So here's Chapter 29, the penultimate chapter, discounting the epilogue, and definitely the climax. Also probably my longest chapter. Anyway, I have mono right now, so excuse any errors you find. I tried my best. Also, I'm thinking of maybe writing a follow-up story, that could be any scale, big or small. I have a plot and really good characters in my head, and some of it worked out on paper, but I need reviews to see if you guys are still interested. Has your interest in Harry Potter faded now that the last movie is out? Well let me know!

Dudley must have only been out for a few short seconds, for when he came to; Sarah was only beginning to shake him harder than a preliminary check of well-being. Her face was slowly morphing from exhilaration at her fall to distress at her father's unresponsiveness.

"Daddy?" she asked, a hint of pleading in her voice. "Daddy, wake up!" The only noise Dudley felt comfortable in his ability to deliver coherently was a low groan. Her face flashed relief for a moment, turning almost immediately into a mock-serious chiding. "Daddy, you should try to stay awake right now. You can take a nap once we get home and not an instant before! Humph!" She sounded almost like a nanny reprimanding a naughty child.

"I'm sorry, Sarah," he replied, grinning despite the circumstances, and pushing himself up onto his elbow. "I'll try hard to stay awake from now on."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Oh thank goodness, you're alright." Kate's voice sounded almost more like a sigh, only slightly punctuated by the occasional consonant. She was, with much more trepidation than Dudley had demonstrated, climbing over the ersatz stair to the safe section of the staircase. She stumbled a bit as she pulled her lower foot over the stair, but other than that, executed with great grace. "Well, at least we know that the door isn't trapped." She gestured over Dudley's shoulder, and Dudley's gaze followed. Indeed, knocking his head against the door had pushed it marginally open, and the view was unimpeded.

Dudley could see that the floor remained stone, but a luxurious purple rug began at the threshold and, as far as he could tell, ran all the way around the room. It was a safe bet that this was the living section of the mansion, and would thusly remain free from any traps that might seriously injure, though care was still required. One of Dudley's co-workers had once told him of a client who he insured who had almost lost a foot in a bear trap he had set up inside his own house to ward off robbers. The man was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but these witches seemed hardly saner, and Dudley would not put booby trapping their own living room below their level of irrational mistrust.

Dudley pushed himself to his feet with great difficulty, his shoulder sending out nauseating throbs every time a muscle anywhere near exerted itself. It was like a beehive inside his body, attacking mildly with only slight provocation, but ready to disable him completely if he came too close to damaging it again. Kate helped heft him up with one hand on his hip and the other in the armpit of his good arm, but his weight and her already exhausting day rendered her help significantly less valuable than he had expected.

Soon he was on his feet, and getting a nod of approval from Sarah and Kate, he pushed open the heavy oak door. The room beyond was a quirky mix of ancient decay and adaptation for current living. The ceiling was maybe twelve feet high, but above about six feet, thick cobwebs, paint chips, and dust suffused the room like a mess of jungle vines hanging over a barren landscape. There were portraits, and the heads of strange creatures mounted on the walls, but they were obscured by the webs like a cloud. At about the level of Kate's head though, the cobwebs suddenly ceased, as if the entire room had once been engulfed in the chronic mildew staleness, but, without even a preliminary cleaning, someone had walked around the room until it was cleared, at least to the level of their head. As evidence, there were deep furrows in the carpet, as if someone had been pacing, and though there was a thick layer of dust on most of the furniture, a moth-plagued armchair seemed to have more recent impressions on it, and the end table next to it was half cleaned, seeming like someone who did not care much for the cleanliness of their clothes had wiped off the dust with their sleeve.

Directly in front of them was a fireplace, seeming not to have been lit for decades, as the minute gusts of wind that drifted lazily down the chimney had scattered the ashes of the last fire across the flagstones, a splatter of grayish-white paint on a dull canvas. A dresser, untouched by this unhygienic wanderer, as evidenced by the aged skin of dust on its surface, almost thick enough to have ripples, like desert dunes, was arranged perfectly on one wall, the door to the rest of the mansion next to it.

