A/N: Well here it is, the beginning of an arc I've been waiting to write since I started this fic – I hope you all enjoy it, and please review, even if it's to tell me my writing is awful!
Chapter 21 to come. Stay tuned.
Chapter 20 – The Precipice of Darkness
It was Friday night, and that meant party night.
Teenagers and twenty-somethings of all shapes and sizes had poured into the nightclub in central Bristol, everyone looking for a good time. Music blared into the club, a converted warehouse which was essentially one large room and some small toilets bolted on the side, and an outrageously-dressed DJ expertly manipulated the turntables as the large crowd danced the night away. The owner of the club stood atop a gantry overlooking the entrance to the club, dressed in a sharp suit and barely fazed by the blinding strobe lights and laser displays which played over the bodies of the patrons.
In his eyes, all of it was money rolling into his pocket. Who cared if a couple of people got wasted on cocaine and ruined their bodies doing so? As long as they bought his drinks and paid the entrance fee, they could do whatever the hell they liked.
He spent some time admiring a particularly lithe young woman dancing on one of the provided glitzy podiums next to the main stage, before noticing, through the flashing lights and dark shadowy bodies, a pair of people slump to the ground next to the bathroom area. People could take drugs, but if they'd OD'd at his club he wanted them out.
"Shane!" he roared over the noise to a large bouncer at the end of the gantry, "Two smackheads by the toilets, sling 'em out of here!" Shane, a huge shaved gorilla-like figure, nodded and went down the metal stairs to sort out the problem, while the owner resumed his observation of his kingdom. Disconcertingly, two men who went to see to the people who'd collapsed also slumped over, seemingly fainting on the spot. The owner then looked closer and saw a black woman near the knot of unconscious bodies fall to her knees, blood spurting out of a huge gash in the front of her spandex top.
"Fuck," he swore, pulling out his mobile and dialling the number to alert all the bouncers that there was a problem – the club doors slammed shut seconds later and all the bouncers converged on the far corner of the warehouse by the toilets area, which was lit by harsh white lights. Most of the dancers hadn't noticed anything, but still the occasional one seemed to suddenly drop down, and blood was beginning to stain the concrete floor. People nearby also seemed to be crying and holding their heads, as some sort of pessimistic wave hit the clubbers.
The owner punched another number into his phone, preparing to cut the music off and get the punters out if there was a problem. As he watched, Shane reached the group, pulling one of the smackheads roughly to his feet. As the owner watched, Shane jerked, twitched, and fell backwards, a gigantic hole opened in his chest by an unseen assailant.
"Jesus Christ!" he swore viciously, dialling the number to kill the music and then the police. Whatever the hell was going on was not good. The music, a throbbing techno beat, died instantly, and the decorative lighting was swapped with strip lighting, illuminating the surprised clubbers, most frozen in mid-dance or other more embarrassing positions. Bouncers began ordering people to the fire exit as a knot of them surrounded the toilets, which was seemingly littered with nearly a dozen unconscious or bleeding bodies. Seeing the blood, the crowd began to panic and run, with more and more of them falling to the floor, seemingly stunned by forces unknown. The bouncers began to weep and cry, big grown men sobbing and moaning as they were struck by some sort of horrific sadness.
The owner began to quietly panic. What the fuck was happening in his club? People falling down like flies, people bleeding! He heard a loud crack from next to him, and spun to see a figure garbed in a long red cloak with... flames dancing on the hems, a bandana masking his face and armour on his chest and arms.
"Nice night for a party," the man said conversationally. "Although now I would run like hell."
The club was very, very fucked, Harry decided upon arrival. A sharply-dressed man with a very fine taste in suits was looking at him agog upon his Apparition – a clear breach of the Statute of Secrecy, but the way he saw it all the Muggles were going to do when they tried to leave was run into a Portkey to the Ministry anyway, so whatever he did it was going to be wiped from their memory.
