AN: And the story continues...
Chapter 21 – The storm is brewing
They arrived the second day after Christmas in Hogwarts again. Dumbledore awaited them with his damn twinkling eyes.
Harry snickered to Bella, "Is that damn twinkling in his eyes a sign of age or insanity?"
Bella laughed quietly. However Dumbledore saw them whispering and snickering but didn't hear anything.
"You are ready?" he asked.
"Sure. I will raise the wards and after that, I will key them to you." Harry said, "Anyone else here?"
"Only Minerva, Severus and Poppy."
"So I can use my staff. That will make it much easier." Harry said and held his hand up. The Staff appeared and Dumbledore shook his head in amazement. He was still shocked about the developments of this boy. He didn't know, what else this boy would achieve, but he had learned one thing, not even for him would it be advisable to cross the emerald eyed youth any more. He had far surpassed his power and control over magic even if he didn't have the vast knowledge of the aged headmaster. And after the last meetings with Harry, he could agree to a certain point, that dark magic wasn't consequently evil. It was a thin line but Dumbledore had also concluded, that Harry knew that as well as him.
Harry walked silently over the ground and then shook his head, "We will do it the hard way." he said suddenly and went straight into the castle.
He went to a point between the great hall and Dumbledore's office and stopped suddenly. He closed his eyes and nodded.
"Ha... Mr. Potter, why are you stopping here?" Dumbledore asked.
"Because, this is the very centre of the castle. I will cast the spells from here."
Dumbledore gasped. There were two ways to raise wards. One was, to cast the necessary spells from different points which had to surround the to protecting object and wave the spells together. The shorter but more draining way was, to cast the spells from the centre of the object in question and to expand the wards circularly. That was way faster but unheard of an object as large as the castle, even if he did only protect the core of it. Dumbledore himself wouldn't do it that way for a larger house or a manor.
Harry closed his eyes and began to muttering a long complicated spell. Dumbledore recognized only parts of it.
He felt the power building up in the teen but for now he seemed to restrain it. The blood emerald began to glow more intense from second to second until it glowed in a blinding red light and hummed from the gathered energy.
With a final spell, Harry rammed the staff into the ground. A circular wave of red light spread from it and rushed through the ancient castle.
Dumbledore shuddered as he felt the powerful magic running through him and it felt not very well as it was partially dark magic.
"I wouldn't want to be a deatheater now." he muttered.
"It would be alright for now as you would only be stunned. You have two days after the beginning of the term to evacuate any students who bear the mark." Harry said while breathing heavily from exhaustion. Bella was supporting him.
Dumbledore cast an analysis spell which went also through the whole castle and shook his head.
"You are unbelievable. The power is immense."
"Yes, I decided power is more important then longevity. The war will be over soon in one or the other way. The wards will last for approximately a year. That should be enough do deal with snakeface." Harry said coolly.
"I pray that you are right." Dumbledore sighed.
"And even if he is not, we can always recast the wards." said Bella proudly.
Harry cast another spell and Dumbledore gasped as a new wave of power rushed through them.
"You are now keyed to them and will feel it, if they are activated and where." the black eyed teenager explained.
"Thank you. That was truly excellent work. I will speak with Filius about the NEWT-Testing, but there shouldn't be any problems."
Bella snickered, "To bad there aren't any more NEWT's for dark magic. You would pass them with flying colours."
Dumbledore gasped but then sighed defeated, "Well, you could always be tested at Durmstrang. But it would be pointless, because it wouldn't help you here to get a job."
Harry laughed, "Right, except you would agree to actually teach this delicate subject here... I could become a teacher for that."
"Over my dead body!" Dumbledore said with vigour.
"Be careful with your wishes, headmaster." Harry said in a dangerous quiet voice which caused a shiver running down the spine of Dumbledore.
"You wouldn't..." Dumbledore gasped.
"No, of course not." Harry said laughing, "Except, you would stand between me and Riddle. But I think, we are past this point."
"That we are." Dumbledore said with twinkling eyes.
"Well, of you would excuse us." Harry said, "We want to enjoy the last free days."
Dumbledore nodded and Harry and Bella disappeared in his black teleportation.
As they arrived back after New Year, only one single Ravenclaw student of the sixth year was stunned and shipped off into custody.
The winter passed in peace and nothing serious happened. Voldemort seemed still to gather and reform his forces.
Harry, Bella and his allies did all they could do to be prepared. Hermione and Ron drilled the DA and Dumbledore surely got the Order ready. Arthur strengthened his position as minister of magic and ordered twenty aurors to guard Hogwarts. He specially instructed them not to interfere with anything Harry did or would do during the battle. They knew now, that Harry was openly practising dark magic but refrained from commenting on that. The aurors stationed in Hogwarts were all old dogs and actually found it appropriate to deal with the Deatheaters.