The walls were a dull grey, the color so beautiful when preceding the light of a sunrise, but so hideous in its absence. The very existence of that color seemed a relic, an antique of an age before beauty, but it was this color that was splayed in blotchy stains all over the walls, running from the fireplace and its collapsing chair, to the dresser, to the wall where Dudley stood with his family, and the fourth wall, where there was only…

A bookcase. Dudley caught only a glance of it before every good thing he had ever learned seized control of his brain and jerked his head away, a sort of moral gag reflex. But even in that glance, he caught sight of dozens of books, small and large, mostly black, but seeming to dye the very air that color. Some seemed ancient, of arts that should be long forgotten, some were most certainly products of anthropedermic bibliopegy. Others seemed more modern, but had the roughness of a book that no decent publisher could ever put out in good conscious, the evil so profound, so unquestionably beyond any moral jurisdiction that its very existence was an affront to all that was good in the world. It was books like this that made some doubt the existence of a God, and with good reason in Dudley's mind.

Even the short glance he had accidentally partaken of had filled his heart with a kind of earthy, primal sludge that seemed to now be pumping through his veins instead of blood, elevating the animal, the inhuman, the Mr. Hyde to his Dr. Jekyll. The morality of the beast with the power and reasoning of a man, all made print. It was disturbing, terrifying even, to think that one's soul could be so damaged, so desperate and depraved, that they could stand to look at such books, to read them, to agree with them, and in that ultimate step of abandonment of all that is transcendent in the human soul, practice what they recommended. It was reminiscent of Nietzsche's thoughts on the abyss, for as surely as the reader would interpret the writing, so would its subtle, malicious warping twist their mind into ostracizing all that the reader had formerly held dear.

Even from a short glance, he knew that, contained somewhere in those volumes, were the secrets to breeding a basilisk. To unleash the hellish Fiendfyre. To create a Horcrux. And Dudley's soul was unwell.

"Come on," said Dudley, still averting his eyes, nausea from the pain now paling in comparison to his repulsion from the bookcase. "There's nothing here for us."

And suddenly, a muffled, wheezing voice on the wall, invisible behind the cobwebs rang out, a chord of curiosity, suspicion, and fear: "Hello?"

Dudley froze, and looked at Kate desperately. She reciprocated, but left them no better off. Sarah clung to Dudley's leg and let out a little gasp. Dudley looked down at her and, attempting to display courage and solace he did not feel, he raised one finger to his lips. Sarah nodded slowly, fear seeming now permanently etched in her face. This was the kind of experience that had potential to scar her for life, if he didn't get her out soon. Or, he reminded himself, if he could get her out at all.

"Miss Fang?" The voice came again from behind the cobwebs. At the bottom of their thick formation, Dudley noticed a new feature: the frame of a massive portrait hanging down a few centimeters below the cobwebs, a sliver of brown directly above it, the background of an aged portrait now rendered useless by the dust. "Miss Fang?" the voice repeated, this time with a bit more confidence, a hint of accusation.

Dudley slowly lifted one foot, tiptoeing towards the door to the rest of the mansion, overemphasizing each movement, trying to convey to his family to do the same. They caught on and continued, the once valuable rug muffling their steps.

"Miss Fang," continued the voice imperiously, "you really do need to clean this room. This is my finest frame, and I can't even see your most beautiful face. I can't even tell if you really are my favorite six times great granddaughter. Or if you are perhaps that…other woman." The portrait spoke as if he had just eaten something very bitter, but the venom in his last two words would have shamed a basilisk.

Dudley had reached the door. He grasped the knob, and began to turn with the speed of dripping molasses, when the portrait commanded him: "Brista! If you are in fact my mistress, you will stop now before you leave this room, and clean my portrait. You have nothing to fear from doing so and it will take you the effort of flicking your wand. If I am wrong in my suspicions you may do as you see fit, but I have reason to doubt your identity, so I demand, clean me now!"

Dudley looked searchingly at Kate, and jerked his head towards the door, asking her by gesture if she could run with Sarah and him once he threw it open and their cover was blown. She nodded with a steel in her eyes that Dudley had seen but rarely, and at once made him love her for it, and wish that she had never had to utilize such determination. Dudley held up three fingers, looking at Sarah, who nodded as well.

"Brista?" Three.

"Brista?" Two.

"Brista!" One.

