Harry Potter, one shots.

Hogwarts Alone

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Christmas Morning, 1996.
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A loud blast interrupted the present-giving between Ron, Harry, and Hermione. Confused and startled, they jumped to their feet. Hermione led the trio through the portrait hole and up to the Astronomy Tower.

Harry gasped in horror when he saw the sight below: a horde of masked Death Eaters stood at the Hogwarts borders, casting blasting curses in an effort to break down the wards. "What do we do?" Harry asked, panic edging his voice. Ron shook his head, clearly in deep thought, but Hermione remained silent.

When Harry looked at her in confusion, he saw a glint in her eye—a glint that no enemy would ever want to see when facing Hermione Granger. "We protect what's ours," she declared, her voice resolute. Harry and Ron looked at each other before simultaneously asking, "How?"

Hermione turned to Harry, the glint in her eye transforming into a smirk worthy of a true Marauder. "Harry, have you ever seen 'Home Alone'?" While Ron watched in confusion, Harry's face lit up with understanding, a grin matching Hermione's smirk danced across his face. "Oh yeah. This is gonna be good."

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Their plans progressed quickly after that. After explaining the movie to Ron, they started laying traps throughout the castle. They finished just in time; a massive lightning strike heralded the breaking of the wards.

Death Eaters swarmed in, and the trio hid under Harry's Invisibility Cloak just as ten of the wizards rounded a corner. Hermione turned around and cast a whispered "Rictusempra," causing a thin man to fall to the floor in fits of uncontrollable laughter.

The trio now mounted three brooms and flew up, weaving in and out of the enchanted staircases. They had left ten more brooms at the bottom in case Death Eaters tried to follow them. Unfortunately for the dark wizards, as five discovered upon seeing the trio whizz through the air, these weren't ordinary brooms.

The brooms had been enchanted so that if someone tried to ride one, it would start flying around uncontrollably. One Death Eater managed to grab a broom only to be sent spiraling wildly through the corridors, crashing into walls and disorienting his comrades.

Blasts of light illuminated the stairwell as Death Eaters tried futilely to catch the airborne trio. Shouts of "REDUCTO" and "AVADA KEDAVRA" shot to the skies while laughs such as "Aquamenti!" and "Locomotor Mortis!" rained down upon the wizards.

Hermione, Ron, and Harry dodged curse after curse and hex after hex while zipping from one staircase to another. As their adrenaline-filled cackles lit the air, the trio flew into a corridor where the next stage of their plan lay.

Dungbombs. Harry picked a few up and hurled them at the Death Eaters below, while Hermione and Ron levitated Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder bombs over the enemies, releasing the spells just as one walked under their trap.

A couple of Dementors had Harry shouting to his friends, just in time for animals made of pure magic to descend on the creatures. A stag chased one off while a terrier and an otter worked together to fight off another. This was fun, Harry realized with delight; this was actually fun!

The next stage of the plan consisted of rounding up Death Eaters. Now that they had a sort of upper hand, the trio ran down the stairs and stunned any Death Eater they saw. It was easy to find them; shouts roamed the air as the wizards fell for each of the trio's traps.

All they had to do was follow the noise. They found three Death Eaters trying to pry one's hand from a doorknob. Hermione smirked when she saw this; her Permanent Sticking Spells wouldn't fail with a simple Finite. "Stupefy!" Harry shouted at the struggling wixen.