Auror Master

Warning: This is not standard Harry Potter fanfiction. It contains scenes of violence and some inappropriate language.

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Auror Master

Fanfiction by Phoenix.

No web page for this story as of yet.

Harry Potter and its associated characters are copyright by J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., Scholastic Inc, and Bloomsbury.

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Part 1 - Returns

An icy chill pervaded through the black night; cold except for the unnaturally hot wind blowing south with the scent of acrid smoke. Through the dark starless sky slightly covered by clouds, intermittent moonlight shone on to the thick green forest revealing, little by little, a snaking trail of destruction. Burnt and broken tree stumps lay on the ravaged path - some still burning with small flickering flames - as well as fallen branches and other debris interspaced with giant animalistic footprints. A dark figure wrapped in a hooded black robe ran through the woodland almost silently, the robe's folds flapping gently behind like a floating shadow. The only sound was the dry vegetation softly crunching beneath thick black boots as it followed the trail onward. Emerald-green eyes took wide sweeps, observing the desecrated area. An eleven inch black wand was adjusted briefly by a hand as it sped up the pace. The settlement was close...

Flames crackled and fires burned. The small town settlement lit up the night, its modest structures engulfed like the wood of a bonfire. Everywhere, screaming and smoke filled the magically hot air as hundreds of people ran, all seeking escape from the terror of attacking raiders. Apparating from the south without warning, burning and pillaging without mercy, huge, hostile magical creatures assisted their trainers in the merciless and violent raid.

Totally unprepared for the assault, towns-people and their magic were blocked and destroyed almost as soon as it was incanted. The huge, grey seven-feet-tall veela took another long breath before continuing to spit out a long and melting-hot burst of flame that turned the schoolhouse into glowing crimson embers. At the opposite end of town, an angry werewolf smashed through houses with its dagger-sharp teeth and claws at the direction of its master trampling over possessions and structures alike. Meanwhile, almost matching it in damage, the sharp-taloned, golden-brown hippogriffs and the massively horned dragons rampaged through the town hall and community buildings.

Little by little, the attackers slowly advanced towards the supply buildings in the centre of the town where the food and water was stored. Behind a slowly burning house, a young brown-haired girl screamed as a grinning male raider grabbed and pinned her against the wall. Nearby, the troll he was in charge of watched in interest. The raider slapped the girl across the mouth hard. "Shut up with the screaming, bitch, and take this like a woman!" He began to work his fly open and loosen his pants. A shadow shifted. Suddenly an explosion of pain erupted in the raider's head and the next thing he knew was the feel of the rushing air as he was picked up and thrown violently away from the girl. The hard dirt ground met his back all too abruptly and the breath exploded out of his lungs. "Bastard!" he coughed furiously as he rolled to his feet and opened his eyes to see who had dared attack him.

Several feet away, a tall figure wrapped in darkness stood watching him, its silhouette all but invisible if it weren't for the background of burning houses and hazy grey smoke behind it. All of a sudden he felt a cold stab of fear enter his heart. There was something familiar about this... Then he growled in anger. He was mistaken. This was just a poor fool who was trying to be a hero. "Urgguf, take him!" He laughed. "tear him apart, nice and slow."

Already hissing in anger because of the attack to its commander, the large muscular creature needed no second bidding. It gave an inhuman snarl and extended its strong, bony hands before leaping towards the shadow. However, a rapid spin kick stopped the charging beast's attack, while one of its fists was seized and used against it, forcing it into it's own torso like it was punching through a sheet of paper.

The Troll blinked in confusion before toppling over, its chest a puddle of oozing dark blood. "Urgguf?" the man said in shock. No man could be strong or swift enough to do what the figure had just done. He continued to stare, dumbfounded, before a hard booted foot smashed into his jaw and everything went black.

Puffing a large cloud of dark smoke, the huge veela eyed the supply structures in hunger as even more raiders surrounded the area in a half-ring of hostile forces. It grunted questioningly to its commander in a rough throaty tone. "No," the tall woman answered with a slight chuckle. "The supplies we were raiding for in the first place would be destroyed." She looked over to one of the other raiders. "You! Use your werewolf to break the walls down. Then we'll have some fun."

She chuckled deep in her throat as her sub-ordinate directed his subhuman creature to charge through the building. A sudden wet splattering sound sounded from behind them. Turning instantly, they discovered a dead, bleeding acromantula still sliding toward them along the dirt ground from the momentum of being thrown, its blood acting as lubricant. It was shockingly mutilated. Somehow all eight of its own long, hairy arms had been twisted around to fatally strangle itself while its large head was held on to it's body by half an inch of bone that still remained in place, while all the flesh gone, scratched off in the strangling.

