Chapter 24

The smell of grass and dirt was strong, and the feeling of wet on his face was certainly blood trickling down his nose. A thin, glowing veil stood between him and the beady eye. "Where am I and why do I feel like I was hit in the face with a shovel? Then I must have landed on a hundred-pound rock on my back… or on a dull fence-post?" He mumbled at a bird as he tried to roll away from the dangerous glow. The black bird, to whom the beady eye belonged, just sat there and cocked its head, staring through the barrier, as if waiting for Ben to make some pronouncement.

As he began to recognize his surroundings, Ben began again to push himself away from the glowing shield. He slowly became aware of the heavy droning of a sonorous hum that seemed to rise and fall. With his eyes still a bit out of focus, he could recognize that the light level rose and fell along with the hum. Ben managed to struggle to sit up and finally began to remember where he was. With his back to the shield stone, and facing the crow, he realized that his time on Earth may very well be up. Unfortunately, he had never had much of a handle on his own fate when it came to visions of the future. He always thought he could catch glimpses of clues when he got glimpses of people close to him… but recently, nothing seemed certain. Perhaps the dearth of clear sight was the result of having less existence ahead of him from which to pull visions. From what he saw before him, though it was pretty clear he was soon to be a goner.

Was this how it worked? He wondered. Was his very existence in the future the source of his sight? He hadn't given that line of reasoning much thought since there was a time when he thought he could see distant possibilities that would surely be long after his demise… even were he to live to a hundred years. Lately, his visions came in spurts, with seemingly contradictory implications from day to day.

He thought that perhaps it had something to do with Grindelwald's wall. He could "see" nothing through the wall from the time of its creation so many years ago. Its growth had been similar to a blind spot that he sometimes experienced prior to the onset of an intense migraine headache. Color, flashes, but nothing beyond. It absolutely pained him to have to face into the void and trust his stolen memories from Grindelwald to pass through it in utter blindness. The throbbing hum that approached him and accompanied the pulsating light in his present surroundings was like an unpleasant accompaniment contributing to the headache that he had developed on that passage. The headache that won't go away.

Beyond the veil and beyond the bird was a line of masked wizards marching in a geometrical formation that he instantly recognized as part of a sacrifice needed for a powerful spell. The power that was building for the incantation made the whole procession glow visibly and pulsate with light along with the chant. The stone behind him strobed in response. The knife in the hand of the leader did not have any blood on it… yet. They were walking toward Ben. Ben just sat and stared. His nine lives were apparently up.

He realized that his hands had not been particularly responsive since regaining consciousness because they had been loosely tied. Someone must have prepared and bound his unconscious body after the powerful surge from the stone knocked him out. He had surely been thoroughly searched and relieved of his wand. He smiled ironically while he rubbed his head with his hands. He had been a bit hasty to act and reveal his wand. If he had had a future for which to file that note-to-self, he would certainly have done so.

Two wizards flanking the knife-bearer raised their wands and Ben's bindings tightened and he rose, floating in a prone position staring at the ground. A masked wizard guarding the shield a few feet away from the bird lifted his wand and the shield faded.

The bird walked into the circle as if it had been waiting for the shield to fall. It seemed to be on a mission, knowing what needed to be done as Ben watched its progress. The bird's progress was apparently not noticed by the marchers. The bird walked in the shadow cast by the guard, underneath Ben and toward the stone. Ben tried to not pay it obvious attention… not knowing what it was, and hoping not to draw attention to it that he might endanger its mission. As he lifted his head to see the progress of the approaching crowd, he saw that the footsteps ticking away the final moments of his life had just about run out. He took the chance to quickly crane his neck to see where the bird had gone. He had an intuition that the bird was not one of his adversaries' tools. The bird was underneath the edge of the wall stone. Ben could barely make out something at its feet that could be a small pouch tied with a white string. The bird then turned and seemed to wink at him before it flew off.

Strong hands gripped his arms and legs and dragged him to the top of the stone. From the center of the crowd, Grindelwald emerged and the knife-bearer handed him the gleaming blade. To Ben's surprise, instead of ending Ben's life, Grindelwald cut his own hand and let the blood drip upon the stone.

As if growing out of the stone, a small, ghostly luminescent humanoid figure appeared that was connecting Grindelwald to the stone. It was attached by one hand to Grindelwald's hand in which he held his triangular amulet that was a representation of the Deathly Hallows. The other hand appeared to be sunken into the stone beneath Ben. Ben could feel the stone vibrate. As he watched the ghastly figure, it began to resemble Grindelwald.

