Author's Note: Hey folks. This is my first attempt at Harry Potter fanfiction, and though I have a general idea of what I would like to do with this story, I'm not really sure how good it is. If you want to see more, review and let me know. Hope you enjoy!
A warning first: this story is rated M for a reason. If graphic violence, adult language, and other, more adult-in-nature naughty things are not your cup of tea, don't read any further.
Chapter 1 – And Nothing Else Matters
"So close no matter how far…"
- Metallica, Nothing Else Matters
His hands were caked in thick clumps of mud, but somehow, he managed to claw his way back onto his feet and renew his advances into the fray of fighting wizards and witches. Rain pelted down in cutting waves as it had all morning, distorting the scores of people through his glasses, yet he could still trace the faint outline of his enemy through the cacophony of spells and falling bodies- that monster's deathly black robes were unmistakable. In his haste to the cloak figure, he slammed into one rotund figure in a full dash, sending him bowling back into the soggy ground. Momentarily gritting his teeth at the pain shooting through his shoulder, he launched back onto his twisting path.
The dark figure seemed to be waiting expectantly for him through the ocean of people; his hand would wave every now and then, sending various overzealous attackers to their quick, needless deaths as though he were swatting away nothing more than a common house fly. The figure's heavy gaze fell onto him after parting one particular attacker with his head; his withering smile a sick corrosion to the young man's nerves. The figure turned away with apparently no worry for his safety and strode back into the thicket of the dark forest.
"Harry!" he heard a familiar voice shout, slightly piercing through his focused thoughts and the yells and screams all around him. He turned to see the normally wavy amber hair of his best friend matted down around her face; a thin, long gash ran down her left cheek, he could see the streams of rain trickling through the blood that had already stained down her neck and onto her shirt. She looked tired and pale, yet still managed to carry herself to him with resolution etched in her brown eyes, something he'd only recognized from her after a long night of too much studying.
"Harry, I can't find them." She sounded panicked. "My coin isn't working for them at all." He looked down and noticed blood trickling down her slender wrist from some concealed wound from under her sleeves. In her hand, he could see the faint silvery outline of a coin gleaming with droplets of water on its rim. Her other hand was shaking uncontrollably by her side, a few cuts and bruises scattered across her fingers, clenching firmly around her wand.
Great, he thought glumly. The dark figure could no longer be seen, his billowing coal black cloak had faded into the bleak veil of ferns and wood. He hissed out a curse and relented his dark goal for a new purpose. He quickly produced an identical coin from his pocket and peered intently at its face. To anyone else, it appeared to be nothing more than a normal piece of money, but for him and a few select others, it belied information that was undeniably powerful in its importance.
The girl's arm suddenly shot up just above his shoulder and he turned just in time to see a dark violet beam crash squarely into the ivory mask of his would be killer, sending its shards flying in every direction as though a bomb detonated from within it. Its owner crumbled lifelessly to the ground, and the young man turned his attention back to the coin, barely acknowledging another death occurring.
He lifted the tips of his fingers and leveled them at the coin, muttering an old incantation under his labored breath. Something immediately sparked in his pale blues eyes at what the coin revealed.
"They're in there," he said and cocked his head back at the forest. "What in the bloody hell are they doing?" The girl edged closer and peered down onto the coin.
"They might have captured them," her voice trembled. "Everyone knows what they mean to you."
"Fuck!" he roared in frustration, "I thought they were going to stay with you."
The girl gave a long, shuddered breath, "They were with me- then Dawlish and Lestrange found us." Her voice trailed off for a moment and by the dull haze swirling in her eyes, he knew she was reliving something she would rather forget. "They killed four Aurors around us. Dawlish died and by the time Bellatrix was forced back into the rest of the flank of Death Eaters, Ron and Ginny were gone from my side."
Something ached in the pit of his stomach, his fingers felt hollow, even the dull throb ebbed from his bloodied lip as the thought that his girlfriend had best friend might already be dead somewhere in that blasted wood. He shut his eyes tightly and shook his head as though to try and jar the periled thoughts raking away his resolve.
"I'll find them, Hermione." He looked into her eyes, but the air between them had suddenly changed. Somewhere inside of him, he couldn't shake the feeling that this was the last time he would see her. It was something that openly permeated from her gaze as well. She suddenly looked lost; her eyes drained of all its energy, mournfully reminding Harry of when she had to bury her parents over the summer after that monster's henchmen had somehow found their secret hiding place.