And with the technique of a boxer and the force of a lightning bolt, Dudley shoved open the door, to reveal a long hall extending to the right, with a single large portrait directly before the door, blank, but for a posing pedestal. And suddenly, with vim defying his looks, an aged, withered man with bloated and droopy eyes, and a smile twisted in malicious pleasure darted into the portrait with a loud "HA!"

He froze very suddenly, his eyes, once beautiful, now reeking of vice, sending unexpected and confusing signals to his distraught brain. For an absurd second, Dudley remembered a quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray that Kate had read him, and wondered if that story had been based in fact.

"You're not…" The portrait paused in befuddlement. Opened his mouth once or twice, then sprinted down the hall, screaming at the top of his lungs: "INTRUDER! MISS FANG! INTRUDER! MISS FANG!"

"RUN!" yelled Dudley and he barreled down the hall, Kate and Sarah close behind him. In times of mortal peril, petty things like pain seemed to vanish and his priorities vanished behind the overwhelming need for survival.

The hall was long and narrow, necessitating Kate and Sarah staying behind him as they ran. Fortunately, it was also packed from wall to wall with dusty, ancient portraits, and the figure they had seen had to traverse every one of them to get to the next. He gained a greater lead with every blank patch of wall, but was held up on every crowded or rugged scene. They almost passed him at painting of Sherpas ascending a snow engulfed mountain, but he regained his head start at every door, as there were no pictures hanging from them. Other portraits were beginning to rouse themselves too, yelling bad temperedly at their rude awakening, questioning with a grumble, or perhaps discerning the source themselves, and yelling for their mistress, adding to the cacophony. Some began to run as well, but none of them had acquired the full sprint of the original portrait, and were minor concerns compared to the embodiment, or rather, emportraitment of Dorian Gray.

Had he the time to register his surroundings, Dudley probably would have found the noises of the hallway to be odd, as the dusty, carpeted floor muffled their steps like powdery snow, while the portraits around them yelled and blared like the rows of televisions in a news room, or the control room for some important event. Their sound bouncing around the otherwise silent hallway made the experience almost unreal.

Dudley was beginning to gain on the sprinting portrait, but to his despair, near the end of the hall was a huge double door, leading to some sort of ballroom, followed by a large blank patch. As this wicked old man they chased travelled from portrait to portrait, his lead would leap unreachably high, unless he were somehow halted before then, an idea that Dudley's brain, now flooded with adrenaline and other more potent chemicals, seized onto, a falling climber grappling for a rope.

Most of the portraits were attached to the wall perfectly, with either well concealed bolts, or with magic, but a few dozen feet down there was a large painting covering the surface from ceiling to floor, depicting three witches cackling over a cauldron, out of which was rising a ghostly armored head, bobbing in the mist like a sickly apple. This painting was affixed to the wall by no more than a cord tied to a rusty nail in the ceiling.

The old man from the portrait suddenly lost his lead as he crashed into an old lady riding a cow backwards, a scene that would have been comic if not for background: a decimated battlefield. Dudley seized the opportunity and lunged forward to the scene with the witches, and motioning Sarah and Kate on, he planted his feet, and, waiting for Dorian Gray to enter the picture, he ripped it off the wall and hurled it to the floor. The witches squawk mingled with the muffled "MISS FANG!" and the sounds of disarray from the falling scenery as well as the witches own brew.

Dudley bounded over the portrait, but was almost overcome by nausea from his shoulder. He steadied himself against the wall, and then charged, head down like a rhino. He resisted the urge to roar out his pain, for the commotion was likely enough to alert their captors without any help from him. He bit his lip, sucking in deep breaths in from his nose, every muscle quivering in pain, almost losing his balance, ready to sprawl forward like a crash landing plane, out of fuel and severely malfunctioning. He closed his eyes and waited, a tree ready for the final swing of the axe.

"Dudley!" exclaimed Kate suddenly, from right in front of him. She had stopped moving, and her arms cushioned his momentum just enough to keep him upright, and barely preventing him from slamming them both into an upwards staircase running perpendicular to the hallway.

He looked around, bewildered. The hallway had ended in a room that looked familiar, like variations on a musical theme. It was then that his memory and powers of observation aligned to realize that they were now in the entrance hall to the manor, the room he had caught a few horrid glances of before his cognizance faded.

