The Mercenary of Hogwarts

Based on the concept by Tellemicus Sundance

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. If I said I did would you believe me? Special for this chapter, I also don't own the Reaper Virus or the movie Doomsday

A/n: This a fic based on a prompt by Tellemicus and written with his permission. This first chapter is just a prologue and the next chapter will most likely skip a few years. Pairings are undecided but will most likely be a Harry/Tonks. Although I may throw a monkey wrench in it….

a/n 2: This chapter contains hints of the movie Doomsday. Just the virus itself is alluded to, in this version the outbreak was contained in the original outbreak location by a large wall surrounding the city and it didn't spread any farther. Note that this is not a crossover, the crossover is only apparent insofar as I use the Reaper virus. Just the virus is an important part of some backstory.

Prologue: Rescue from the Infection

August 21, 1991
Scotland
5 miles north of the wall
Outskirts of the city

The remains of the once largely populated city could only be described as chaotic. Fires raged everywhere as the bodies of the infected were burned in a vain attempt to contain apocalyptic Reaper virus from spreading to the few survivors that remained in the city. They had hopes that once the virus was proven to have run its course that they would be allowed to return to the outside world. However unknown to them, this would not be so. The city and nearly 5 miles of the surrounding landscape had been walled off to the rest of the world in the hopes that those trapped inside would just die off and the city could be forgotten.

The city just did not seem to want to give in, as survivors wandered the streets carefully, often times in large groups as they carefully exterminated the infected and burned their bodies. Buildings that had once stood proud were now burned to the ground, partially destroyed, or had been scavenged for supplies. The smell of sulfur and death hung around the area, giving off an aura of darkness that would have instantly turned anyone away.

The virus itself had spread quickly, originating from the city below and had enveloped most of the population, turning them into mindless, but fierce, beings. A few were lucky enough to be naturally immune to the disease; however they were unlucky enough to be trapped in the city until they died out. The virus had been quickly contained and Scotland had breathed a sigh of relief at the near disaster that had been at their doorstep. It is likely that if it had spread further that all of Scotland would have been quarantined and walled off.

The once bustling city would be almost completely unrecognizable to tourists if they could see it now. Not that anyone visited the city anymore. Almost no one. One figure that was foreign to the landscape peered through a scope from the roof of a lone building on the outskirts of the city.

The boy, for that is all that he was, was dressed in almost completely black with black cargo pants lined with pockets and a plain black t-shirt. He wore a black leather belt that was adorned with various sized pouches and a small sheath. The boy also wore black fingerless gloves and a coal black hoodie with a deep hood to cover his face along with a dull black trench coat that reached to his feet. A pair of dog tags adorned his neck, marking his militaristic side. The most interesting part of his ensemble was his face, which was covered by a gasmask. The mask was black with two silver air filters in front of his mouth. However the mask also contained the only bit of color visible on his person. Spray painted on the right side of the mask was a dark red biohazard symbol. The symbol started at where his hairline would be and descended down the side of his face with the right open circle curling around one of the air filters.

The mask had been something that he had picked up on his trek through the landscape as he had made his way towards his current position. He had found the mask lying at an abandoned street corner, he supposed it had been artwork of a protestor of the wall after the outbreak and he had picked it up in favor of the plain green mask he had been given at the start of this mission. In spite of its apparent artistic visual, it was still a fully functional piece. The only other bit of color on his body also came from his gasmask as his vibrant green eyes tended to leak through the eye lenses of the mask. The boy himself was covered in light gray soot that fell from the sky and covered most of the surrounding area, from a nearby funeral pyre. The soot was undisturbed on his prone body showing that he had been immobile for some time.

The boy grumbled to himself as he looked through the scope again into the abandoned city below him.

"I can't believe him, sending me on a solo mission this soon to my departure. He knows that if something goes wrong here that many people will be after his head. Even if it is a rich client, did he have to send me? He could have sent anyone, including that damn Shank, but noooo he had to send me."

His small rant suddenly cut off as he saw something through his scope that made him pause. He had been looking at the street for any hints of life when saw sudden movement out of corner of the scope. Moving his scope upward he looked into the window of a building where he had seen the movement. For a second he saw the small movement again as he saw what he was looking for. Drawing his head away from the scope he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small photograph that he had been given prior to his departure to the city. In the photograph was a young girl who he guessed to be around his age, 11, with long black hair and vibrant blue eyes which shown with joy. This was the purpose of his mission here in this godforsaken land.