The mangled brown and white corpse gradually came to a stop before their feet. For a short moment there was silence. Then one of the raiders shouted in anger. "My best subordinate! Whoever did this, I'll kill him!" From behind a burning building, a tall figure wrapped in a black hooded cloak abruptly stepped out into sight. The cloak was flapping sinuously, slightly open in the hot wind, revealing a man's lean but muscular body, shrouded in darkness. His face was concealed in the deep shadows of the hooded cowl, leaving only bright, emerald-green eyes visible. They seemed to glow in the dark; two points of flaring green light.

The space between him and the raiders narrowed threateningly. "Arrogant bastard, isn't he? Think you're an Auror Master with that cloak?" the woman raider mocked. "Surround him!" The huge veela, werewolf, dragons, and their commanders walked around to slowly encircle the cloaked stranger. The frightened towns-people scattered about the area watched in terrified silence, thoughts of escape forgotten. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?" the woman raider asked scornfully. "Before you are roasted alive?" Her veela snorted in anticipation, leaving rings of smoke to shine in the moonlight before they dissipated into the darkness.

There was a dangerous quality to the power that suddenly radiated from the person that sent a feeling of apprehension down the raiders' necks. Then they looked down at the cloaked stranger's wand. It seemed to be an ordinary wand, a piece of wood narrowing around to make a point at the top. Except this one's colour was not a normal colour with a thick base of a different colour, but a one thickness, shadow black. If it weren't for the yellow lightning-bolt carved in the top, it might have been perfectly camouflaged in the dark night as lay in its owner's hand.

She laughed out loud. "That's a weird wand, stranger, but Ruelf will still roast that tiny thing into oblivion! Ruelf, burn that guy into ashes!" The huge, grey winged creature rose up to its full height of two and a half feet and inhaled sharply. A powerful wind arose, the air ruffling the stranger's cloak and causing the top of his wand to sway back and forth. Then the veela leaned forward and exploded a huge tongue of bright red flame towards the stranger. But suddenly the sound of power crackled in the night air, and a shield of black magic repelled the fire. It sparked and hissed violently as it deflected the flame harmlessly to the sides before winking out. "Ginthgilia Xetrovos." The man mumbled.

Abruptly, the crackle of dark magic and a dark eerie glow surrounded the man. The raiders stepped backwards, startled. They had never seen the like of this attack before. A sharp wind began to kick up and rotate around the stranger. Dust, leaves and debris from the destruction of the town's buildings began to stir and rise. Rocks and planks of wood lifted into the air. The veela began to slide forward despite its huge weight. It grunted in confusion, then fear as it began to slide faster. It flapped its wings to take off, but that was a mistake as it was only pulled into the powerful winds that much faster. The raiders themselves began to get inhaled, as well as everything around them that wasn't securely attached to the ground.

The werewolf howled as it scrabbled backward, paws digging into the dirt. However the wind was becoming much too strong. "What the devil of an attack is this?" the veela's commander shouted in confusion as she tried to claw herself through the air and back to the ground. It was useless. The velocity of the magic-made tornado picked up speed and soon the town was just a revolving blur to the raiders and their creatures as they spun around wildly. Then the man mumbled, "Tredne!" and a ring of destructive dark magic exploded from the centre of the vortex - from the man itself. A flash of darkest energy was seen and the raiders and their subordinates knew no more.

The cloaked figure stood in silence. Around them, the ring of raiders and their magical beasts lay unconscious, if not dead, smoking, some even on fire. The veela was definitely dead, its body ripped in two distinct pieces, the severed ends, blackened and frayed. The smell of cooked meat and dissipated electricity hung heavily in the night air. The man put the wand back in his pocket. The townspeople began to approach him wearily despite their instincts to just flee from a man who revealed himself as so dangerous. A white-haired older man who was most probably their leader or Mayor was in the lead. "T-That was most impressive." He looked at the pocket that the wand was in and shivered. How could a wand attract that much power? He shook his head and regarded the cloaked stranger again.

"B-But, who are you?" The stranger lifted his hand towards the hood covering his head and slowly removed it, settling it back behind his shoulders. It revealed a handsome, young man's face with a scar of the same shape as the mark on his wand, except on his forehead. He seemed to be in his early twenties, although his emerald-green eyes seemed older than their time. The night wind picked up again, blowing the smoke of the ruined village in the background. It ruffled the stranger's longish unruly black hair, causing it to fall half across his face and obscure part of his vision. He blew the lock of hair out of his eyes with an upturned lip and a gust of breath. He answered them.