Dorian Gray had recovered from his spill and barreled into a huge portrait on the wall, still screaming, but the second he got there, swift-minded Sarah drew across it a massive, purple curtain, so dusty that an inhalation too near it might cause permanent damage. A few muffled noises escaped the thick folds, but they dampened the noise as efficiently as they trapped dust, and there were no other portraits nearby. Down the hall, the yelling was increasing, but it was mere background noise now. The only danger of discovery was if one of the two witches themselves walked in.

"Okay," said Dudley, as he struggled to regain his breath. If the commotion in the hallway hadn't alerted the witches to their presence, a little conversation at normal volumes couldn't possibly be that risky. "Let's assess the situation. Outside that door is our only confirmed route to freedom, in addition to a definite route to the Auror squad. Those are the pros. Unfortunately, there is almost definitely at least one of the witches out there somewhere to keep an eye on them, either on the front porch, or watching from a window somewhere."
"I actually haven't noticed any windows in this house," observed Kate, "So it's a good bet that one of the witches themselves are out on the porch."

"There's one right there!" offered Sarah, pointing at the wall on the other side of the door. Dudley and Kate jumped, before realizing that "one" was referring to windows and not witches. Indeed, behind another set of curtains that Dudley had assumed to hide another large portrait was the edge of an intricate windowsill.

"Okay," nodded Dudley, still slightly startled. I'll take a peek behind those curtains, and if the way is clear, or if we can somehow help out the battle."

Kate looked nervous, but finally relented. "Okay, if you think you'll be fine. Just keep your head down, we don't want her to notice we've escaped yet." Dudley cocked his head grimly, and like ripping off a band-aid, slowly peeled back the curtain concealing the window. He was met with an explosion of sound, the auditory equivalent of standing in front of a high-powered spotlight as the cover is removed. He almost stumbled back, but managed to keep his composure and edge his eyes over the bottom corner of the windowsill. He was met with a sight unreal to behold.

It was almost dusk, the sun fading brown-orange over the distant horizon, but its light was nothing compared to the rainbow of flashes and flames erupting over this sheltered neighborhood. Dozens, maybe hundred of Aurors were set up behind magical barricades, objects that looked like long white sheets of Teflon, but would merely shimmer instead of exploding whenever they were blasted by a hex. Still, they looked as if they were taking a beating, as many had large holes in them, and many more had been destroyed entirely, smoldering with a noxious chemical smoke, the unfortunate Aurors scrambling for cover. Up above all of them, maybe twenty feet in the air was a hovering, slowly rotating diesel transportation truck, its tank ruptured and crushed like tinfoil, and flammable gasoline spewing forth, igniting, and, at an unseen command, whipping away from the truck to the ground like mad brushstrokes in a Jackson Pollock painting. It was this, it seemed that was causing the most harm, as it was not strictly magical, and thus the barriers were unprepared for it, the Aurors burned as they tried to throw up shields only effective versus magical energy.

The Aurors were returning fire in an unceasing barrage of red, orange, yellow, blue, sometimes even purple curses, but they seemed to be absorbed by the house itself, sucked towards it with an inexplicable magnetism, then dissipated, leaving about as much a mark as the mildew that had been slowly eating at the house for centuries. No matter what they tried, the enchantments of the house were more than equal to their firepower.

And suddenly, the author of this terrible chaos, this massive increase in entropy, Brista Fang danced in front of the window. Dudley shrunk back in terror, but her back was to him, she was more concerned with the giant playground of destruction in front of her. She laughed, gasping for breath with a desperation and madness that Dudley had never seen before. It seemed like her laugh was on her inhalations, not her exhalations, making it squeak and wheeze in her throat, an almost comical sound, but desperate and insane at the same time, far more than the cliché mad cackling that would have been expected. Dudley was no expert on anything wizarding, especially combat, but even her approach to this seemed different from anything he had seen. The tanker was his first evidence, but when a particularly deadly barrage of spells came from behind a magical barrier housing three especially emphatic Aurors, instead of merely returning the fire, she caught her breath, and with a thrill of amazement at her own power and ingenuity, whispered, "Accio Rolls-Royce!" And immediately, the classic car was flipping, rolling over its sides toward the barrier from behind. The Aurors, still watching her wand for a hex in their direction barely noticed the priceless car tumbling at them from behind until it was almost too late, and only just dove out of the way, seeking the nearest cover desperately.