She opened her mouth just as he was about to turn towards the area the dark figure vanished in to, her body jarred as she caught herself in the midst of moving towards him. He turned back to her with tears burning in his eyes.
They looked at one another for what seemed like hours, the battle still raging to traumatizing heights behind her. "Harry, I-" her words stopped in her throat and she looked to the ground before meeting his eyes again, "I believe in you."
With that, his friend turned back toward the battle and with an agonizing lump filling his throat, his eyes followed her retreating form until she disappeared into the thickening battle.
He threw himself into the forest, bounding over crumbling arbor, twisting around dense thickets of razor sharp limbs, silently praying the two Weasley's merely escaped some horror to the slightly safer haven of the woods, and just had not returned to the field of battle yet. The centaurs were nowhere to be seen or heard of anywhere around him. He hoped they were far away from Ron and Ginny as well.
Slithers and shards of light piercing the canopy above dotted the path before him, no sounds or whispers of life reached his ears. He leapt down into a small open grove, where a sudden glimmer of light caught his eyes. Looking once more to the face of the coin, he steadied his labored heaves of air and shot forward.
"…they will find us." Ron's faint voice grew over his feet pounding over the dead fauna and crackling brown leaves.
"But who will find us, you imbecile?" his girlfriend shrieked, momentarily coming into view. Harry felt a weight leave his shoulders as he trotted towards them, letting himself relax for once in the day knowing his friends were still alive.
A twig snapped with a loud pop under his foot, and the two redheads quickly turned to his closing figure with their wands immediately held in his direction.
"Merlin, Harry you gave us one hell of a fright!" Ron exclaimed, his whole body sagging dramatically.
"What in the bloody hell are you two doing in here!" he hissed when he stopped in front of the pair. He bent forward, resting his hands on his sore legs, thanking whatever gods that were listening for the small reprieve from the fight.
"It was Death Eaters, Harry." Ginny placed a small hand on his shoulder.
"Remember Dumbledore saying that you will be prime targets for them?" he barked, his anger clearly evident in his voice, "He said that you three should stick together. Do you have any idea what it would do to me if I would've found your bodies instead?"
"We get you, Harry," Ron said in an uncharacteristically soft reply. "It's just that it couldn't be helped on this one. It's nutters out there."
Harry raised his head, silently nodding in apology to them. "Did you get the sorry bastards chasing you?"
"Chasing us Harry?" Ginny asked curiously.
He looked back to his path, sadly noting that he could no longer hear the battle. "Yeah, you said Death Eaters were the reason you two wound up here."
"Oh," Ginny nodded. "Yes, they chased us." He saw her glance over to Ron and Harry turned to him.
"Yeah, Dawlish and Bellatrix flew out of their line and into a clump of us." Ron motioned his hands around, making himself look like a cat pouncing onto its prey.
He felt a tremble in his lips, recalling the dour look that passed over Hermione's eyes when she mentioned that. Though oddly enough to him, Ron and Ginny looked somewhat on edge, yet no sign of horror passed through their faces. It occurred to him at that moment, neither had a scratch on them either; another thing to be thankful for at the very least.
"We gave them a good fight, roughed up Bellatrix swimmingly," Ron puffed out his chest and continued, "but that crazy bitch kept coming. They killed four Aurors around us, and when Dawlish saw us, we knew what he had in mind."
Harry nodded sadly. "To kidnap you," he said, waiting for the rest of the story Hermione had already told him. It was more a terrible statement than a question.
Ron and Ginny nodded, and his tall red-haired friend continued. "We must've lost Hermione at that point. Probably still tangling with Lestrange, knowing her." He looked up to Harry and immediately looked sorry. "Well, you know why Harry. She killed them after all."
Oh yes, Harry knew all too well. He remembered trying to pick Hermione off of the scorched ground of what used to be her house when they arrived there from Grimmauld Place. He remember her crying uncontrollably when they came across a little memento from the culprits, maliciously left their bearing the mark of Bellatrix herself.
It took the rest of last summer for Hermione to leave her room, and she refused to talk to anyone except Harry. It was the death of her parents, she would whisper to him, the bore undeniable proof of a traitor in the midst. Though he, Ron and Hermione were always the closest of friends, something entirely different started to grow between himself and Hermione during their time alone over the summer. Their connection steadily grew into something far beyond friendship, to the point they could easily complete the others sentences, much to the playful ribbing of many of his housemates and Ron.
