CHAPTER 6- Master and servant
DISCLAIMER- I don't own the creations of JK Rowling
WARNING- contains nudity.
Harry felt no reason to make the incantations non-verbal.
He had taken out another "gift" for Voldemort, which looked like a medallion with a chain and had wrapped it around his left palm. He put up a stone wall verbally between Voldemort and Mrs Weasley and took off his cloak, though keeping the wand in a combat-ready position.
As he emerged out, there were screams from the crowd "He's alive!" and "Harry!"
Voldemort was surprised and shouted out in frustration "Again, YOU PEST!"
Harry sneered "Yes, Tom Riddle. I sent a transfigured dummy to you, you and your goons couldn't tell the difference. Of course, your stupidity has many more examples and will be remembered in history, I will make sure of it after you leave the world for good."
Looking at the enraged serpentine face, he continued "Aren't you happy to see me, you half-blood champion of blood purity? After all, you are from the line of the middle Peverell and I the youngest, we are blood relatives after all."
"You are a part of the diseased family trees that have to be trimmed and I will do it."
"Of course you dream of it, there are no followers or hired thugs of you left, so sad your dreams crumbled within a few minutes, Tom Riddle. You always dreamt and spoke nonsense."
Ron suddenly shouted from the crowd "how many to help you finish, Harry?"
Harry shouted back "I don't need anybody's help, I can finish this snake myself."
"Potter doesn't mean it, does he?" sneered Voldemort "he is just a rat who managed to hide. Behind whom will you want to hide today?"
"It's just you and me, no more horcruxes left, which were easy to spot because of your extra large ego. Though it is another example of your stupidity. I myself was your final horcrux that you accidentally made, so actually you had more reason to protect me than anyone else."
"LIAR!" screamed the Dark Lord.
"Oh no, face the truth. You had a very wrong notion that you could access my mind and even possess me because I was weak. Actually it was due to your piece of soul inside. Don't cry over spilt milk, even a muggle knows that an exorcism ritual can take care of it."
"Forget it and face me now to know what I am. Your mudblood mother or anybody else is not here to die for you as you wish, Potter."
"My muggleborn mother died for me, but what of you? Your inbred mother could not be alive for you. I will live, you are the last of your ancestor's line that perished due to inbreeding."
"You are a boy who lived by accident all times, Potter."
This time, not Harry but Cedric shouted from the crowd "You are the one who came back by accident, Voldemort. I had panicked and apparated away from the graveyard that night, else your overgrown pet rat would not have been successful."
Voldemort laughed "I would have ordered him there to kill the spare, you were a lucky boy."
"How clever of you! He was walking and not even under a disillusionment charm. I would have heard it, seen him raise a wand and stood like a static practice dummy, you think so?"
Voldemort ignored Cedric turned his attention back to Harry "Do you have any hope to defeat me? You think that Dubmledore's pathetic idea of love will work against me?"
"No, I have no wish to see if I can hug and kiss a serpent like you to death. Nor would I try to transfigure you into Saint Thomas. There are other things that I know of, but you don't. You are not the ruler of Britain but a trapped criminal now."
"You think so? I cannot get away after killing you and return with new followers to burn the magical community and then muggles of this land to ashes, you think that's impossible?"
"Tall castles built in the air, but you lived in a fantasy world. Can't you see the obvious truth? You cannot fly, apparate, floo or portkey away from this ground. And how many will you kill, can you count how many surround us and have you seen the forest yet?"
Voldemort felt fear now and looked towards the forest. Apart from the wizards, elves, familiar animals, a giant and centaurs in the castle premises, the edge of the forest showed a vast assembled crowd. The malevolent beings were absent but it did not matter. There were the wood folk and their tamed beasts- wood elves, ghillies, green hounds and many more- deemed to be the myths of the Scottish highlands by muggles.
He laughed a cold laugh "you think anyone will come forward to die for you today?"
This time, the armoured wizard who was dueling him stepped forward. He tapped the visor of his headgear and it dissolved away, revealing a thin, pink face.
The man spoke in accented English "We are a hit squad sent from the mainland to stop you, dark wizard. Your men destroy this island and you thought we sit idle and wait for you to overrun this land and focus on mainland Europe? Already, there have been a few fools inspired by your propaganda and many refugees have crossed the channel, alerting the continent."
That was actually a clever decision on the part of the continental wizards. If they sent any large force, it would have been easily spotted and the Death eaters would be alerted. This small but elite force were sent after a spy reported that vast majority of the British mages were not Death Eaters, plus only a few hundred were working for money. ssess the sitily spotted. this ds. if now., vacant expressions in their faces.
"After I kill the boy, I will show you I am better than all of you."
"I am not here to die. Before you leave, I may expose what a liar you are. You spared everyone except me? I will help you to feel some remorse at your last moments. Myrtle, Hagrid, Zachary, Susan- come forward and let him see you all."
