arm. "Remember where you are, Harry," Lupin intoned, "Remember where you REALLY are..."

Harry felt a dizzying whoosh and found himself back in the Hogwarts classroom. He nearly fell over when the three wizards let go of him. For a few moments, no one said anything. Harry leaned heavily on the sturdy wooden teacher's desk in the classroom, trying to catch his breath. He turned his head to look at Gleeson; the cowboy wizard wore a look of shock and concern. In a husky voice that Harry barely recognized as his own, he demanded "What did you do to me?!"

The words seemed to break some kind of spell. Mad-Eye Moody took up the thread. "What in Merlin's name did you think you were doing?! How dare you attack a Hogwarts student -- especially Potter, he's been through enough already without having to relive--"

"I swear I had no idea that was going to happen!" Gleeson shouted back. "And I wouldn't have done it if I had known!"

The back and forth continued, and escalated; it wasn't long before Moody took out his wand and began casting spells at the hapless cowboy. Gleeson ducked and dodged, around chairs and under desks. He did not draw his wand himself, however; he simply kept repeating that he had not expected what happened to happen, and if Moody would only hear him out, he'd understand. Harry shook while he watched the byplay -- not with anger, though he felt nearly as mad as he'd ever been in his life, but with reaction from what he had just gone through.

Remus Lupin moved two chairs into a (temporarily) safe corner, eased Harry into one of them, and sat down next to him in the other. He looked closely at Harry's face, and frowned. "How do you feel, Harry?" he asked.

"C-cold," Harry said, and shivered. It was as if his body still thought he was back at the graveyard in the evening.

"You're sweating, though." Lupin took out a plain white handkerchief, moved as if to wipe Harry's face, then stopped, and simply handed him the handkerchief instead. Harry took it, wiped his face, and was surprised to find sweat. Though, now that Remus had mentioned it, Harry could feel that the back of his shirt was cold and wet, too.

"What did he do to me?" Harry asked.

"I'm not sure," Lupin admitted. "But my best guess is that, when he spoke those words, he touched some sort of mental trigger that sent you back to when you heard those words --"

"And somehow took all three of you with me?" Harry's eyes widened. He knew from experience that thoughts and memories could be dangerous or at least tricky things when not properly handled -- witness Voldemort's diary and Dumbledore's Pensieve -- but he certainly never expected one of his own thoughts to effectively reach out and drag other people into it.

"Obsessive thoughts can gain a power all their own," Lupin said slowly. He paused, and turned his face away from Harry, as if reluctant to go on. But he turned back almost immediately. "What worries me is that Gleeson may have set off some sort of mental trigger that was planted when Voldemort regained his body -- something to make you more vulnerable to his influence. We'll have to --"

But before the horror of Lupin's statement could fully sink in for Harry, before the werewolf could finish saying what they would have to do, Jimmy Lee Gleeson's voice rent the air. The cowboy had clearly reached the top of his lungs -- and the end of his patience. "FOR THE LAST TIME, I SWEAR I DIDN'T KNOW THAT WOULD HAPPEN, AND IF I DID, I WOULDN'T HAVE DONE IT! AND IF YOU'D LET ME EXPLAIN WHY I DID IT, YOU'D UNDERSTAND THAT I'M TELLING THE TRUTH! YOU CAN EVEN GO GET THE DAMNED VERITASERUM IF IT MAKES YOU HAPPY!"

"WE ALREADY KNOW THE TRUTH!" Mad-eye Moody shouted back just as loud.

Gleeson, facing Moody at eye level by standing on the desk and bending down, looked even more outraged, if that was possible. He put his face mere inches from Moody's -- an impressive act of bravery, under the circumstances. "And whatever happened to `innocent until proven guilty'? Or is that some quaint American custom that you don't believe in over here?" he growled.

"It doesn't apply when you're caught red-handed!" Moody growled back.

"Wait," said Harry. Moody and Gleeson turned to him in surprise. He hardly knew himself why he had spoken, but he remembered how insistent Jimmy had been about getting the truth for his people. Could they do less with him? "Let's -- let's hear him out," he said hesitantly, in an almost normal voice. "We can ask him again under Veritaserum if -- if we need to." Harry hoped it would help him get a handle on what was going on, and what had happened to him -- not just now, but several months ago, if what Lupin said was correct.

Jimmy Lee let out a sigh. Moody glared at him, and continued to cover him with his wand. "No tricks, Gleeson," he growled.

Gleeson snorted. "If ah was plannin' any tricks, ah'd've used'em awready," he drawled, his accent returning while he was under stress. Carefully, he slid down from the desk he'd been standing on, holding his hands and arms well away from his wand bag. Moody covered him the entire time. He took a deep breath, and turned to Harry, focusing on the young wizard as if he were the only person in the room.

"When we -- I mean, Buffalo Gap -- got in a request from Hogwarts for a Rubeus Hagrid and an Olympe Maxime to visit the town, well, after all we'd heard, not heard, and "overheard," we didn't quite know what to make of it. Which is part of the reason I was sent here."

"Only part?" asked Moody suspiciously, magic eye spinning wildly.

Jim Lee actually looked embarrassed. "Er, the, uh, person who tasked me with the rest would kill me if I told you," he said. Turning to Moody, he added, "Will you take my word -- for the moment -- that it doesn't involve Har -- Mr. Potter?" He gave Harry an apologetic look at his slip.

"Go on," Harry said.

Jimmy took off his hat and rubbed his head in the same nervous gesture he'd used in the Great Hall. "Well, bein' as I wanted t'do a good job, I asked folks to tell me what they thought I should do, startin' with the mayor. Most of 'em just told me flat out," he grinned. "But there was one guy I sought out, 'cause I figured...well, you'd have to know him to understand." He shook his head. "Newcomer to the town -- only been in Buffalo Gap about, what? Ten years, I think. No, more'n that; fifteen, maybe, if that. Like I said, a newcomer -- and a weird sort. His place is full of books about dark arts and dark wizards -- oh, I'm not saying he's a practicer," Jimmy added hastily, "but it's mighty strange walking into the place an' seeing all these evil symbols starin' down from the book spines." Jimmy shuddered. "He's also into Nazi history -- Grindelwald's era -- which doesn't help, 'specially for someone like me."

Moody gave Gleeson a hard stare with both his magic and his normal eyes at those words. "You're older than you look," he said slowly.

"Aren't we all?" Gleeson replied lightly.

Harry shook his head. "If he's so creepy, why did you go there?" he asked.

Jimmy turned back to Harry. "Because I figured, if anyone'd know what questions to ask, what to look for if'n You-know-who had really returned, then it would be someone like him." Gleeson sighed, and shrugged. "Anyway, he said he'd do some research and get back to me. When he did, he said he'd found out some stuff -- some `ritual elements,' he called them. Very obscure, he said. So he told me to ask about them `and you'll surely find the answers we need.' Exact quote." Gleeson groaned. "I swear, when I get back, I'm going to wring his geeky little neck!"

As the cowboy wizard made his threat, Lupin nodded. "That spell may have been something that Voldemort personally came up with --" Harry noticed that Jimmy looked at Lupin in surprise when he spoke Voldemort's name, but did not flinch "--but yes, the `ritual elements,' as he called them, go back a very long way in dark magic." He looked up at Moody. "It's plausible.

But Moody wasn't looking at him. He was still staring at Gleeson. "Former Auror -- no, former military," he said, as if reading something from a book. Harry shivered. He remembered that Moody's magic eye was perfectly capable of seeing through furniture, clothing, and behind his head; what else could the retired Auror see with that eye?

"You've got a good eye," Gleeson responded, with barely a hint of irony in his voice. "My stance give me away?"

"And more," Moody said distractedly. He continued to stare. "Cavalry? No, not normal mounts -- AIRBORNE?!" he exclaimed in surprise.

