Catalyst

Chapter 45: End of the Beginning

The first sign that something had gone wrong with the DA meeting was the loud wails of a house elf. The second was the wall exploding, followed by the insufferable pink human walking in through the resulting hole, followed by her low grade cannon fodder. The third was Potter yelling for everyone to run. At that point, Luna didn't bother taking in the situation, she just ran. She wasn't the only one either; the whole mess of humans was running out of the door in the same direction as she was, lead by the three organizers of the club. They split and scattered as soon as they hit the maze of corridors that filled the seventh floor, hexes and jinxes flying as the DA members fought their way through Umbridge's cannon fodder. Luna herself decided to follow Potter along a relatively empty side route, since he seemed to be the only one who knew where he was going.

For about a minute, Luna ran behind Potter, who was holding some sort of parchment in front of him as he ran. Luna wasn't sure why he was so engrossed in it, but she had more immediate concerns. She could sense the minds of two hunters just around the next corner. She almost certainly could eliminate them, but Abathur had warned her that would cause...problems. She opened her mouth to warn Potter, but he spoke first.

"There are a couple of Umbridge's goon up ahead. If we take a right here, we can go around them."

Luna blinked in surprise. "Alright." Potter continued to accurately predict the positions of Umbridge's cannon fodder accurately, apparently consulting the parchment in some fashion. It became like a rhythm, a game that Luna could predict and play to. She would sense pursuers, and follow Potter as he 'guided' her away from them. That was probably why she was so shocked when Harry let out a loud curse.

"They trapped us," he said. "I'll go first, keep them distracted. You just run. They want me a lot more than you."

What? "You can't want to do that. You're..." Luna began

"What, the Boy-who-lived?" Harry snorted. "I'm only human. Look, I got you into this mess, and I'm getting you out of it." He tapped the parchment with a wand and muttered a phrase, then handed the blank sheet to Luna. "Take this to Ron and Hermione. They'll know what to do with it."

She took it wordlessly. This was bizarre, aberrant. This act of self-sacrifice was behavior that Luna would have expected from zerg, not humans. Not selfish, closed off, uncaring humans. This was anathema to her image of humanity, and yet, here he was prepared to sacrifice himself. But even as she stood there, frozen in shock, Potter ran off.

A few of the canon fodder came for her, but Luna managed to evade them by slipping off to the library, losing her pursuers between the shelves. But even as she casually ducked and dodged between the shelves she couldn't help but marvel at what had just happened. The way Potter had acted, had sacrificed his safety for her own...that was something she hadn't realized humans were capable of.

(Transition)

Dumbledore rarely drank alcohol. He had indulged in a bottle of Ogden's Finest on the day of his fateful duel with Gellert Grindelwald. The day Voldemort first revealed himself publicly he and several of his closest friends had toasted the memory of those lost to the madman. He had done the same to toast Voldemort's first downfall, and all the poor souls that had not survived to drink with him. And he was drinking now, in the aftermath of the disastrous attempt to deal with the Swarm.

It seemed that Fate had long since put in place cruel plans for Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Every time he ignored a hint, or overlooked a clue, it would come back to bite him and everything he cared about. Gellert took over half of Europe, Tom led a reign of terror that even his physical destruction had only slowed down, and now Abathur seemed poised to overrun the entire country with his creatures and their corruption.