December 2023's Patron-Voted Story - Harry/Luna/Astoria/Daphne - Payback Part 1 (Patreon)

AN: Hey everyone! Given the busy holiday season, and how long this story turned out to be, I'm splitting this chapter into 2 parts. This part includes the first 5k words of the story, and part 2 will feature the rest (currently about 4.5k, but I've still got a bit more to write). Part 2 will be out on the 4th of January (similar to how I did July's Patron-Voted Story). Thank you for your patience, and happy holidays to everyone! I hope the New Year is a great one for you all!

Important story notes/canon changes: Hogwarts begins at seventeen, making Harry and Daphne 21, Luna 20, and Astoria 19. This story takes place after Dumbledore is ousted from Hogwarts and Umbridge takes over the school. In this timeline, Umbridge never discovered the DA. Harry and Luna have been together for a little over 3 years at the time of this story.

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There was another one on the fourth floor again. It astounded Harry as to how safe Umbridge’s Inquisitorial Squad felt in Hogwarts, even after he’d begun his campaign against them. Surely they had to realise just how much their fellow students would begin to despise them. Though, given how the entirety of the group was made up of Slytherins, perhaps they didn’t notice much of a difference from the usual disdain most houses had towards Slytherin.

Still, they remained emboldened due to the powers invested in them by Umbridge. As she had the Minister’s backing to make any changes she saw fit at Hogwarts, the Inquisitorial Squad acted like they were untouchable. The first few students who tried to fight back or prank the members were dealt with harshly and swiftly, leaving the rest of the school to worry about future reprisals if they were to fight back as well.

It left Hogwarts in an unusual state. While the Inquisitorial Squad roamed the halls, gleefully doling out punishments to any who infringed upon their ridiculous rules, the other students at Hogwarts did their best to avoid notice or resist in more passive ways. A camaraderie had formed where students from the other three houses helped each other to avoid punishment as best as they could, and they created a loose information network to help keep track of the Inquisitorial Squad’s actions.

The first night that the Inquisitorial Squad roamed the halls of Hogwarts was the night that Harry realised he needed to do something. Colin Creevey had returned to the Gryffindor Common Room battered and bloody from what the Inquisitorial Squad had done to him. His camera had been shattered, and Pansy Parkinson had pressed his face into the broken glass after. They hadn’t even let him go to the Hospital Wing afterwards.

While the rest of the house had tried to patch Colin up, Harry had watched as a few more students trickled into the room. They all told tales of being caught out by four or five Inquisitorial Squad members, and then being beaten for any infraction as small as their ties being crooked.

At the next meeting of Dumbledore’s Army, Harry had encouraged everyone to resist the Inquisitorial Squad in whatever ways they could. But after a few students fought back and ended up in the Hospital Wing or even St Mungo’s, many of them decided that a more peaceful resistance was the best path forward.

Well, Harry wasn’t going to put up with that. With Voldemort having returned to life and the Ministry being corrupted from within, Harry couldn’t just stand by and let the wizarding world fall to pieces; he needed to take action.

And so he did. And now, the Inquisitorial Squad was slowly falling.

Harry stowed away the Marauder’s Map and kissed the witch who was hidden under the cover of his invisibility cloak with him.

“Be safe, okay?” Luna Lovegood, Harry’s beautiful girlfriend, said to him.

“I will,” he nodded in reply. He glanced over at the door next to them that opened into an abandoned classroom. “I’ll be back in a few minutes; stay safe in there until then. I’ll come get you after I’ve dealt with the goons up ahead.”

“Don’t take too long,” Luna said as she headed quietly towards the door. “There’s more members of the Inquisitorial Squad on the second floor, and they’re bound to come up here looking for trouble sooner or later.”

She was right, of course. Everyone in the Inquisitorial Squad was always looking to pick a fight, and no one was really willing to give them one anymore. No one except for Harry that was.

Once the door closed tightly behind Luna, Harry crept forward down the corridor under the cover of his invisibility cloak. He’d learnt a spell to muffle the sounds of his footfalls, but he preferred being cautious anyways. It would be too easy to accidentally bump into someone fleeing the scene, so he had to ensure that his movements were careful and deliberate.