"Yup," Gleeson responded, a hint of pride in his voice. "One hundred eighty-seventh, airborne cavalry. Retired, of course." Somewhat more quietly, he added, "Eh, I rode a pegapony."

"You." Moody's face wore a look of astonishment. "It can't be...but without the beard..." He seemed to come back to himself. "When did you serve?"

"Enlisted in 1940, mustered out -- honorably, mind you -- in 1947." Gleeson turned from Moody to Harry. "And yes, young'un, that makes me 80 years old."

Moody banged his wooden leg on the floor. "Then you were with Dumbledore at Stonehenge!"

"I was," Gleeson admitted, seemingly not certain where this was going.

"Staff Sargent James Lee Gleeson!" Moody shouted. At Gleeson's surprised look, the retired Auror waved his hand impatiently. "Never mind, of course you don't recognize me; I looked very different then. Staff Sargent Alastor Moody, with the British sharpspeller brigade." He held out his hand to Jimmy, as a look of astonishment, remembering, and dawning comprehension came to the American wizard's face. "You saved my life at Stonehenge, Gleeson...and I never did get to thank you."

Gleeson took his hand, a slow grin splitting his beard. "You saved mine first, gen'r'l," he said.

"Excuse me," Harry cut in impatiently, "but would one of you please tell me what is going on?!"

Well," said Lupin, a bemused look on his face, "it looks like Mr. Gleeson and Mr. Moody are old war buddies."

"Only sort of," Gleeson corrected, glancing quickly between Lupin and Moody before looking back to Harry. "So far as I know, the only battle both of our units were in together was the one at Stonehenge." He shifted his weight uncomfortably in his boots.

"The only battle," Moody added softly, and Harry watched with surprise as the color drained from Jimmy's face at the retired auror's words.

"Don't say it, gen'r'l," the cowboy wizard whispered. He turned to Moody, looking up into the other's grim face. "I on'y heard later that your unit was..." he swallowed, and shook his head. "You know, when I heard your unit had gone, too, I'd hoped you'd been mustered out before then." He shivered. "Worst thing I ever saw."

Moody sighed, pulled up a chair, and sat down; Harry got the distinct impression that, for the moment at least, the two old soldiers had forgotten that anyone else was in the room. "It was the last `action' I saw, those camps; can't begin to tell you how long I had nightmares after that."

Jim Lee looked down, then back up; some color returned to his face. "I still have them from time to time," he admitted quietly.

Moody stared at the cowboy for a few seconds at that remark, then nodded. "Didn't go in for the Memory Charms, then?"

Jim Lee snorted. "Are you kidding? They may be hell on wings, but I'll keep all my own memories, thanks just the same." He smiled slyly at Moody. "Are you tellin' me you did?"

Moody shook his head and waved his hand dismissively. "Trust someone else to go mucking around with my memories? Not for a minute."

"Someone did with mine," Harry cut in, irritation in his voice. Gleeson and Moody turned quickly to face Harry; Gleeson looked deeply apologetic. It didn't help matters that Lupin had simply sat there and watched the unfolding reunion with a strange look of fascination on his face.

At Harry's words, Lupin shook himself again. It was then Harry noticed that the werewolf's color was a bit off. Was it getting close to the full moon? "It is a concern," he said slowly. Turning his gaze to Gleeson, he added, "Mr. Potter's reaction to those words was too intense. We may owe you and your friend a debt for --"

"Never mind that," Gleeson said, waving his hand to cut off the werewolf's words. "The only person owed a debt here is Mr. Potter." The short wizard turned to face Harry, a solemn expression on his face. "You may not believe this, but I know what it's like to unwillingly relive a horrible memory." Behind the cowboy, Harry saw Moody nod his head vigorously in agreement. "I swear I never intended what happened; and if there's any way I can make it up to you --"

"There is." Harry still felt angry and shocked from what he'd been forced to relive. If someone was going to do that to him, unintentional or not, he wasn't going to get off the hook easily. Never mind that even Moody seemed less suspicious of Gleeson now; how could they really be sure that he was who he said he was? Harry still remembered when the person he'd thought was Mad-Eye Moody was revealed to be Barty Crouch using Polyjuice Potion; and that Moody had been kept around under an Imperio curse both to act as a source for one of the potion's ingredients and as a source of information -- so that Crouch's performance as Moody fooled even Dumbledore. What if this was more of the same? "Show me this battle of Stonehenge you're talking about. Heck, show all of us." If this Jimmy Lee Gleeson wasn't really who he said he was -- and was some agent of Voldemort instead -- then Mad-Eye Moody would be able to pick up any discrepancies in the memory. At least, Harry sincerely hoped so.

Jimmy's eyes widened; Harry's request had clearly taken him off guard. "Son," he began, his voice full of emotion, "you don't know what you're askin'."

"It can't be any worse than what you just put me through," Harry insisted.

Jim Lee shook his head. "Oh yes it can," he said quietly. "You've never seen a full-blown magic battle in the middle of a full-blown war, have you?" When Harry didn't answer, Jimmy went on, "It's not like those pretty little duels you may have fought -- or may have seen fought --"

"I dueled with Voldemort," Harry cut in coldly. "What could be worse than that?" I dueled with Voldemort, I let Wormtail live, Wormtail took my blood for that spell, I'm twice over responsible for Voldemort's return in the first place -- Harry shook his head to clear it. This was hardly the time to dwell on those thoughts.

Jim Lee took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. "I can think of at least two things worse, son, and you've just asked to see one of them." Then he shook his head. "But I did ask if there was any way I could make it up to you, and this is what you're askin', so..." he hesitated, looking to both Moody and Lupin as if for permission.

"Harry," Lupin whispered, "please...reconsider." Harry turned to the werewolf, and saw the strain on his face. "I've read about this war. It --" He shook his head. "It's not...something one would want to see if one didn't need to."

For a moment, Harry thought Lupin was pleading for himself -- as if he didn't want to see the memory as much as he didn't want Harry to see it. The young wizard turned from Lupin to Moody. The retired auror's scarred, granite-like face seemed a bit paler than usual. "It's not something I wanted to see the first time through," he admitted, "but..." he frowned, then nodded. "You'll see just what it is we're trying to prevent."

Harry turned to face Gleeson. Even with the young wizard sitting and the cowboy standing, Harry didn't need to look up to meet Gleeson's deep blue gaze. "That's what I'm asking for, Mr. Gleeson," he said firmly.

Jim Lee sighed one last, long time. He then slipped his wand -- about the same size as Harry's, he noticed -- out of his wand bag, and slowly brought it to the side of his head. "In that case, hold onto your hats, because this is going to be one wild ride."

Jim Lee closed his eyes as he held his wand to his head. Harry felt, rather than heard, a soft, deep, rumbling hum; he suddenly realized it was coming from the cowboy. The short wizard rocked back on his heels, removed his wand from his temple, and opened his eyes with a sigh. A cotton candy chunk of memory clung to the tip of Jimmy's wand.

Harry's eyes widened in surprise. "That's not how memories look when you do that!" he exclaimed. When he had seen Professor Dumbledore drop memories into his Pensieve, they had looked very much like wisps of the Professor's own hair: long, thin, silvery-white strands that turned into quicksilver air when deposited in the vessel.

"That's not how it looked the first time my teacher demonstrated it for me, either," Jim Lee admitted. "Just long white strands, not this thick fluffy gob. But then, he said he was remembering how he did on his SATs."

"SATs?" Harry asked.

"Sorcery Achievement Tests," the cowboy wizard explained. "Not quite like your OWLs or NEWTs here, but...well, that's not important now."

Harry looked again to Lupin and Moody. Surely there was something not right here! But Moody was nodding. "Hold that thought," he said to Jim Lee, holding up a forestalling hand. With his other hand, Moody raised his wand to his head and closed his eyes. Several unreadable, painful looks crossed the retired Auror's face. When he opened his eyes and removed his wand from his head, it held a fluffy memory that looked very similar to the one on the tip of Jim Lee's wand. Moody grunted, and looked at the tip of his wand with cautious satisfaction. "Pity Diggle isn't here," he said. "Bet he could get a research paper out of this." Moody waved his wand, and his memory quickly dispersed.

