Chapter Eleven– The Breaking of Harry
Hermione found Mrs Weasley absently getting the decorations and dance pavilion ready for Harry's birthday party, which so many of his friends had turned up to celebrate. Mrs Weasley looked up to see her two children, not in marital sense, but in the sense of her heart, wandering together, hand in hand with an aura of love surrounding them that the wise ol' mother couldn't help but smile to see.
"Hello…" Molly chimed with affection, spotting how Harry let go of Hermione's hand, and subconsciously shook her head in exasperation. He'll get used to it in time.
"Hello, Mrs Weasley…" Hermione said tenderly before asking where they might find the third party of their trio.
"Oh… Ron left to fetch the Lovegood's. They've not returned our invitation, but you know what Errol is like? I'm sure they will be coming."
Harry turned to face Hermione and smiled, offering his lover a wink of good fortune.
"We'll go too," Harry stated with unrelenting determination. "Ron could do with a kick up the arse."
"Whatever do you mean?" Molly questioned in concern. She knew Harry was a strong and powerful wizard, but his tone and his words were so strange for him that she worried he might have rage towards her youngest son.
"Luna's had a thing for Ron for ages," Harry informed his paternal figure with a mischievous chuckle. "It would be nice for him to have a girl friend."
"Really…?" Molly gasped in wonder and surprise. She had always liked Luna Lovegood and the thought of accepting her into the family was a pleasant notion. "You'll need a portkey. Or are you going to take brooms?"
"We'll take a key, Mr Weasley should be able to help us with that, shouldn't he?"
"Of course," Molly stated with perfect truth. "Go and see him, make sure Ron doesn't start dawdling. Okay?"
"Okay." Both Harry and Hermione pecked Mrs Weasley on the cheek before heading off towards the garage to speak with Ron's father.
Ronald Weasley set his Cleansweep 11 down on the grounds of the Lovegood's abode. The joy of flying had done much to cleanse his mind of his rage, his anger at the fact that Harry had beaten him once again.
Ron hated to think of his friend as a rival, but in a world where all that he knew was rivalry, it was difficult not to associate even friendship with that unfortunate aspect of life. Harry was everything the youngest Weasley son could ever want to be. Rich, famous, with a great broomstick and now the love of a gorgeous girl. Was it such a bad thing for Ron to want to be better than the sum of his parts?
Commanding his broomstick into his hand, as he had learned correctly in his first year at Hogwarts, Ron wandered towards the Lovegood's house. The walls were of an obsidian stone, shaped in a such a way that it looked almost cylindrical in form. It would take a deep essence of mind to see something other than just stone and its little stream, but he wondered what Luna saw when she returned home after another year at Hogwarts?
Ron was just about to climb up the slight stairs that lead to the front door when it opened and the headstrong youth suddenly did a double take.
A girl stood with her back to him, speaking within the house to some unknown person. She wore dress robes of pink and yellow, each adorned in a soft and wispy nature. The dress allowed secret glimpses of her long, lean legs through the floaty, yellow fabric. The girl suddenly turned to face him, and her smile was as radiant as ever.
"Lu… Loony?" Ron gasped in sudden recognition, feeling his heart suddenly pound like a jackhammer and his blood to run hot. When in the world did she become so hot?
"Hello, Clíodhna…" Luna said, bouncing on her toes down the steps, almost as her very stroll were a dance. Ron frowned in shock, the girls bloody barking. But he could not deny she looked so good in those dress robes.
"Hi… Luna…?" Ron said, hand behind his head, stomach suddenly alive with butterflies.
Luna lifted her eyebrows at the sight of him.
"Hello, Ronald!" She chimed, almost as if she had only just noticed him. Ron grimaced at this girl's obvious insanity. But where once he would have mocked her, suddenly, as if his mind had been cleared of hurtful judgementations, Ron found he did not want to mock this girl anymore.
"Ready for Harry's party?"
"Yeah…" Ron said, suddenly finding himself lost for words. What the hell was wrong with him? This was Loony Lovegood.
"Ahh, Ronald Weasley…" Xenophilus Lovegood suddenly appeared at the crest of the very steps his daughter had just descended. Like his daughter, the man radiated an aura of eccentricity and good will. He wore a ruffled shirt, putting Ron in mind of the ancient, Renaissance style getups some of the portraits wore at Hogwarts. His trousers were of an off brown, and at his head, atop his wealth of pale hair, he wore a feathered Cavalier hat.
"Good to see you, my boy." Xenophilus offered Ron his hand, to which the young man shook with as much gusto he could muster. It felt like he was meeting the man for the first time since his daughter had brought him home for the talk.
"Shall we be off. We do not want to miss the festivities."
