A/N: It's been a while - real life (read: a thesis) has taken over and I've had to prioritise my writing. For those of you following Phoenix Rising, my Marauders story, another chapter will be coming out soon.
THE HELLION GATE
an Auror Commander story
—
I run a hand against the worn stone of the parapet, and look out to the snowy peaks that surround this place.
I might die here. If I do, then I will never meet my second son.
"He has your eyes," Ginny writes in a letter that arrived by owl only yesterday.
We have already decided what we will call him.
Albus Severus.
It is a name that honours great men.
The Nordic fortress has high, unforgiving walls, built many millennia ago, in a time when magic was commonplace in the world. It guards a great power: a source of magic that gifts immortality.
It is an incredible treasure.
And they seek it. A foul cult, numbering in the hundreds, who delve in the arcane, and revel in the terrible things dark magic can have grown strong far from my regular jurisdiction. But my jurisdiction extends to wherever I choose. It is one of the privileges of being me.
I know from experience what dark magic can do. It is nothing to revel in. Nor is immortality. I learned that when I was eleven years old.
Fate, perhaps, has dealt me a cruel hand. I was invited here, by the custodians who inhabit this place, to assist with rebuilding the protective spells that have weakened over centuries of age and neglect.
Just another responsibility of the Auror Commander.
But only a day after my arrival, word comes from a scout: the cult has been sighted, and they are fast approaching from the black woods to the east. They intend to assault this fortress, this grand old lady of granite and burnished bronze.
She is old, but she is not yet so weak. They will not be able to take the walls. They are too thick and too tall. So there is only one way in, one single entrance point:
The Hellion Gate.
Embedded deep into the fortress wall, it stands ten feet high, and six feet wide. The steel from which it is wrought is six inches thick. To reach it, one must make their way down a narrow corridor - thirty feet long - that leads to the Gate. Only one or two can attack at a time.
Here, I will make my stand.
Nine years ago, in a clandestine operation that is spoken of only in murmurs, I became a weapon. I was relentless in my pursuit of evil, and found myself consumed by vengeance, embracing terrible darkness to exact my revenge.
It has been many years since I have killed like that. That terrible darkness fuels me no longer.
But the darkness is there still, an irrevocable, irreversible part of myself that I keep hidden, locked deep inside, partly because the danger that made it necessary is no more, and partly because I am afraid that, if released, I would never be able to reclaim it.
The dawn light is creeping over the horizon.
Soon, they will come.
A hunting horn breaks my reverie, and I walk to the entrance of the narrow corridor. I can make out clusters of figures in the early light.
As they group together, I do a rough count: about one hundred. Part of me knows that this should be impossible, that what I am contemplating doing is sheer madness. These are ludicrous odds.
Yet I stay.
Ron leads a contingent of Aurors across the mountains. As soon as the cult was spied, owls were sent for aid. But Apparation is nearly impossible amongst these rocky peaks, and flying is out of the question: the howling mountain gales ensure that.
So they must trek, as I have, across the mountain pass, and hope it has not been blockaded by the blizzards. The journey will take two days and two nights.
That is how long I must survive.
They have paused now, some fifty feet from me. Mostly men, but with a scattering of women throughout the group. They are garbed in motley cloaks and animal furs. Some are painted with red faces, snarling, and hungry.
I draw a sharp breath. The cool air floods my senses. I curl my fingers around my wand, feeling the reassuring hum of magical energy that flows through it.
"You will go no further!" I shout.
A few moments later, a man approaches me with confidence.
"Jagen demands entrance into this place, stranger. Yield and you may still live."
"Inform your leader that the Auror Commander denies him passage."
His expression suddenly grows unsure.
I have a reputation that precedes me. Everyone alive in the magical world knows who the Auror Commander is, and what he is capable of.
He skulks off, back to the group. I wait for a few minutes, before I hear arguing, followed by a bloodcurdling yell, and then a second man approaches me.
He holds the severed head of the first man. He walks up to me, nervously, and drops the head at my feet.
I pity this second messenger. He does not have the look of a man who is ready to die. But if I am to survive, then I need to make an impression.
My Killing Curse illuminates the snowy plateau with a violent green flash, and the fur-robed man falls to the ground. I levitate his body with my wand, and catapult the corpse into the ranks of the cult. A chorus of yells and angry battle cries reply.
I think it is safe to say that the pleasantries have been dealt with.
And so it begins.
Several charge me at a rush. I retreat into the narrow corridor with my back to the Gate. Here, in this confined space, they cannot all attack me at once.
Two jets of light streak towards me, and I parry, dismissing both curses with deft wand flicks. I toy at their shields, biding my time. I know I can outlast them, but only if I do this right.
A third wizard squeezes into the narrow space, firing a spell that misses me by a fraction.
I retaliate with a Killing Curse, and then another. The two green jets both hit their marks. A slashing jinx tears through the shield of the third, and with another deft wand movement I break his neck.
