Man, this is an ugly chapter. Warning for gore.
Chapter Eight: A Blizzard of Bad NewsHarry paced in a circle, studying the way that Ginny was aiming her wand at the far wall of the dueling room. So far, he hadn't seen anything to criticize from her. As she'd said, she didn't have the raw power to perform every spell, but she'd studied the wand movements and incantations until she had them down pat. The wizards and witches in the room, many of them from villages far away from Hogwarts and older than she was, should have nothing to complain about.
"This is the way that you perform Ardesco," said Ginny, and started to turn to the wizard-shaped figure propped against the wall.
"That's a Dark Arts spell," said an older witch suddenly. She'd worn makeup for the first session of the dueling practice, but sweat had caked it and sent it dripping in unfortunate globs down her cheeks. At least she'd had the sense to remove it, Harry thought. Other people had to be scolded into realizing that flowing robes or long hair or other ornaments were obvious targets in battle. "How do you know it?"
"Because I taught it to her," said Harry. "And any Dark Arts spell that can be used in defense is fair game in these sessions."
The witch hushed, cowed, but Ginny shot him an annoyed look. Harry hid a smile, seeing it. She couldn't really teach and make them trust her if he was there and undermining her authority, or making her seem like nothing more than a prop for him, her knowledge relying on his own.
"And I trust her to teach it to you," said Harry, walking to the door of the classroom. "Please tell me when you're finished here, Ginny. Bill and Charlie suggested that you had even more knowledge of hiding places around Ottery St. Catchpole than they did."
Ginny nodded, her back gone stiff with pride again, and Harry heard her clearly intone, "Ardesco!" just before he pulled the door shut behind him.
Charlie and Syrinx were waiting in the hallway. They'd been trading shifts guarding him with Bill and Owen, so that all four of them could get used to working together in different combinations. Harry nodded to them and started towards the next room, mind already running over the plans for establishing the network of safehouses that he'd started setting up.
Charlie saved his life. He was on the last stair when Voldemort hit him. If he'd been alone, he would have fallen from the angle he was perched at and cracked his head open. As it was, Harry felt himself black out for a moment, and when he came to, around the excruciating, splitting pain in his brow, he was aware that Charlie was the one who held him and whispered, "Harry?"
"Attack," Harry tried to say, but his jaw clenched shut and he almost bit his tongue off. This wasn't a strike at him through his hatred. This was Voldemort purely and simply exploiting the scar connection to cause him pain. He felt his body begin to jerk, and then the visions swept in, one after the other, a blizzard of bad news seeming to travel down the red hot wires Voldemort had clamped to his brain.
SSSSSSSSSSS
Honoria stretched her arms to the sky. She enjoyed being the liaison with the Maenad Press and Dionysus Hornblower, but she still loved the open sky, too, and in the hot rooms where the Vox Populi was produced, she had precious little chance to feel it.
She wandered down the small alley behind the press, keeping her senses alert, but not overly worried about an attack. Wards sparked and danced around her, and it was almost time for her to Apparate home, anyway. Honoria had agreed that she shouldn't use her gull Animagus form to fly anymore, since almost everyone among Harry's allies—and former allies—knew about it thanks to several spectacular stunts last year.
Distant children's shouts came to her; they might have been wizard or Muggle. Honoria paused, wondering if she should go and see what they were shouting about. Then she could clearly make out the sound of Exploding Snap cards, and relaxed. One couldn't be paranoid all the time, she reminded herself. That was more Ignifer's province. And I won't let this damn war change me that much.
She did want to make a stop before she went home, after all. She'd visit the Weasley brothers' joke shop, and choose a prank to pull on Ignifer. Her beloved had been far too serious lately, acting as if crumbs in the bed would mean that the Death Eaters had won. She needed something to cheer her up.
And then, Honoria thought, as she turned in the direction of Diagon Alley, a round of good, athletic sex.
A footstep fell softly behind her, too softly for anyone with legitimate business. Honoria lifted her head, feeling the cords in her neck stretch, and listened. She was still within the Press's wards. Once outside them, she'd Apparate.
And then she felt the sheer power exerted, cutting through the press's wards as if they were nothing. She turned, her own wand already whipping up and out, the words of a cutting hex poised on her lips.
Lucius Malfoy got there first. "Abrumpo mebratim!"