He followed the sounds of the cries of pain. It was late enough now that most students had retired to their common rooms where they’d be safe from the Inquisitorial Squad’s tyranny, so no one else was around to hear what was going on.

They were there out in the open: Graham Montague, a Chaser on the Slytherin Quidditch Team, was standing above a first-year Hufflepuff. He had three other members of the Inquisitorial Squad with him, but Harry didn’t recognise them. They were all a bit younger than him, perhaps second or third-year students, but they were no less guilty of what was going on here.

“How many times are we going to have to teach you this lesson?” Montague sneered as he gave the boy another sharp kick in his side. The boy cried out in pain and tried to cover his damaged ribs, but that just left other parts of him open to Montague’s rage.

“They never listen, do they?” One of the other Slytherins snickered.

“No, they don’t,” Montague shook his head. He took out his wand and twirled his wrist, conjuring a short, steel knife in the air. Montague looked incredibly excited as he suddenly flicked his wand downward, making the knife follow his path.

The knife cut right through the boy’s cheek. As his mouth opened in a scream, Harry could see the blade inside of the boy’s mouth, stabbing right into his tongue. A thick pool of blood filled his mouth as he screamed and hurriedly pulled the knife out of himself.

“That’ll teach you!” Montague raged as he delivered another kick right in between the boy’s legs.

Harry was moving as fast as he could to close the gap between himself and the Inquisitorial Squad. As much as he wished he could have stopped this sooner, everyone was moving around too much for him to guarantee he’d hit them with a spell.

The Hufflepuff boy was trying to crawl away, and the four Inquisitorial Squad members were jeering at him as they followed along.

“We could kill you, you know?” One of them cackled.

“No one would even care if you died,” another chimed in. “You’d just be another pathetic casualty at this sorry excuse for a school.”

“At least Umbridge is finally turning things around,” Montague said. “She knows the proper order of things.”

Harry’s blood boiled. Umbridge would get what was coming to her one day, but for now, he’d be satisfied if he could deal with these monsters.

Harry was close enough now that he felt confident he could hit them, but the question was with what. The Inquisitorial Squad deserved no quarter, not after what they’d done to the students at Hogwarts. 

He accidentally stepped on the discarded knife at his feet. It was still slick with the Hufflepuff boy’s blood.

Suddenly, Harry had an idea.

“Maybe we’ll pay your girlfriend a visit next,” Montague laughed in the Hufflepuff boy’s face. “Mary, was it? I bet she’d like to be satisfied by a real man for once.”

The others were too busy laughing to notice the knives forming in the air behind them. Harry struggled as he focused on duplicating the knives over and over again while maintaining his levitation charm on them all, but his anger gave him the fuel he needed to succeed.

When he had a few dozen prepared, he deliberately released the levitation charm on one of them.

Montague spun on his heels when he heard the knife clatter to the floor, and then his eyes widened when he saw how many gleaming knives were pointed right towards them. He barely had time to open his mouth before Harry sent every single knife flying forward, catching Montague and the other three Inquisitorial Squad members completely by surprise.

Their blood-curdling screams were sweet to listen to, but what felt even better was the knowledge that no one was coming to help them. There was no one around after all, and it’d be at least another hour before another Inquisitorial Squad patrol arrived here.

Harry stalked forward, watching as the four Slytherins were turned into pincushions. Each of them had at least five knives embedded somewhere in them, and they were all screaming for dear life. One of them, a foolish man, yanked out all of the knives as quickly as he could. Blood started gushing out of his open wounds. As he turned pale, he took out his wand and cast whatever weak healing charm he could manage on himself. Harry allowed it; it would be better if the Slytherin lived on to remember this experience and tell others of what happened.

The other Slytherins weren’t so foolish as to pull out the knives, and none of them were in any state to fight anymore. Montague had tears streaming down his face as he cringed and curled up in a ball on the floor just as the Hufflepuff boy had.

Speaking of whom, the Hufflepuff boy had been unscathed by Harry’s attack, and he climbed to his feet as soon as he realised that there weren’t any more knives coming his way. He was hunched over, one arm wrapped around his ribs and another pressed against the hole in his cheek. One of his eyes had already swollen shut, and Harry was sure that there were dozens of other injuries on him that weren’t immediately visible.