"Yeah, I understand," he nodded glumly.
"Well, we ripped our way through the fight towards here since he decided to send those mountain trolls to block the doors to Hogwarts." Ron turned at a sound behind him and carefully paced over to the far end of the clearing. "It would've been all well and good if that bastard Dawlish hadn't chased us so far in," he said; his head still as he peered into the forest's depths.
The softening rhythm of breaths suddenly caught in his throat. He replayed the words his best friend had just said over and over in his head. Surely he had been mistaken to hear that, or perhaps Ron thought that it was Dawlish in his haste to exit the battle.
"Dawlish chased you in here?" His voice remained steady, convincingly nonchalant.
"Yeah, it was him," Ginny piped up to his right, "A beast of a man at that- he couldn't fit through the brush too well, seeing how tall he is, so we lost him quickly."
His mind hummed, his thoughts slipping into confusion.
"Ginny…" he paused and faced her directly. "That's impossible. Dawlish died when he and Bellatrix killed those Aurors." From the edge of his vision, he saw Ron visibly tense at his words. Ginny's mouth parted to reply, but something he couldn't recognize flickered across her face.
"How would you know?" her voice had changed, cutting and cold. "You weren't there, so how would you know?"
"Hermione told me," he said in confusion, looking intently at his girlfriend, desperately trying to figure out what he was missing.
"And you believed that fucking bookworm?" the dainty red-haired girl suddenly roared, causing Harry to instinctively step back.
He was at a total loss for words. His eyes darted to and from the siblings, Ron's figure as still as a statue, and Ginny seemingly coming apart before his very eyes.
"And he should, my dear," a cold, dark voice drawled from behind him, igniting the nerves along his spine. He knew that voice as well as his own. It was that empty, rippling timbre that destroyed his dreams on a near nightly basis.
"Hello, Riddle." His growl shook in his chest as the cold, rounded tip of a wand pressed into the curve of his neck.
"Dawlish is dead," his serpentine nemesis hissed, ignoring his insult. "And it was the mudblood Granger that killed him."
Ginny suddenly screamed, her eyes grew empty and dark. The tip of Voldemort's wand slowly pivoted around his neck until he could see the tall, imposing monster come into his field of vision. With his boned, gangly wand pointed directly at Harry's forehead, the monster slowly paced backwards.
Then, something happened that shattered any warmth Harry still held in his body. The monster slowly slipped his free arm around the waist of his girlfriend, who in return, flung her arms around him, sobbing and cursing for blood.
"There, there Ginny." His raspy voice somehow twisted into an abomination of comfort for her. "She will pay."
There was a rustling to his left, and the next thing Harry knew he was crumpled to the ground, his jaw throbbing in pain as the towering visage of Ron loomed over him.
"I've wanted to do that for years." Ron spit on him and growled, "And this is for Ginny."
His apparent best friend reared a boot clad foot back and rammed it directly into Harry's chest, sending him sprawling to his back, gasping and wheezing for air, a fine mist of blood shooting from his heavy coughs.
"Now Mister Weasley," came Riddle's amused yet stern voice, "we must have him somewhat able for a duel."
Then Ron compliantly uttered three words that shook Harry to his very core.
"Yes, my Lord."
The edges of the clearing all around him began to shake and tremble with motion. And from the forest's blackened depths, figures and creatures crept out into the dimmed light of the grove. Lumbering trolls, snarling werewolves, Death Eaters- everywhere. To Harry's horror, there were various creatures who looked like humans, yet seemingly rotted and dead, groaning and awkwardly swaying like limbs on a gnarled, forsaken tree..
Behind his foe, the distant figures of others creatures made themselves known, though it took a moment for Harry to see them. It seemed as though the very shadows of the wood were sapped away and covered the creatures as they walked into the light. Nary a discernable feature told him they were human, except when he noticed their eyes- blighted in the hue of blood, glowing and piercing like crimson fire. It was then that he realized they weren't human at all- they were vampires.
"I am glad you all could come!" Voldemort shouted, pacing in small, preposterously dignified steps. "You- all of you will be my witnesses to the end of this war and the end of this pathetic façade of a world. When this wretched creature before me dies as feebly as I know he will, then I shall never know death!"
The volume of the dark spectators intensified to such levels, Harry weakly covered his ears, though it was probably music to the monster's ears.
"Pick him up! His weakness disgusts me!" Voldemort spat and Harry suddenly felt two strong arms yank him to his feet.