The spell that came at Honoria was one she hadn't seen before, a gout of yellow light as sharp as an arrow. She leaped back, still trying to get out through the edge of the wards, to Apparate, and dodged the curse. But it bounced off the side of the alley and came back at her, too sudden to run from, too quick to avoid, leaving her nowhere to run—
And then she couldn't run.
The spell took her left leg, severing it cleanly from her body, and cauterizing the wound as it went. Nice of the spell's creator, Honoria thought dazedly, catching herself against the wall. Now I won't bleed to death. I must remember to learn who invented this and thank him.
The curse wasn't done, either. It had cornered off another wall and was coming back at her. Honoria's mind, meanwhile, had finally picked up the meaning of the Latin incantation used for the curse. I sever limb by limb.
It wouldn't stop until it had cut off all her arms and legs.
She forced her will down and above the intense, immense pain, into the small form of the gull. Then she was hovering, her body's weight shifted to her wings, and she darted away from the curse far faster than a clumsy human could have managed it. She strove upward, out of the narrow confines of the alley, trying to ignore the fact that her unchanged human leg was lying below.
The yellow light of the curse turned and flew into the open sky after her. Now, without stones to bounce off, it simply pursued a straight-line course. Honoria sucked in a breath of deep pain, and knew that she would have to try something she'd never tried before as a gull: Apparition.
The pain gave her a goad, or she might not have done it even then. She pictured the bedroom that she shared with Ignifer, the gleaming white wood headboard, the brilliant sheets on the bed—red and gold, and that was her idea, to use Gryffindor colors that were also the colors of flame—and then threw herself forward. Perhaps she changed back to human as she began the spell. She didn't know. She only knew that she wanted to be home more than she wanted anything else in the world.
And then she bounced on the sheets, gasping, exquisitely aware of the fact that she had only one leg and was human again, but aware, also, that the curse had not followed her across the distance. She rolled over and sat up.
Ignifer came through the door at a dead run. She stopped when she saw Honoria, for just a moment, and then came forward and wrapped her in an embrace that left Honoria hardly able to breathe, murmuring over and over again that they'd get help, that this wasn't the end of everything, that she'd take her to St. Mungo's—
Honoria blinked, and blinked, and it was only then, with the guarantee of not losing her life in the next ten seconds, that she was able to cry.
SSSSSSSSSS
"Thomas!"
Priscilla rolled her eyes. She'd been knocking on the door of his library for the last ten minutes, and sometimes calling his name, and still she hadn't managed to stir his attention from whatever scroll had it this time. Now, she used an unlocking spell to force the door.
Thomas looked up and grinned at her from the middle of a table strewn with parchment. At once, he pushed one of them towards her. Priscilla gave it a patient glance. It looked like a map.
"I think this is a way to find repositories of Voldemort's soul," he told her. "The Horcruxes are immortal in and of themselves, unable to be destroyed as long as the spells surrounding them aren't broken. And this map can locate immortal objects in Britain." He ran one finger reverently over the corner of it. "Granted, it's several decades old, but some of the Horcruxes are several decades old."
"Wouldn't someone have found them already, if it was that simple?" Priscilla could see a great many red circles on the map, ones that made her skeptical. There were research wizards like Thomas who would have given everything to find the objects simply so they could study them, and others who would seek them out and sell them to collectors. Even if the Horcruxes had been shown on the map, Priscilla was of the opinion that they were long gone already.
"Oh." Thomas frowned, the endearing expression that had made Priscilla fall in love with him. "I suppose so. Yes." He looked at the map mournfully. "Why do people have to render such treasures useless? I would study them and put them back again, so that future generations could come and see them."
Priscilla kissed him on the cheek. "I know you would, dear. Now, come to dinner." It was good that she'd developed the automatic habit of casting warming charms on the food, she thought. Sometimes, it took far more than ten minutes to gain Thomas's attention, even if she opened the door.
"All right," he said agreeably now, and started folding the map up.
Priscilla felt the quiver in the wards at the same time he did. Someone was testing them. Priscilla frowned and drew her wand, her heartbeat quickening. She had known this day might come from the time that Thomas allied with Harry. At least their wards were among the best that Thomas could design, and she had a spell that would let her know in an instant where every single one of their children was. She cast it now, and sighed in relief. All gathered in the kitchen, trying not to pick bits of warm food off the plates, and none near the front garden, where the intruder was.