The Hufflepuff boy looked around but saw no one. 

“Thanks,” he muttered before he limped away, hopefully heading to the Hospital Wing to get treated.

When the boy was finally out of sight, Harry walked in the middle of the four Slytherins. They were all writhing around on the ground in pain, which was no less than what they deserved. 

Silently, Harry cast a charm on his throat to mask his voice.

“You’re not the first to fall to my hand,” he murmured, doing his best to manage a menacing tone. His first attempt was poor, his second was better, but this would be his best thus far. 

Three of them looked terrified, but Montague looked defiant. He had two knives buried in his chest, one in his thigh, and one in his bicep. His head was on a swivel, searching left to right for where the voice was coming from. At least, that was what Harry initially thought he was doing. What he quickly realised was that Montague was looking for his wand, which he’d dropped in the swarm of knives.

Harry found it before Montague; it was close to the wall a few feet behind Montague. He silently walked around the four of them and stopped right beside the wand just as Montague spotted it.

“The four of you are disgusting; hurting others isn’t something you should take joy in,” Harry continued. “And yet, I’m a hypocrite in this, because I’ll take joy in hurting you. You deserve this after all the harm you’ve caused, and I hope you’ll remember tonight for the rest of your lives. If I ever hear so much as a whisper that the four of you are attacking people again, I won’t be so lenient next time.”

Montague lunged towards his wand.

His fingers clasped around it.

Harry’s cutting curse severed Montague’s fingers just below the first joint.

Montague’s screams were just sublime. He was thrashing around on the floor screaming his head off as tears began to stream down his face. He hastily scooped up his fingers, undoubtedly hoping to rush to the Hospital Wing to get them reattached.

Harry wasn’t going to let that happen.

That first night he’d gone out to fight back against the Inquisitorial Squad, he’d encountered Millicent Bulstrode using a dark curse that conjured violet flames. According to a text he’d found in the restricted section, the spell was created as a punishment to sever the fingers of thieves and prevent them from ever growing back. However, some pure-blood lord had discovered that if you deliberately underpowered the spell, it made for a wonderful tool to permanently brand someone, which was what Millicent had been using it for.

The idea of branding someone reminded Harry far too much of Voldemort’s dark mark, even in spite of the differences between them, so he wasn’t going to use the spell in that way. However, the spell’s original usage seemed like a fitting way to make sure that Montague would always remember him.

Harry flicked his wand and silently cast the curse, sending out a thin line of violet flames. They streaked through the air and sliced off the remaining stumps of Montague’s fingers. His flesh crackled and turned a charred black, and his screams renewed once more.

In a flash, Harry repeated the spell on each of the other men here, severing the fingers from their wand hands and ensuring that they’d never be able to reattach or grow fingers back there ever again. It seemed a just punishment for those who would beat, torture, and even maim innocent students. 

Then, he hurried away from the corridor before anyone could show up. His adrenaline was pumping through him, and he could hear the sound of his heartbeat pounding in his ear drums. 

When he returned to Luna, she had a sad smile on her face. She didn’t like the violence that was going on in the school, but she understood the necessity of it. If no one did anything to stop the Inquisitorial Squad, then they’d just grow more and more violent until they started killing people.

“Are you hurt?” She asked softly.

Harry shook his head, but Luna still checked him over anyway. 

It made his heart swell to see how much she cared about him. Even after she saw that he was fine, that didn’t stop her from peppering his lips with kisses.

“I don’t know what I’d do with myself if you ever got hurt,” she murmured.

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Harry told her sincerely. He kissed her again sweetly. “I love you, Luna.”

“I love you more.”

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Harry never suspected that something was wrong when Luna didn’t show up for the next DA meeting. It wasn’t exactly uncommon for her to turn up late, or early for that matter, when she found something interesting to occupy her thoughts. However, once someone wondered aloud if the Inquisitorial Squad had gotten to her, an icy needle of terror shot through his veins.

He’d ended the meeting early and went out looking for her, terrified about what had happened. 

A million thoughts raced through his mind. Was Luna just another innocent woman who’d been attacked for no reason, or had she been targeted? Did Umbridge and the Inquisitorial Squad know about the DA? Did they know that he and Luna were a couple? Was this revenge over Harry’s refusal to deny Voldemort’s resurgence?