As he turned toward Ben lying on the stone, Grindelwald spoke for the first time. "I need your life to spark this body that can carry this part of my soul. You don't mind, do you? After all, your sacrifice will be for the greater good. Then there will be two of me… and none of you. You are out of time."

Ben tried to speak, but was unable to do so. Grindelwald smiled at him and lifted the knife.

The air around the procession began to turn thick and misty. Fog had been encroaching upon their wicked circle. A cloud seemed to appear and build around them and the air began to feel heavier with each breath. The witnesses crowded around the altar and many of them smiled as if anticipating the culmination of the ritual and the fulfillment of all their preparations. At this point, there were several hundred masked wizards gathering around and pressing in toward the stone within the circle.

The wizards began to continue their chant. Their first recitation of the spell ended in a muffled "glub." Just as he was about to sink his knife into Ben's heart, Grindelwald raised an eyebrow and looked up at his minions. The ones closest to him, standing around the stone, began putting their hands on their throats as if they were choking or suffocating. They started collapsing, with odd, pucker-like, bewildered expressions on their faces.

The air around them began to become more and more viscous. Visible beads of water formed around them and began falling upon the ground. The water rapidly accumulated to ankle, then knee deep, and kept rising.

Grindelwald screamed and flailed around him as his wizards began to fall by the dozen. "This is not supposed to happen in this ritual."

Then, there was a thunderous thud before him as a bluish trail of smoke and mist exploded down from the sky and impacted upon the stone.

A voice before and above Grindelwald gave a low chuckle and said "That's because I have usurped your entanglement of an incantation and am redirecting it to MY will." It said with an authority and force that made Grindelwald step back.

Above Ben, standing on the stone was Cuthbert Binns, who confidently kicked the knife from Grindelwald's hand. Binns stood straight and raised his arms, and all the people within several meters of the stone began to sprout fins and collapse into the pooling waters. A golden trident appeared in his hands and he commanded the fish to attack as the water level grew to over waist-deep. A great crackling explosion occurred above and behind him as he stepped off of the stone and onto the water and rode the wave as most of the fish and evil wizards were carried by the current away from the hilltop and stone.

Many of Grindelwald's minions began to recover their wits and move to attack this new threat. Grindelwald himself retrieved his knife from on top of the stone and threw it at Binns, but it sank into the side of a large carp that leaped up just at that moment. Grindelwald raised his wand and pressed his thumb to the center of his Deathly Hallows amulet, abandoning the ritual as the golem faded back into the stone. Within seconds, dozens of evil wizards began apparating, replenishing the numbers that had been stolen away by Binns' sorcery.

As soon as the new wizards gathered around Grindelwald and he recovered his composure, he said "Well, now it looks like we'll have two wizards to sacrifice." As if in response to this, another crackling explosion resulting in a precussional wave of heat buffeted the crowd, forcing several wizards to step back, off balance. Most managed to raise their hands to ward off the blast of heat.

At that moment, Grindelwald realized that he had made a grave mistake. He felt so secure behind his wall, that he had not taken proper precautions. As he gazed down at Binns, who was standing above the portion of the field that was now flooded with water and no longer had any visible humans, besides Binns, he realized that their whole plan was horribly vulnerable. Binns waved his trident and a wall of water rose up around him, protecting him from curses being flung by the surrounding attackers. Fish as big as men were leaping at wizards attempting to approach Binns, knocking them down and dragging them under the water, to either drown or join their school.

"Kill him!" Grindelwald shouted, and then he heard the roaring and the scream as the source of the wave of heat became apparent. A fiery meteor fell from the sky into the midst of the newly rallying wizards before the stone. It hit the ground with an explosion and a vision of a huge, winged angel of fire was at its center.

Several voices shouted "Phoenix!" and as he turned, it was just in time to see a score of his minions incinerated by the blast that erupted from the fiery wings of the apparition landing before the stone. As he stared, the avian vision became a woman standing amid the flames. At the wave of her wand, the wizards left standing near her became birds that proceeded to rise up and attack anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby. With the wave of her other hand, flames sputtered to life and erupted at the wizards in the opposite direction.

Grindelwald raised his wand to fend off the fire and an attack from a bird when he felt a stiff breeze buffet him and send him off balance. "Kill her!" He shouted.

"Don't you get tired of saying that?" A new voice next to him calmly addressed him with a dreaded familiarity. "Hello, Gellert. It looks like they left you to me. Now what is it you've been up to? You've been quite naughty. There's something about you… that's not… quite… whole. I may have just the thing for that."

He turned and faced Galatea Merrythought.