"Ginny," he gasped, still numb in shock. He didn't know what else to say. He could only muster the name of the girl who he had loved so dearly.
His head jerked back as a hand crashed into his cheek. He looked back to see Ginny standing in front of him.
"Surprised, Harry?" she purred. "Well don't be. I, for one, am glad this little game is over."
He then felt one of her small, slender hands trail down his chest. "I can't believe after all that I went through to get you, yet you still trust that fucking bookworm over me," she spat in disgust. Then he felt her fingers wrap around the bulge of his cock and slowly began to pump him.
"At least Dawlish helped with washing the remnants of you off of me," she said in an innocent, yet mocking voice. Then her tone grew darker. "But your mudblood had to go and kill him." She immediately released her grasp on him and sent another resounding slap across his face.
"And poor Ron never even got as far as hugging that fucking mudblood- the brown haired bint was too proper for anything more," she spat. "Just as well though, I imagine. She'll be the Ron's plaything when all is said and done anyway."
"That's right, Potter," she cooed, "and it's a shame you won't be around to see the look on her face when he takes her either."
The Death Eaters around him cackled mercilessly. Voldemort slowly lifted his hand and his gathered minions went silent. He walked over to Harry and pried the coin from his hand. He lifted it to his red, slitted eyes and studied it for a few moments.
"Brilliant piece of magic, Harry. To me, it is just a normal coin," he said. "Your mudblood certainly is the brightest witch of her age. It's a shame she did not foresee that it would ultimately lead to your death, isn't it?"
"When the young Weasley siblings came to me with these, I then realized the perfect way to lure you away from that cretin Dumbledore and all his merry soldiers." He walked back to where Ginny's form stood. "Knowing how deeply you cared for these two, now my most prized servants, I knew their distress would make you run into this forest, like the idiotic Gryffindor you are. So, what else could I do? Create a needless battle and have them lure you here."
"I must admit my shock at their initial reluctance to partake in their mission. Perhaps, not for the reason that you think, however. Both had to play your friend for many years, much to their reasonable disgust- young Ginny here had to sully her body with a muggle lover like you. But she has served me so well, so admirably by tricking you, Dumbledore and his entire ilk; I will take care of her, Harry." One of his gnarled hands snaked down to Ginny's stomach and he gave a ghastly smile.
Harry thought he would be sick at his words, but then Ginny's empty eyes fell on him and she said, "My parents will be happy to know they don't have to keep you under our roof anymore."
Unbeknownst to him, something must have changed on his face, because Ginny began to laugh quite heartily. "Now all there is left to do is kill that mudblood Granger and see the look on her face when she realizes her brainy ass was duped as badly as you were, then I will feel vindicated."
It was in that moment, something snapped inside of the raven haired boy. It was a lie. It was all a lie. Ron's friendship, Ginny's love, both were a searing lie playing him like a two-bit fiddle ever since he'd met them. The one family that saved him every summer from his dreadful Aunt and Uncle, that welcomed him with the first pair of open arms he'd ever known- they were a lie. A big fucking lie.
Something inside his heart shattered as he stared at the mocking face of Ginny, but was immediately replace with something entirely different, entirely darker, entirely easier to consume. His breath began to come in quick, uncontrollable huffs as he pictured the smiles on each of their faces that he now knew were nothing more that caricatures for his naiveté. The tears in his eyes sizzled tracks down his cheeks, yet he did not care. He could see hundreds of faces in front of him- Ginny, Ron, the death eaters, that fucking monster- they were all laughing, yet he could not hear them. He knew he was a dead man. He knew he would not live to see Hermione anymore. But he wasn't finished- not by a damned sight.
'In times of great distress,' Dumbledore said as he popped a lemon drop in his mouth and gave Harry a wink, 'the irrational sometimes becomes the most rational thing to do.'
This was his end. He knew that the moment he saw Hermione's reaction. He knew that the moment he rushed headlong into the pitted blackness of the forest. But he didn't even imagine it would be at the hands of his girlfriend and best friend. His head throbbed in pain, his jaw ached and his knees felt as though they would give out at any moment. But there was something that made his hands started to shake, a new life inside of him demanding its due, a howling mantra of a scorned, dying man rung in his ears- suffer as I have, suffer as I have. He let it consume him, he let his magic feed on its wrath; he let it spit out of him like errant blasts of a waking volcano.