The Hospital Wing should’ve been the first place he’d checked, but the terror coursing through him had made his mind foggy and sluggish. It took him an hour before he thought to check there, and when he did, he wanted to rage.

Luna was laying back in a bed with her leg raised. It was completely limp, signifying that the bones had been completely removed from it. A bottle of Skele-gro rested at her bedside, alongside half a dozen other healing potions. Her arms, collarbone, neck, and face were covered with darkening bruises, and her lip was split open.

Anger and sorrow coursed through Harry as he dashed to her side, ignoring Madam Pomfrey’s calls for him to stop as she came bustling out of her office. In their two-year-long relationship, the worst he’d ever seen her hurt was after one of her fellow Ravenclaws had thrown her shoes at the back of her head. Harry had stopped the bullying right then and there, and ever since then, Luna had been safe.

Seeing her like this made him feel like he’d failed her in some way.

“Luna,” Harry said breathlessly as he reached her. 

Luna was conscious, but it was clear that she was a bit out of it from all of the potions running through her system.

“She’ll be fine, Mr Potter,” Madam Pomfrey said comfortingly as she came up behind Harry. She put a hand on Harry’s shoulder, but he shrugged it off.

He knew that she was doing all she could. Half of the professors had been put on leave for trying to put a stop to what was happening, and the rest stayed on just to provide whatever help they could to the students. If she wasn’t here to heal everyone after the Inquisitorial Squad hurt them, then they’d be stuck with some Ministry-approved healer who probably had the skills of a child.

But even knowing this didn’t make Harry any less angry with her and everyone else. He didn’t want soft comforting words whispered in his ears; he wanted action to be taken against those that had hurt Luna, the woman he loved with all of his heart.

“Who did this?” Harry asked, his voice cracking.

Madam Pomfrey’s silent reply was enough. She probably didn’t know exactly who did other than the fact that it was members of the Inquisitorial Squad.

“Can you watch the door for me? There’s something I need to do,” Harry said.

Madam Pomfrey seemed concerned, but the fierce look in his eyes told her that this was important. Reluctantly, she nodded and went over to guard the door.

If Umbridge or one of the Inquisitorial Squad walked in and saw him doing what he was about to do, he’d be in deep trouble. Using Legilimency on someone, even with their consent, was heavily regulated by the Ministry. He’d be tried over this and likely sent to Azkaban, given the Ministry’s hatred of him.

He knew that Luna wouldn’t mind though. They’d looked into each other’s minds plenty of times before when they were teaching each other Occlumency and Legilimency. 

Harry pointed his wand through the narrow gap in between her swollen eyelids and cast the spell.

A wash of memories waved over Harry, and he quickly oriented himself towards the one he was looking for.

Then, suddenly, he was there. They were at the Grand Staircase, and Luna was innocently walking down the stairs when one of her shoelaces came undone.

Harry didn’t hear what one of the Inquisitorial Squad members shouted from behind Luna, but he saw the spell that vanished all of the bones out of Luna’s leg hit her. She went tumbling down the staircase as a few members of the Inquisitorial Squad lazily followed her, laughing all the way.

Draco Malfoy planted his foot on Luna’s head as she tried to get up and forced her back down onto the ground.

“Your shoes are untied,” he sneered at her. “Be careful, or you might trip.”

Another round of laughter followed, and someone fired a spell that hit her side. Luna cringed and cried out in pain, and then someone else kicked her face. 

“Go on, get her,” Draco said impatiently to someone else.

The last member of the group raised their wand reluctantly and cast a stinging hex, which struck Luna’s face and caused her eyelids to swell up.

“You’re lucky we’ve got more important things to do today,” Draco said as he kicked Luna down the last few steps to the landing below. “Watch yourself next time.”

The memory ended there, and Harry was fuming with anger.

He barely remembered storming out of the Hospital Wing, ignoring Madam Pomfrey’s calls once again. He found the nearest alcove he could duck into and pulled out the Marauder’s Map in search of Draco.