Three solid people and a ghost came forward, without any look of fear on their faces.
Voldemort was puzzled but Harry sneered "They do not seem familiar to you? This ghost is the girl whom you killed by setting your ancestor's pet snake on her, placing the blame on someone else. This boy is whose ancestor you poisoned and put the blame on a poor elf, you criminal. This girl is whose entire family your goons killed. None were related to me."
"You think I fear them? You know I am the greatest."
"Oh? That is why you always stayed hidden from the Aurors? You come to the open and see what happened to your dreams, you must feel fear now."
"No, Potter. The only person I feared was taken care of long ago."
"He was a better person than at least you and survived after facing you, right?"
"That did not stop him from his blindness. I had a student who managed to sneak in my men into the castle and his beloved spy threw him off the tower like a piece of china."
"That's your mistake. He had planned his own death long ago. Honestly, don't you have any brains? You don't know that Dumbledore was good at keeping people in the dark and manipulating them? Didn't your men report that they ran into virtually no opposition that night? It was planned and everybody stayed in their rooms, locked in and away from the path that Snape used to lead them away from the castle."
The puzzle that did haunt Voldemort was answered at last, but he brushed it away. He tried to speak coldly "Do you think that Snape worked for Dumbledore?"
"Always. You never knew that a head can access the resident tower only when a higher authority allows him or her? She allowed Snape to reside there, the first headmistress of this school- yes, she is still here. Of course, your followers are mostly brainless."
"What makes you think so, Potter?"
"The Carrows are a pair of thugs who could not see that so many students were joining the DA club and the teachers placing protections were under their very nose. The rest of you have bad brains. The people your cronies reduced to beggars in Diagon Alley were thrown out to the muggle world, but your men never bothered to check whether they were really there or taken to the mainland to raise an army. Your men attacked this castle thinking I have come here and been reckless to take off my cloak? They were provoked and must have not realized what they would face. Did your men ever realize that the men guarding Hogsmeade did not turn up? Not to say of your poor victory procession that was good for practicing massacre."
"Snape had betrayed me?" there was anger and confusion in Voldemort's voice. He could now understand why the attack on the castle faced unexpected resistance.
"Yes, he had felt for a long time that treating people like vermin was wrong. After Mulciber half-heard the prophecy and told it to you, he finally got the courage to defect."
"It does not matter. Good for him that he is dead now."
A cold voice spoke from the crowd "No, you made another mistake, half-blood."
Many pairs of eyes turned to a portion of the crowd. There were three figures clad in black cloaks amongst the multitudes. Snape had a bandage on a side of his neck, but the Malfoys were there too- all with cold, vacant expressions on their faces.
"What are you three doing there, help me to fight this boy."
Narcissa Malfoy spoke back "We no longer follow you."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Voldemort shouted in rage and pointed his wand at the three black-clad figures, but before he could shoot any spell, a strong invisible hand, overpowering Voldemort's grip, seemed to grab his wand-tip and forced it downward. He turned at Harry, his eyes blazing.
Harry looked directly into the scarlet eyes "You will not be harming anyone here."
"It seems that you have finally faced me. You fool, this is The Elder, the most powerful wand in Europe that I stole from Dumbledore's grave. I am it's master now. You do not have my power, or a wand as powerful as this, foolish boy."
Harry did not feel the need to correct his adversary right then.
He simply spoke in a sarcastic voice "Why don't you try to finish me with it?"
"AVADA KEDAVRA."
As the green burst of light rushed towards Harry, he simply gave a small flick with his wand. A thick wall of stone rose from the earth and blocked the curse, while a loud noise kept echoing.
"See? The Killing curse can be blocked with a good physical obstacle."
"Shut up and face this then, Potter."
This time, thin tendrils of what looked like black smoke erupted from the tip of Voldemort's wand. A tendril rushed straight towards Harry, another followed the path of a projectile, two others followed curved paths towards his flanks- all at a high velocity.
Harry simply waved his wand in a circle, the ground around him rose into a smooth dome of stone and encased him. The tendrils hit the dome with the force of muggle RPG rockets but only managed to make some scratch marks in the surface of the dome. The dome then changed back to earth, only to be blasted away by a powerful reductor curse from Voldemort's wand and then, two successive killing curses were fired by Voldemort at that spot.
Some people screamed in fear, but when a happy-looking Voldemort cleared away the rubble with his own wand, the space was totally devoid of any person- living or dead.
A laugh caught everyone's attention. Harry was standing at a spot far away from where he was, his left palm grasping something.
"Seen it, Riddle? I always had things you didn't. I have a special portkey that will allow me to move within the grounds. You don't have anything else than your legs. "
Voldemort spoke no more and roared "AVADA KEDAVRA."