The unnatural cold and despair that accompanied Dementors slammed instantly into his mind, amplified by his magical nature rather than dulled by it. He could see a dozen of them swarming like a shoal of dangerous fish in the corner of the giant warehouse-club, their black cloaks touching the heads of the bouncers as they sucked the happiness from them.
But, as he watched, something unexpected and extremely bad happened. Two of the Dementors, bigger than their fellows by a good foot (though what made them bigger was beyond Harry), hovered next to a cowering bouncer and a pair of arms shot out from under their cloaks, ragged and scabbed grey flesh ending in lethal-looking swords of black bone. They flashed through the air with precision, gutting the bouncer in short order before one of them delivered the Kiss.
"Oh... shit," Harry said, fear beginning to stir in his gut. He pulled out the small communications slate and wrote "HELP" to Dumbledore, with his coordinates after. The smart man next to him was still looking utterly frozen with shock as he did so. Harry ignored him, readied his wand, and took careful aim.
"Expecto Patronum!" he yelled, satisfied to see a solid-looking silver stag erupt from the end of his wand and canter on air down from the gantry towards the swarm of Dementors, including the altered ones. They shrieked, a hideous piercing wail, and scattered, with several of the smaller ones fleeing through an open window near the ceiling of the warehouse. The big ones, however, simply slashed at the Patronus with their bone-swords, dissipating it in short order and leaving a half-dozen Dementors which had spotted Harry. By now the warehouse was essentially empty, with the Muggles having fled in a howling horde into the Ministry's custody, leaving the bouncers and remaining Kissed.
"Expecto Patronum!" Harry yelled again, his heart sinking as the stag charged out of his wand at full pelt, only to be stabbed in the face and evaporated by one of the enhanced Dementors, which hissed menacingly and attacked Harry mentally, hoping to overwhelm him with waves of despair. Harry's Occlumency shields held against the surprisingly strong mental barb, and he stood ready on the mental gantry.
"Potter," he heard in his mind, a roaring hideous sound which spoke of dark corners which should never be explored, "we are going to kill you,"
He realised, with a sickening jolt in his stomach, that the Dementors were talking to him. And they didn't seem to like him. And they knew who he was.
This changed things.
"Effodio!" Harry snapped, flicking his wand at a Dementor which hovered too close to the gantry, punching a hole straight through its robes and causing the beast to screech and hiss, before fleeing out of the open window where its brethren had run.
"We will see you again, Potter. Next time we will not be so... restrained," one of the Dementors said in Harry's mind, the reverberating roaring voice bypassing his Occlumency shields entirely. The Dementors turned and sliced a deep gash into a nearby bouncer, knocking the man to the floor with another set of arms which emerged from underneath their cloaks –powerful looking grey arms, albeit without vicious swords attached – before spiralling off out of the window, accompanied by their fellows. As Harry watched, his mouth set in a grim line underneath his bandana, Aurors began to Apparate into the nightclub, wands at the ready. Harry saw Kingsley on the floor below, who caught sight of Harry and nodded. Harry raised his hand in salute and, with one last look at the terrified gentleman standing next to him frozen in shock, Apparated away.
"You say he's altered the Dementors?" Dumbledore said, sharply.
"They had swords for arms. Hell, they had four arms!" Harry said incredulously, gesticulating for effect. "They sliced up the big guys and made short work of my Patronus."
Dumbledore frowned. "This is bad news indeed. The Prime Minister is understandably worried about these... enhanced Dementors. Invisible killing machines would make anyone nervous. The "magical pacification" force he's set up is currently working with the Ministry, but I would be lying if I said things weren't tense. We need to stop Muggles dying."
"They weren't after the Muggles, they were after me." Harry said flatly, before explaining that they had talked to him. Dumbledore looked grave, seated behind his desk in the Headmaster's office during Harry's debriefing on the attacks the night before.
"Talked to you... that sounds like they were the two alpha Dementors, the mouthpieces, of the Azkaban swarm... Voldemort must have done something to them to change them like that. I would be careful, Harry, I really would." Dumbledore brooded for a moment, and then spoke quietly. "Not to purposely change the subject, but you realise it was Miss Granger's birthday on Monday? I have it on good information she spent the entire day in tears as one of her best friends is widely assumed to have died."
