Power Overwhelming

Chapter 1: You-Know-Who

She fell. The sudden sharp pain and the burning in her lungs pinning her down. Everything was spinning, the side of her robe was stained red. A hand pulled her upright.

"What happened?"

The disorientation began to fade. "Run!" She started pulling him forward, body checking a tree that knocked her back to the ground.

The man in the baby blue robe resisted. "Calm down. Why are you bleeding? Where are the others?"

"Dead...Erdna caught me...no choice...splinched...lost wand...need to get out of here. Now!"

"How? They are barely as big as my toe, wha-"

"They are bigger now." Of all the people to come to her aid, why did it have to be him?

His almost bemused scepticism was all too obvious now. "How big could they possi-"

The warm jungle air suddenly rippled with an ear shattering cacophony that suggested a whale sized pig had been squealing it's dying breath.

She was pulled upright with a force that propelled her into near running speed. His voice became shaky. "He makes a VERY compelling point! We need to get to the tunnel. It's too narrow, they won't be able to follow us through to the other side. We can be there in less than five minutes."

The gash worsened quickly under the tearing movement and dirt. "Please," she pleaded, slowing their pace to a trot, "it hurts so much. I can't run anymore. Can't you just apparate us?"

He didn't answer, his eyes were evading hers. A swish and flick levitated her off the ground, allowing him to use her body as a makeshift battering ram through the green thicket.

She noticed a soft vibration in her spine. It was barely noticeable at first, but grew at a slow pace and was soon accompanied by a steadily rising noise. It didn't click until she heard the splintering of wood in the far distance. The ground was shaking. Her savior's bulging eyes confirmed her suspicion. They were being hunted...and she was slowing them down.

It wasn't much further. The vibration and noise had sharply increased over the last minutes. She noticed him glancing at her more frequently now. His face brightened as the green suddenly receded, giving way to the impenetrable stone barrier that surrounded the valley. They stopped.

"What's wrong?

All blood seemed to have fled his face. "We got company...wait here."

She drifted to the ground as he moved away. Her hand instinctively positioned itself over her mouth as she made contact with the dirt. Tears filled her eyes as she bit down hard. If only she had her wand or her backup or anything to dull the pain. David would have been able to fix this in seconds, but he was dead...and she was stuck with him. A panicked Diffindo and the following squeal drew her attention..

An Erdna, roughly resembling a ten foot chitinous boar crossed with a trilobite stood directly above the frantic wizard. It was oozing yellow goo out of it's side, trying to sever the man's head with its mandibles by limiting his movement with its claws and body. His desperate wiggling caused the next severing charm to fail as the monstrous thing pressed itself directly unto him. As it gleefully prepared to rip him open he shoved his wand into it's yellow insides. For a second nothing seemed to happen. Abruptly, the backplate of the creature burst open, raining bodily fluids everywhere. Crawling out from under the beast he turned to collect her. His prideful demeanor vanished in an instant.

The vibrations had stopped. An enormous wall of flesh had pressed it's body through the treeline. Its segmented carapace had given away to its unnatural mass around the midsection, causing its underside to drag on the ground while it shoved itself forward with its hundreds of legs. Where the head should have been was nothing but a formless blob of tumorous meat.

It let out a shattering squeal. The consequent rippling of its flesh awakened thousands of tiny Erdna that crawled out of its many folds, turning the ground around it brown as they made to rapidly devour their surroundings.

A hysterical yell of Accio began to pull her forward as a leg nailed her to the ground. She failed to scream as the razor sharp leg protruding from her chest was pulled out as quickly as it had struck. Another Accio sounded, but the meager tugging withdrew almost immediately. She felt thousands of sharp teeth piercing her skin, grinding her legs into pulp. Pleading with her eyes she tried to reach for the man on the hillside as the pain crawled towards her face.

Gilderoy felt like throwing up, but nodded nonetheless as the swarm covered flailing body. His curse struck true and ended her suffering as he fled into the tunnel.

Leaning his head against the collapsed exit allowed him to finally collect his thoughts into an important realization. He could really use a drink right about now.

Several days of marching, quite a few shots of tequila and an impatient need to flee as far away from anything resembling vegetation had him waiting at the BIPS(British international portkey station) for processing.

Searching for something to occupy his time, he remembered the research bag he had nicked from Jennifer right before she...departed. He skipped through her log.

