"What in the possibly nine hells are you doing?" Harry asked, his voice cutting through the otherwise quiet woods. He'd stumbled upon what was probably the most bizarre and frankly, alarming, scene he'd ever witnessed. And given his life story, that was saying a hell of a lot.
A group of large men, maybe six or seven of them, were decked out in strange, skeletal-looking armor. They were all crowded around a young woman with striking ashen hair, who was lying on the forest floor, bleeding profusely from what looked like multiple nasty wounds. All of this chaos was unfolding in his forest, on his land.
The one who seemed to be their leader, a tall, menacing figure holding an equally menacing staff, turned slowly. His voice, when he finally spoke, sounded like rocks grinding together. "Mortal, this does not concern you. Leave now, while you still have the chance."
Harry let out a short, humorless laugh. "Leave? I think you're the one who's a bit confused here, mate. This is my forest you're currently mucking about in. You don't just get to stroll through, rough someone up, and then tell me what I should or shouldn't do." His hand drifted discreetly towards his sleeve, where his trusty holly wand was tucked away. "Now, back away from the girl. I'm only going to ask you this once."
"You had your chance. Kill the hu-" the leader began, raising his staff as if to signal an attack.
He never got to finish. A blindingly bright red bolt of light erupted from the tip of Harry's wand, slamming into the leader's chest with concussive force. His bone-like armor crumpled inwards like it was made of cheap tin, and he was sent flying a good twenty feet backwards, crashing into a thick oak tree with a sickening, bone-jarring thud.
The rest of the armored warriors made a classic, and fatal, mistake. Instead of keeping their eyes on Harry, the guy who'd just one-shotted their boss, their heads all snapped towards the sound of the impact, watching their leader collide with the tree. Big mistake. Idiots.
While their attention was conveniently diverted, Harry's mind was already working. He spotted a jagged, decent-sized rock a few feet away. With a silent flick of his wand and a focused surge of will, he began to transfigure it. The stone rippled and flowed like water, then sprouted dark fur, razor-sharp claws, and a fearsome, snarling snout. In mere seconds, a giant grizzly bear, easily twice the size of any normal specimen, stood where the rock had been, letting out a deafening roar of pure fury.
The bear, a rather impressive product of Harry's increasingly potent and less-than-Ministry-approved magic, charged headlong into the stunned group of warriors. It swatted two of them to the ground with its colossal paws, the wet, cracking sound of bone loud in the sudden, shocked silence that followed their cut-off screams. They dropped like sacks of potatoes, skulls very likely caved in.
Meanwhile, the monstrous hounds that had been part of the attacking group, which had been circling menacingly, now gathered themselves to launch an attack on Harry. He raised his wand again, a different, harsher incantation already on his lips. "Flammis acribus!" he yelled.
A vicious torrent of incredibly hot, aggressive flames leaped forth from his wand tip. This was far more potent than a simple Incendio charm. It wasn't wild and uncontrollable like Fiendfyre, but it was a controlled inferno, designed to burn everything in its path with a vicious, consuming hunger. Harry couldn't help a grim, satisfied smirk. The spell tore into the hounds. They howled in pain, initially seeming to try and resist the intense heat, but it was clear they couldn't withstand its harsh, relentless fury for long. Their agonized yelps soon turned into whimpers, and then into silence as they were swiftly consumed by the magical fire.
Harry turned his attention back to the few remaining warriors. Unfortunately, it looked like they were managing to bring down his transfigured bear, their strange, sharp weapons finding purchase in its magically conjured hide. Seeing one warrior already wounded and visibly struggling, Harry didn't hesitate. He aimed and cast a powerful Blasting Curse a Reducto charm amped up to eleven right at the man's exposed head. It connected with a sickening, wet crunch, and the warrior collapsed to the ground, instantly dead.
The last two turned to face him, the great bear now a dissipating shimmer of fading magic.
"This is usually the part where I offer a chance to surrender," Harry said, his voice dangerously calm, his green eyes glinting with a cold light. "But you've really caught me on a bad day. And, as it turns out, you lot make for surprisingly excellent stress relievers." Their skeletal armor, he now realized with a fresh wave of anger, reminded him uncomfortably of the Death Eaters and their skull masks. That just made ending this whole mess easier. He'd learned the hard way, more than once, what happened when you didn't finish your enemies off properly.
The two remaining warriors didn't bother with words. They charged at him, weapons raised, clearly hoping to overwhelm him in close combat. Harry idly wondered if that was a smart move on their part. On one hand, wizards were generally considered weaker in a straight-up physical fight. On the other hand, it gave them a lot less room to dodge whatever nasty spells he was about to throw at them.
He pointed his wand, a new, rather unpleasant incantation ready. "Magna Alveo!" he called out, his wand tracing a sharp, precise pattern in the air before him.
