Chapter Twenty-Five: The Relic Reemerges

Waking up after being knocked out, as James was finding out, was not at all like waking up after being asleep. It was a dizzying, nauseating experience, and every inch of James' body was rebelling against him as he struggled to stay in the physical world, rather than slip back off into unconsciousness. Unfortunately, James failed the first time around and slipped back into unconsciousness, but not before he managed to realize that he was definitely tied up,

The second time James began to drag himself towards consciousness, he managed to accomplish the feat, although he still felt quite nauseous. As his vision began to fade back into focus, James looked around his surroundings and found that he, along with all the others, had been tied with their backs up against a row of trees, and for some reason it felt like there was a weight on his shoulder. Their wands must have been taken from them while they were out, as James could made out a row of eight slim sticks lined up one by one on a table a few dozen meters away from them.

They were still in the same clearing that they had been looking into earlier, but there was now a small hole in the center, and it was growing steadily deeper as men with shovels uprooted large sections of the earth. Whatever it was that these men were looking for, it was surely buried somewhere in the general area around here.

After making this realization, James began glancing down the line of his classmates, trying to see if any of them were conscious yet. On the far left was probably Paul, yea that was him, and he looked like he was struggling with his ropes, so he was awake, and next to him was Nick, who was similarly fidgeting.

On the tree immediately to the left of James were Jason and Christian, both of whom seemed to be conversing in low tones about something. So far it seemed that everyone had been awake long before James had finally dragged himself back into the world.

However, tied to the tree next to James was the source of the weight he'd been feeling earlier. Jeremey was still totally out, and had slumped up against James while asleep.

At the next tree were Andrew and Zach, one of whom seemed to be trying to shake the other one awake. It took James a few moments to realize that it was Zach who was moving, roughly trying to bring Andrew back to consciousness.

James did not waste his time trying to wake Jeremey up, it wasn't going to work, so instead he tried to find a way to win free of the ropes that bound him to the tree, however the ropes were extremely tight, and no matter what James did he could not loosen them in the slightest.

It took James some time to realize that Jason was having much better luck with his bonds one tree over, in fact, Jason had succeeded in getting his left arm free, and was trying to do the same with his right when James finally noticed the boy's progress.

Meanwhile, the men's search seemed to be slowly but surely narrowing down where their quarry could be located. Seeing as it was most certainly in this clearing, the team of Dark Wizards who had stunned James and the others some time earlier had already eliminated the near half of the clearing. They weren't digging al that deep. Only about three feet deep, which lead James to believe that what they were looking for had to be very small, and not very deep.

James was still squirming against his bonds when Jeremey's eyelids began to flicker some time later, the last of the boys to finally come round. His eyes darting from James, to the Dark Wizards, and back to James he said softly, "I don't know how we're gonna get out of this one James." The boy's voice was full of fear, fear that James was feeling but could not express, fear that he could not give in to, fear that was going to be their biggest enemy in getting out of here.

Jason by now had managed to get both hands free, and was now trying to slip his torso out of his ropes as inconspicuously as possible. Unfortunately, he was not moving very much, but he was still making some steady progress which was more than any of the other boys could say. James for one doubted that he had loosened so much as a single strand of the ropes binding him.

James was concerned by the possibility that the Dark Wizards were sure to notice when Jason finally won free of the ropes, but just as the Ravenclaw boy was pulling the last of the ropes off him, one of the Dark Wizards shouted "Here! I've found it!" causing his fellows to crowd around him, looking into the hole to see if it was indeed there.

Taking advantage of their momentary advantage, Jason sprinted to the table and grabbed his wand off the table and pointed it at the rest of them. "Relashio!" he whispered, causing their ropes to slide off them and collapse like so much string. The remaining boys immediately got up and went to retrieve their wands, but they were too late.

"Yes! We've found it!" came the elated cry as James grabbed his wand off the table, a feeling of warmth spreading through him as wand and master were reunited. The fleeting joy he had felt as he grasped his wand immediately vanished, only to be replaced by terror, what had they found? What was this lost relic that the Magical History Movement had so desperately sought for the last year.

As he turned to face his captors, steeling himself for the sight of some unholy magical abomination, James was filled with a sense of anticlimax as they were lifting only what looked like a ring to the sky.

"A ring?" James exclaimed, perhaps too loudly, "That's it! That's what they've been looking for all this time!" His friends tried to quiet him but it was too late, as one the Dark Wizards spun to face them, shock evident on all of their faces.