Brista released the spell from the car, letting it roll and crash raucously in her front yard, and raised her wand for a killing blow against the unprotected Aurors. She would have certainly executed it as well; save for a masterfully aimed Stunning Spell that whizzed past the house's magnetism and nearly struck her in the chest. She only diverted it with a rapid Shield that destroyed her opportunity to kill the unprotected Aurors. Her laugh transformed into a snarl of rage as she looked for the wizard responsible, and settled her gaze on a redheaded mage in the barrier nearest to the house. With a sudden weight in his stomach like swallowing a barbell, Dudley realized that it was Ron. Brista lifted her wand to retaliate, but the Aurors seemed to have finally calibrated their aim, Ron's spell as their example, and two or three other hexes quickly shot through. Unfortunately, the weak spot on the defenses did not correspond very well to Brista's position, but a Paralyzing Jinx that barely missed the hole in the defenses seemed to shatter as it passed through, leaving a shotgun blast of miniature hexes. Brista caught a few of them on her cloak, and though she was unharmed, a few dozens tiny holes now smoked acridly below her left arm.

She scowled, but knew that her advantage was fading quickly, and with the enthusiasm of a sadistic child, she played her trump card. "Incendio!" she screamed, a sociopathic grin on her face, the narcissism of power, enamored with her own ability to destroy. The flaming hex whiffed past the now cowering Aurors, high over their heads, into the heart of the ruptured diesel tanker. With an explosion that seemed to rend Dudley's eardrums, the tanker vanished, consumed entirely by the power which it had formerly carried. But before Dudley could even think, before anyone could fight the explosion, dive out of the way, do anything more than see its terrible maw racing to consume them, the explosion froze, as swiftly as if some bored viewer had pressed the pause button on a truly universal remote.

But perhaps that was an inaccurate metaphor, for motion did not halt entirely. Like a miniature sun, the ball of flame still burned in the air, without falling or expanding as was its wont. Pieces of the tanker's shell, huge deadly metal shuirkens spun wildly in the air, as quickly as motors, but halted in their trajectory to rain death and destruction down below them. Peering closer, Dudley could even the shockwave, shimmering faintly in the air, like a heat mirage rising from the road in the summer. The Aurors looked at each other in confusion, but the battle had halted as suddenly and inexplicably as the explosion.

"The gig's up!" barked Brista harshly, all her former sadistic glee suddenly vanishing. Her voice seemed to profane the sudden silence of the battle. "No one attempt to erect delay hexes around the truck, or I'll release the magic before they can take effect." She glared around, and satisfied that no one was disobeying her, began a seemingly well rehearsed speech. "Harry Potter," she spoke in a voice of terrible power and authority, "Arise!"

"Don't do it, Harry," whispered Dudley from behind the curtain. Harry did not reveal himself from the mass of Aurors cowering behind their barriers, staring at the flaming sun above their heads like deer in the headlights. Brista scoffed.

"As if I couldn't kill you right now by releasing the spell-holds keeping that tanker afloat and in time suspension. You might as well reveal yourself. There needs be only one casualty today."

"What makes you so sure it won't be your own?" called a voice from the crowd, as a figure arose, the majestic form of Harry Potter. The heroism and selflessness of the moment almost brought tears to Dudley's eyes, as something like a movie soundtrack played in his head, completing the moment.

"Don't," whispered Dudley. "Don't!"

"Come forward," hissed Brista, reminding Dudley of a corrupt judge high on his throne.

"Don't do it!" cried another Auror, jumping to his feet. He looked too old to be out in the field like this, but fortunately, it was no one Dudley knew. Brista's face twitched in annoyance, and with a flick of her wand, an almost molten piece of razor-sharp shrapnel the size of a dinner plate suddenly resumed its movement, hurtling perfectly into the man's chest, impaling him, and before Dudley could even register what his eyes had seen, knocking the man to the ground and probably pining him, though Dudley could not see the outcome from his vantage point.

Brista's face resumed its mask of calm and with a twisted, almost mischievous grin, she shrugged. "Perhaps two casualties."

Harry took a slow step forward. Even from his great distance, Dudley could see Ron frantically mouthing words at Harry, making wild gestures that at the same time attempted to be subdued, as to avoid Brista's attention. Harry took another step, it seemed an eternity since the first, and yet his movement never stopped. He seemed to glide between each footfall.