Over 6 months ago the Reaper virus had spread from a few victims to the whole city which had been immediately contained and later walled in. Trapping inside the remaining population. 3 weeks ago he had been contacted by the leader of the street gang, which doubled as an elite band of private contractors, to venture into the hotspot. He had been contacted a man and women who had a daughter in the hot zone who had been visiting with relatives at the time of the outbreak. She had been unable to escape the city and had been trapped. The couple wanted her to be rescued, and refused to believe that she was dead or infected. They wouldn't say how they knew that just that they were positive that she was. Ravenhearst, the leader of the merry band of mercenaries, had 'agreed' with their sentiments and had agreed to send a man into the zone to try and extract her. He of course had no care at all if she was alive or not, personally he didn't think she was, but the couple was willing to pay a large amount of money for someone to go in, so he didn't care. However, he did not want to waste one of his best operatives if you will on some suicide mission so he decided to send one of the people he had no visible love for on the mission: him. Thus the reason he was spending the few days he had left before he left his home in a virus infected city. What a perfect vacation.

The boy smiled as he looked at the photograph of the girl, knowing he could rub this in Ravenhearst's face when he returned. Now all he had to do was make his way to the building. Pocketing the scope he walked over the side of the building and climbed down the fire escape and into the hellish street of the nearby city.

Once he was in the street the boy known as Crow to the members of the gang began walking towards the city, hiding his presence amongst the abandoned cars along the road. Crow had been picked up by the Arcane Street Gang three years ago when he as eight after he had escaped from his abusive cousin by showing skills that they had come to realize as potential. He had originally been skeptical of their proposal until he had personally met Ravenhearst. The man was a walking terror and had shown to him that he had the skills necessary to survive. Over the years the boy had been trained in their arts, before he had been introduced a year ago to their covert mercenary side. It was in this that he hoped to find a future business having taken a liking to the power and ambiguity of the job. This was one of the first times he had been on a solo mission and he had begun to think that he had been sent here to die. Already he had been set upon by numerous infected and he was about to enter the hot zone. The irony that if he died Ravenhearst would be lynched by some certain people wasn't lost on him.

Approaching the building he surveyed it, the building was one of the few standing buildings that appeared to be relatively untouched by the scavengers and had once been an apartment building. Seeing that the entrance had been quite severely blockaded he headed into an alley in search of a fire escape so he could get to the roof. Seeing one about fifteen feet up he jumped onto a rusted dumpster on the opposite side before leaping with unnatural grace to the end of the ladder, paying no heed to the ten foot drop below him, and hoisted himself up and climbed the rusted ladder to the roof. Easily scaling the ladder he pulled himself over the edge at the top and approached the roof access door and tested the handle. Finding it locked he pulled out a set of lock picks out of one of his pouches and set to work on the door.

After a few minutes he was able to gain access to the door and the stairwell inside. Silently inching the door open he slipped inside before closing the door with as little noise as possible. Traversing the stairs silently he headed towards the 5th floor where he had seen the girl. He found no life in any of the floors which he idly found weird. He had supposed that this building was a safe house for survivors, but he had not seen the presence of anyone yet. Stealthily he padded down the sparse hallway of the fifth floor towards a door that he knew corresponded to the window he had seen.

"Room 24E" he thought to himself as he tried the door handle. Shockingly he found the door unlocked and he pushed it open before walking into the room as quietly as possible. The room itself was as spartan as the rest of the building, with only the necessities around. Against one wall were stacked provisions that seemed to be dwindling, it appeared as if they would only last a few more days. Trash was scattered around the apartment, and various weapons were lying on a table in a corner. This was definitely a stronghold for survivors.

Walking more into the apartment he suddenly froze as he heard a sound behind him that he had become distinctly aware of in his training: the click of a gun.

"Turn around" a voice hissed behind him. The voice was steel and hinted violence.

Inwardly he cursed himself as he realized that he had been caught off guard. If Blade heard anything about this he would never live it down. Raising his hands to show he meant no harm, he slowly turned around to look into the face of his mission. She held a small pistol in her hands, which were shaking quite a bit, showing that she had next to no experience with a gun. Her blue eyes glowed with a hardened look that promised pain to him.

"Take off your mask" the girl hissed to him. "Slowly"

Inwardly he sighed. "I can't"

"Why?" she almost spit out, the gun in her hand waving slightly.

