Losing Rachel, Harry
decides, was definitely the stupidest thing he's ever done in his life. He
takes a sip of scumble and wrinkles his nose, wondering how anyone could stand
to drink this stuff.
Harry
is at the Salon Sorquina, where Rachel saved him from Voldemort. He's trying
very hard to forget. Someone told him that drinking scumble is the best way to
forget your sorrows. So far, it's just given him a headache.
Someone
in a black robe sits next to him. "Girl trouble?"
Harry
nods. "Yeah. Broke up with my girlfriend."
"That's
too bad," the man says. "But it was probably the best thing to do."
"I
don't think so," Harry says. "She saved my life."
The
man shrugs. "Ah, girls are fickle. One minute they save your life, the next
they're casting the ashes of your newborn son to the wind." He claps a bony
hand on Harry's shoulder. "You know," he says, "it's really unlucky for you
that I found you."
Harry
looks up into the man's face—and then the scumble takes effect.
Rachel
wakes up with a shock. "Oh my God." She throws the blanket off of herself and
starts rummaging through a closet.
Annie
comes into the room, curious. "Hey, what's up?"
Rachel's
head is buried in the closet. "Mom, have you seen my wand? Never mind, here it
is." She pulls it out of the closet. It's a 12-incher, ebony with a core of
basilisk's tongue.
"Look,
what's happening?" Annie asks.
"Harry's
in trouble," Rachel says. "Dad's got him." She stops for a second. "Only I
can't…'cause if Dad dies, then you die too."
Annie
sighs. "Listen, Rachel. The main focus here is this: Defeat the bastard. If I
gotta die in the attempt, so be it. I've lived a long life, and the only thing
I want now is to see the sumbitch dead. Okay?"
Rachel
nods. "Okay, Mom."
Annie
gives her a kiss on the cheek. "Go get 'em, baby."
Harry
slowly comes to. At first, he can't identify his surroundings. Then he realizes
that he's in the dungeons of Hogwarts. He's chained to a wall by his hands. His
wand is nowhere to be seen.
Great.
I've spent all this time trying to elude Voldemort, and I get drunk and he gets
me. This is just great. He realizes, in a foggy, light-headed way, that he
is about to die.
Voldemort
comes over to him, gliding across the floor like a snake. He stares at Harry.
"Are you prepared to die?"
Harry
blinks. "Huh?"
Voldemort
sighs. "I'm sorry, but I can't torture anyone with a hangover." He mutters
something, and the fog surrounding Harry's brain is gone.
The
delayed shock of the situation takes a second to reach Harry's brain. Then he
screams.
Voldemort
grins mirthlessly. "That's better. Any last words? Nah, forget that." He aims
his wand. "Avada Kedavra!" The light harmlessly deflects off of Harry and
shatters into a million pieces.
Rachel
pushes her way through the crowd that has gathered at the top of the stairs.
"What the hell is going on here?"
"You-Know-Who
has Harry," someone says.
Rachel
sighs. "Shit." She makes her way to the top of the stairs.
Ron
grabs her by the arm. "You can't go in there!"
Rachel
glares at him. "Why not? You don't want me to save your friend?"
"He's
put some kind of shield on the doors," Ron explains. "No one can get through."
To illustrate, he taps on it. The door to the dungeons crackles with energy.
Rachel
stares at it with a calculating look, then shoves her wand into the middle of
it. She is sucked in and disappears…
Voldemort
stares at the wand, at Harry, at the wand again. "Gods damn it! I should have
known that brat of mine would try to protect you." He turns. "Wormtail, if you
would."
"Um,
no," comes a voice. Harry can't quite see Peter Pettigrew, but knows that he's
there.
Voldemort
blinks. "Excuse me?"
"Sorry,
but I can't," Pettigrew says. "Look, I've done a lot of stuff for you, I've
gotten you Death Eaters, I've cut off my arm for you, I've practically killed
myself, but I can't kill this kid."
"Why
not?" Voldemort is getting pissed off.
"I'm
actually not sure," Pettigrew says. "Look, just go with it, OK?"
"You
realize that now I'm going to have to kill you," Voldemort says.
"Fine."
A bemused sigh.
With
a backhand glance at Harry, Voldemort readies his wand. "Avada—"
"NONE
OF THAT, SUMBITCH!" screams a very familiar voice. Rachel is standing in the
doorway, her wand at the ready, her face flushed, her hair mussed.
Harry
cranes his neck to get a look at her. "Rachel!"
Rachel
strides into the dungeon, her wand at the ready. "Look, you asshole," she
screams at Voldemort. "I have protected this kid, okay? He is not yours to
kill! And," she adds as an afterthought, "it's not a good idea to kill
Pettigrew either." She casts a glance at Pettigrew, silently telling him to
beat it before he gets killed.
Voldemort
hisses. "If I can't kill the child, then someone else must! It has been
foretold."
Rachel
looks disgusted. "Yeah? By who?"
"BY
ME!" Voldemort screams. He snatches up an iron spike from somewhere and hurls
it at Rachel.
Rachel
catches it just before it hits her. "Don't even try it," she tells him levelly.
She aims her wand. "Sorry, but I gotta do this."
Voldemort
looks smug. "Go ahead. If you kill me, you kill your mother, too."
"Yeah,"
Rachel says, "I know. She told me. But she also told me to not worry about it."
Her voice is unsteady, though.
"Aha!"
Voldemort yells triumphantly. "You can't kill me, can you? You can't, because
it'll kill your mother."
Rachel
drops to her knees. "No," she whispers. "I'm sorry, Mom. I love you."
Harry's
heart drops. "Rachel, please…"
Voldemort
glides across the floor to her. "Join me, then," he says. "I can't kill you.
But I can give you as much power as you would ever want, if you'll only join
me…" He pulls Rachel up off the floor. "Betray your mother and make her safe."
Suddenly,
Rachel throws her arms around her father. "I love you, Daddy," she whispers in
his ear. And then…
Somehow,
everything happens at once. Voldemort throws her back against the wall and
screams, ripping his hood off. Harry can see his face, and it's not an evil
snake face at all, but very human, wracked with love and anguish…
And
Rachel lands against the wall with a sickening crack, and drops like a puppet
with cut strings…
And
Harry feels the shackles around his wrists dissolve, and he drops to the floor
in a crouch and crawls toward Rachel…
And
Voldemort drops to the ground, cowering, weeping…