Title: Lost Ones
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: None really.
Rating: MA
Disclaimer: Do not own Harry Potter.
Summary: A few years after defeating Voldermort, Harry notices how separated his friends and he are from the rest of society. Quite AU.
" " denotes speech, ' ' denotes thought.
Harry wandered down Diagon Alley trying to ignore the stares. He hated those stares. They all contained either fear, adoration or disapproval. He passed all those places that used to mean so much to him. Flourish & Blots, Gringots, Ollivander's. The places of his youth, a few years past, an eon ago.
He walked past a group of just graduated young witches and wizards, just like he would have been. Children, all of them. He turned off of Diagon Alley and into the rabbits warren of hidden streets in the middle of down town London. He finally reached an unassuming building in the middle of the lower cost Magical inner city apartment district. Placing his hand in a small slot in the wall next to the door, he waited as a soft light played over his hand and then, at the buzz, opened the door and entered.
"Welcome back, Mr. Potter." The doorman said.
"Morning Charles." Harry said, taking off his outer robe, folding it and passing it to the doorman.
"Just the Five-Seven's and your wand this morning?" Charles asked.
"Got a K-bar as well." Harry replied, untying and removing the gun belt that held his pair of Five-Seven pistols and his wand, then removed the K-bar and sheath from its place at the small of his back.
"Thank you, Sir." Charles said, handing Harry a ticket stub and waving him through the inner doors.
Adjusting the polo shirt over his jeans, he walked into the main room, well over a hundred sets of eyes snapped in his direction for an instant until he was recognised, then returned to whatever held their attention before his entry.
This was his generation; not the children who were too innocent to understand, some of whom had years on him, or the adults who looked down on them for not completing school and getting a menial job like a good drone of society, while basking in the security that his people had paid for in pain and blood. A generation gap separated not by age, but by violent and bloody experience.
Ron and Hermione waved him over from a corner, before turning back to something laid out on the table. He started over when he heard a slow and ethereal voice. He turned with a smile on his face; he had recognised her elaborately decorated sword and the custom ceramic gun in the locker in the reception hall.
"Harry. How's the leg?" Luna asked.
"Not too bad. Still gets stiff some time." He replied, absently rubbing the outside of right leg along the hidden scar.
"Must be the Faringals playing up again." She replied before gliding off across the room to a large couch by the fireplace.
"Hey Harry. How's things?" Ron asked as he approached.
"Apparently Faringals are mucking with my leg." He said, a wily grin hinting on his face. "What we got here?"
"Would you like a drink, Mr Potter?" a waiter asked.
"Beer." Harry replied, his attention on the map open on the table.
"Coming right up, Sir." The waiter said, despite Harry being under the legal age in England.
But then this was not England, this was 'The Refuge'. The club gifted to the survivors of the young army that faced off and killed Voldermort and his followers, by Parliament and treated as an autonomous entity by both the Muggle and Magical governments.
"Hostage rescue?" he asked.
"A few undercover SIS and CIA NOC agents got grabbed as part of a corporate joint venture oil exploration mission." Ron briefed, idly rubbing the point of his chin over the scar that ran down the right side of his face. "They were gathering intel on local military movements. SAS and US Delta's wanna go in and get 'em out. SIS asked us to go over the plans."
"The plan seems solid, and in most cases it will work, but there is a problem." Hermione said, outlining a large section of the map, centring around the target compound, with her left hand. A hand in which the little finger, half the ring finger and part of the outside of the palm were missing. "This whole area is class 5 high magic area. Untapped for centuries due to the settlement being whipped out by a Dark Lord who tried to take over the whole region. Last six months there have been massive taps into the ambient magic, all with dark magic signatures."
"But the hostages were taken by gunmen?" Harry asked.
"Confirmed. CIA had video surveillance." Ron said.
"You're right, that is a problem." Harry said, before raising his voice. "Marshall."
"Yes, Mr. Potter?" The Manager of 'The Refuge' said when he arrived at the table.
"Please call everyone in for a meeting. The please get the PM, the head of the SIS and the CIA liaison in for a meeting this afternoon."
"At once, sir."
"Oh and Marshall, break out the codes for the armoury, we're going to need them."
"Yes, Mr. Potter."
Harry waved over Luna, Patti and Colin to help with the planning. He sighed. They had lost so many; Neville, Ginny, Dean, but the truth was that they had been at war most of their lives. They were the Lost Generation, raised in war and ill suited to peace. At least now they had another battle to fight, instead of slowly wearing away to nothing in a world that would never understand them.
The End.
Authors Note: For those who don't know, the SIS is the British Secret Intelligence Service, more commonly known as MI6 from the James Bond novels and films (Ian Fleming, the Bond author, was a controller in the WW2 Special Operations Executive which became the SIS during the cold war). The NOC agents are Non Official Cover agents for the CIA. Most CIA agents have an 'Official Cover' working as part of a US embassy with diplomatic immunity, the NOC's are the undercover CIA agents and perform most of the clandestine CIA operations to which the CIA has deniability.