Gleeson's memory remained on the tip of his wand, however. He gave Harry a weak smile. "I'm tempted to say you ought to take notes, 'cuz you'll do better in your History of Magic class when it gets up to Grindelwald. But..." he lost his smile entirely. "I have a feeling you're not going to need to." So saying, he held his memory about six inches from his lips, and gently blew on it, as if it were a dandelion gone to seed.

Rather than dispersing, the memory spread. It floated on the air, growing bigger, changing color, spreading. Harry could see sky through the memory -- the deep blue of approaching evening. He could even feel a breeze -- cold, but with the promise of spring. Before he knew what was happening, the entire room was surrounded by Gleeson's memory, and Harry was once again no longer in a classroom at Hogwarts.

The young wizard shivered as the breeze brought to him an unfamiliar scent: the smell of too many people and animals going unwashed for too long in too close quarters. Jim Lee smiled a bit at Harry's discomfort; his grin grew even wider when Harry looked down upon the marvel of Stonehenge...but caught no sign of the people he smelled. "We had some spells up for disguise -- help us blend in," he explained. Then he held up a finger. "If you still yourself," he added softly, "you can almost hear them."

Without realizing it, Harry took a deep breath and held it. There it was, nearly at the edge of his hearing. He felt, more than heard, something that sounded like a purr...from a cat with a bass voice. It grounded him; he was surprised to realize where he was. He was sitting on a richly decorated carpet, floating in mid-air, with Gleeson, Moody, and Lupin also seated on the carpet. Gleeson held something that was attached to the carpet; Harry thought it looked rather like a joystick from one of his cousin Dudley's video games, but more...archaic.

The cowboy wizard looked at Harry and raised an eyebrow. "Hey, my memory, my wings. Ready to go in?"

Harry nodded. Gleeson moved the stick in his hand, and the carpet flew closer. For a moment, the purring/growling grew stronger; then Harry had the sense of having penetrated something. He again looked down on Stonehenge -- and gasped.

What his eyes had told him was an empty plain was swarming with people and animals. Many of them still seemed to be blending into the background, but Harry could tell they were there. Then again, this was Gleeson's memory; of course Gleeson knew they were there! Several people in robes with gold braid ran around shouting orders to get ready. Horses -- no, pegasi, Harry amended -- whinnied and pawed the ground in expectation. Several answering squawks alerted Harry to the presence of hippogriffs as well. All around were the peculiar, purposeful sounds of troops preparing for battle.

Gleeson steered the carpet closer to one group in particular. A very short, red-haired, clean-shaven wizard -- Harry guessed he must have been twenty or so -- carefully curried the coat of a pure white pony-sized pegasus. The flying horse held its wings in such a way as to let him reach wherever he needed to with his curry comb, and clearly seemed to be blissed out at the attention. Harry understood at once why Mad-Eye Moody had not recognized Gleeson to begin with; the beard, the long hair, and the years made a huge difference.

An amused snort, followed by the crunch of someone approaching, interrupted the scene of devotion between man and mount. Jimmy Gleeson -- the younger one -- looked up from his task. "What's your problem, Little?" he challenged.

Harry turned to where the snort had come from. The source belied his name by standing well over six feet tall. He seemed the same age as Gleeson, and it was clear from his stance that he didn't consider the shorter wizard a threat. He brought his muscular black arms across his chest, and shook his head. His face split into a grin. "We're about to go into battle, Gleeson, against the worst stuff that the meanest wizard to come along in -- well, in Merlin knows how long -- can throw at us, and what are you doing? Prettying up your pony!" Little laughed, but it was not the kind of mocking laughter that Harry had learned to hate, coming from Draco Malfoy. It was the laugh of a friend who knows his buddy will never change, but loves him just the same.

Young Gleeson shrugged, and began to grin himself. "Well, you know, Little, I just figured it might be the last chance I get to curry favor with Peggy," he said, giving the flying pony a pat on her back. At Little's groan, he added, more seriously, "'sides, if you're right, I can use all the favors she can give me."

"Careful there, Gleeson, or your sweetie back home'll get jealous," came the comment from a skinny blond soldier in the group.

Young Gleeson laughed. "Nah, she won't, Smith -- remember, I named my mount after her."

Another soldier in the group made a vulgar pun on the word "mounts," and several of the men cackled appreciatively. Harry felt his face grow warm, while the older Gleeson shook his head. "Gad, we were young then," he sighed. Glancing over to Harry, he added, "Young -- and under pressure. We had to let off steam somehow. Every time we went out, we knew we might not come back. Especially here, at Stonehenge." Harry looked from Gleeson over to Moody, who was nodding his head in agreement.

The soldiers that had been teasing the young Gleeson entered the holding pen themselves and began tending to their mounts as well. Little rode a huge black pegasus stallion, and he and Gleeson began making jokes back and forth about breeding their two mounts and getting flying zebras -- or even pegasi with dalmation-style coats. It had the flavor of a running joke between them, reminding Harry of the times he'd seen his godfather and Remus Lupin joking together. When Harry glanced over at his former DADA teacher at that thought, he saw Lupin nodding to himself, watching the interplay with a half-smile.

"We were a regular Mutt and Jeff, Charlie Little and me," Gleeson said softly. Harry noticed that he was not smiling.

Presently a short wizard mounted on a broomstick flew slowly towards the group, his crinkly beetle-black eyes taking in the entire scene. Harry could have sworn he'd seen him somewhere before -- but he didn't know that many wizards who would have been alive then. He clearly wasn't Dumbledore...so who was he?

"Hail the squad commander!" the new wizard called -- and the young Gleeson responded. Harry picked up a Scottish accent in his voice. Again, that sounded familiar...and again, Harry couldn't place it. Then, the Scottish wizard and the Texas wizard shook hands. "Gain Hagrid, monster expert from command ops, at yer service," he said, and Harry gasped. Now he remembered where he had seen this wizard before -- in a picture in Hagrid's cabin. That's Hagrid's father! he thought in amazement.

But Moody was nodding. "He visited our group, too," he commented. "I think he wanted to make sure we all had some idea of what to expect."

Indeed, after exchanging a few pleasantries, and admiring the animals in the pen (Gleeson's pegapony came in for special comment, causing both his and his mount's chest to swell with pride), Gain Hagrid got down to business. "The Ops Commander thinks Grindelwald is going to bring as many of his forces into play as he can," he explained. "He's got a huge dragon completely under his control -- Norwegian Ridgeback. Very nasty; it means you won't be able to surround his harriers in all three dimensions."

Charlie Little cursed. "We won two major battles with that maneuver," he said.

"What's he bringing in for harriers, the usual?" young Gleeson asked, too casually.

Gain Hagrid shuddered. "`The usual' would be bad enough,'" he insisted, "but the word is, they're armed with wands this time, and they're not afraid to use them."

It was Gleeson's turn to curse. "How many?" he asked, more softly.

Gain Hagrid sighed. "We're not sure," he said cautiously, "but our spies say he's emptied his labs for this attack; it's an all or nothing maneuver."

"We already knew that," the blond soldier named Smith cut in, scratching his crew cut as he spoke. "It's not like he'll get a second chance at this kind of timing."

"Ah, so yeh know about th' ritual then?" Gain Hagrid asked, his accent growing thicker as he spoke. Harry guessed that, as with Jimmy Gleeson, Gain Hagrid's accent thickened under stress. Several heads in the squad nodded in answer to Gain's question.

"And just how does he figure to get past everything we've got set up here to -- prepare and perform the sacrifice?" Smith asked.

"There won't be any sacrifice if we have any say in the matter!" young Gleeson insisted, and several soldiers in the group added their voices to the affirmation.