"I am Harry."

Warm healing light from the morning sun bathed itself over the small half-destroyed town. Despite this the air was still freezing cold, causing the villagers to shiver slightly as they worked hard at repairing their homes. The raiders had caused such extensive damage that it would be some time before the town recovered if at all. But at times like these, people could only try.

The sound of hammers ringing on anvils reverberated loudly in the still air and the sawing of wood echoed among the destroyed buildings. Harry sighed as he warmed one of his hands on the fire and sipped some tea from a mug in the other. Leaning back on to the rough trunk of a tall tree, he combed the hair out of his eyes. Hard to believe this had once been Little Whining. It had been so long. Now he knew no one. They were all strangers.

He closed his eyes. He was a stranger. A giggle interrupted his internal monologue and he sighed again. Would these kids ever leave him alone? He opened his eyes to observe the crowds of children, infants and teenagers alike as they scampered around his campsite at the edge of the raided town and the forest.

"Does that cloak mean it's true you're an Auror Master?"

"Why don't you have any more wands?"

"Silly, he's only got one wand."

"How come you only have one wand?"

"I've never heard of a Master with only one wand."

"Mister, why is your wand a weird colour?"

And the questions they asked. He couldn't have been this noisy as a kid. He might have been really annoying. A new voice spoke up. "I've heard about the one with the black, or 'shadow' wand." It was a sceptical woman who had been observing them from afar for some time but only now had come closer. She was a pretty, blonde woman who most probably had turned the heads of many men. Harry ignored her, his whimsical mood darkening, and looked down to contemplate the bubbles in his butterbeer.

"It is said that he was unbeatable and that he was once the top trainer in the Ministry." The kids hearing this, fell to silence. They began to look at him fearfully. Some even began to step backward. "Then one day he disappeared..." Harry put his mug down, picked up his long cloak and stood up. It was time for him to leave. It was always time for him to leave. He looked up to find that all of the children had made their escape.

However, one of the teenagers was still there. "Mister, I don't believe for one instant you were one of the evil Ministry," she said forcefully. It was the girl he had saved from last night. "No one who was one of them could be as heroic and handsome as you are..." The blonde woman sucked in her breath. "You don't know who you're talking to..." Harry just began to roll up his sleeping bag impassively. "She is right. You do not know me." He clenched his black-gloved fist and stared at it, his thought's a thousand miles away. "You do not know me at all."

Seemingly permanently hidden behind its dense layer of grey clouds, the afternoon sun slowly slid across its downward trajectory along the sky. Although the wind was beginning to pick up speed, ruffling Harry's cloak and hood, the deserted ruins of the city were silent. Almost too silent. Not even the insects were chirping their songs, though overgrown foliage was plentiful among the stones. He shrugged his black cloak around his shoulders slightly, loosening it. There might be a battle soon. Someone was following him. And it seemed ... like with hostile intent. "

He saddened as he looked around at the far-off debris that used to be London.. This place held memories for him. It was the first city he had gone to with friends. Hagrid, Ron, Hermione. Without them, he would not be where he was now. Most likely, dead. He, Ron and Hermione had stuck by each other through thick and thin. Harry stared at the broken-down wall of one of the old buildings. In fact that was probably part of Diagon alley. Now this city was nothing but a deserted forest of crumbling rubble. Even the air smelled dead. It was just like all the other major cities that had been destroyed back in the Dark Wars. A cloud of dust was picked up by the wind and he held his hand over his nose and mouth as it passed. He could still feel the itch on the back of his neck. Whoever it was, was still following them. It kept a safe distance and didn't seem to be advancing on them... Yet.

His ears pricked up. Harry turned and glanced at the area that the person following him was hiding in. "Yes, there's someone following us." He thought. "But they seem to be keeping back-" The crumbling stone wall they had been walking parallel to abruptly exploded with a hail of sharp rocks. Shrapnel and rubble showered over them in a spiked, painful rain as a massive object crashed through with a rumble the sound of thunder. "What?" He grunted, as he quickly jumped away to safety, just in time, before the place he was standing was smashed, as he rolled sideways along the gravel of the old road. After rolling away at what he thought a sufficient distance, he swung to his feet, jumped and back-flipped away to land on top of the opposite wall.