Voldemort seemed to notice something was going terribly, terribly wrong, for his raspy laughter died in his chest only scant seconds after Harry met his red soulless eyes. His minions all around continued their boisterous, senseless laughter, Harry noticed with a donning smile. There was a rumbling filling his chest, slowly, steadily peaking in a dull roar.
"I am going to kill you all." There was no force in his voice, or any shred of anger. It flowed out smoothly, softly; it floated out, barely a whisper above the rancorous taunts. The Death Eaters' cackles immediately grew louder; apparently none the wiser of their master's currently increasingly confused expression.
Ginny's laughter slowly died away as she looked at him, his words seemingly cutting in her confident demeanor like a rusty blade.
"Everyone, leave." The monster said as he stared at Harry, yet all of them still laughed and shot taunts and insults towards Harry. Hubris, whispered a deathly calm voice in Harry's mind that sounded oddly like Hermione's, as he waited patiently for the storm to gather inside of him.
"Leave this place now you fools!" Voldemort shouted this time, and everyone grew silent yet seemingly stayed their spots as though they were rooted there in puzzlement. However, Ginny did not need to be told again, for she stumbled back a few steps before quickly turning and busting through the congregated as though the icy hand of death was caressing the hairs on her neck.
This seemed to unnerve many of the minions. Some hesitantly backed away; some drew their wands out and pointed them at him. Then all became silent. Not a whisper could be heard; even the forest seemed to hush as though it were preparing for some impending calamity.
For a moment, his mind calmed, his bloodied and battered body no longer ached for release. He thought of Hermione, of how he would never see her again. He realized with a pang of sorrow that she would be alone now; that she would have these monsters chasing her for the rest of her days. With a flare of anger he realized that he could not protect her, and more than anything that had transpired in this grove, the thought that they might hurt her sent his rage to heights beyond his imagination.
"Harry…" her brown eyes seemed to sparkle as she sat the box down in her lap and meticulously peeled away the dark green wrapping paper.
With a mirthful smile, his anxiety for what her reaction might be slowly faded into a warm contentment when her eyes grew wide and one of her trembling hands suddenly shot to her mouth as she lifted the felted, wide velveteen lid. Oh yes, she liked it very much.
Jolly good show, Potter, jolly good show.
There came a hissing sound seeping into his ears, yet it wasn't from the serpent-like man before him or from any of his minions. The faint sound of leaves rustling at his feet slowly emerged, yet he could not hear the steps of feet accompanying it. A cool, curiously heavy wave of air brushed against his tear soaked face.
Hermione huffed in annoyance, yet he could practically hear a smile donning her face. "Well, Birthday Boy. I guess I'll tell the Weasley's you're still out cold."
He then felt her warm breath tickling his ear, igniting every nerve in his body. "You know, this means you owe me a foot massage when your lazy arse finally graces us with your presence," Hermione teased him as he felt her gently stand up from the edge of his bed.
With his eyes still closed, he smiled and nodded. "I owe you so much more than that, Hermione," he said softly as sleep began to reclaim him. "So much more…"
Hermione- nothing else mattered. He was a dead man, but a fury boiling in his mind screamed that he would have his revenge. He would see them dead for taking his chance to see his bushy haired best friend one more time, for hating her for no reason, for wanting to harm her.
"Harry, I-" her words stopped in her throat and she looked to the ground before meeting his eyes again, "I believe in you."
Without warning, the fragile seams desperately trying to hold his roiling magic together burst, thundering out of him in devastating speed as though the hand of a vengeful God itself was moving it.
Voldemort's eyes were blazing in shock as he was hurled across the clearing, smashing into a terrified wall of his minions with a sickening crunch. He heard the old trunks of trees around him groan and wail; their tops crackled and quaked seconds before violently snapping in a deafening boom.
Then- Hell broke loose.
The earth rumbled for a moment and then the sky vanished in an eruption of earth and debris exploding into the air. The screams of hundreds of creatures pierced the sounds of sharp rocks raining down all around him. Many of those screams suddenly cut short, or faded in a languished moan of pain.
Like a reckless geyser, dirt and rubble, shards of trees and limbs spewed endlessly from around him, yet not a grain of sand touched his body. His knees were giving out from under him, his energy sinking fast, yet his fury would not allow for their Hell to end just yet.
A thick beam of sickly green light suddenly pierced through the blistering hail of earth, hurdling passed his head and crashing into one of the broken trees behind him. His eyes snapped open and the ground beneath him grew still.