Gain Hagrid shook his head. "Yeh prob'ly won't," he said flatly. At the soldiers' surprised and angry grumble, he raised a forestalling hand. "Ops Head Dumbledore thinks Grindelwald is going to burrow under to get here, popping out in the center of Stonehenge."

Young Gleeson's face reddened with anger. "Do y'mean t'say we're gonna be fightin' a distraction?!" he demanded.

"We're all goin' t'be fightin' a distraction!" Gain Hagrid shouted back. "All of us except th' ones who'll be takin' on Grindelwald and his elites personally -- and yeh don' wan' t'be in thet group, Staff Seargent Gleeson. Have yeh heard of the Avada Kedavra?"

Young Gleeson nodded, but the rest of his squad just stared blankly. "It was still news to me at the time, relatively speaking," the older Gleeson said as he watched the scene. "They were just starting to brief squad commanders."

"The MoM was still trying to keep the Killing Curse a secret," Moody added gruffly. "Which was the surest way to make sure everyone would eventually know all about it."

Back in the memory, Gain Hagrid picked up the thread of his comments. "Yeh don' wan' ter ever face thet curse, 'cuz if yeh do, yeh'll not be facing anythin' else. Ever." The blond soldier shook for a second; the rest of Gleeson's squad met the comment with masked faces. "An' ev'ry one of Grindelwald's elites knows how ter cast that curse -- and would just as soon cast it as look at you." He looked from soldier to soldier to emphasize his point.

Young Gleeson sighed. "He's right, men," he said at last. Then he turned to face the squad. "That matches what I was told in the briefing this morning. I reckon the folks who'll be facing down Grindelwald's group will have their hands full enough without us complaining about not being invited to the party. 'Sides, we'll have enough fun coming our way."

The formal part of the meeting -- such as it was -- broke up after that. As the rest of the squad pulled away to resume tending to their mounts and other preparations for the upcoming battle, Gain Hagrid moved closer to the young Gleeson. "A word, Seargeant?" he asked softly.

"Yeah?" asked Gleeson cautiously.

"Ye've an accent about you that's not like the rest of yer men," he began hesitantly.

"That's because they suffer from the misfortune of not having been born in Texas," young Gleeson replied, a hint of pride for his home state in his voice.

Gain Hagrid's eyebrows raised. "Aye? An' what part are ye from?"

"Buffalo Gap," young Gleeson replied.

With a furtive look about, Gain asked softly, "Is it true...what they say about Buffalo Gap? Being a home for giants and..." he trailed off.

"Yep," the young Texan said. He added loudly, "Why, I'm one-quarter giant meself."

"You?!" the short Scottish wizard gasped.

"Oh no," the older Gleeson whispered, and half-covered his face in anticipation.

"WHICH QUARTER?!" came a shout from several in Gleeson's squad, Little's voice chief among them.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Gleeson chimed up in reply, with a pelvic thrust that would have done a certain then-undiscovered rock singer proud.

"Gad, I was young," the elder Gleeson mumbled. Then he perked up a bit. "'Course, that used to be a good pick-up line lo these many years ago."

To Harry's surprise, Gain Hagrid laughed. "Now that's what I like to see -- someone who's not ashamed of what he is!" he crowed. The Scottish wizard withdrew a picture from the folds of his robes. "So I can show yeh this, an'...well, not have yeh go into shock."

Young Gleeson looked at the picture and whistled. "That yer son? Fine-lookin' lad yeh've got there."

Gain Hagrid nodded. "I'm right proud of 'im; he'll be startin' at Hogwarts soon." He carefully put the picture away, then sighed. Was it Harry's imagination, or was the Scottish wizard turning a trifle pink? "Thank yeh fer indulgin' a father's pride. It's...not a picture I can show to a lot of people without..." he gestured helplessly.

Young Gleeson laughed. "No problem, Pops," he said, grinning. "They don't live with giants...yeh can't expect'em to understand."

Not long after Gain Hagrid left the American squad, Harry noticed an odd darkening on the horizon. It wasn't exactly the coming of nightfall; there seemed to be too much movement, like the flapping of thousands of wings. Harry recalled the comment about Grindelwald emptying his labs for this battle, and wondered what that meant about what these men would be facing.

On the ground, soldiers completed their last minute preparations. Some donned belts with two wand holsters, and a wand in each holster; others seemed to prefer a sort of chest harness arrangement, with crossed wands. But every soldier had at least two wands quickly to hand. The older Gleeson, on the flying carpet with Harry, nudged him and pointed out one of the holsters. "We trained to use two wands at the same time -- and you'll see very soon that that's what we did in combat," he explained. "That's why we used live mounts, rather than brooms. You can indicate where you want a live mount to go with pressure from your leg muscles; you can't do that with a broom." He chuckled, and shook his head. "Though Merlin knows they tried to come up with something that would work," he added.

Moody cackled. "I heard about that," he cut in. "Saw the pictures, too. They weren't brooms, they were bloody logs!"

"Well, we needed something to press our legs against to steer the things, and a normal broom was way too thin," Gleeson said reasonably.

Harry gasped, and pointed to the horizon. Gleeson cursed. "I was hoping he wouldn't see that too soon," he whispered. Harry ignored him; his eyes were too firmly fixed on what he saw -- for what he saw, so far as he knew, was impossible. They were house elves. House elves with wings. House elves with huge bat wings, claws, fangs -- and yes, Harry saw it now, they were carrying wands. The soldiers arrayed on Salisbury Plain to take on this threat were considerable...but even so, Harry estimated that there must have been ten flying house elves for every man on the plain.

"Abominable creations," Moody said intensely, and spat off the side of the carpet.

"I'd hoped the books had been exaggerating," said Remus Lupin softly, his voice barely above a whisper. His eyes fixed on the horizon, he shuddered.

"If anythin', ah thank they went th' other way," Jim Lee said quietly, his accent thicker than Harry had yet heard.

Down on Salisbury Plain, Harry saw the American troups form up into squads, preparing to take flight. The 187th Airborne Cavalry was made up of 200 men and their mounts; half rode pegasi as their main mounts, while the other half rode hippogriffs. They were further divided into squads, with 10 wizards to a squad (Harry noticed that there didn't seem to be any witches among the mounted soldiers). At some distance from the cavalry, guarding another side of Stonehenge, Harry could just make out what appeared to be infantry -- all dressed in modified wizards' robes, like the airborne cavalry, and apparently trying to hide themselves.

"We had our own sharpspellers, too," Gleeson commented, following Harry's gaze. "The best of 'em could zap exactly one hair off a centaur's tail at a hunnert yards -- and some o' those could find a new hiding place before the centaur could get a bead on them to shoot back." The cowboy wizard chuckled without humor. "Ah nevah was thet good -- then again, none o' them could ride a flying mount worth --"

"Ex-CUSE me!" Moody cut in sharply. He looked insulted.

Gleeson met those offended eyes with an apologetic look and a gentle grin. "You were complainin' all th' way, if'n ah remember correctly," he said, raising an eyebrow at the retired auror.

"Stupid pony was way too small," Moody growled.

"SQUAD ONE -- TAKE OFF!" came a cry. Harry turned from the argument on the carpet back to Salisbury Plain, where the first squad of ten flew neatly into the sky, prepared to meet the enemy. Each of the squads took off in an orderly fashion, then spread out in three dimensions, creating formations that Harry's untrained eyes did not recognize. He did notice certain similarities, in parts of them, to some of the Chaser formations he'd read about in Quidditch Through the Ages; but that background was only partly helpful.

Young Gleeson's squad was the sixth one ordered to take off. "Meet you on the ground, Little," the young cowboy called over to his friend, who was mounted next to him in the formation.

"Count on it," the black wizard returned, grinning. "You still owe me three beers and a bowl of Texas chili!"

"Two beers!" Jimmy corrected, as the squad took off.