"What should we do?" Thomas had risen to his feet, but looked to her for instructions. That was as it should be, Priscilla thought. She had been the Auror. She was more skilled at defense than he was, and more present in the world, though right now his eyes were as sharp and clear as even she could wish.
"The wards aren't breached yet," she said calmly. "Go to the kitchen and take the children through the Portkeys we've prepared to—"
And then something sucked hard, unnaturally, on the wards, and they were simply gone. At the same moment, Priscilla heard the sharp crack of Apparition, and knew that someone was inside the house.
In the kitchen, where her children were.
Priscilla did not think; she acted. She seized Thomas's arm and Apparated down to the kitchen, her body shaking with cold sweat as she landed, her mind seeking out obstacles—table, chairs, cupboards—she could put between her children and the intruder.
Hawthorn Parkinson was just lifting her wand to cast a curse of some kind at Charis, their youngest daughter. Priscilla yelled, "Expelliarmus!"
Hawthorn's wand very nearly tugged free, but the other witch spun and kept a grip on it, shielding it with her body so it couldn't go flying away. Priscilla swallowed at the sight of her eyes. They wavered back and forth between cold and determined, and hot and tormented. This was a torture for her as much as it was for them, sending her after their family.
But Priscilla, much as she knew what it would cost Harry, was determined to kill the woman if she had to. "Thomas, the stones!" she shouted, knowing he would understand by that that she meant the pebbles they'd made into emergency Portkeys to Hogwarts, and then moved forward, wand lifted.
Hawthorn tried a Cutting Curse. Priscilla countered with the Shield Charm. She heard soft pops behind her, the sound of Portkeys activating, at least two, and knew it meant two of her children were gone to safety.
"Caedes maxima!" Hawthorn cried. The Slaughter Curse was aimed to go past Priscilla, to hit Rose or perhaps Melissa. She knew they would still be there. The children had been drilled to let the youngest go first with the Portkeys, so Charis and Albert would already have fled.
Priscilla flung herself in the way.
The Slaughter Curse made all the blood in one's body try to explode out through the veins. Priscilla rode the rushing tide of red, hearing pops behind her, one and then two. She heard Thomas, too, screaming her name, his voice high and furious, and saw the curtain of red-purple that dashed past her, soaking the wall.
She managed to whisper the Killing Curse, and though it cast only a faint green light, Hawthorn still had to move out of the way, because there was no block for the Killing Curse. That won Priscilla's family a moment, and it was an important one. She heard the pop of the final Portkey, and then Thomas's voice cut off. He'd gone with Robert, then.
She smiled, and closed her eyes, so that her last sight was not Hawthorn's desolate face, or the wall covered in her own life's blood.
SSSSSSSS
He did not want to do this. He could at least hold that thought in the dead of night to comfort himself, when no one else would come to do it, and the thoughts of what his family had been was haunting to him, because he knew they would turn away from him.
He strode towards the house in front of him, which was asleep and drowsing in the shadows of early morning. A path stretched out from it, white and sculptured in the form of scales. The wards shimmered above it, glittering curtains of light that would expand into full-fledged walls if someone threatened them. Already, Adalrico could feel them stirring and opening one eye, trying to judge how much this one, walking wizard who had Apparated in a mile away was a threat.
Adalrico knelt and placed a chunk of gray stone on the path. The wards began to flow outward to investigate it, wrapping around the stone like a gauzy butterfly's wing.
The moment they touched it, they were gone, sucked into the stone and torn apart.
Adalrico shivered a bit. His Lord had seen the memory of the gray stone that did the same to wards in his mind, from when the Unspeakables had brought a chunk of their Stone to Woodhouse during Harry's rebellion. He had ordered Adalrico to invent a magical object that would do the same thing. Adalrico had been able to do it in theory, but the larger spells that would secure that capacity in stone were beyond him, and would have made it only a pretty idea.
With several Death Eaters and the Dark Lord drawing on their magic through their Marks, however, very few powerful spells were impossible. Hawthorn and Lucius had gone armed with the stones to their targets. The final strike that his Lord had planned for today would also use it, but it would not be the main weapon in that killer's arsenal.
Adalrico picked up the stone, fixed his gaze forward, and strode on. With every step, he reminded himself he did not want to be here, doing this. But since this body continued striding forward anyway, oblivious to what his mind wanted, the mantra did no good. And, in a way, the fact that he was here gave him a black satisfaction. It answered the question he had always been unsure of: Had he really changed? Had he really escaped his Lord's fold? And now he could say conclusively that he had not.