"Why so reluctant?" mocked Brista. "You've walked to your death once, is it so much harder the second time?"

"Maybe a little," agreed Harry, a steel in his voice that had won him so many followers in the first place. "It's hard to admit defeat when there are so many options left open."

Brista laughed, sounding like some kind of horrid dying animal. "True, true, you could always flee, but how many deaths would you be responsible for?"

"None," he replied suavely. "The murders would be yours alone, a fact I have long since learned to accept."

Brista scowled. "Don't play games," she lectured. "You could not live with this many deaths on your conscience, whether it was you who dealt the final blow or not."

"I suppose," Harry agreed, clearly stalling for time. He was now a dozen or so feet away from the nearest cover. "But I've lived with more. I've escaped worse scrapes than this."

"Have you indeed?" cooed Brista appraisingly.

"You're no Voldemort," replied Harry, now deadly serious.

"Ha!" Brista sneered. "And I am glad of it. I would never wish to be cursed with such pathetically earthy ambitions."

"So," Harry replied, now trying to hide his confusion, "You're no long forgotten Death Eater?"

Brista shook her head slowly, joyfully, maliciously. "You may stop there." Harry halted, halfway to the porch where Brista stood. "Harry Potter," she spoke in tones so soft and delicate, that Dudley felt as though he should have to strain to hear them, but they were as clear as if she were an inch from his ear. "For the damnation of the pure-blood race, for the infamy and destruction thrust upon them, and for your work in this awful genocide, I condemn you to death."

Now it was Harry's turn to laugh. "The pure-blood race? I tell you now," he replied, her high tone of argument influencing his speech, "that this is what was left of the pure-bloods when I found them. Death!" he spat, gesturing at the barricade with his fallen companion. "Decay!" he opened his arms to encompass the entire house, long outdated and indeed falling to rubble. "Madness!" he hissed, his finger pointing like a sword of judgment at Brista.

But she just cackled at his accusation. "I am complimented that you think me so exalted," she laughed, like a malicious reader reveling in the dramatic irony. "But I am not so pure. I am no more than a Keeper of true purity, a warden of the clean. I stand here today only because, I am not pure, nor was my mother, nor hers, nor hers before her. It is an unseen crime you have committed, perhaps beyond even your knowledge. But not beyond truth. Drop your wand!" she ordered like an angel of darkness. Harry clutched his only lifeline, his only weapon even tighter, though he held it now by his side. "Drop your wand." It was now not even a command, it was an imperative. Past this juncture was the point of no return. His death if he let it go, others if it remained.

"Funny that you cling more desperately to life in middle-age decrepitude than in the bloom of health and vigor. Perhaps the heroism has faded as your body has, as you are so eager to accuse, decayed." Harry stood his ground. "But seeing as you clearly do not care for the lives of your co-workers, these Aurors," she gestured back at the alert squad. "And as they do seem so willing to give their lives for yours…rather like…lemmings." She nodded, approving of her metaphor. "Perhaps innocent victims will sway your resolve." Harry started, but kept his wand.

"I have in my basement a rather charming young Muggle family; I believe you have some acquaintance with them." Harry opened his mouth once or twice, like a fish unsure of which way would take him back to the water. "They are bound in an Infinitus Chain, circled around a pole, and crushed till the air that might be able to find its way into their lungs could barely keep them alive, and certainly not conscious, if you were worried about them being in any pain. That is given, of course, that they have not struggled, but they seemed a bright young group."

"What do you want?" demanded Harry desperately.

Brista scoffed. "You know what I want, don't make me repeat myself." She smoothed back her wild hair. "Now, the interesting thing that makes Infinitus Chains so interesting is their unique deadly formula. The more links there are, the stronger the magic is that drains the unfortunate captives of their life. The less links there are, the tighter the chain, and…well, we already know what would happen then. The only remaining question is which was should I twist the chain?"

She held up her wand, and began to slowly circle it in a counter-clockwise direction. "Looser chain? More links? More deadly, despairing, freezing magic?"

"No!" stuttered Harry. "I…don't…" If only Harry could see him! Dudley considered waving or drawing attention, but Brista was far more likely to notice than Harry, and he doubted that she cared his particular method of death.