If they made jokes on the ground, the soldiers were all seriousness in the air. There seemed to be more flying cavalry than Harry remembered seeing -- then he realized that there must have been British airborne as well. The British and the Americans seemed to be making an effort at coordination, but even Harry could tell they hadn't worked together very long. He knew from his own Quidditch experience that that could make all the difference in the world, and shuddered as the squads began to close with the house elves.

It was true that the flying house elves had wands, and were not afraid to use them -- but they were also not very skilled in their use. Soon, the air was full of spells, cast both air-to-air and ground-to-air (from the sharpspellers). Many flying house elves dropped out of the sky, but there were so many of them it hardly seemed to matter how many the other side lost. Unfortunately, the airborne cavalry suffered losses as well, as some of the elves' spells hit home. Still, American and British formations shifted neatly, until Harry could have sworn the soldiers were reading each others' minds.

Watching the battle, Gleeson shook his head. "That's what many hours of drilling will get you," he said, pointing at the battle. "Many hours -- you'd be surprised how many soldiers had trouble making the leap to maneuvering in three dimensions." He sighed. "Unfortunately, battle plans rarely survive contact with the enemy, and in this case..."

A loud roar interrupted his speech. Sweeping up from behind the swarm of flying house elves was the biggest dragon Harry had ever seen in his life. It was a Norwegian Ridgeback, and it was angry. Just as Gain Hagrid had warned them, Harry thought. The dragon breathed fire, sending a knot of airborne cavalry, along with their mounts, to a screaming, blazing death. Harry's nose twitched at the smell of human and pegasi flesh burning. Scenting victory, a number of the flying house elves began to close with the cavalry.

But -- that doesn't make sense," Harry objected. "The dragon won't be able to get a clear shot at the airborne cavalry without killing the flying house elves too!"

Moody snorted. "Do you really think Grindelwald would have cared? With that many flying house elves, he could afford to lose a few. As for what the house elves themselves wanted..." The retired auror shook his head. "After Grindelwald was through with them, they were willing to die if they could take even one of us with them."

Harry stared wide-eyed at the scene unfolding before him. All he could think was I sure hope Hermione never hears about this! Then he gasped as he watched the flying house elves close, screaming "For Grindelwald!" in their high-pitched voices. They now used what was clearly their preferred attack form: five or six of them swarmed over one soldier and mount, ripping and striking with claws and teeth until their target lost control. Harry shuddered as he watched several soldiers fall from the bloody, gruesome attack.

"Merlin's beard," Remus Lupin whispered shakily. Harry spared a glance at the werewolf; he looked a bit green.

Young Gleeson began shouting orders, trying to get his men into a defensive formation. The older Gleeson sighed. "It was nearly hopeless," he said. "If we tried to spread out so the dragon couldn't get all of us, we were isolated enough that the house elves could pick us off one by one. If we tried to group to hold off the house elves..." he trailed off as the dragon breathed again, taking out another knot of airborne cavalry.

Young Gleeson did his best to rally his troops; then, a knot of ten house elves landed on the huge black stallion pegasus near him. Little screamed and howled, fighting valiantly; young Gleeson even tried to help, carefully casting spells into the fray designed to take out the house elves without harming Little. But it was no use. Two dropped off, but eight finished the attack, and very soon Little and his mount were plunging to their deaths. "LITTLE! NOOOOO!" young Gleeson screamed.

Not all of the flying house elves had given up on their wands. While the young red-haired wizard was distracted, six pointed their wands at him from less than twenty feet away and cast spells simultaneously. All six hit him; his face contorted in pain, Gleeson collapsed, but stayed on his mount. Several of Gleeson's squad tried to move to protect him, but they couldn't be everywhere -- and many of them, despite their drills, were still shocked from the loss of Little. It took another volley, from another group of house elves, to knock out Gleeson's mount. Both man and mount, now separated, began to fall from the sky.

Harry lost track of where Peggi fell. Young Gleeson landed behind one of the menhirs...on top of a bed of fluffy brown bubbles that streamed rapidy from his belt. The bubbles were much more substantial than they looked; they easily absorbed his impact and supported his weight, then gradually began to fade.

"You didn't tell me you'd been shot by six spells at the same time," Moody said quietly.

"Eh, well, everything happened so fast...I hardly knew what hit me," Gleeson replied sheepishly.

Harry wondered at the exchange...then turned back to where young Gleeson had fallen. He watched in horror as four house elves landed near the soldier's still body. They grinned greedily as they surrounded him, claws prepared to slash. "He's one of their leaders," said one. "Grindelwald will reward us for killing him!" Harry shuddered at their high-pitched cackles; they sounded like a parody of Voldemort's evil laughter.

Just as they raised their hands to strike the unconscious soldier, several spells struck the house elves one after another, shooting out of the darkness like fiery rockets. Before any of them had time to realize what had happened, they were all knocked unconscious; Harry quickly recognized the Stupefy spell in action.

Just then young Gleeson groaned, and began to stir...and another person entered the scene. From the patches on his modified robes, Harry guessed that he was with the British, rather than the American, contingent. The newcomer pointed his wand at young Gleeson and said "Enervate." The American went from barely moving to on his feet and at attention in a flash.

"Staff Sargeant James Lee Gleeson! Serial number..." he cut off, getting a closer look at the person who had just saved his life. "Yer on our side!" he exclaimed, relief clear in his voice.

"Staff Sargeant Alastor Moody -- and we're not out of the woods yet," came the reply. With a start, Harry recognized his voice -- a much younger voice, to be sure, but already showing signs of command and a touch of gravel. Young Moody nodded at the four stunned house elves. Young Gleeson spared them barely a glance before drawing his knife. Moody did the same -- and very soon, all four house elves would never wake up again.

"Thank you," Young Gleeson said, with feeling. "You saved my life."

Young Moody made a dismissive gesture. "As I said, we're not out of the woods yet." He spared a quick look at Gleeson's patches. "Airborne cavalry...where's your mount?"

Young Gleeson looked around hastily, as if Peggi would suddenly turn up. "She fell with me," he said, and gulped. "She's trained to find me...if she's still alive."

Young Moody nodded once. "Then let's let her find you. Your best bet to stay alive, right now, is to come with me -- back to the British sharpspellers."

Young Gleeson's eyes went to Moody's patches; then he nodded once. "Lead the way," he said; then..."just a second." He groped around on the ground for a moment, then came up holding a wand. "I may not be as good a shot as you are," he said, "but I'll be damned if I'm going to be in the middle of a wizard war without a wand!"

Suddenly, young Moody jumped; his wand was out in a flash, pointing to a spot close to his left. "Potter, that had better be you," he said in a low voice, full of menace. Inches from the tip of his wand, a head materialized out of thin air. Harry immediately recognized the trick; someone wearing an Invisibility Cloak had just dropped his hood. The head wore a crew cut so short that Harry could hardly tell the color of his hair. His stern green eyes glared back at young Moody, meeting the threat without a flinch.

"And you had better get your cloak back on. Sir," the head growled in return. "With what I saw in the middle of that circle...no one is safe."

Back on the flying carpet, Moody snorted and shook his head. "Seymour Potter. That, son," he continued, addressing Harry, "is your great-grandfather, and he's lucky I never blasted him with all the stunts he pulled." The retired auror shook his head. "Never knew how he got away with what he did and kept his skin intact...but he always seemed to have a sixth sense about things." Moody shifted on the carpet, and met eyes with Remus and Jim Lee as well as Harry. "Since he and I both had Invisibility Cloaks, we were sent by the leader of our full brigade to see what was going on in the center of the standing stones...to see if Dumbledore and his...chosen circle needed any help."