The ministry actually managed it to capture more and more Deatheaters. They were tried righteously but if they were found guilty, harsh sentences were handed out to further demoralize the remaining ones.
As the spring came, rumours started, that the dark lord was becoming desperate and a big attack would come soon.
Also Harry felt the desperation of Voldemort through his connection with him but he couldn't get any information out of it. But all were fairly sure, a larger attack would either be on the Ministry or Hogwarts and both were well protected and forces could go quickly from one place to the other. After Arthur Weasley taking over the Ministry, Voldemort would have a hard time with any attack he would start. Maybe killing the Minister of magic was his greatest error so far.
And with the beginning of spring in March, the attack came with full force. Dozens of Giants, two hundred deatheaters and even some rogue vampires were running out of the forbidden forest and attacked the outer wards of Hogwarts.
The teachers informed the forces of the ministry and went out to engage the enemy. Hermione and Ron grouped the members of the DA right at the borderline of the inner wards. The teachers, the order and the aurors went to the borderline of the outer wards to intercept them, as long as they were busy with taking down the wards.
Bella, Snape, Zabini and Remus formed a formidable group of their own. Remus and Bella teamed up as well as Zabini and Snape. Together they combined the power of their killing curses and terminated giant after giant with the lethal magic.
Harry had changed into his wyvern-form and engaged from the air. As it was dark outside, he was nearly invisible with his dark grey scaled skin.
He flew fast attacks on the giants as well and burned them to ash with his powerful lightning strikes. He was never in danger to be hit. As the dark forces were attacking from the woods, the centaurs were involved as well and fired clouds of arrows in the masses of the enemy and more then one Deatheater fell because of the deadly arrows or even the swords of the magical creatures.
After Harry and his allies had managed to kill half of the giants, the others fled into the forest. Now Harry and his friends attacked the Deatheaters and Vampires. But some powerful sunlight spells took care of any bloodsucking creature. Finally there were mostly Deatheaters left with the exception of a group of mountain trolls as the wards collapsed.
Instantly the light forces retreated. Also the four dark wizards and witches retreated to the second layer of wards but not without causing death and destruction in the line of enemies. And then came Harry.
He swept down directly in front of the wards and his friends who formed a protecting circle around him as he changed back.
He took one look towards the incoming Deatheaters and fired a sickly red wave of magical energy to them. The whole frontline of enemies was hit and went down screaming. The following wizards stumbled over them and created chaos.
All the time were Remus, Snape, Zabini and Bella firing killing curses relentlessly while they were supported by stunning and even some blasting curses from the side of light .
And just, as the Deatheaters regrouped, Harry rammed his staff in the ground and began to chant in a deep reverberating voice. He was again surrounded by a red glowing circle with strange runes and he radiated pure blackness.
The ground behind the Deatheater lines was torn apart and a good hundred of skeletons broke through and instantly attacked the shocked black robed wizards from behind. There were all kinds of skeletons ranging from small but malicious goblins with axes and maces over wizards who were actually casting magic to huge troll skeletons who engaged their living counterparts with rocks, clubs made of bones or their bare hands. As the skeletons felt no pain and couldn't be wounded, they had the advantage even if they were outnumbered.
The only one, who seemed to be unphased was the dark lord himself who was standing behind his forces surrounded by his inner circle. He destroyed masses of skeletons himself with powerful dark curses.
The forces were now fairly balanced and both had serious losses already.
Then Harry called his most powerful weapon to the surface.
The whole ground shook as the earth near the lake ripped open and an eruption of flames set the grass alight. Then a huge shadow raised from beneath the earth and spread wide magnificent wings. The mythical beast let out a thundering roar and swept up into the air. It was a huge dragon even compared to the Hungarian Horntail and it came under the frightened Deatheaters like a thunderstorm. It breathed huge flames into the group, slashed uncountable bodies with his claws and tore apart bodies of humans and troll alike with his teeth.
The monster killed half of the inner circle with one sweep of his armoured tail and the rest with a dose of his unholy fire.
Then it attacked the dark lord himself who was hard pressed to evade or block the attacks of the vicious beast even with his vast dark and powerful magic... but you couldn't kill something that was already dead.
Meanwhile the Deatheaters were attacked from behind and pressed towards the inner wards. Some were daring enough to start a frontal attack on the seemingly weakest group, the DA but half of them went down by the well learnt spells of the group and the ones, who actually made it far enough, were instantly killed by green flashes coming from the wards. The forces of the dark were then cut down quickly between the wizards of light and the skeletons.
As only fifty remained, they surrendered and Harry rammed down his staff again. The skeletons disappeared.
Bella noticed worried the sweat on the head of her fiancé and his heavy breathing.
He went towards the dark lord, who was still fighting the reanimated dragon and stopped fifty feet apart from him.