A witch, nimble on her feet, directs the Cruciatus Curse at me, trying to break through my shield charms. I let them fall, responding with a Crucio of my own.
For a moment, the intense, shattering pain slams into every fibre of my being, before the agony from my own curse overwhelms her. She crumples, screaming, and I dispatch her with a jet of green light.
A blasting curse takes out two more, and a variation on Sectumsempra claims three more that try to kill me.
Jagen commands a motley collection of followers. From fervent warlocks and mages that adhere to a strict, ritualistic practice of the dark arts to opportunistic scum, turned away for petty crime and are seeking to make a quick Sickle. I even sense a werewolf amongst his ranks, and am thankful the full moon passed a week ago.
But despite their disparity, one thing is true of all Jagen's soldiers.
They are all able to die.
Sixteen…seventeen…eighteen, nineteen.
And then, before I know it, dusk falls. They would be foolish to attack in the night. There are other dangers that stalk the woodlands surrounding the fortress. For the first time, luck is on my side.
Beasts of magic from the woods - direhounds - strike at their unprotected flanks, and they fall back to their makeshift camp to protect themselves from the pack. The reprieve gives me the chance to replenish my energy, and tend to my wounds.
The stench of the dead fills my nostrils with every breath.
My body aches for sleep. From a hip flask, I down a replenishing potion that we call 'superjuice' in the Auror Office. The adrenalin hits me at a rush, and I feel my strength return slowly to me.
As the dawn breaks on the second day, I am met by berserkers: part-wizard, part-giant - and I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't part-troll; men who merely grunt as my spells glance off their thick, leathery skin.
I conjure icy shards from the earth and the sky, and punch two through the chest of one my foes. A second is impaled through the throat. A fountain of blood gushes from the gaping hole.
More of Jagen's followers push forwards. He has promised a thousand Galleons to the man who brings him my head.
I'm almost insulted.
Twenty-three…twenty-four, twenty-five…twenty-six.
Jagen's priests try their hand, summoning a demonlike creature I have never seen or heard of. Red eyes fixate on me, and it leaps at me with wicked claws.
I hold it at bay whilst I figure out how to kill it. Roaring in frustration, it batters against my shields. Three times it tears through, raking my chest and arm. I yell in pain as the wounds set fire to my flesh.
I cast an assortment of hexes and curses at it to no avail. It presses the attack and I find myself with my back against the Hellion Gate as the beast pummels at my flimsy blue shield.
I fire a torrent of golden light at the beast, and for the first time in what feels like hours, it recoils.
I fire several more golden jets, each shooting from my wand like a shotgun blast.
"Die!" I yell, exhilarated. The thrill of battle consumes me.
The last golden torrent punches a hole through the beast. But my small victory comes at a cost.
Two jagged cuts run across my chest and another on my left arm. Each wound is festering with a sickly green tinge, and my head is spinning. I heave up the contents of my stomach.
It is late afternoon when the beast falls to my golden curse, and desperation makes them continue the attack into the second night.
Jagen's warlocks gather and launch a continuous assault of exploding charms into the narrow corridor. The barrage of magical energy is constant, and I expend my strength to protect myself as the earth shakes with each explosion.
I falter suddenly, and an explosion blasts me backwards. I crash into the Hellion Gate, the back of my head slamming into the unyielding steel. I fall to my knees. At least four of my ribs feel broken, and my ears are ringing. Blood runs from a burst eardrum, and my sight is unfocused.
The warlocks approach me. They sense my injuries, and go for the kill. One raises his wand and fires a jet of red light at me.
I reach out a hand in desperation. The action saves my life, and my shield reassembles itself just in time for the red light to ricochet away.
I get to my feet, and as curses explode in the air only inches from my face, I know what I must do to survive.
With no choice, I release the darkness that I have kept chained inside myself for so long.
I will not die here.
For I have become Death.
And Death cannot die.
As the sun sets that second night, I become the darkness against darkness, embracing my anger and using it to fuel the black magic that I use against their own.
And for the next twelve hours, I am not myself.
I blast inky black lightning into fur-covered figures that collapse, screaming to the ground as my dark magic destroys their bodies and their minds.
They are like lambs to the slaughter.
Forty-eight…forty-nine…fifty.
With a rat-tat-tat that echoes from the mountaintops, I sever limbs, hands, and heads. A shard of vengeful red light pierces the neck of one attacker, leaving blood spurting from a gaping wound. Another jumps to attack me and finds her insides tumbling out from two quick wand slashes. She falls to the ground as her hands frantically struggle to contain her innards.
They summon Inferi from their own dead, those who I have laid to waste on this barren ground. They give the last of their humanity over to this task, to somehow defeat me, and break the Hellion Gate.
My exhaustion is near total, yet somehow I find the strength I need.
With a broad arc of my wand, I cast the Fiendlight - a Patronus born from hellfire that I created and I alone can cast. It is the perfect balance of light and dark magic.
It tears, livid and vengeful, through the Inferi, just as it did all those years ago at Holyhead.
