The tale of Rory Delaney.

Thanks to cast!el@TDA for the wonderful banner.

A/N: - The Hogwarts name belongs to the wonderful JK. The name of the main character belongs to starryskies55 who kindly loaned him to me to do this challenge. The story belongs to me.

**Beta read by Maelody**


It was the night of the great battle and it was make or break. The Dark Lord was standing at the gates of Hogwarts and his followers had surrounded the ancient castle. He wanted Harry Potter, but he wasn’t getting him. Most of the school was prepared to fight to keep him safe. That is most of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff wanted to keep him safe. Slytherin hated his guts. When Harry appeared out of nowhere that night when he returned, they would have drawn their wands and hexed him into next week. However, most of the other students and Professors stepped in front of him to shield him. Upon the instructions of Professor McGonagall, the Slytherin students had been disarmed and taken to the dungeons by Filch.

One key figure in the battle was a teenager called Rory Delaney a fellow Gryffindor of Harry’s. Even though he was only fifteen years old, he’d stayed behind when all the other underage witches and wizards had been ordered to evacuate through the tunnel that led between the Hogshead in Hogsmeade and the Room of Requirement. Rory had felt that his father – a well known Auror before the Ministry fell and became the institution it was today, forcing him to become a Death Eater – would have been disappointed with him if he’d ran away.

After he-who-must-not-be-named had made an announcement issuing an ultimatum - if Harry Potter was not given up after an hour has passed - he would kill all within the ancient walls of learning. So the teachers started to erect defences. While the Professors erected what wards they could to try and protect Hogwarts, Rory had very little to do but wait. He made his way to the Great Hall, passing many other students who’d stayed behind before spotting Dobby the House Elf. He asked the Elf if he would fetch him some jam tarts from the kitchen. Dobby bowed and said, ‘Of course sir.’ With a snap of his fingers he vanished, only to reappear seconds later with a plate of mixed jam tarts. There were blackcurrant, strawberry, raspberry and even a couple of lemon curd tarts.

As he bit into the first tart, memories came flooding back of his loving home that he’d shared with his father, younger eight year old twin brothers, and his one year old baby sister. He thought about his mother – who had died giving birth to his sister – with her beautiful long flowing golden blonde hair and her grey blue eyes and wonderful smile full of love for her husband and her children. Some people had said that he’d looked like his mother what with his blond hair and his charming smile which drew the girls in like a magnet, and his grey eyes - though they were mixed with a bit of brown from his father's side -.

He thought back to one particular Christmas when his brothers had somehow managed to get a hold of their father’s wand and had managed to somehow transfigure some of the furniture into dogs and cats. Rory couldn’t help but smile at the memory. He almost laughed when he remembered that the dogs had chased the cats all around the living room, causing untold damage and mayhem. He could still see the image of horror on his father's face as he walked in on the chaos; Rory continued smiling when he remembered wishing he had a camera that day so he could have caught the hassle that his dad had in trying to round up the animals. It would have been a picture to truly treasure.

He remembered the first time he’d displayed magic. He was seven years old and he was sitting in the kitchen just after breakfast. His mother was washing the breakfast dishes and he was sitting at the kitchen table with his paints and sheets of parchment - he’d had a natural talent for painting from a very young age -. His parents had encouraged his talent, so he just finished a painting of their house and the family cat sitting on the front step. His mother had finished the dishes and was drying her hands on a towel when she passed the table. She glanced at the painting and was complementing Rory on the fine detail of the house and cat when all of a sudden the cat stood up, stretched and wandered through the open door and into the house. His mother looked at the page and then looked at Rory, and his face was a face filled with amazement.

His mother laughed at the look that had appeared on her son's face, Rory looked at the picture then looked at his mother. She’d told him that he was displaying the first signs of being magical. Rory had been so thrilled that day. He'd thought that he would never be like his parents, since magical children tended to show their magic at much earlier age. His two little brothers had already started showing signs of their magical talents, and he'd more or less resigned himself to being what his parents sometimes referred to as a squib. To make sure that it was true about his magical abilities, his mother gave him her wand and had told him to flick it and say Lumos at the same time. He did what his mother had asked and a bright, white light emitted from the wand tip. His mother was almost jumping for joy when this had happened. When his father came home from work that night and heard what had happened that morning, he was so incredibly proud. And Rory knew from that day on he would be going to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Then there was there was earlier this year – just before he’d left for school – when he’d started to go through the rebellious phase that most teenagers went through magical or Muggle –. He wanted to get his ear pierced and grow his hair out long, but both his parents had put their foot down at that suggestion. His father said. 'No son of mine is going to become like a Muggle - like delinquent!' As far as both OF his parents were concerned, the subject was closed. Rory stormed off that day muttering something about parents not understanding the youth of today, but he was determined to show them. About two weeks later some of his friends and himself were in Diagon Alley, and as the four of them were passing E. A. R. Pierce: Magical Tattoo Parlour, he’d stopped suddenly, causing the two boys behind him to crash into his back - which they weren’t too happy about it.