It only took a moment to locate the man down in the dungeons, and with that, Harry took off at a run. Portraits and fellow students called at him to slow down so that the Inquisitorial Squad didn’t waylay and try to hurt him, but honestly, Harry hoped they would. He had fire in his veins, and he was ready to unleash his fury on the first person who tried to stop him.

Unfortunately, he encountered no one who tried to stop him on his way down to the dungeons. It was to be expected given the fact that he was taking secret passageways to move as quickly as possible, but he’d still hoped for a little fight to whet his appetite.

Draco would have to act as the full meal for now.

Harry tracked him down to the Slytherin Common Room. Knowing that he couldn’t just burst in there without the password, he hid in a nearby room and rummaged through his things for his invisibility cloak. As soon as he had the silky material in his hands, he covered himself with it and walked back outside.

A few minutes later, a pair of upper-year Slytherins opened the common room, and Harry snuck inside close behind them. He hurried over towards where the dorms were, and it was a simple matter then to track down Draco’s room.

Given how close it was to supper time, the Slytherin dorm was notably empty; Draco appeared to be the only resident of his room on the Marauder’s Map.

Harry wasn’t going to give the bastard a chance. After casting a cautionary silencing charm around the door to prevent any sounds from escaping, Harry cracked open the door and slipped inside.

Atop a bed with fine, silk sheets, Draco was laying back with an open across his face to block out the light from the candles overhead. It made Harry’s blood boil to see that Draco seemed so unbothered by what he’d done to Luna that he easily managed to have an afternoon nap.

“Expulso!” Harry shouted as he jabbed the tip of his wand at the book.

The book exploded violently, and the resulting force drove Draco’s head deeper into his pillows. 

“Wha—” Draco managed to get out in his delirious state as he awoke. His limbs flailed wildly as he tried to gather his bearings.

“Expulso!” Harry shouted again, only this time he pointed his wand at Draco’s leg.

There was a sickening crunch of bone as Draco’s knee exploded. Sharp fragments of his knee shredded the flesh and skin around it and left a bloody path wherever they landed.

Draco screamed, and the scream was sweet, but Harry wasn’t satisfied. He quickly followed up with a body-bind curse that snapped Draco’s arms to his side and his legs together. Whatever skin was left holding his thigh to his calf tore, leaving everything from the knee down on his left leg lying in a bloody pool on his bed.

The curse stopped Draco from making any sounds, but the terror in his eyes was palpable. Harry walked plainly into view above Draco with disgust on his face.

“Do you think that you’re a tough man picking on innocent women like Luna?” Harry barked at him. He snatched Draco’s wand off of the bedside table and jabbed the point of it into the bloody flesh of Draco’s thigh. It didn’t pierce the muscle, but Harry was sure it had to hurt. “You and your fucking Inquisitorial buddies are a blight on this school, and I’m going to cleanse it, even if no one else will help me.”

Draco’s eyes couldn’t move. The only real sign that he was understanding what Harry was saying were the tears that came to his eyes.

“Montague, Goyle, Bulstrode, Warrington,” Harry listed off the names. “I was the one to put a stop to all of them, and now you’re next. You’ve let the slightest bit of power go to your head and turn you into a monster like your father is. I heard what you did to Hannah Abbot, the scars you left her with. For a while, I thought about giving you those same scars, but I think I have a better idea in mind.”

Harry placed the tip of his wand against Draco’s thigh. With a quickly cast fire-making spell, he cauterised the wound cleanly. Draco had lost a lot of blood, but Harry kept a blood-replenisher potion on him just in case he ran into anyone who needed it. It was ironic that something he carried around to help the victims of the Inquisitorial Squad would be going towards saving the life of one of its members, but it was worth it.

After uncorking the vial and draining it into Draco’s mouth, Harry pointed his wand at Draco’s temple.

“Memory charms are a tricky thing,” Harry commented lightly, as though discussing nothing more than the weather. “If they’re performed improperly by an amateur who doesn’t know what they’re doing, they can cause minor damage that’s easily repaired at St Mungo’s. But, if someone who does know what they’re doing casts it improperly, well… they can do a lot of damage.”

Tears flowed faster down Draco’s eyes, and for a second, Harry swore that he saw Draco’s eyes barely move from side to side as though he were begging Harry not to do this.