Harry started. He had completely forgotten, no, disregarded Ron and Hermione and all those others since he had started his Order work. "Umm..." he began.
"'Umm' indeed, Harry. I am not here to try to make you feel guilty, I am just pointing out that there is a world outside our microcosm of war. And whether you want to or not, you'll have to face it when this is all over. You can't live as the time-traveller forever. 'Harry Potter' is not 'the Phoenix' during peace."
Harry sat in silence. He didn't really have a reply to that.
"Think about it," Dumbledore said. "You'll have to, eventually."
Hours after Harry had left, in the dead of night, Dumbledore continued his forbidden work, completely alone.
He knew what he was doing was wrong. It nauseated him, disgusted him. It went against all his principles.
But it was, lamentably, necessary. And the Dementors Harry had described only reinforced this.
This was what was, unfortunately, right as opposed to easy. Dumbledore was never a man for 'easy'. But as he scratched down symbols and glyphs which turned his stomach to even read, he had to wonder whether what he was doing could even be considered 'right'.
"Here is the plan," Lucius Malfoy said, looking darkly at his fellow Inner Circle members. "We are to enter the wand-store, kill Ollivander and do something, and I quote, 'interesting' with the body, and then steal the wands of a particular section which the Dark Lord has specified, it's simply one rack. We are then to burn the rest. Is this clear?"
"Yes," echoed the Inner Circle members.
"Whatever the Master wishes..." said a female voice, with just a hint of danger to it. Bellatrix Lestrange, wearing her ornate silver mask depicting a Medusa from ancient Muggle legends, sat at the back of the extravagant dining room in the Riddle Mansion, bathed in shadow. Lucius detested her. Insane and fiercely loyal, an incredibly poor combination for such a position of power in his opinion. But, as she said, whatever the Dark Lord wished...
He looked at Snape. "The Dark Lord has drawn up a list of potions required for the raid. You are to also distract Dumbledore as much as you can."
Snape nodded, taking the list offered by Lucius. "And what of this... Phoenix?"
"We underestimated that man last time. This time the Dark Lord wants our aid in destroying him. Apparently there will be quite a reward for the one to land the killing blow."
In the darkness of the dining room you could almost feel the malevolent greed emanating from the assembled Death Eaters. The Master's rewards were always good.
"It's good to have you back, Moony," Sirius said warmly, raising his glass to Lupin. Harry, Lupin and Sirius were seated in a side room in Grimmauld Place, one next-door to Harry's quarters, behind the same paranoid shielding Harry demanded. They were in plush armchairs surrounding a small table, and having a quiet evening in to welcome Moony back from his diplomatic mission to the werewolves. Lupin looked haggard and gaunt, but radiated happiness when he saw Sirius and Harry. While shocked to hear of what had happened in his absence, he wasn't about to back down now.
"So, Harry, I'm very interested in these Dementors you encountered. Bone-swords on their arms, you said?" Lupin enquired, taking a small sip of the wine he was drinking.
Harry thought for a moment, drinking from his tumbler of Firewhiskey. "I only saw them for a moment, really. They had four arms each, two of which had the swords on it. They just looked like blackened sharp swords really. Nothing else different from normal Dementors, apart from the ability to slice through Patroni. I didn't get to try any other spells on them, though."
"This is, if you'll forgive me, fascinating stuff. Voldemort has managed to alter one of the most dangerous beasts known to Wizardkind!"
"You and him should shack up, Moony, you'd get on like a house on fire," said Sirius lightly, poking Lupin on the shoulder. Lupin gave him a withering look, a smile still on his face.
"I think he'd rather I fought mindlessly between him and the spells than 'shack up' with him, Padfoot. And in any case, I'm taken," he said coyly, smirking at Sirius' dumbfounded look.
"If you say it's with Tonks, things never change," Harry said, stretching out his legs. Lupin looked surprised, and Harry grinned. "It is her isn't it! Old enough to be her father, how unlike you Moony. I knew she was writing to someone, I didn't think it would be you," he said with mock disapproval, drinking more Firewhiskey.