This spell had Harry's doubts. He was sure Voldemort was not insane to do the same thing and expect a different result. He would not avoid this one, but face it.
Harry knew what to do other than what he has already done. He knew how to cast the killing curse himself by now- actually the principle was exactly the same as the Patronus charm. He looked at the green light, pointed his wand and filled his mind with the face of Peter Pettigrew.
The spell that was cast needed no incantation. The green beam of light that erupted from his wand-tip seemed to be brighter than the one rushing towards him. The two beams collided with a blinding flash and the sound of a fierce strom, the brighter beam from Harry's wand seemed to be pushing back that from Voldemort's, right into it's source.
The beam of green was pushed back into Voldemort's wand and cracks suddenly appeared on it's surface. Harry's own curse changed to a burst of green and vanished into thin air. Voldemort twirled his wand and pointed it again at Harry, only it was filled with deep cracks and no spell came out of the tip. A burst of blue light, the wand crumbled to pieces, leaving only the handle in the hands of a surprised Voldemort.
"Loved it, Riddle?"sneered Harry. "This is another example of your ignorance and Dumbledore's manipulations. While you spent a good amount of time in a wild goose chase and felt happy to get the thing and murder a follower to master it, you never knew that Dumbledore had passed on the wand to me before he died- I had better use of it. The wand you held was a fake- same wood and core, but not the real thing."
For the first time, Voldemort looked at the wand in Harry's hand and noticed it looked exactly similar to the one he had stole from Dumbledore's grave.
Voldemort roared "I don't need a wand to cast spells."
He looked into the eyes of Harry, but after a moment, staggered back- as if pushed by someone. He looked at the green-eyed boy with a mix of confusion and rage.
"What made you think I do not know about wandless magic- to be specific, the Imperius curse can be cast through eye contact by a powerful warlock? It was the same process that your servant Quirell used, right? Make a pretext to draw money, curse the accompanying goblin and use him to rob the vault, only to find it empty?"
"You are a Gryffindor and this is a fair fight?" there was despair in the voice of Riddle.
"Is this a game? And says who? Where was fairness when you tried to curse a fifteen-month old me or challenging a fourteen-year old boy to a duel? Any way out for you now?"
Voldemort knew that Harry had certain advantages over him, but he did have a card up his sleeve, a dark magic trick- which he had no reason to divulge to anyone. It was time to play it.
The tall pale body of Riddle suddenly went rigid, his face blank and eyes vacant. It fell to the ground face forward, but the fall was broken by the stretched out hands. Then, an ugly scene of dark magic was witnessed by all- Voldemort's escape plan.
The robes fell away from the frame, revealing a naked crawling humanoid with red eyes. Body and spirit separated away in a flash. The body walked on all fours like a spider and charged at Harry- it had become an Inferus. The spirit, on the other hand, rushed out of the body- a shadowy mass of white. It flew towards Hogsmeade.
However, the trick failed. Harry simply pressed the portkey on his left palm, vanishing and reappearing in front of the spirit the next moment. He pointed his wand and said a spell- spirit Voldemort was encased in a transparent pale blue-coloured ball.
The inferus was confused for a few seconds when it's target vanished, but that time was enough for Hermione to point her wand at it and cast a spell. Thin tendrils rose from the ground beneath it and bound it tightly. It tried to give a violent struggle against the bonds, but Hermione conjured up more thin ropes. Before the inferus could do anything else, it was tightly wrapped in a cocoon and struggling, resembling a fish put out of water.
Harry simply laughed and levitated the captured spirit back towards the castle. The rituals of soul-splitting made the spirit form of Voldemort hideous. While other ghosts of the castle had a proper pale, transparent body, Voldemort simply had a skeletal face and a thick tentacle underneath it like a snake, no body parts.
He looked at the angry spirit and said "Nice plan, but it failed. You may have a spare body somewhere and may live again of you enter it within twelve hours. Now, I will destroy you."
He faced the bound-down inferus, took out a crystal ball, another "gift" he had kept ready for Voldemort, containing a potion. He simply flung the ball- it broke, spilling the contents all over the struggling body. Moments later, the figure dissolved into a mass of muddy water, leaving behind no trace of it's previous state.
He then put his wand right through the bubble, it yielded like a bubble made of soap. The plan was to take some extra steps. He muttered "Obliviate maxima"- the angry eyes of spirit Voldemort suddenly became vacant. Harry did not care where the spirit would go, but deprive it of any memory. An exorcism spell followed, the hideous form glittered and dissolved into nothingness. Harry dissolved the bubble, it was no longer needed.
The crowd gasped for a few moments till the fact shrunk in- the terror of Britain was dead and gone. A loud cheer erupted, followed by hundreds of people rushing towards Harry.
He himself just amplified his voice "Stop everbody. I just want a feast now."