He threw the hood of his cloak back and brushed his hand across his temple. He felt the slight stickiness of blood. "Wand! To me!" The piece of magical wood jumped into his right hand once again. Then he turned to the scene of the attack with narrowed eyes. Dust was floating around everywhere. It was hard to even make out the wall they had been walking next to. He raised his hand to shelter his face as he quickly searched. He had not even sensed this threat. Which meant the attacker was one of *them*.

Finally the dust settled. There was a gaping trench in the wall and next to it lay a huge, brown bag about a dozen feet across. Then with a loud creaking of stone, thick, grey limbs began to sprout from the massive sack. The eyes on the thick skinned, serpent head, suddenly swivelled open. They were an angry red - the colour of blood.

"TRAITOR," the head hissed. "Erumpentol," Harry acknowledged, turning his body slightly sideways in alert preparation. "IT WAS YOU WHO INTERFERED WITH THE RAID ON THE LITTLE WHINING SETTLEMENT YESTERDAY. YOU HAVE BEEN A LOOSE CANNON TOO LONG, HARROLD. TODAY IT ENDS. YOU SHALL FINALLY PAY FOR YOUR TREACHERY." "I think not." "YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO MAGICAL-KIND!" the Rhinoceros-like creature roared. "EARTHQUAKE!" It lifted a huge stone fist and pounded the ground. The earth shook wildly as a large jagged crack rapidly approached the wall he was standing on.

Harry leaped high into the air, tossing himself to the side just before the quake reached it and reduced the stone wall to dust. As he landed softly upon the ground on one knee, a hand clutching a loose fold of his cloak steady, the massive beast again pounded the earth in its Earthquake attack, this time using both of its front legs. Harry was hard-pressed to avoid the cracks of destruction heading his way as he turned a backward somersault then hand-flipped smoothly across the ruins. He barely dodged the wildly shaking earth attacks that shredded the ground behind and below him like a rapid jackhammer. Then he exhaled in pain as a piece of rock shaped like a dagger flew up and embedded itself into his leg. He landed painfully and slid along on his chest, the gravel digging into the palms of his hands.

"Calaspos!" he incanted in the direction of the ruin of a building, hoping to distract the huge creature. "Kipaki!" Black lightning began to spark from his wand. Erumpentol grunted as it stopped its Earthquake attack. "DIE," it rasped as the huge animalistic boulder began to charge at the wizard. The ground rumbled from its immense weight. Harry looked up in apprehension. "CihapkuCIPA!" he cried, body crackling violently as it sent a powerful black thunderbolt toward the oncoming threat. However, despite the extreme strength of the dark electric attack, it dissipated harmlessly over the magically reinforced thick-skinned body of Erumpentol.

The huge, limbed boulder continued forward in its mad charge. "No!" Harry called out desperately. Exhaling a breath in pain, he ripped out the piece of stone shrapnel from his leg, then leaped forward, knocking debree out of the way. The beast careened past and screamed in frustration at missing its intended target. After skidding to a stop, it looked at Harry lying on the ground nearby with a malevolent gleam in its blood-red eyes. It went over to Harry and stood above harry like a cat cornering a mouse.

"NOW YOU DIE," Erumpentol chuckled. It used the same technique that allowed it to create earthquakes on Harry before kicking him away like a broken toy. Harry uncontrollably flipped in midair then crashed on the hard ground with a muted thump on his back and continued to slide painfully away. His cloak ripped in several places as the rocky and jagged ground's friction took its toll, before a large piece of stony rubble stopped his momentum with a crunching sound. Feeling like his chest had caved in and died, Harry coughed and spat out a mixture of blood and saliva as he lay on the ground and rolled over. Slowly, he got up on his hands and knees, shaking furiously.

"Now you've gotten me angry, Erumpentol. And you'll see just why they called me the Assassin." His voice was low and calm. His voice was death. The beast looked at him in confusion. It had expected the human to be lifeless. Dead. Granted, this one had once been an Auror Master in the Ministry of Magic, but at the heart of things, he was still a puny human. It had given enough blows into its chest to shatter concrete, let alone bone. "HOW CAN YOU STILL BE ALIVE?" "That's a question you'll soon be asking yourself!' Harry cried, before flipping to his feet and streaking forward so fast that his form blurred into a live shadow. The creature tried to dodge, but it was much to slow to avoid the massive step-roundhouse kick aimed at its legs, then another and another. Dust rose as with each hit, Erumpentol was knocked backward. But the Golem seemed unperturbed.