"Don't make me hex you, Harry," Moony replied.
"Pfft, this is the man who killed a three headed dragon with just a few spells, having had the shit kicked out of him," Sirius crowed, patting Harry on the shoulder. "And Dora? Better not hurt her, Moony, she's a Black. Though the things she could do in bed with that talent of hers..."
The three men paused for a moment in tipsy reflection. It was almost as though there wasn't a war on.
"Focus your power inwards," Dumbledore commanded, looking at Harry sternly. They were in Harry's Grimmauld Place bedroom, with the furniture swept aside as Harry tried to replicate the effects of the fight against the dragon. Voldemort was laying low, still preparing to attack Ollivander's, and Harry was eager to confront him again. Dumbledore disapproved, he knew, but that was the only way this was going to end.
He closed his eyes, dressed in his Phoenix costume, and drew his power inwards like he was inhaling. He felt a crackle and buzzing on the surface of his skin, but it dissipated before anything dramatic happened. Dumbledore looked pensively at him, waving his wand absently as he did so.
"Try to relax your body more. As if you were casting a particularly difficult spell, except hold in the power behind it without saying an incantation."
Harry closed his eyes and tried again, relaxing his body so he was resting on the flats of his feet and his arms hung limp. He drew in a deep breath, and tried not to tense up as he felt magical power building up, ready to be formed into a spell of any kind. He kept his mind as blank as possible, trying not to give the magic an outlet in the form of any incantation or intent (his wandless magic, ironically, worked against him here), until he felt the buzzing feeling once more. This time he physically exhaled slowly and inhaled once more, pooling more and more power.
His head began to ring with the feeling, and he felt an immense pressure behind his eyes. Something popped gently in his nose, and hot blood began to dribble from his left nostril. Ignoring it, he finally tensed, forcing the power to do something. There was a rushing sound as air was drawn towards him, and then he felt power rush outwards, over his body.
"Congratulations, Harry!" Dumbledore said, observing Harry burst into what looked like flame, as in the dragon's cavern. Harry opened his eyes and looked at his body. He felt himself tiring as he maintained the magic, but his body was literally charring the very floor he stood on. With a nonchalant flick of his finger, he smashed a chair in the corner of the room into matchsticks.
"It amplifies spellwork which is focused on one object," he noted. Not very good for fighting multiple targets. What do you think this is, Headmaster?"
"I have experienced something similar, Harry," Dumbledore said, directing various spindly instruments he had brought from his office at Harry's body. It's simply a manifestation of your magical core, concentrating itself as you concentrated your magic. Think of it as a duelling technique of sorts – hard to maintain but gives you boosts in some areas. I, personally, do not use this particular magical ability very much as my body is rather older than yours and I fear it could damage me. But you should explore this, I feel."
Harry relaxed and the glittering flames surrounding his frame faded. He looked at the floor and noticed black scorch marks. "I'd better be careful if I'm standing on a flammable surface..."
"I'd imagine Madame Pince wouldn't be particularly happy with you doing that in the Library," Dumbledore chuckled. "But in the midst of battle it could give quite the psychological advantage over the Death Eaters. However, I suspect Voldemort can do something similar, so I would be on your guard. We have very few advantages in this war, bar our spy network. Voldemort simply seems to manufacture his."
It was Tuesday, the last Tuesday of September (had it only been a month since the Express fight? Harry certainly considered it to have been an eternity), and it was the day of Voldemort's raid, supposedly designed to cripple the Auror network's supply of magical wands and massacre civilians in the heart of Diagon Alley itself.
The Prime Minister had been informed of this, and had taken steps. Four unmarked vans full of Magical Pacification (as they had become known) units, men from mixed areas of military and law enforcement and all sworn to secrecy. Equipped with a medley of Muggle weaponry and magical defensive items, they had worked with the Ministry to ensure that the conflict, if there was one, didn't spill out into the street. Of course only Scrimgeour 'officially' knew there was to be a raid that morning, Ministry security was good but far from entirely watertight, but the Prime Minister knew enough to make sure the men were there.