“You won’t remember your own name, your family, or even how to talk or perform basic magic,” Harry told Draco. “You know, if Luna and I hadn’t begun delving into mind magics together this summer, I never even would have learnt about this spell or how to perform it so disastrously. In a way, it’s karmic justice that you’re going to suffer from that. I hope you turn out to be a better person after this Draco, because if you don’t, I’ll come back and finish off the job for good.”

Harry released the body-bind curse at the last second and relished in the way Draco’s eyes shut and his hands came up in terror.

“Obliviate.”

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Finally, Hogwarts was shutting its doors for the year. It was two months before exams were supposed to begin, but given the number of attacks against the Inquisitorial Squad and students alike, the Ministry was forced to end the school year early and instead allow everyone to take their exams at the Ministry over the summer.

It was, perhaps, a better outcome than Harry could have hoped for. Although Umbridge was still the Headmistress and many in the Inquisitorial Squad still remained unadulterated from Harry’s attacks, at least the students would be safe back home away from all of this. He hoped that word of what had happened here would finally get out to the press now that Umbridge wasn’t controlling the incoming and outgoing mail, but he had little doubt that the Ministry would try to sweep this all under the rug.

“You can stay with us again this summer, you know,” Luna said as she rested her head against his shoulder in the Hogwarts Library. She seemed completely back to normal four days after her attack. Harry was glad; not everyone had remained mentally unscarred from the attacks this year. “Stubby Boardman can come too.”

Harry snorted in amusement. “Are the rest of The Hobgoblins welcome too?” He asked jokingly, referencing the fact that The Quibbler had believed Sirius Black to merely be the lead singer of the aforementioned band in disguise. “I’m sure that they’d love to put on a show for us.”

“They’re welcome too,” Luna nodded seriously. “Perhaps they can serenade the Heliopath that the Ministry’s sent to spy on us.”

Harry laughed and kissed Luna then, something which she returned eagerly. It felt nice going back to this type of normalcy with her. The rampage he’d gone on had been taxing physically and emotionally, and he figured he’d get a break for a while now that the school year was done.

At least, he would once he dealt with the last person who’d attacked Luna.

“Ahem.”

Harry jumped in surprise, having not heard whoever was sneaking up on them. Instead of Madam Pince, he saw a blond-haired woman he knew: Daphne Greengrass.

“I’d like to speak to both of you,” Daphne said in a quiet, demure tone. “Somewhere private.”

Realisation dawned on Harry instantly. He didn’t know how Daphne had figured out his plan, but she was one of the most brilliant witches at this school for a reason.

A dark look slid over Harry’s face, and Luna picked up on it instantly. She mirrored his look as he stared down Daphne.

“Just the three of us?” Harry asked with a firm stare. He reached out with Legilimency and, to his surprise, brushed up against a mental barrier in Daphne’s mind. However, again to his surprise, he felt her lower her barriers at his touch. He pushed into her mind roughly and searched out the answer to what he was looking for.

“Yes, but my sister will be waiting nearby,” Daphne told him, and her mind confirmed it as the truth.

Harry retreated from Daphne’s mind and gave Luna a subtle nod. 

“Okay,” Luna said in reply, slowly getting to her feet. “Where should we talk?”

“I have an old room—” Daphne began to say, but Harry cut her off.

“We’ll choose the room,” Harry interrupted. “Go get your sister and tell her to meet us on the seventh floor.”

Daphne bit her lip nervously but she seemed resigned to listening to Harry. She cautiously backed away from them then, not turning her back on them until she was out of sight.

“Astoria’s the last one who hurt me, isn’t she?” Luna asked Harry gently.

He nodded. “She is,” he replied.

He knew that Luna was torn about his path of vengeance, but he felt justified in it. Regardless, her mild opposition was part of the reason why he was happy that the year was ending early. It would give him time to think and reflect on everything, and more time to spend with Luna. 

The memory of his desperate search for her still woke him up at night. He’d been terrified that she’d been hurt terribly like some of the students who ended up in St Mungo’s. He didn’t know what he would have done if that was the case, but he expected that he’d probably have ended up in Azkaban because of it.

“Come on,” Harry told Luna. “Let’s get to the Room of Requirement.”