An almost unbearable, high-pitched screeching noise erupted from the tip of his wand, a focused wave of pure sonic agony blasting directly towards the charging warriors. They both dropped their weapons instantly, their hands flying up to clap over their helmets as they fell hard to their knees, screaming in pure, unadulterated pain. Harry kept the spell going, his expression grim and set, until he saw them both slump to the ground, unconscious, likely from the sheer sensory overload.
With the immediate threats finally dealt with, Harry let out a ragged breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and started the annoying, but very necessary, clean-up process. He levitated the armored bodies, one by one, into a grim, untidy pile. He then walked over to the tree where he'd blasted the leader. All he found was a dark, ugly bloodstain on the bark and some disturbed earth at its base. No sign of the man himself.
Harry squinted, a flicker of pure anger tightening his jaw. One of them got away. Damn it. He tried a quick "Point Me" charm, hoping to get a direction, but the spell just spun uselessly in his hand. There was no visible trail to follow either; the bastard had vanished clean away.
He turned back and his eyes landed on the ashen-haired girl, still lying motionless and pale on the forest floor. A jolt, sharp as a shock, went through him. In the heat of the fight, he'd almost forgotten that she was seriously injured and could very well be bleeding out as he stood there.
"Kreacher!" Harry yelled, his voice sharp and urgent.
With the characteristic loud crack of house-elf apparition, Kreacher appeared beside him, his usual grumpy, disdainful scowl firmly in place. "What does filthy half-blood Master want from Kreacher?" the old elf grumbled, his voice raspy and full of his usual distaste.
"No time for your usual charming commentary, Kreacher," Harry snapped, his sudden worry for the girl overriding his normal tolerance for the elf's less-than-pleasant attitude. "Take this girl back to the manor. Now. Put her in the largest, most comfortable guest bedroom we have. Dress her wounds immediately just do what you can to stop the bleeding for now. I'll join you in a minute. And be quick about it, understand?"
Kreacher, despite his constant grumbling, gave a curt, surprisingly efficient nod and, with another sharp crack, he and the unconscious girl vanished.
Harry turned back to the pile of bodies. He raised his wand, muttered the incantation for his enhanced fire spell again Flammis Acribus and watched with grim satisfaction as the pile erupted into a cleansing, roaring blaze. Then, he turned and started jogging briskly back towards his home. Kreacher was surprisingly good at basic first aid, certainly, but he didn't know any proper healing magic. He could only stabilize her, delay the inevitable if her injuries were as severe as they looked. Harry needed to get there, and fast.
Harry finally burst through the grand front doors of Potter Manor, his breathing slightly ragged from the run. "Kreacher!" he called out again, his voice echoing in the large entrance hall.
The elf appeared instantly, looking at him with those large, disturbingly bulbous eyes.
"Did you get her settled in? Are her wounds dressed?" Harry asked, already heading towards the wide staircase that led to the guest wing of the manor.
Kreacher just nodded once, sharply.
"Good," Harry said, a small knot of tension easing in his chest. "Right. Listen carefully now. I need you to bring me the emergency potions kit from the potions lab it's in the chest clearly marked 'Healing'. Put it in her room for me. Then, I need you to go straight back to the forest. Make absolutely sure that once those bodies are done burning, that fire is completely, utterly out. I don't want the whole bloody forest going up in flames because of this. After that, you need to erase every single trace of what happened out there today. No bloodstains, no scorch marks, no disturbed earth, nothing. Understood?"
Kreacher nodded again, his expression unchangingly sour but his attention clearly fixed on the orders.
"And one more thing," Harry added, pausing at the foot of the stairs. "Go around the entire perimeter of the forest land that I own and reinforce all the existing wards. Put up new ones if you think they're needed. I've been putting that off for far too long, and today proves I can't afford to anymore. After all that is done, you can go back to... well, whatever it is you normally do to keep yourself busy around here."
Kreacher gave another short, jerky nod and popped away with another crack to carry out his long list of orders.
When Harry had first officially inherited Kreacher, along with the crumbling wreck of Grimmauld Place and the weighty title of Head of the Black family, he'd laid down some very firm, magically binding ground rules. He'd given the ancient elf a series of direct, unbreakable commands to ensure Kreacher could never purposefully betray him or spill any of his secrets to anyone. He'd also ordered Kreacher to always seek clarification if any order was ambiguous or unclear, rather than interpreting it in some twisted, unhelpful way that house-elves sometimes did.
Kreacher hadn't been happy about it, not one bit, but he'd been magically compelled to obey every word. In return for his (extremely grudging) compliance and undeniable efficiency, Harry had made a single, small concession: he let the house-elf call him whatever disrespectful names he wanted, within reason.