The world grew silent; no breath, no whisper of life met his ears. Only the gentle pattering of dirt falling back down could be heard. But not a moment later, there was a guttural scream somewhere to his right-
"Get him you fools!" he heard Voldemort scream in fury. Another beam of light shot through the gently falling dirt, but this one found its mark. The silvery thin beam sliced across his left cheek, causing his head to jerk back in shock. And before he could recover, a bright red glow filled his vision scant seconds before it felt like a boulder crashing into his right arm, another into the pit of his chest.
He momentarily felt the sensation of flying through the air, and to his shock, he felt something soft brace his landing on the ground. He quickly shot his head up and saw that he was out of the clearing by some distance, but it looked more like a meteor had crashed there now. Dirt no longer blocked his vision, and he felt momentary awe at the calamitous destruction that lay before him.
The trees only mere paces in front of him were either lying prone to the ground, or missing all together, and shards of their ancient trunks were all that belied they were there before. His mind suddenly screamed at him to run, jarring him from his daze.
He feebly lifted himself up, and perhaps only through magic and adrenaline, he burst into the forest. Not even a moment later, beams of many lights rocketed passed him, smashing the bark away from trees, some severing their limbs in a fell cut. Shielding his eyes, he leapt over a lump of corroded arbor and jerked himself behind and into the protection of a clump of trees.
Onward he ran, his right arm hanging limply at his side, slamming and scratching against the blur of bark and brush. Blood was flowing freely from his arm, cooling his skin as the wind rushed around him. The damned forest seemed endless, but somewhere through its abyssal depths, Hermione waited for him. He had to tell her, he had to save her, and nothing- nothing else mattered.
A sharp pain suddenly exploded in his left leg, a bleak, tattered wail of what his voice once was left his lips as he slammed into the unforgiving earth. Feebly curling his injured leg to his chest, he looked down through his hazy eyes and saw the side of his pants gashed apart, his thigh covered in a stream of viscous red.
"You cannot run from fate." A thin voice hissed, seemingly filling all the air around him. He frantically shot his head around, looking for its insidious source, yet all around him were nothing but trees and shadows.
Then something caught his eye. There, in the bleakness between two wide trees below him, the shadows seemed to move. But in an instant, the blackened shape seemed to melt back into nothingness. With all the strength he could muster, Harry lifted his torso up with his left arm, and collapsing all his weight down onto it once he locked his elbow.
"I thought fate would sound prettier," Harry scoffed sarcastically, trickles of defeat seeping into his heart.
Suddenly his entire body felt as though a great weight was pressing him down into the jagged earth. Struggling underneath the invisible force, Harry writhed to little effect. Then a darkness enveloped the sky above him, and it was then that he saw two vibrant, searing crimson eyes staring directly into his.
The shadows slithered and snaked around the form, whipping from the being like embers from a fire. But then, they seemed to thin, dispersing in wisps of smoke and mist, revealing a pale, slender faced man. His hair, tucked behind a pair of pointed ears, was long and silvery white. Then, he opened his mouth, revealing two elongated, sharp fangs.
"Remember, Harry Potter…" the man said, "it was a proxy."
"What are you talking about?" he gritted out.
"The end- your end," the being looming above him replied calmly. "The single thing twining your fate with Voldemort's- what you know isn't all of it."
"The proph-" Harry started, then all of the breath in his lungs left his body when he was suddenly jerked into the air. The creatures hand gripped tightly around his neck, his feet dangling haplessly as his struggling body was lifted from the ground.
Harry's eyes widened in shock, his focus instantly dimmed into nothingness when he felt two sharp stabs into the crook of his neck. His body- his magic- seemed to go haywire. Sparks of magic burst and sizzled into the air, vengefully lashing out like a cornered beast at anything it could touch. The creatures grip on his neck faltered for a moment, but the pain, the searing pain never seized.
His body grew numb; the air brushing across his face seemed colder. His magic slowly stopped struggling, and then, the pain left his body as he felt himself unceremoniously fall back to the earth in a dull crunch.
He thought of Hermione, her untamed brown hair, her soft inquisitive eyes. He wondered if she was okay, if she would be okay. As his breathing quickened to sharp, breathless hitches, his only regret was that he could not save her from that monster.
Then the thick, penetrating whisper of his attacker slipped into his fading, laborious thoughts, whispering the last words he heard.
"You will have your revenge, Harry Potter."