Harry looked back down to what was happening on the ground. Young Moody had retrieved his cloak, and was wrapping it around both himself and young Gleeson. Harry noted ruefully that the short cowboy didn't take up much space under it, and recalled just how tight a fit his own Invisibility Cloak was when both he and a certain other young red-haired wizard tried to hide underneath. Since this was Jim Lee's memory, Harry could still see them, in outline. They were gazing into the center of the standing stone circle. The older Gleeson maneuvered the carpet carefully, easing it closer to the circle. "You wanted to see one of my worst memories, Harry," he said softly. "Here it is."

Harry gasped. Hanging from nearly every stone in the circle were dolls -- no, he realized with horror, not dolls, but young girls. The oldest couldn't have been older than fourteen. They all wore tattered white robes, stained with..."Merlin's beard," someone said, and Harry gulped. Blood. None of them were conscious; Harry hoped that they had not felt the pain of their injuries. Each girl was bound hand and foot with cruel leather thongs, biting into the flesh, and tended by a flying house elf. From their grins and the stains on their claws, Harry guessed that they had been the ones to administer the punishment. Each house elf also held a goblet, and each goblet was different: some were made of wood, some stone, some glass, some metal. Some were simple, while others were elaborately made, with gems and carving and other embellishments. Harry saw one of the house elves pierce the flesh of a girl with one claw, and catch the blood in its goblet. Harry shuddered; beside him, he heard Remus make a retching noise.

In the middle of the circle was a large flat stone, on which a fourteen-year-old girl with bushy brown hair and eyeglasses lay bound. Like the others, she wore a white robe; but both her robe and her body remained untouched -- no tears, no bloodstains. She looked so much like Hermione that Harry wanted to scream. Next to her stood a short, fat man in dark robes. His small dark moustache twitched with satisfaction as one of his flying house elves passed him a large golden sickle. It, too, held a goblet -- much fancier than the others. As the evil wizard reached for the sickle, a commanding voice that Harry recognized at once said: "It ends NOW, Grindelwald."

Harry turned in the direction of the voice -- and was not at all surprised to see Albus Dumbledore, looking even younger and more vital than when he had seen him in Tom Riddle's memory. Grindelwald's face contorted in hatred -- and suddenly, all hell broke lose. Every flying house elf, except for the one standing near Grindelwald himself, was simultaneously spell-struck unconscious. The casters, wizards and witches both, leapt out of hiding and began freeing the girls. Grindelwald howled his rage, and drew an ebony wand from his robes. "You will never win, Herr Professor," the wizard scoffed in German-accented English. "Not so long as I still have a sacrifice I can make!"

In a flash, Dumbledore drew his own wand, ivory with silver tracings. "You won't get the chance. Expelliarmus!"

Grindelwald raised his own wand and simultaneously shouted a spell...and Harry saw an effect from the outside that he had experienced from the inside not very long ago. A jet of light issued from Dumbledore's wand just as a jet of light blasted from Grindelwald's -- they met in midair -- and suddenly both wands began vibrating. The narrow beam connecting the wands glowed, not just gold, but many different colors. Both Dumbledore and Grindelwald were lifted into the air, away from the stone where the girl still lay bound. Then the thread splintered, casting a thousand more beams around the two combatants until they formed a dome-shaped rainbow-colored web that enclosed both wizards. Harry half-expected to hear the sound of phoenix song, as he had when he and Voldemort had dueled, but no such sound came from the battle. Indeed, though Dumbledore and Grindelwald appeared to be shouting things, both to the people outside the dome and to each other, no noise left the domed area.

"You two get out of here, now," came a voice. It was Seymour Potter, speaking to Moody and Gleeson. "We've got to tell them what's happening here...take different ways back, so one of us will be sure to make it."

"What could get us on the ground?" young Gleeson asked. Both Moodys -- and the elder Gleeson, and Seymour Potter -- rolled their eyes.

"More than you want to know," Seymour replied. So saying, the three soldiers split into two groups, with Seymour going his own way and Moody and Gleeson going a different direction, all protected by Invisibility Cloaks.

Gleeson and Moody hadn't gone far before the ground began to tremble. "What was that?!" Moody asked. As if they had been training together, Moody and Gleeson immediately took up mutual defensive postures. The ground shook again...and right in front of young Moody, a featureless, pearly white head emerged. It was as big around as a Quidditch ring...and in the next second, Harry saw that it wasn't featureless. It opened its maw, and the young wizard was painfully reminded of his first task in the Triwizard tournament -- which involved outflying a dragon and staying away from its snapping jaws. This creature could have easily swallowed Moody and eaten Gleeson for dessert.

"Sandworm!" young Gleeson shouted. In the wink of an eye, he leaped in front of Moody, raised his wand, and screamed a string of words that sounded suspiciously like "Mabelstenalarmchili!" A reddish-brownish-chunky-streamy mass emited from Gleeson's wand, straight down the monster's threatening throat. Abruptly, the sandworm closed its mouth, gulped...and coughed. It coughed again, and again, then began to thrash about. While the creature was thus distracted, young Moody and Gleeson took off at a run.

"What did you do to that thing?" young Moody asked when they had run some distance.

"Long story," young Gleeson replied. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, but Moody nudged him to keep running.

"Come on," he urged, "we're not far from where I left my squad leader."

"Wait..." young Gleeson stood still, as if listening with every nerve in his body to pick out one particular sound -- not an easy thing to do under the circumstances, Harry thought, with the sounds of battle raging all around. "Did you hear...?"

This time even the four eavesdroppers on the flying carpet could hear it -- a whinny, followed by some hesitant hoofbeats. Young Gleeson's face lit up; he knew that sound. "Peggi!" he called, then made a strange trilling noise. The whinny came again; so did the hoofbeats, more certain now -- but even Harry could tell there was something wrong.

His suspicions were confirmed when the small pegasus neared Moody and Gleeson. She was bleeding from half a dozen gashes -- and worse, she was limping. It was only a slight limp, but young Gleeson saw it at once. "Oh, Peggi," he moaned. Ignoring Moody and the entire rest of the battle, Gleeson began examining his mount, paying particular attention to the injured left hind leg. "I think it will heal," he said at last, though his face looked far less certain than his words.

"Will she make it that far?" young Moody asked impatiently, pointing to his squad just a short distance away.

"I think so -- if I lead her," Gleeson replied, and gently urged her on.

The two soldiers reached an area of cover, where troops hid behind many rocks and shot deftly into the battle going on in the air. Nor was that the only battle being fought; several British wizards were attempting to deal with another sandworm in one area, while in another area several other wizards grappled with a graphorn, carefully dodging its two long, sharp horns. Some distance away, at least ten wizards were trying to take down a manticore, while somewhat closer, Harry clearly heard the roar of a griffin.

Young Moody marched up to his leader (distinguished as being the one who was shouting orders) and saluted. He gave his report in the clipped, professional style known to any soldier. The commander, an older wizard already greying at his sideburns, cast his keen gaze from Moody to Gleeson. To their credit, neither flinched, though Gleeson had a bad moment when Peggi shifted her stance uncomfortably.

"Soldier, what's your condition?" he asked of young Gleeson.

"I'm alive, sir," Gleeson replied, "and battle ready. My mount --" here he hesitated. "Well, I don't think she likes standing overmuch right now, but I'm pretty sure she can fly if she has to."

Back on the flying carpet, the older Gleeson shook his head. "Young and stupid," he grumbled. "I wanted to get back into the fight -- which meant getting back in the sky for me. I was worried about Peggi, but I thought if I could get her back up in the air where she wasn't putting any weight on that leg..." he trailed off.

"And what's your assessment of the situation in the air, soldier?" the commander asked young Gleeson.

The young wizard's face contorted slightly, as if he'd just bitten into something bitter and was trying to hide it. "If we don't figure out some way to get that dragon out of the battle, we're going to get creamed."

The commander nodded. "So what you're telling me, soldier, is that you're suicidal. Or do you think you can take on that dragon?" Gleeson started to answer, but the commander continued. "Before you answer, I trust you are aware of just how small an area on a dragon's body is actually susceptible to spells -- particularly in the case of a Norwegian Ridgeback. Not to mention how much of its body is usable as a weapon. Just how much of a marksman are you, soldier?"