"Really?" she asked, a bemused smile on her face, and she began moving her wand in the opposite direction. "Tighter then? A more gruesome, if probably less painful ending. I suppose it fits these vile, cowardly creatures though, doesn't it?"

"Stop!" And Harry's wand fell to the ground. And at that moment, Dudley knew he must act. He stood up from behind the curtain, and marched to the front door.

"What's going on?" hissed Kate. "Is everything okay?"

"Stay here," Dudley ordered, as cruel and forceful a voice as he could muster. This was no time for sentimentality. Dudley cracked open the front door and it let out a hideous squeal, but also allowed in the sounds from outside. Based on the dialogue, Brista seemed not to have heard it open.

"Very good," she soothed. "With action that speedy, you're likely to have saved two of their lives."

"Two?" asked Harry, his voice now choking up.

"I'm so sorry, dear," mocked Brista, "but those chains were terribly tight already. I'd be impressed and very surprised if the fat one survived that incredible pressure."

And Dudley could not resist the poeticism of the moment. As calm as a floating butterfly, Dudley gave the door a gentle shove, and it swung open. There was a collective gasp from the Aurors as Brista turned, a mask of rage and confusion at this interruption of her most joyous moment.

"Surprised?" asked Dudley, and with the precision of a stinging bee and the rage of a father, he slammed his fist into Brista's face. She was knocked off her feet, sprawling back across the porch, her wand, formerly positioned to kill Harry, now skittering across the wood.

"NOW!" screamed Ron, and hundred hexes, all timed perfectly, slammed into the side of the house, the combined force finally exceeding the load capacity of the magical barrier, and, with a rip like the sound of tearing plastic wrap, a formerly invisible barrier revealed itself as a shockwave exploding in every direction. Dudley was picked up off his feet and sent tumbling down the steps of the porch, while Harry barely dove to the ground in time, scrambling for his wand. The truck, no longer bound by Brista's magic finally unleashed its massive potential energy in a deafening explosion, but the Aurors, under Ron's prepared leadership, had just enough time to erect a dozen spell barriers, this time material instead of arcane, designed to protect them from the much more apparent danger of shrapnel than the errant hexes of one woman. The flames however were too much to be contained, and burst through the cracks in the mosaic of shields like an inverse disco-ball. The wild, rampant flames were too wide-spread to allow the Aurors to help Dudley anymore on the porch.

Brista had quickly adapted to the situation and leapt to her feet, less like a cat and more like some kind of hissing giant spider. She sprinted to the end of the porch where her wand was lying uncontested. Dudley tried to push himself up, but his shoulder finally gave out on him, and like a crane whose cables have snapped, Dudley could no longer lift anything, even himself. But Kate had never taken kindly to obeying Dudley's orders, and rocketed out of the open door reliving her glory days as a runner in her early schooling. Brista was diving, her hands grabbing at the wand, but Kate was leaping over her like a ballerina, unconcerned with acquiring the wand, only in stopping Brista. And, with perfect aim, her heel landed right in the middle of the wand, snapping it like a toothpick. Her momentum carried her forward, much like the Rolls-Royce that had come skidding across the yard, but she stopped herself on the banister marking the edge of the porch, a proud and triumphant grin on her face as she turned to face Dudley.

But Brista was already slowly rising to her feet, the severed halves of her wand held as delicately as the corpse of a child in her uncouth hands. She was making strange noises, sharp exhalations that could be either laughs of unbelief or sobs of inexpressible sorrow. "Kate! Look out!" cried Dudley, trying to lift himself with his other arm. But Brista seemed hardly to notice Kate. She seemed far more concerned with the now gently vibrating shards of polished wood in her hands. The were shaking like an automatic massage machine, and beginning to glow with heat, and Brista's ambiguous emotion suddenly resolved, into a mad, sadistic fury. With a wretched penchant for vengeance, she thrust both halves of her wand in opposite directions like they were ordinary guns, the broken halves pointed away from her. The vibration of the wands was now so strong that Dudley could feel it even from meters away, rattling his very bones, but Brista's face wore the mask of quietude, the bridal veil of madness. The very air around the fragments of wand seemed to be distorting, bending, sometimes even vanishing altogether, leaving Dudley wondering what he was looking at.