He opened the door.
The house was still and silent. The wards might have cast alarms as they'd gone off, Adalrico thought, but it was unlikely they'd alerted anyone. For one thing, the inhabitants of this house were probably still asleep, and only one of them was in any condition to do anything about the sudden end of the wards. For another, he'd brought the most powerful stone with him. Those hidden behind the wards in other targets could feel the breach before it happened, if they were sensitive. This one had simply and suddenly destroyed them, and it could take some time to notice the absence of what had always been there.
He moved forward quietly, shutting the door behind him. The house had many windows, Light rained in every corner that Adalrico looked, contrasting with the family's Dark reputation. Of course, given recent events, perhaps the grieving widow had wanted light.
He moved through the kitchen, a drawing room with Floo connection, and then hovered in front of the bedroom, the door of which was ajar. Carefully, he pushed it back, and nodded when he saw his targets lying motionless on the bed. Medusa Rosier-Henlin slept the sleep of an exhausted new mother, with her hair spread all around her and her babe curled on her breast. Adalrico could destroy them both. He lifted his wand, raging in one part of his mind, but utterly unable to stop it.
"Diffindo!"
He staggered, nearly going to one knee, as the curse cut him all down his side, rendering the skin over his ribs ragged. He turned to see one of the Rosier-Henlin twins casting another curse at him. This one, at least, he could dodge, all the while scolding himself for his stupidity in simply assuming the house was empty. His Lord knew that one twin was sworn to Harry as a protector and never left his side, but that didn't mean the other one couldn't leave.
"Expelliarmus! Accio stone!"
Adalrico's wand soared out of his hand, and so did the gray stone that had sucked up the wards. He howled and grabbed more for the latter than his wand. If it went into his enemies' possession, then they could learn something of what his Lord had intended to remain a mighty secret and weapon.
The boy darted past him, though, moving lithely, and grabbed his mother around the waist, holding her close. The baby awakened, beginning to cry. Medusa Rosier-Henlin snatched her wand from the bedside table and aimed it at Adalrico.
He could not have moved if he tried. The cry of the child was summoning memories back to him, so strongly that they assaulted the walls of hatred that his Lord had woven to keep his conscience at bay. He was remembering his own daughter, born just two years ago, and the way she had cried when she was born, and the reason that his wife and daughter had both survived that day with magic intact. It had been Harry, and here he was attacking a child far younger than his daughter, under Harry's protection—
He cried out as the swirl of color in front of him announced a Portkey, but not because his prey was escaping. He was on his knees, love struggling with hatred in his soul, trying to ignore the impulse to either lunge forward and interrupt the escape or stand and go back to his Lord.
It didn't matter, though. Just when he might have won free, the image of Pharos Starrise flashed in front of his vision, and his hand ached with remembered pain. The boy, the whelp, had dared to send him to the Unspeakables, had not let the grudge between the Bulstrode and Starrise families rest, had committed himself to doing what he could to insure honor was violated—
And hatred shook, and settled back into his soul. Adalrico stood and calmly Apparated back to tell his Lord what had happened, though, of a certainty, he already knew.
SSSSSSSSSSS
Millicent jerked her head up. The wards had fallen, and that meant Blackstone was no longer safe.
It's a good thing that I already moved Mother and Marian elsewhere, she thought, and stood, drawing her wand. There were still valuable things at Blackstone, including their house elves and the library of magical books she'd been looking through, but no valuable people.
Other than herself, and she had remained here, searching through the Bulstrode treasures, tempting fate, both because not everything needed to be transported into exile and because she knew her father might come back.
If she faced Adalrico in battle, it was her duty to execute him.
She strode rapidly through the house to the front garden, her mind already shoving personal sentiments into a small closet and locking the door. This was her duty. One could not escape the oldest codes, not if one also benefited from them, and the Bulstrode family did. Sometimes those codes of honor had saved lives, or allowed a prisoner a chance to duel when he should have been killed immediately. But they were not allowed to simply claim the privileges from them. One had to pay the price.
And one price said that the family head was supposed to execute a traitor.
Millicent opened Blackstone's front door, and made her way towards the gate. The garden was soft with summer, and the roses her mother loved. Millicent felt a distant regret for that. It was entirely possible that the duel today would destroy the garden, and the house elves would not put it back together again if she was dead; they would go to her mother and Marian instead, and await their commands.