Young Gleeson's face fell -- but only for a moment. An almost evil grin sprouted. "Not much, sir -- but he is," he said, pointing to young Moody.

Back on the flying carpet, it was Moody's turn to shake his head. "I couldn't believe what you were suggesting," he growled.

Gleeson chuckled. "I know -- you kept saying so the entire time. `I can't believe we're doing this. Are you trying to get us killed?!'"

"Get us killed?" Harry asked, confused.

"A living mount isn't like a broom...Potter," the cowboy wizard said, hesitating a moment before saying Harry's last name. "He couldn't know what signals I'd set up with Peggi -- remember, it's all in the legs. So we both had to go up on her, one to steer, one to spell."

Harry looked down once again at the battle scene, where an argument had broken out between Gleeson, Moody, and the commander. "Both of you...on that little flying horse?!" he asked in shock.

The elder Gleeson laughed. "Peggi's stronger than she looks. Heck, the whole reason Charlie and I used to make jokes about breeding her with his mount" here his face clouded over for a moment "is because she never went after anything her own size. If she wanted to mate, she'd pick the biggest flying stallion she could find, and she found some pretty big ones." He shook his head. "Last time I bred her, we had to do a C-section, the foals had gotten so big. But we were able to sell them to a French wizard trying to breed flying coach horses, so it's all good." Gleeson grinned. "He didn't even mind that they'd developed a taste for single malt Scotch while they were growing up."

Harry's eyes widened. Could this explain Madame Maxime's flying horses? He decided not to inquire further, but turned back to the scene below. Young Moody had wrapped himself in his Invisibility Cloak, and mounted Peggi in front of Gleeson. Harry understood the reasoning: Moody would be able to aim better without Gleeson in the way, and Gleeson would be able to see right through Moody to manage the steering. Peggi winced -- despite what Gleeson said, she clearly didn't like the extra weight -- trotted forward a few steps despite her limp, then launched herself into the sky.

The flying carpet was close enough to where Peggi took off that Gleeson easily glided it into place behind the pegapony. "Remember, we're not really here," he reminded the other three, and Harry willed himself not to duck as spells, flying house elves, and mounted wizards flew past -- so close he could smell their sweat. Gleeson took them closer to the active battle than he had before; Harry estimated that they were hovering less than ten feet from Peggi's rump. From this distance, he could easily hear young Moody and young Gleeson arguing with each other.

"Can't you hold that damn horse steady?!" shouted young Moody.

"What do you think you're on, a broom?!" young Gleeson shouted back.

"If you don't hold her steady, I can't get a clear shot at that dragon!" young Moody returned.

"If Peggi doesn't keep moving, she's not going to stay aloft!" young Gleeson growled.

"If Peggi does keep moving, and you keep bringing us closer to the dragon like this, I won't get off a clear shot, and you'll get us both killed for nothing!" young Moody retorted.

It was amazing to Harry that the two of them could keep the argument going. While Moody was preoccupied with aiming for the dragon, he also took periodic shots at the flying house elves; Harry assumed this was not only to fend them off, but to judge his aim so that he wouldn't miss when it mattered most. For Gleeson's part, he was guiding the horse with his legs, adjusting their path with split second timing to avoid the many other things that were in the air: elves, mounts, spells, and the dangerous notice of the dragon. He also took a few shots at the flying house elves, but Harry noticed that he aimed at closer ones than Moody had hit.

"Fine!" young Gleeson finally shouted. "I can hit things from peggyback, even if you can't! I'll just take 'er in so's we're close enough to the dragon that I can hit it -- an' I'll tell the boys when I get back that an American flyboy's better 'n a British sharpspeller any day 'o the week!"

"YOU DAMNED YANKEE!" young Moody howled. "I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT A BRITISH SHARPSPELLER CAN DO!"

Harry couldn't see young Moody himself, since of course he was still wrapped in his Invisibility Cloak, but he clearly saw the thin beam of red light streak out from the tip of his wand and connect unerringly with the Norwegian Ridgeback's eyes, easily 100 feet away. The dragon howled, shook his head, and began to fly erratically.

"Take us closer," young Moody urged. "That was just a Conjunctivus curse; I need to get closer to use the nastier stuff."

"Okay, but hang tight," young Gleeson replied. "With that thing bucking all over the place..." The American wizard didn't bother to finish his thought; he zigzagged through the three-dimensional battlefield until he'd come within 50 feet of the dragon. Harry found himself very grateful that they weren't really there. Young Moody kept pummeling the dragon with spells, all aimed for the creature's eyes.

"That's a dragon's weakest spot," the elder Moody commented; "there are others, but not many, and most of the time if you want to get through a dragon's hide, you need multiple spellcasters." Harry nodded; this was not news to him. He remembered watching several wizards Stupefy a smaller dragon than this one and seeing the creature barely put to sleep.

Finally, young Moody cast a spell that caused the Norwegian Ridgeback to stop moving altogether. In one split second, young Moody and young Gleeson both uttered an identical heartfelt curse, pointed their wands at the dragon, and shouted "Wingardium Leviosa!" The dragon did not stop falling, but it slowed down significantly. From his vantage in the sky, Harry saw a score of wizards on the ground dash to safety before the dragon crashed.

"Merlin's beard, we did it!" young Moody gasped.

"Not quite yet, we haven't," young Gleeson replied. He pointed his wand to his throat, said, "Sonorus," and then, in a highly magnified voice, shouted, "THE DRAGON IS DOWN! GLOBE FORMATION! REPEAT, GLOBE FORMATION! THAT'S AN ORDER!"

While young Moody growled about not getting a warning first, the wizards in the air barely hesitated. They herded the flying house elves; in only a few moments, the creatures were at the center of a ragged but serviceable globe, with the airborne cavalry on the outside. Young Gleeson, who hadn't cast "Quietus" upon himself yet because he was waiting for just this moment, shouted "FIRE AT WILL!"

To Harry's surprise, all of the spells fired into the center of the globe ended at the center of the globe; even the very few that missed did not go any further. He understood now why this was a devastating maneuver; not a single flying house elf escaped. After that first onslaught, the airborne cavalry in the lower hemisphere of the globe cast spells to prevent the inert flying house elves from doing any further damage to others while they fell.

"I nearly got myself court-martialed for taking control in the way I did," the elder Gleeson admitted. "Me, a staff sargent, only a squad leader, and I'd just given a command to the entire airborne cavalry division."

"You would have been court-martialed under British law," the elder Moody commented. "I thought the American laws were just as strict in that regard."

Oh, they are," Gleeson admitted.

"Then how did you get out of it?" Moody asked.

The hint of a twinkle shone in Gleeson's clear blue eyes. "Oh, I told the truth: I said I hadn't been in touch with my commanding officer for such and such a period of time, feared that he might be dead, and seeing no one else of sufficient rank to take over..." The cowboy wizard shrugged.

Moody focused his magic eye again on Gleeson, and shook his head. "That takes real talent, Gleeson," he said gruffly.

Gleeson snorted. "You didn't grow up in my family, gen'r'l," he replied.

The battle turned into a mopping-up operation. Not long into this phase, a huge rainbow shot up from the center of Stonehenge, stopping nearly everyone in their place. Shortly after that, word spread like wildfire: Albus Dumbledore had killed Grindelwald. There were few cheers, though; most of the wizards just smiled grimly and continued the operation.

On the flying carpet, Gleeson sighed. "Too much had happened, and there were too many dead for there to be much cheering." He caught Harry's gaze, and held it. "Two squads were wiped out entirely. To a man, Potter. My squad lost three men, and that's less than a lot of the others lost." Gleeson looked modest -- a jarring expression on the American wizard's face. "And I know that wasn't exactly thanks to my stellar leadership."