"Because, I need to protect my identity and if you saw my face it would defeat the purpose wouldn't it?"

The girl glared at him at his answer. She lifted the gun a bit more steadily and pointed it at his heart threateningly.

"I don't care. Take it off."

"No"

In that second two things happened: first Crow moved quickly to the right and reached forward with his hand to wrench the gun from her hand. At that same moment her finger reflexively pulled on the trigger, a bullet glancing past his head and burying itself in the opposing wall, the gunshot echoing blaringly around the small room. Crow yanked the gun from her hands as she collapsed to the floor and tucked it behind his back, before stooping in front of the distraught girl.

"It's ok" he quietly soothed to the girl. "I'm not here to hurt you"

"Y…you aren't?" she sobbed out.

Crow smiled behind his mask. "No, I'm actually here to rescue you, in spite of what it looks like"

"yo..you are?"

To prove his point he reached into his pocket and pulled out the picture he had been given and handed it to the girl. "Yes, your parents contracted me to come and extract you from the city."

She looked at the photo that she knew that only her parents had before letting out a sob and wrapping her arms tightly around her surprised rescuer and crying into his shirt.

Crow awkwardly patted the girl's back as comforting emotional girls was not something that he was used to because of his upbringing. The girl cried for some time before her tears started to dry up. She leaned back and opened her mouth to say something when her rescuer suddenly started as he heard feet pounding on the ground outside in the hall.

"Shit…." He cursed under his breath. He heard the feet suddenly stop outside of the door and being pounding on the door. Crow looked around the small room for an escape, but saw none. The windows themselves were out as the building was five stories off the ground and no matter what training he had he knew that he couldn't survive a fall from the height. As he turned to the girl the door exploded open revealing about five people each holding a firearm that was pointed directly at him.

"What's going on? We heard the gunsh…." The voice trailed off as they saw that she was in the arms of a black clad being, who for all they knew was infected.

Crow looked at the girl in arms knowing that it appeared that he wouldn't survive this mission and threw his body in front of hers, desperately hoping that she would survive the gunfire that was sure to come. At the same time as he heard the gunshot from a shotgun an earsplitting crack shattered the brief silence as he felt himself being squeezed through a tube. The shotgun blast slammed into spot that he had been at, just nearly missing him and the girl.

With an equally loud crack less than a mile away, Crow and girl appeared at the top of the building that he had been scoping out the city from earlier. The girl pulled away from him with wide eyes as she looked into the masked face of her savior.

"Your…magical?" she asked hesitantly.

Crow himself appeared startled at the sudden change in their location.

"…..Yes." he said in a quiet voice.

"You just apparated!"

"I….what?"

She looked at him oddly "apparated. It's a way of moving by magic"

"I…I didn't know I could do that."

In spite of herself she giggled. "So you did that accidently?"

"Yes." He replied "I can't even do magic yet."

Her eyes lit up at this. "So you're a first year?"

Crow mentally cursed himself at revealing this. He had just given her a clue as to his identity if she bothered to learn more later.

"Are you ok?" he asked trying to change the subject.

The girl looked put off at the sudden change in subject, but answered him all the same.

"I'm fine now that I know I can escape this hellhole."

"I'd imagine. I have to ask, what happened to your relatives?"

She looked down at this. "Right after the virus began spreading our home was attacked by infected and in an attempt to stop them, some rioters had put fire to it. My…my grandparents were inside at the time and were unable to escape. I had been outside when it occurred and with the building went my only hope to escape. My grandparents were the only known magical home in the city and it contained the only floo access, so I was trapped here. I had been found sometime later by a group of survivors and was taken it." She shivered slightly "I don't particually care for them though. They scare me. But I was forced to stay with them in the hope that someone would come and save me." Her she visibly brightened "And someone has"

Crow smiled "So I take it your ready to go home?" he asked rhetorically.

"Yes!"

He grinned behind his mask as he pointed towards where the wall was.

"Then we are going that way."

She picked herself off the ground and suddenly turned towards her rescuer.

"By the way, I'm Daphne Greengrass"

"You can call me Crow"

A/n: Yes, I'm aware Daphne Greengrass is a pureblood. For the sake of this story, let's say she was visiting grandparents who lived in the hot zone (they lived in a situation like Grimauld Place, hidden in a muggle town). Her grandparents were killed leaving her with no way to escape the city. She is forced to stay with other survivors to stay alive. Hence her being in an apartment with a gun.