The last of their warlocks are shocked to witness this. Inferi are amongst the most arcane of their arts, and I have vanquished even this foe.
Sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-one…
A werewolf rushes me. It is not the full moon but he has a glint of madness in his eye. His teeth are filed to points, and flecks of rabid spittle spurt from his mouth.
He burns like Fenrir Greyback burned.
Seventy-two.
The night is pitch black, but a brilliant wall of livid fire illuminates the fortress like the midday sun. Beads of sweat from the exertion and the heat run down my stained face. My mouth is dry with dehydration, and a dizzying wave of nausea almost has me retching. I don't know how much longer I can keep up my defence.
But the battle has taken its toll on my foe too, and finally, the discontent amongst Jagen's followers grows too great for him to ignore. The moment I have waited for has arrived.
On the third day, Jagen takes the field of battle.
Immediately, I sense his strength. One does not amass a small army of followers through weakness.
But there is uncertainty in his black eyes. Scores of his wounded and deceased litter the causeway leading to the Gate.
"Auror Commander," he states, part greeting, part taunt.
I spit blood in reply, and level an impassive stare at him.
He wastes no time, and neither do I.
Our curses collide, and we begin the dance of death, both knowing that only one of us is going to walk away from this.
He is a challenge, I will give him that.
Jets of dark magical energy pass mere inches from my face, as I twist and weave away from his curses. To any other opponent, his speed and ferocity would be overwhelming.
And it threatens even me. My exhaustion is taking a toll, and he has the upper hand.
He fires two sharp hexes. I parry one, but the second hits me. It draws a long gash in my side. I gasp with pain as blood freely flows from the wound. Already, I can feel the malicious magic infecting my body.
Enough now.
He fires another blast of inky black lightning, but this time, I reach out with my hand, claw-like, and catch the curse. The light dissipates as I close my fist.
I see genuine surprise in his eyes, and he hesitates for the smallest of moments. It is all the time I need. With three quick blasts, I gain the upper hand in the duel. I parry his riposte, and launch a bolt of white light that collides with his wand shoulder. A swift second bolt of light hits his gut.
Jagen staggers back, and I thrust my wand forwards with a blasting hex that blows a hole through his left hand, severing three fingers. He screams in agony. With two sharp cracks that sound off like pistol whips, I kneecap him. Two shotgun-like blasts explode into his chest. A pool of blood blossoms through his robes.
"In the name of Merlin and Barden's Justice, the twin Guardians in the North, I, Harry Potter –"
One of Jagen's lieutenants, faithful to the end, rushes at me. I dismiss him with a flick of my wand that sends him sprawling.
"– under the power granted to the Auror Commander by the First Laws, hereby sentence you to die."
Jagen's last expression is one of pure fear.
"Avada Kedavra."
As he topples backwards into the snow, they finally understand.
Immortality is overrated.
And now they run, fleeing for the tree line, dashing headlong into the blackwood with no regard for the dangers that lurk there, to make their escape.
I do not follow them. I cannot. It is all the effort I have remaining just to stand.
It is mid-morning when reinforcements arrive. A squadron of Nordic Hitwizards, complimented by most of my own Auror Office, descend en masse from the mountain pass.
Only when they are in sight do I collapse to the ground. The blood flowing from my wounds mixes with the snow. The last thing I see is Ron rushing towards me with a stricken look on his face.
Later, I wake, inside the fortress. A Mediwitch gives me a concerned smile as I wince from the pain in my torso and my left arm.
Kara Albright, one of my first friends in the Auror Office, makes her way over, muttering about how my adventures will drive her to an early grave. It's nothing I haven't heard before.
Ron enters the makeshift hospital room a few minutes later, and I share a look with him. No words are exchanged. He understands.
The world will not know what happened here.
They cannot.
This secret, we will keep to our grave.
Even Ginny and Hermione will never know how close I have come to Death.
Once I feel strong enough to travel, our party prepares to journey back across the mountain pass. As we leave, and I walk out onto the bright snow, I notice that the custodians have erected a gibbet by the wall. Jagen's body hangs from it, and a sign has been strung around his neck. I read four words:
'BEWARE THE AUROR COMMANDER'
As much as I would like to keep my stand at the Hellion Gate a secret, whispers inevitably make their way out. Whispers become murmurs, and quickly turn into rumours.
So we embellish. I held the Gate for two hours before reinforcements arrived and the foe surrendered. Jagen resisted and was killed in a firefight by three simultaneous Killing Curses.
I read the story in the Prophet, as they talk of pinning another medal for gallantry on my chest, and wonder how they react if they really knew.
Would they revere me then, or just fear me?
The picture that accompanies the article shows me with my arm in a sling, making my way through the Atrium alongside several other Aurors.
But the picture that stays in my mind is of a battlefield, covered with snow and blood, a place scarred by livid fire and the taint of dark magic; a graveyard made by my own hands.
I place the paper down, and turn my attention back to my newborn son. His green eyes meet my own, and I give him a smile.
—
The End.