When Harry next looked down on the scene, there was no longer a battle going on. Dawn breaking on the horizon revealed too many bodies draped in white sheets, too many injured wizards. Harry had to look twice to find young Gleeson. Then -- there he was, kneeling near the white-draped form of a large man. A mediwizard shook his head at the young wizard.

"He -- he can't be dead," young Gleeson said. His voice sounded loud to Harry's ears. At first, he thought Gleeson still had the Sonorus spell going; then he realized that the wizard's voice sounded so loud because the scene below was so quiet. In comparison with the earlier battle, the field now stood as quiet as a hospital ward...or a cemetary. People moved about almost on tiptoe, and when they spoke to each other, it was in whispers, so as not to disturb the stillness of the field.

"He can't be dead," young Gleeson repeated, gulping. "I still owe him three beers, an' a bowl of Texas chili." He lowered his head, and covered his face with his hands. "He can't be dead."

The mediwizard gently tapped young Gleeson on the arm. The soldier started, and looked up in surprise, as if he did not remember that the mediwizard was still present. "I'm very sorry," he said to Gleeson in a near-whisper. "But -- you were his commanding officer, right? I need you to confirm his identity. We have his tags, but..." he trailed off.

Young Gleeson's eyes widened in horror; Harry could see this clearly, since the flying carpet was now hovering no more than six feet away from him. "Bunyan's breath," he whispered. Harry remembered the last time he had seen Charlie Little in the battle: surrounded by ten flying house elves, slashing and biting and tearing at his mount, his clothes, his flesh...he felt his gorge rising, and swallowed hard, nearly gagging on the acidic taste in his throat.

Mad-Eye Moody reached past Harry to get the elder Gleeson's attention. "Don't make him see it," he said gruffly.

Gleeson looked from Harry to Moody, a hard glint in his eyes. "He asked to see it, if'n I 'member correctly," he drawled. His gaze met Harry's. "Asked to see the battle of Stonehenge -- an' no battle's ever over 'til the reckonin' o' th' dead."

"He's seen death before, and too damn recently," Moody cut in. Somebody else started retching; to Harry's surprise, it was Remus Lupin. That was apparently enough to make Gleeson relent; he moved the flying carpet so that none of its passengers would be able to see what was left of the man that had been Charles Little. Young Gleeson didn't take long to identify the body; a quick look under the sheet, a nod, and then the sheet covered it once more, so that living eyes would not have to stare at death.

A tall wizard with a slight paunch, gold braid on his robes, and iron-grey strands in his black hair strode quickly over to where young Gleeson now stood, still in apparent disbelief that his friend was dead. "Staff Sargent Gleeson," he said, "I --" He stopped short, taking in the scene for a moment. He cleared his throat, apparently changing his mind about what he was going to say. "I understand he was your friend," he began slowly, "but --"

"Do you?" Young Gleeson looked up, and reflexively came to attention. "With all due respect, sir --" he swallowed, blinked, then started over. "I know I'm not the only one who's lost friends in this war; I'm not even the only one who's lost a close friend. But --" He took a deep breath, tried again; he needed this man to understand. "Sir, everyone has to fight their way through boot camp even before they get to the real fighting. Did you have to fight to be allowed into boot camp, sir?"

Harry realized that this other wizard must have been Gleeson's superior officer, perhaps even the commander of the full 187th Airborne Cavalry himself -- whom Gleeson usurped at an important point in the battle. The older wizard frowned; Harry thought that he would tell young Gleeson that it was none of his business. Then his face softened, and he seemed to consider what Gleeson had said. "My family was worried, of course," he said slowly, "but they supported my decision to --"

"With all due respect, sir," young Gleeson cut in, "I didn't mean fighting your family. I meant fighting the Powers That Be, sir." He glanced briefly behind him to the covered body of his friend. "So far as I know, sir, Little and I are the only ones who had to fight to get into boot camp -- to prove that we were worthy of earning a chance to serve our country."

Back on the flying carpet, the elder Gleeson met three stares with a simple nod. "Oh yes," he said. "I was under the height minimum then -- still am, only there isn't a standing wizard military anymore, so it doesn't exactly matter, does it? And Little --" He frowned in mild disgust, the echo of the expression young Gleeson wore when asked to assess the battle in the sky. "Well, Little was black. A Negro, we said then. The Muggles put them in all-black units, like they were afraid we'd catch something from them." Gleeson shrugged. "But there's a lot fewer wizards than there are Muggles, you know...and as far as the number of black wizards there were in the US in the 1940s -- that felt they could admit they were wizards, mind you, well..." he shrugged again. "They couldn't be placed in separate units; they had to be integrated. And it had only been half a wizard's lifetime since we fought a war that freed them."

"So you were both outsiders," Harry said softly. Being an outsider was something the young wizard understood all too well.

"Yup," said Gleeson, nodding. "The big tall black city boy and the short chubby white country boy...we had everything in common." He turned back around to look at the scene below, and Harry thought he saw something glistening on Gleeson's cheek.

Young Gleeson's superior was talking to him and holding a wand respectfully in one hand. "...if you can get it to me by the end of next week?" he asked hopefully. The young soldier gave one sharp nod, and moved his lips in what might have been a "Yes, sir."

"Very good then." The officer cleared his throat. "And I...thought you might like to have this. We found it on the battlefield." He held out the wand to young Gleeson.

Young Gleeson's eyes widened for a moment. "That was Little's, sir," he said. "His family will want it back."

The officer shook his head. "It was military issue," he explained, "and the military would just reclaim it...but since you seem to have lost your wands in the confusion..."

Young Gleeson nodded once, held his hand out, and took the wand. A very surprised expression came to his face, quickly followed by -- not quite contentment, but acknowledgement, as red, white, and blue sparks shot from the tip of the wand.

The officer smiled. "Looks like it wants you to have it, Sargent," he said.

"Er, yes sir," young Gleeson replied, still a bit bewildered. "Thank you, sir!" After the officer turned and left, young Gleeson turned to where Little's white-draped body still lay, and respectfully saluted him with his wand.

On the flying carpet, the elder Gleeson held up his wand. Harry looked from that wand to the one the younger Gleeson was holding. There were many years of wear and travel in between, but it was clearly the same wand. He bent to look back down on the field...and found himself looking at a stone floor in a Hogwarts classroom. His eyes moved to the room's window. He couldn't be certain, but it seemed as if only a couple of hours had passed -- not nearly as long as he would have guessed.

Abruptly, the other wizards struggled to their feet. "That was war, Potter," Moody said as he stood up, groaning and stretching. "That's what we're trying to prevent."

Harry nodded, still not quite in the here and now. He watched Jim Lee all but spring to his feet, and felt guilt weighing on his shoulders. Why had he thought that making the cowboy wizard relive a horrible memory would somehow "even things up" for his having to relive the rebirth of Voldemort?

"Well, guess I'd better write back to the folks in Buffalo Gap," Gleeson commented to no one in particular. He removed from his jeans pocket something that looked like a piece of dollhouse furniture, placed it on the floor, tapped it once with his wand, then quickly stepped back. The little table and chair grew to Gleeson-size. "Portable desk," the cowboy wizard explained, grinning as he raised the top of the table on its hinges. Harry saw that it covered a cubby with parchment, ink, fountain pens, and several tiny metal American flags with leather thongs attached.

"I'll stay with you, if you don't mind," Mad-Eye Moody said, in a somewhat peremptory tone of voice.

"Suits me fine," Gleeson agreed.

"Harry..." Harry turned at Remus Lupin's voice. The werewolf was looking somewhat the worse for wear. He managed a small smile as he guided the boy wizard to the door. "You may not believe this, but you look nearly as bad as I do. The house elves make a soup they'd give me after I ... had a bad night. I think we could both use a bowlful." Harry let himself be led from the room, still turning over what he had seen, and Mad-Eye Moody's words:

"That was war, Potter. That's what we're trying to prevent."