"Oh, I don't think you'll be having much time for festivities…" A horrible, mocking sneer suddenly resounded from behind Ronald on the grounds of the Lovegood's abode. Ron knew that voice, Luna knew that voice and they wheeled and lurched to sight ten Death Eaters suddenly appear in wisps of shadow, their black robes forming from the ether as they saw Bellatrix Lestrange leering at the front of the band.
Her eyes were as black as ever, her face once so beautiful, now tainted by her existence in Azkaban. Her hair was as wild and disturbed as she herself, with a shock of white that spoke of her broken, unhinged mind.
Ron drew himself in front of Luna protectively, arm crossing her fame to which Bellatrix cocked her hip and toyed with her short, crooked, wand.
"Aww… 'ittle Ronny wants to protect the consort."
Consort? What did that mean?
Xenophilus, realising that these people were not here on friendly means, suddenly drew his wand from within his cloak. Bellatrix snapped her wand like a viper.
A stream of crimson light suddenly rushed from her weapon, striking his wand and sending it spinning through the air. A damn disarming spell.
"Do not be so foolish, old man!" Bellatrix cackled in her deranged, mocking laugh. "All we want is your daughter. The rest of you can have some time with me…"
Fear flooded Ron at the horrors found in that statement.
The legends of Bellatrix's cruelty, of her skill with the Cruciatus Curse, was the stuff of nightmares. Ron knew he would be foolish to go for his wand, but he could not just sit here and let Luna be taken.
Bellatrix saw the light of defiance in his eyes and an evil grin split her face.
The whirling array of Portkey transportation suddenly stopped for Harry and Hermione, much to the relief of their stomachs. The flurry and rush of wind suddenly stopped pounding in their ears. But the sound that greeted them after was a much more terrifying resonance.
The sound of screams. Of horrid, tortured, screeches tore through the wilderness like that of a tormented spectre.
Both Harry and Hermione recognised that voice.
"Ron!?" Harry roared, erupting to his feet and seeing the gang of Death Eaters gathered before the Lovegood abode. Ron's screams suddenly ceased, the Death Eaters turning to sight Harry and Hermione charging towards their ranks.
They parted like some hellish miracle to unveil the body of their friend, twitching and writhing at the feet of Bellatrix Lestrange. Luna Lovegood was now released from Dolohov, herself falling to her knees beside Ron, cradling him desperately as the band of Death Eaters ravelled in the misery and pain they saw before them.
Harry suddenly ceased in his charge of the Death Eaters. Halting in abrupt shock as his eyes centred on Bellatrix. Ron's torturer suddenly looked towards him and her eyes widened with infernal relish.
"Harry… Potter…"
Hermione tried to comfort Harry, to sooth the anger she could already feel boiling over inside the body of the man she loved. But shut out her affections, dismissed her offered hand as he stood, lost to his rage, unable to speak, unable to see, unable to even breathe.
Bellatrix's brow knitted mockingly at the rage she saw in the face of this pathetic little boy.
"What's wrong, 'ittle Harry? Still pining over my dear cousin? Perhaps I'll kill that little Mudblood too? Then I could really watch you squirm."
The veil between the Realm and reality severed with those very words.
A beat, a heart began to pound. Slow and ominous within Harry. But it was not his own heart. No. This was something different. Something dark, something twisted, something beyond evil.
Hermione tried to comfort him. Tried. She so desperately tried, but Cethlenn drew her away. She couldn't reach him. Couldn't feel him. Harry was dying, venturing into a place only the Gods truly knew.
Tendrils of shadow began to snake and wisp form his form, leaking from his very skin as his body struggled to contain the destructive force now raging within him. Hermione fought desperately against Cethlenn, trying to help, trying to get to her Harry though in reality all she did was draw back in quiet acceptance.
The Death Eaters couldn't see it! Couldn't see the sheer danger they were in. They began to laugh.
Stop Laughing! Stop Laughing!
Hermione screamed! Though no one heard her words. They did not even leave her corporal form. In the real world Harry's body had begun to twitch, to tremble in a fury Bellatrix seemed to find so utterly amusing. She did not think he was changing, did not think that a force beyond anything she could ever imagine was slowly being unhinged before her very eyes.
Now Harry heard the words. Words that had plagued his mind since that first day he had heard them. But they were no longer alien, no longer vague and indistinct. He heard them as clear as day and as ominous as death himself.
'The demon has finally awoken from its slumber! The demon has opened its eyes…'
Harry's entire soul suddenly collapsed, broken, severed, and was placed in The Hole.
The Death Eaters saw Harry Potter dwindle and collapse, legs only keeping him standing through sheer will alone.
Then Bálor drew forth one, long, final, breath.