A man waited at the end of the path, beyond the gates. Millicent slowed on seeing him. This was not her father, but in some ways, including the half-wild gleam of his black eyes, he resembled him.
"Millicent Bulstrode," said the man, with a bow and a smile that was not a sneer or a smirk. "I am so happy to meet you at last. As the saying goes, 'Faint heart never won fair lady.'"
From that alone, Millicent thought she knew who he was.
"You are Evan Rosier," she said, and brought her wand up.
Rosier sighed and took a step forward. "Is the mere revelation of my identity enough to put an end to my courtship?"
Millicent didn't bother to answer, because Rosier was mad, and one didn't answer madness; one destroyed it. She used a Severing Curse first, because she knew that he had used them on his enemies in the past, and he Apparated out of the way, appearing again just a little to the left of where he had been. He reached out and stroked a rose, avoiding the thorns, his eyes on her wide and amused.
"I would give you a flower," he said. "But I think a girl like you would prefer stone. Cautes!"
Millicent dipped her head and rolled forward as the boulder crashed behind her, doing a full somersault. Rosier was already chanting another curse, one that would put a burning in her blood from the sound of it. Millicent knew that she couldn't dodge the curse, which struck inside one's shields, and so she gave him something else to think about instead.
She was her father's magical heir. She could wield the gifts of the Bulstrode line when she chose. And now she chose, reaching deep into the crystalline spaces around and inside her and drawing up the flame that usually slept beneath the surface. This was not something to be done lightly, both because it was traditionally a secret and because it removed so much strength from the caster. But she was going to do it, and she did, drawing out and flinging the Bulstrode blackfire at Rosier just as he hit the climax of his curse.
His wand hand turned to stone, effectively disrupting the flow of magic from his body, and thus the spell. Rosier considered it for a moment, turning the living part of the limb back and forth to admire the smooth black rock. Millicent scrambled up, ready to try another Severing Curse.
"You have given me a gift," said Rosier, and it was hard to concentrate on the spell when he was speaking. "I shall have your father reverse it before I leave, of course, but that doesn't matter. You tried your hardest, and you gave me a gift of stone to answer the gift of stone I gave you." He gave her an appallingly genuine smile. "I wish that you were available for me to freely wed instead of kill, my lady. I think that we could have a chance together."
Millicent spat the curse in answer. Again he Apparated out of the way, and when he appeared, said simply, "Caeco," in a disinterested tone.
Millicent's sight went black. She knew the battle was lost, and whether Rosier burned the whole of the house, as he'd probably come for, or just lit the garden on fire and danced in the ruins, she could not remain there. Her life was more valuable than any books or treasures. That was especially true now, when she had only her little sister for an heir and no child of her own.
She focused on the Hogsmeade road and Apparated, but not before Rosier's voice came after her, soft and reverent.
"I have the best luck with Bulstrode women."
SSSSSSSSSS
It seemed like a long time before Harry could open his eyes. He was lying in a hospital bed; he knew that from the feeling of the sheets around him. And there was an enormous, crushing pain in his chest, which confused him. He knew that Voldemort had assaulted him with visions, but he should feel either all the pain of the curses he'd seen cast or none at all, and the only spell this agony could possibly have come from was the Slaughter Curse that had taken Priscilla.
Taken her. She was dead. And Millicent blind, and Honoria wounded, and Medusa and Eos and Michael barely escaped—
He tried to lunge upward, only to run into an invisible iron bar just above the bed that rather effectively sent him sprawling back down. Harry blinked, and blinked again, and then held out his hand and murmured, "Accio glasses."
When they zipped over to him, he slipped them on, and his eyes narrowed as he saw the faint mark of a ward directly over his chest. Well. What one can't go through, one can slip under.
He started to move, and his vision grayed. This was annoying. Harry leaned on his pillows and tried to recover his breath, and wondered why in the world the crushing pain in his chest had just got worse.
"Someday, you'll wake up wounded and have the sense not to move," Draco's voice said from the side. "But I think that day will be long in coming."
Harry turned towards him. "I have to know how they are," he said insistently. "And if the effects of the Slaughter Curse are still lingering, I know that Madam Pomfrey can cure them. It's not as though I received the blast of the full thing. I want to know how Millicent and—"
"All here," said Draco, pressing him back down. "Except for Honoria, who's in St. Mungo's. But Rhangnara and his children, the Rosier-Henlin woman and her children, and Millicent all made it. They're tired, they're grieving, but they're alive, and Regulus managed to reverse Millicent's blindness. The one who came closest to death was you. Lie still, Harry."