"Well well well," said the woman with the tattooed face, "Little baby Potter knows how to play with the big boys doesn't he?" she said menacingly. "But yet, he knows so little."

Sliding the ring onto her finger she said "I'd have thought that your father would have taught you about this Potter, as it was such a part of his legacy, but then it was one that he had not wanted wasn't it? That's why it ended up here."

James was fuming, whoever this woman was, she had no business bringing his father into this. Red sparks leapt from his wand in fury as he stared down the woman.

"No, you don't know. Very well then Potter." She said, speaking to him as though he were a struggling student who could not understand a simple concept. "This is the Resurrection Stone, one of the Legendary Deathly Hollows that your father was master of. It gives one the power to bring back the spirits of the dead, if only temporarily."

She grinned wickedly before continuing "However, we believe that temporarily is more than long enough! We shall use the Stone to bring back the spirit of the Dark Lord, so that he can tell the Wizarding World firsthand of how he was trying only to save them, and how he was murdered and framed by Harry Potter. Your father," she concluded, "will finally pay for the crimes he has committed."

James didn't care that this woman was clearly out of her mind, all that mattered to him now was the fact that if what she said was true, then that Stone held the power to return the most evil Dark Wizard in history to the earth…if only for a short time. However, even in that short time, there was no telling what kind of destruction Voldemort could cause!

"There's no way that that's going to happen!" James said dramatically, staring the woman down with more courage than he really felt.

His fear must have been evident, as the woman laughed at him and shouted. "You cannot defeat me! No one can! I am the most powerful Witch that the world has ever seen! I was trained by the Dark Lord himself before he was murdered by your father!"

James' fear only grew at this revelation, if that was the case then this woman was even more of a threat than he had previously believed! There was no way that he could possibly hope to defeat her!

She seemed to notice the fear in his eyes as she leapt forward shouting "Crucio!" forcing James to leap out of the way as her curse sailed past the First Years and exploded with a fiery crackle against a tree behind them.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Jeremey shouted, immediately followed by a cacophony of curses and jinxes as the First Years sent a bombardment of spells at the Dark Wizards. However, their spells were deflected by the woman with a casual flick of her wand, which sent their curses flying off at random angles. One of them came straight back at them and struck Nick in the chest, sending him tumbling to the floor.

"Crucio!" the woman shouted again. "Crucio! Crucio!" she shouted repeatedly, causing the children to run back and forth to avoid her curses. It then occurred to James that she was toying with them. Messing with their minds for her own sadistic amusement. She could probably have killed them at that very instant if she wanted to, but for some reason she seemed content to watch them suffer and writhe.

"Crucio!" she shouted again, this one flying dead center into the mass of First Years and striking Jeremey square in the chest. As the jet of light connected with him, Jeremey's entire body contorted and he collapsed to the ground, writing in agony.

"Oh look, I got one!" she said in apparent delight, much to the amusement of the other Dark Wizards, before pointing her wand at them again and yelling "Crucio!" this time sending Jason to the floor in spasms of pain. Though the effects of the curses had long since worn off, all three boys (Nick, Jeremey, and Jason) remained lying on the floor panting heavily. They probably assumed that if they didn't get up she wouldn't bother them, but James knew that this was just wishful thinking. She was not going to stop until she had killed every last one of them.

The woman laughed, staring down at them with all the authority of fate itself, as though she were a God, and they were ants beneath her feet to be destroyed at her leisure. "Such a shame," She said at last, before continuing "after everything that his father did, I would have expected so much more out of this one. But no, he does not have his father's spine: he's weak, gutless, and is afraid to stand up for himself. What's wrong boy? Does is upset you to see your friends in such pain? Perhaps I should make it easier on you and kill you now."

The way in which she was talking to him, taunting him, caused James to explode in fury. "Petrificus Totalus!" he shouted, only to groan in dismay when his spell was once again blocked aside by the woman with aggravating ease. It was hopeless, this woman's magic was far superior to his own. Plus she had the support of at least a dozen other Dark Wizards, each of whom could kill James before he'd even had time to react.

"Such a shame." She said, twirling her wand through the air lazily before pointing it directly at James' chest. "But I suppose that some traits just do not pass on from father to son. Not everyone can be a hero, your father's fate was to betray his kind; and now yours is to die." Slashing towards him with her wand she screeched "Avada Kedavra!"

Please don't kill me for leaving you with a cliffhanger like this, I couldn't resist. Keep reading and reviewing, the final chapter of the climax will be up tomorrow, and the last chapter the day after that. So please keep reading and above all REVIEWING! I want to hear what everyone has to think. Thank you for reading!