Then he began to chant again and nearly instantly half of the light wizards became sick as a wave of pure black energy was radiating from him, more powerful than everything they had seen so far.
Again Harry was surrounded by a rune circle which was glowing brightly now and colouring his whole body in blood red light. The strange light, coming from the ground, cast eerily shadows in his face and made him even more intimidating. He looked like he had risen from hell himself. But seconds after his chant, Voldemort was surrounded by a circle as well and he began to scream as a final blast of the dragon burnt him badly. His magic seemed to be hindered by the circle and he couldn't get out of it. All could feel the pure raw power radiating from both circles.
Harry let the dragon disappear as well as he had done his job. Also the teenager couldn't control both the dragon and the powerful magic he was using now.
The light forces as well as the captured dark forces watched stunned as the dark lord fell screaming to his knees.
As Harry began to sway lightly, he nodded slightly to Bella, not interrupting his chant or his concentration. She looked at him with widened eyes and understood. She grabbed Remus and Zabini and ran towards the dark lord. Snape got the hint and followed. They formed a circle around the rune circle and looked questioningly at Harry. The black haired teen closed his eyes in fierce concentration and they felt the knowledge flooding into their minds. Instantly they pointed their wands towards the circle and began to chant in a dark reverberating language similar to the one Harry was using the whole time.
The rune circle lit up even more and formed a cylinder of blood red sparkling energy around the weakened dark lord. Then Harry began a new more powerful chanting and the earth beneath the dark lord was torn apart.
Voldemort was know kneeing above a deep red rip in the earth as he let out an ear splitting scream. A shadow began to grow out of his struggling body and after some minutes it became free. It was instantly sucked into the rip where it disappeared with a loud unearthly scream.
The rip and the rune circles disappeared in an explosion of black energy.
The four wizards were hurled through the air and landed in a heap some metres away.
Voldemort looked at Harry with hate and raised his wand, "You will pay for that! Nobody can kill me, not even you with your necromagic! I'm immortal!"
"No, you have been until now! AVADA KEDAVRA!" Harry bellowed and a powerful green beam surrounded by a dark red aura flew towards the kneeling dark lord and hit him directly into the chest. The power was great enough to lift him into the air and flung him fifty metres over the ground, where he landed with a sickening crunch. But he was already dead. The killing curse had done its work after Harry had banned his demonic and immortal part into the Underworld.
The Aurors and the Order members went warily over to the body and it was finally Dumbledore, who bent down and felt after a life sign.
He got up with twinkling eyes and cast a analysis spell to be sure. Then he smiled and announced, "He is dead and this time he is really dead and will not come back."
The wizards began to cheer and to clap and turned towards the teen, who had accomplished that feat. They became silent instantly as they saw the young hero.
Only Bella, who had just got up from the ground screamed "HAAAARRRRY!" and ran over to the motionless body which was laying on the ground.
She knelt down and shook him lightly, "Harry! Wake up! Please!" she sobbed.
Pomfrey was there seconds later and cast some charms over the teen.
"He is alive, barely so. He has exhausted his magical energy. We need to take him to the medical wing as well as the other wounded." she explained and poured him a red potion.
"That will help to rebuild his magic. Have no fear, he will be alright with enough rest."
Bella sighed relieved and levitated him personally to the medical wing.
Poppy went over to the other wounded wizards.
The other wizards helped her while the aurors took the captured Deatheaters into custody. After that, they formed teams to hunt down the fleeing giants. The order helped to clean up the battlefield. So they were busy for hours after the final battle.
As they had counted all dead and wounded on both sides the got the following data: 37 light wizards had been killed, 5 of them were students but none of Gryffindor. Most of the others had been Aurors. 43 wizards and witches had been severely injured and most of them had been taken to St. Mungos. 156 Deatheaters and 13 Giants had been killed. 49 Deatheaters had been captured.
The result of the battle had been posted the next day in all newspapers all over Europe but no information leaked out, how Voldemort was finally defeated and that it had been done by pure black magic, cast by no other than their saviour. The only thing that came out was, that it had been indeed Harry who had defeated him with the help of Snape, Remus, Bella and Zabini. All fighters had been sworn to secrecy and not one did even think about revealing the truth because they all knew what would happen to their saviour then. Only the people who had been involved in the fight could truly understand, that his using of black magic had been necessary or they would have lost for sure otherwise. And nobody wanted him to endure the public reaction to that fact.
Bellatrix had brought her fiancé into a separate bedroom and stayed by him. She would sit by his bed over the day and snuggle into his bed beside him during the nights. Poppy knew of this as did the headmaster but nobody said anything about it. Poppy would come in after knocking to administer some potions, examine him and leave after that.
AN: Thanks for all your reviews. Only two more chapters to go.