"11 October, 1981 …source of energy emanating from temple ruins remains as elusive-... discovered new species of formicidae … name pending between Erdna and Gildera Royalis Lockardium. Pompous prick."

"16 October, 1981 … the erdna seem to actively tend to the ruins. Professor Barren is ecstatic. He theorized, that they might have adapted the ruins as their nest.."

"21 October, 1981 … temple ruins are bigger than expected… searching blindly could take weeks. Lockhart swears that one of the walls has disappeared"

"25 October, 1981 … my mapping of the ruins is going slower than anticipated, whenever I ask someone to verify my work they spot obvious mistakes that I don't remember making... we sent Lockhart on a supply run, that will buy us a week of peace at best."

"31 October, 1981 … energy has spiked to unprecedented levels …" Finally something interesting he thought and read on. "..the Erdna are behaving erratically, displaying undocumented activity…they seem t-"

His name was called. Sighing, he locked the book and presented himself to the scrutiny of overly handsy and rude auror's.

And now this. The fires in the row of stone tubes at the end of the entrance hall were all unlit. Inquiring at the nearest terminal yielded three pieces of information. Firstly, there was a curfew now and as such all floo travel was suspended after 8 pm. Secondly, that this also included the knight busses and finally, that he was thourougly boned until tomorrow morning.

A nice auror coming off his shift ended up apparated him to the London entrance of Valona at around midnight. He thanked him and pressed a few coins in Paul's hand as they parted ways.

Another ten minutes of prodding, poking and questioning had him stepping through green fire into the red district Lavano, only to be greeted by a security detail that insisted on escorting him.

The city had changed a lot. The most striking difference was despite it being night, the city was bright as day, yet there were no people in sight besides the occasional security patrol. Black monoliths inscribed with runic symbols had been erected at every corner, illuminating everything in a cold bluish light. It made the damage and destruction look all the more profound.

His security detail followed his eyes and began to explain. "Most of this," he pointed at a cluster of collapsed houses, " happened two weeks ago, when the death eaters retaliated for the death of Rabastan Lestrange." He could still make out reddish tinge of faded blood on the walls.

He was now gesturing to the colorful ruins in the middle of a big plaza. The frustration in his voice was almost palpable. "Voldemort himself blew up the Gnomeocircus Magnificus after their director publicly mocked him. Poor bastard. We still haven't found him."

"What about the goblins?"

The details lips were pursed in bitterness. "They are rebuilding what is destroyed but refuse to actively participate in our little spat."

As they turned into the azure district Avolan a magically amplified voice interrupted their chatter.

"This is a public service announcement. We have received confirmation that the wizard commonly known as Lord Voldemort has died on the 31st October while conducting a raid on the home of the Longbottom family. The curfew is hereby lifted. This was a public service announcement."

People had gathered in the street, yelling, cheering and crying as their moods dictated. Gilderoy smiled and patted a sobbing elderly man on the shoulder who promptly embraced him into a hug, He awkwardly patted his back as the man said, "I lost so many friends, so much family. Even my own son died by his servants hands. It's finally over. It's finally over. It's finally over."

A teenager had climbed on one of the monoliths and yelled, "that dumb snakefucker finally got what was coming to him! Fuck Voldemort!" Inciting cheer in the crowd.

It had them both chuckling as the old man inched away. "It was nice meeting you, mr?"

"Lockhart, Gilderoy Lockhart"

"A pleasure, my name is Jeremy Smith. If you would excuse me, I have something to do."

Gilderoy smiled as he watched the man walk towards the monolith. With help from the crowd he managed to levitate up to the teenager and swung one arm around him. Tears ran down his cheeks as he addressed the crowd.

"THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN!" With a wet pop, he exploded like a watermelon struck by a sledgehammer. Gilderoy's world went dark.

A distant voice woke him. "How is he even alive?" It came closer. "Hey you," someone touched his head, "can you speak? What the hell happened here?"

His hand felt up his face and rested against the thumb sized hole his skull. The movement was sluggish and imprecise. "I don't remember… who am I?"

The voice was angry now. "Totally useless, damn it. I bet it was one of Vol-"

Gilderoy grabbed the voice's robes and pulled him face to face. "DON'T SAY HIS NAME!"

"Don't say who's name?"

Confusion became rage as he looked him directly in the eyes. "DON'T PLAY DUMB, YOU KNOW WHO." The moment of clarity passed and he began to play with his head again.

Across the country, an infant Harry Potter played with his head for a very different reason.