"Muggles and defilers…" she breathed, gently, murderously, though beginning a crescendo into a scream. "Whether by the divine power or my own, you shall feel HELLFIRE!"

And then, the wand released a spell. Not the last spell used, as some spells reveal, or even the frequently used, but the most powerful, the one that had left the greatest scar branded into the invisible interior of the wand's identity. Jets of flame the size of waterfalls erupted from the severed ends of the wand, demons of flame cackling in their consuming glee, one pointed towards the already engulfed Aurors, the other towards her own house. The force of the explosion knocked Brista back into a wall, slamming her head into the edge of a bench, where she crumpled and lay still. But Dudley had only one thought in his mind.
"SARAH!"

And before he could even realize it, he was on his feet, inside the house, which was already submerged in this hellish inferno. His shoulder no longer burned, his mind had been seized by the long dormant beast, the animal instincts demanding survival and protection of offspring. He rushed around desperately, roaring her name, when he heard a scream of panic from the far back wall, and saw a frail form enveloped in a vortex of swirling orange and read, dragons and chimaeras spitting flame downward to the helpless figure inside. Sarah shrieked, not of pain or surprise this time, but of complete loss of control. Her voice was wavering, he could hear her hyperventilating.

Without a thought for his own safety, Dudley charged forward like a bull, smashing through a wall of flame, but serpent-like tendrils whipped out and grabbed around his arms and legs, not some amorphous stream, but solid as scalding ropes. Dudley roared in pain and anger as he crashed to the ground but pulled himself out of their reach, gagging on the sickly tender smell of his own burning flesh as his skin sizzled off his body.

But he was up again, pulled by force of the fire itself trying to hold him back. But there is no holding back a train, and that was what Dudley had become. He snapped his wrist away from the long blazing fingers of a jet of flame taking the essence of a Grindylow, and barreled into the flaring vortex, grabbing desperately for something more real than the mocking, slaughtering fire.

And suddenly, she was in his arms, sobbing and screaming all at once, the fire licking around his ankles hungrily, but he kept running. He couldn't stop now, the cursed spell had re-grown behind him, forming into impenetrable walls of certain death. But ahead, ahead of him there was a wall, even before weak from the decay of a thousand generations of neglect, now collapsing from the rampant fire. It was his only hope. If he could break through, and there was nothing but the ground of the mansion outside, he might be able to limp his way to safety. And so, ignoring the accumulated knowledge of thirty-something years, telling him to avoid ramming any part of his body into anything that seemed solid, he kept the course, aiming at a section of wall that seemed to be between studs.

He hit the wall with the force of a full logging truck, heard a crack, felt a simultaneous explosion of pain, and suddenly he was on the ground. He managed to crack open his eyes a millimeter past the obligatory tears already evaporating from his searing face. He was still in the room. The wall had not collapsed. The fire was advancing on him with the maleficent sentience of a being knowing it was about to take two lives. All that was flowing into Dudley's lungs was ash, and the vile smell of himself as the meal of this creature, this incarnation of flame. His eyes were blocked, smoke seemed to trickle from his very pores as the flames lunged at his feet, dragging him into the fire, but he had not the energy to fight. After all, who could it be but death himself, dark, cloaked, standing in the door, raising his wand, uttering as spell, releasing a black translucent jet of magic. It was funny, Dudley had never really thought of Death as a wizard, but it did seem to make sense, especially in the context of the story of the Deathly Hallows, thought Dudley, as the jet slammed into his chest, ripped him from the reach of the flame, and pummeled his body against the wall.

Dudley's head hurt, he thought noncommittally. Funny what thoughts ran through his mind at times of desperation. Sarah was below him, seemingly unharmed and yelling, pleading with him, holding his hands, though all he could hear and feel was a fading ringing in his ears, and a numbness settling over his body. The second jet hit, and Dudley was driven through the wall like a nail, Sarah yanked along as she refused to relinquish her grip on his hands.

And they were rolling, rolling, rolling down a long, steep, luxuriously grassy slope. Not a bad heaven, thought Dudley, as his body issued the ultimate rebellion, and shut down entirely.

So everyone remember to review! I'll have the next chapter up in a week, and the epilogue a week after that, which should give you plenty of time to tell me if you're all interested in another story, this one with a much more defined plot from the very beginning. And some more original characters, meaning with actual personalities. Tell me what you think!