Two dozen in all, all on alert and all well trained. All ready to kill. Despite the Prime Minister's threats of a total crackdown, they had been told to go for the men in the masks and follow "the bloke in the red" in case of an emergency. To some of them it was a joke, and they shared easy banter, but others understood that they were facing people who could kill with two words. That was not to be joked about.
Whatever happened, the Magical and Muggle world were about to meet each other, and not in a good way. These Muggles were not the stupid witch-burners. They were the grim faced helmeted riot officers wielding assault weaponry loaded with vicious anti-armour and incendiary rounds. They had had a good few days to practice operations against magical opponents, and they had the advantage of fighting an enemy that didn't know to duck a grenade.
It was going to be close.
Ollivander sat in his workshop at the back of his store, unknowing of the danger he was in, on the morning of the raid. He was crafting a wand, a fine creation of holly and unicorn hair, 9 inches with surprising rigidity. His dusty shop was quiet – it wasn't school shopping season so he usually only got the odd request from an Auror or magical experimenter.
He knew something was wrong when his runic wards, tuned to detect Dark Marks, began to glow a bright sickening red, illuminating his face and hands with light.
So, they had come for him at last. He knew the Dark Lord Voldemort wouldn't let his wand shop escape his baleful gaze. Ollivander, however, was not a stupid man.
Far from it.
When the first white-masked Death Eater blasted his workshop door off of its hinges, Ollivander was already smartly stepping into the Floo behind his workbench. As the Death Eater fired a Killing Curse into the green flames, a mass of alarms began to wail from inside the shop and outside, alerting the whole of Diagon Alley that there was trouble.
Ministry Operations Room
"Alarms have gone off in Ollivander's wandmaking shop," a stony-faced wizard. "From what I can see someone went through a private Floo network which immediately disconnected after use. It led to a house in France."
"Ollivander got out then," Kingsley said gravely, presiding over the Ministry operations room and studying the scrying screen, which was displaying manic dots moving frantically evacuating Diagon Alley as the anti-apparition wards kicked in, trapping whoever set the alarms in there. "Send a team to retrieve him, and send the Aurors into the Alley. All of them. Tell them to kill, not capture."
Grimmauld Place
"And so it begins," Harry grinned, activating his Phoenix stone and stowing the slate which had just delivered him news of an attack. He grabbed his potions pack, ensured his wand was in his pocket, and Portkeyed away into the Leaky Cauldron.
"We just got a message from Davison that something is going down in the Alley," the captain of the 24 man Magical Pacification squad barked into his radio. "Stay alert lads, we're probably going to be called in any moment."
Grimmauld Place
"Constant Vigilance!" Moody barked as the Order members who were available to run to the Alley assembled in the living room of Grimmauld Place. A pitiful dozen, but good enough. Sirius grinned from under a rough glamour and Moony nudged him, nodding at Moody's antics. Moody scowled at their levity in the face of danger and tossed the assembled members a length of rough rope, with him holding one end.
"In three seconds this goes. Three, two, one-"
Voldemort looked into his scrying plate, and smiled. So Potter and his little Order had taken the bait. Voldemort, like Ollivander, was not a stupid man, he knew he had a spy in his ranks, just not who. His Inner Circle thought that this was a simple smash and grab mission, but he knew better.
Oh no, the objective of this mission was to kill the Phoenix. To kill Harry Potter. The secrecy meant his men were somewhat on the back foot, but they tended to largely compensate for things like that with their single-minded penchant for violence.
With flourish he touched his wand to his Dark Mark, signalling his unsuspecting Death Eaters to activate their Portkeys, which would take them into the Alley. With another flourish he remotely activated a mass Portkey for the Dementors lurking in the under croft of the Riddle Mansion, shielded from the rest of the house.
It was going to be a bloodbath.
With one last look around his sumptuous master bedroom, Lord Voldemort Portkeyed himself away.
He had a score to settle.