Grumbling, Harry dropped back onto the pillows, and was even more annoyed when his vision swayed again, making it hard for him to see Draco when he sat down in the chair beside the bed. "What did I get hit with?" he asked. "Is this some combined effect of the visions? Or—"
"It is not, Harry," said Madam Pomfrey's voice from off to the side. "The truth is that you fought the visions so hard, trying to throw off what You-Know-Who was doing, that your heart almost burst. It produced symptoms similar to a heart attack." She was in front of his bed then, waving her wand and murmuring several diagnostic spells under her breath. She seemed satisfied when each produced a stream of white light that tied together into a knot over Harry's bed, but fixed him with a piercing eye when he tried to sit up again. "You've strained your heart, and you are going to rest if I have to keep you dosed with Dreamless Sleep."
Harry wanted to say that he couldn't have any Dreamless Sleep, he'd had some just a few days ago, but he lowered his eyes and nodded. He heard Madam Pomfrey bustle away, and then Draco took his hand.
"The Headmistress has made them welcome," Draco said. "She said they're welcome to stay here for as long as they like, and so is anyone else who flees to Hogwarts. The wards here are strong. We'll be able to keep anyone who attacks out, even if they have stones like the one Michael brought in. And now that we have it, we can study it. Rhangnara thinks he can create a variation on the stone soon that might keep wards from being drained."
Harry closed his eyes and nodded again. He was pondering whether he should tell Draco about the laughing words that Voldemort had planted in his head as he watched vision after vision happen, attack after attack occur that he could have prevented, had he not been locked helpless in the pain from his scar.
I will take from you everything that you have loved.
Honoria and Thomas's family hadn't been targeted because they were his allies. Medusa Rosier-Henlin and Eos, the child he had named, whose godfather he was, hadn't earned Adalrico's attention because they were vulnerable. Millicent hadn't even been assigned to Evan Rosier because Voldemort thought sending Adalrico against his family was stupid.
It had happened because Harry cared for them, and that was all.
That sense of things had come through while Harry fought helplessly, stridently, to take back control of his mind. This was not the war it had been. Voldemort cared about immortality and taking over the wizarding and Muggle worlds and making his enemies pay for what they'd done to him, but they were secondary goals now. What really mattered was torturing Harry until he made a stupid mistake, or gave in to the hatred and came to Voldemort's side, or died.
And if what Madam Pomfrey says about my heart is true, that last almost happened today.
Draco cupped his chin and tilted his head up, and Harry went, opening his eyes slowly. Grief was beginning to hit him, and weariness, along with the general urgency. This time, the reason he had trouble seeing Draco was because he looked through a haze of tears.
"The first priority," Draco said calmly, "is keeping Voldemort out of your head. We had a talk about that, Harry, and you ignored me."
"The vates path is strict," Harry whispered. "I might not think that using Legilimency on Voldemort counts as violating someone's free will, you might not think that, but it could count by the definition of the path."
Draco's grip tightened until Harry winced, and then fell down and back. "Then you can't be vates anyway," he said. "It would need someone who didn't have a mad Dark Lord after his blood. I know that it matters to you, Harry, but you can't fulfill your ambitions if you're dead, can you?"
Harry sighed. His own death from heart failure didn't seem real to him, still, but that was probably because he had the other deaths and wounds in his head, and he knew they had happened, while he had managed to live through his. "No."
"You can't," Draco said, sounding satisfied. "So. As soon as you're recovered, you'll take the offensive against Voldemort inside your mind."
When Harry hesitated, his fingers came back and tightened again. "I want a promise, Harry."
"I do promise," Harry said.
"Good." Draco's lips brushed his forehead this time. "Snape will be by to see you later, I think, and he's more than willing to help you with the Legilimency. For now—well, Madam Pomfrey granted me permission to do this. Consopio."
The sleeping charm took over before Harry could protest any more, and sank him down into darkness, and destroyed his plans for safehouses and sanctuaries. Drowsily, he felt that this was not fair, but then he remembered it also kept him from thinking about possibly falling off the vates path and the attacks he'd failed to prevent today, and he welcomed it.
The last thing he thought he heard was high, cold laughter, and Voldemort's voice repeating the hateful words.
I will take from you everything that you have loved.