"FOOL! YOU CANNOT HOPE TO DAMAGE ME," it taunted as each hit seemed to fail to affect it. But it began to feel apprehension at the furious attack the human displayed. After all, back in the Dark Wars, this one had gained a reputation... Harry paused in his rapid attack, standing on one heel, before seeming to make the very light bend around his fore-knuckle fist as he struck forward with a single massive blow, scoring directly across both thick, rocky legs. Then he leaped backward, high in the air, before flipping around with a one and a half twist and landing lightly on an intact section of the wall. The sound of his boots striking the stone was non-existent. "You were already dead from the first hit," he stated calmly, as the folds of his cloak settled around him. Too calmly, the creature suddenly worried. Time seemed to stand still.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE - NOOO!" Its front legs abruptly gave way from underneath it as they crumbled into dust like the fine sand of an hourglass. The torso of the bag-like beast fell to the ground at the loss of its support and toppled over to lie on its side. "IMPOSSIBLE! THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE! I AM INDESTRUCTIBLE!" It tried to lift itself up by the use of its remaining legs, but lost balance and fell over again. Harry held his right arm out horizontally and his wand. "We shall see." He threw himself high into the air. "Time to finish it! Ressathop Denuhta!" Midair, he rolled into ball and began to emit a dark light.

"FOOLS! I AM IMPERVIOUS TO MAGICAL ATTACKS." The air around the wizard suddenly roared with thunder and began to spark black lightning as it descended towards the beast. "WHA-WHAT IS THIS?" it shouted in alarm as the attack collided into its chest with a spray of stone shrapnel and shot into its body like a bullet through flesh. When the curse had fully entered its rocky torso, the Beast started to vibrate madly, pebbles and rocks falling away from its skin. "WHA-WHAT MA-MANNER O-OF A CU-CURSE I-IS T-THI-" It didn't get to finish its question. Erumpentol's body turned black and its body began to invert into itself as if it were trying to implode. Then the rumble of thunderclaps and flashes of black lightning exploded from within it and instead the Beast was ripped apart into countless tiny pieces of rock and dust.

When the thunder stopped cracking, there was nothing that could be seen with the naked eye where Erumpentol was standing. A ring of grey and brown dust and rock lay piled around in a circle. The beast's snake-like head rested a dozen feet away, before it too crumbled, like wet sand, into a fine dark powder. " his wand leaped back onto Harry's pocket. There was the sound of clapping. Harry quickly turned around from his position standing on the wall to see a person dressed and hooded in a long Master's cloak like his save it was blue. He or she was leaning on one of the toppled walls of a destroyed building lazily applauding him with their hands. He studied the slender figure more closely. She.

"Only a true Auror Master could defeat one of the eight Master Magical Creatures of the Ministry of Magic." That voice. His eyes narrowed even as something he had thought long forgotten began to arise within his chest. No, it couldn't be. "And who are you to make such observations?" he asked softly. Not answering him, the blue-cloaked figure slowly began to approach, aqua eyes beginning to become visible within the depths of her shadowy hood. Suddenly she leaped up to join him on the wall so abruptly that he was completely unprepared for what she did next. She kissed him. But it was not a loving kiss, nor even one of liking. It was a hard kiss, the type that punished. He broke away from her, feeling the slight coppery taste of his own blood upon his tongue and maybe some of hers, and stood still. He gave no outward reaction.

The aqua eyes studied him for a while with an emotion he couldn't identify. Finally she answered him. "You know who I am." The hood was pushed back to reveal glorious long red hair to float behind a hauntingly beautiful face. And then the hurt was fully remembered, unbidden, before it changed. To hatred. It welled up in his chest, so powerful it seemed to consume his soul. Abruptly it was replaced by emptiness. He had thought he would never see her again. His voice when it came was a dead tone. "Hello, Hermy." Her eyes, framed by long dark lashes, flashed as cold as an iceberg. "Hermione," she corrected. "And I see you haven't forgotten me." *** End of Part 1

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LIBRARY

SHADOW WAND

A wand specifically made for high rank wizards in the defence department during the Dark Wars. Made of transfiguring one's wand into pure shadow. Capable of great dark magic. Only one ever successfully made.

Attack : Dark Vortex

A powerful hurricane is formed around the person casting the spell. When the opponents are sucked inside, a ring of destructive dark energy is exploded outward.

Attack: Dark Thunder Implosion

The person rolls into a ball and glows with a black light before the spell entering the victim's body. The victim then vibrates and explodes, leaving nothing in its place.

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Notes: Welcome to Auror Master...

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Phoenix: Phoenix_HP@excite.com