After arranging to meet up with his friends at the ice cream Parlour, he entered the shop. Half an hour later he’d walked into the ice cream Parlour sporting a dragon shaped ear stud. His friends were extremely jealous, but they admired the stud and complemented him on his choice. However, Rory knew that the real challenge would be when he went home to have his father see what he had done against his wishes. For the time being, he wasn’t going to let the idea stop him from having fun that day with his mates.

After having a couple of iced sundaes each, Rory and his friends were wondering what they’d do next when one of them suggested that they take a trip into London. Rory was unsure about this idea, but after a bit of persuasion, he was talked into it. They made their way to the brick wall that separated the Leaky Cauldron from Diagon Alley and walked through the pub, exiting into the busy street of Charing Cross Road. Once in the street and amongst the noise and exhaust fumes, Rory recoiled a bit and stumbled back a couple of paces. He now remembered why he hated London - he hated Muggle technology -. He couldn’t stand the noise and pollution that the cars threw out, and the thing they called television. To him the technology just ruined the way a family should be. It alienated people and killed the way of what family life should be truly like. He absolutely hated Muggle technology. He went back to Diagon Alley as quickly as he could. Once he made it home - as predicted - his father had almost blown a fuse when he saw the stud.

The next memory was about blue tack. Rory hated the stuff. When he was five years old, an uncle of his had brought some back from his travels around the Muggle world and had gave a package of the stuff to Rory. He’d asked his uncle what the stuff was, and the reply he received back was that Muggles used it to stick pictures up on walls, just like wizards used the sticking charm. So while taking it upstairs, Rory opened the pack and ran to his room. He took out a slab of a blue, sticky gooey substance and pulled it apart. Somehow some had gotten into his hair, which resulted in a panic for Rory. He tried to remove it, but he seemed to have made it worse. Eventually he ran down the stairs into the living room and ran crying into his mother's arms. It didn’t take long for her to work out what the problem was and begin to try and remove some of the blue tack herself, but that only made it worse.

'Well there’s only one thing we can do,' she said. She stood up and went over to a large, heavy wooden wall unit and opened a drawer. She pulled out a comb, a pair of scissors and a set of clippers. She was moving towards her son, who was watching the implements in his mother’s hands and started backing away toward the door, when he suddenly turned and was about to make a dash for it, but found the way blocked by his father. His mother took him by the back of his neck and dragged him to a wooden chair, wrapped a towel around his neck, and set to work cutting out the bits of blue tack before going over his head with the clippers to even out where she had cut out tufts of hair to get rid of the horrible sticky, blue substance. When she finished, Rory looked in the mirror and was appalled at what he saw. He looked like a skinhead. There were barely two millimetres of hair left on his head. He looked back at his mother with a look that seemed to say it was her fault, but then she produced a chocolate frog. Upon seeing this, Rory looked at the sweet, then at his mother, and then shrugged his shoulders. He took the chocolate treat from his mother's hand and walked back upstairs to his room.

Next he remembered his sorting. The hat had been unsure of where to place him at first. It had gone on and on about how loyal, brave, hard working and slightly ambitious he was. He could still hear it saying that he was suitable for all of the houses, but the hat also detected something in him. It felt something about Rory that was going to be important later in life, so it settled on putting him in Gryffindor. It was a bit puzzling at first, but he’d accepted the hat's decision without question.

Just before Rory come back to Hogwarts to attend his fourth year, he had a severe argument with his father. Rory was ashamed of his dad for even staying at the Ministry in the former Auror office – which was now the headquarters for the Death Eaters – and he had not been afraid to tell his father what his opinion of him was. There had been a lot of shouting and bitterness on both sides, and it resulted in Rory going to King's Cross by himself.

At last Rory was awoken up from his daydreaming by the voice of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named stating how he was disappointed with the occupants of Hogwarts. They left him with no choice but to do what he had to do. Rory got up from the table he had been sitting at all this time and went towards one of the windows that overlooked the school gates. He saw bolts of light hit the defensive shields that had been erected and cracks that already started to appear in various places.

Rory walked out of the Great Hall and out of the large front doors of the castle. He took up a defensive position overlooking the school gates and Hogsmeade with many others and waited. He could see the Dark Lord and his followers – there seemed to be so many –. He glanced along the line of defenders and saw fear etched into many faces. Each person seemed to be preoccupied with their own thoughts. Rory himself started to regret the argument with his father. He was afraid that he would never see him or his brothers and sister again. As he was thinking about his family, a hand came down on his right shoulder and he turned around to look into the face of his father. Rory was so choked up with emotion that he started to waffle on. His father looked down at his son and smiled giving Rory’s shoulder a squeeze as if to say everything was in the past and forgotten about. As the protective wards fell and the hordes rushed forward they both stood side by side and pointing their wands towards the enemy. Then they shouted together as if with one voice, STUPYFY.