A/N: Chap 34 review responses are in my forums as normal. Normally, if I were a review hound, I would leave this chapter as is with one hell of a cliff hanger, and then post the conclusion next week. But I'm not a review hound. The story is done, the beta reading complete. So when you finish this chapter, just keep on going to the last.
Chapter Thirty-Five: The Ides of March
"Nancy!"
Nancy Dibbles whispered, "Five more minutes, mum."
"Miss Dibbles, you need to wake up now."
That was not mum. Nancy blinked her eyes and looked up in the stern features of Professor McGonagall. "Professor?"
"We're evacuating the school, Miss Dibbles. The elves have already packed your belongings. Get dressed and come along, please."
Nancy sat up bleary-eyed in bed and winced against the overhead lights. Shirley, Bea, Debbie, Kate and Mira were already getting dressed. Her five roommates all looked nervous, and Kate was sniffing a little. Looking down at the foot of her bed she saw her heavy winter dress and pulled it on, along with woollen socks and her rubbers, since it sounded like it was raining outside.
Professor McGonagall had left already, but a few minutes later one of the older girls stuck her head in their room. "Hey, girls, are you ready?"
In her sleep-addled state, it took a moment to recognize her. "Dame Luna?"
"Hello, Nancy," Luna said. To the sniffling Kate, Luna said, "Don't worry, we're going on an adventure. Come on, let's go!"
The hall of the first floor where most of the students slept was crowded with hundreds of students milling toward the stairs that would take them to the expanded ground floor, which held the cafeteria and all the classrooms. The Professors were calmly directing them to the front door of the school most of them had called home since the summer.
The sight of older witch-born in the camouflaged robes was not unusual, since until the creation of the new ministry, Sanctuary housed the army of the Order of the Phoenix. Still, it was strange to see students rushing out in the pre-dawn darkness under a heavy downpour toward what looked like charter busses between rows of magical soldiers using their wands to light the way.
"Quickly now, that's it," Professor Sprout said as she directed traffic. "Fill every seat. Don't try saving spaces for friends. Quickly, quickly now! Okay, this bus is full, next one, please!"
Bus after bus was rumbling in a line and as each full one drove away, another rumbled up to take its place. Nancy was waiting in line when she saw Harry Potter—the boy who helped save her and her parents—walking toward Professor McGonagall.
"Professor, we need to get moving. We found two scouts already."
Nancy didn't quite know what he was talking about, but for the first time she saw fear on McGonagall's thin, almost translucent face. "Pomona, Filius, we need to load everyone at once. Count them off and form separate lines!"
Professor Flitwick was already moving and counting students. He stopped at a point in from the currently loading bus and started point. "Next bus, run now! You, go. You, you, you…" He began pointing, and those students he pointed to ran. The constables broke their line and began escorting each group to their various busses.
Professor Sinistra joined him and started counting off too. She came to Nancy's group, and with the rest, Nancy ran to her appointed bus with a pair of constables escorting her. The girls in her group tried running up the steep steps of the bus, but Kate slipped twice before making it up. "Fill the back seats first!" the drive, another constable, said. "Fill the back seats first!"
Nancy took a seat next to Kate and looked out the window through the heavy rain. With the professors now pulling groups out of the line, the evacuation went much, much faster. In fact, from what she could see the school was empty save for the constables and Aurors. "Everyone, hold on," the driver said. "The bus has been enchanted, so we will be going faster than your…"
Nancy thought it was thunder, at first. But as sound continued to grow until it rattled the windows, it was accompanied by a deep, powerful thud, one after the other like massive footsteps.
The bus driver cursed and shouted into a mirror, "Giant! Go, go, go!"
Students screamed—Nancy among them—as they looked for the source of that terrible sound. She caught just the glimpse of something unimaginably huge breaking through the trees opposite the school when suddenly the bus jerked into motion so fast every student was tossed back into their seats. Some fell into the aisle and rolled back against the far wall.
The school, and the giant, was gone.
"What's happening?" Kate whimpered.
"I don't know," Nancy said. "But Harry Potter was there, so I know he's going to beat that bad old giant up. He's a hero, you know."
Kate nodded solemnly. "I know."
Still, Nancy didn't begrudge Kate holding her hand as the bus flew through the countryside.
~~Firebird~~
~~Firebird~~
The giant rushed into the clearing in front of the school with an angry roar and a one-ton club raised to strike. Harry's people had never faced a giant before, but they read enough to know how witch-born traditionally fought the monsters, having an inkling that giants would be involved.
Professor McGonagall, master of transfiguration, did the honours. With an artistic flourish of her wand, the ground in the centre of the front garden of the school grew up into a giant, pointed spike easily thirteen feet long and angled slightly toward the giant. Harry and twenty of his people transfigured a heavy steel wall up and out of the ground twenty feet toward the oncoming forty-foot tall mockery of a man.
The giant's foot caught on the wall and stumbled before losing its balance—it fell forward with a great, horrid sucking sound as the spike impaled its stomach.
"Portkey, now!" Harry cried.
It took Flitwick and ten other witch-born to pour enough power into a Portkey to dispose of the giant, but in a matter of minutes the monster was dead and gone. The steel transfiguration faded on its own since steel was notoriously hard to transfigure for a long period, while McGonagall undid the spike and began vanishing the blood.
"Is that the only one?" Harry asked.
"It broke away from the main army," Emmaline Vance reported. Like Harry, rain sopped her hair against her forehead and neck. "They're coming faster than we predicted."
"Who the hell can predict how fast giants can move?" Harry asked. "Alright, kids are out! Everyone, into defensive positions by squads. This is the real thing, people. I want to see every one of you walk away from this, and every one of them carried away in a bag!"
"That's a motivational speech, there, Director," Danny Savage said.
"Stuff motivation," Harry said. "I just want to get out of this magic-be-damned rain. It's going to last all day."
"You divine that?"
"Nah, watched the weather report," Harry said.
"Potter!"
Harry looked up at the figure approaching, and saw it was Emmaline's cousin. "Colonel," he said with a nod. "Children are evacuated. We're setting up our lines now. Do you have your people in position?"
"Yes," Arlene Vance said in her cloying American twang. "Are you prepared to lose that pretty manor?"
"If it means taking the bad guys down, hell yes," Harry said. "Where are Mickelson's people?"
"Right flank," Emmaline said. "Hestia's coordinating with them. We think that if we can get the Head Snake, many might surrender. If they're oath-bound, then he's the only reason they're fighting at all."
"I'll keep that in mind," Harry said. "Are our packages in place?"
Arlene nodded. "He's taking a big chance for you, Potter."
"He'd never miss it, and you know it."
Arlene shrugged. "Probably not. It's going to shock the hell out of the Snake, that's for sure."
The air shook with the distant roar of another giant. "Good luck, to all of you," Harry said sincerely, looking around him at the faces of those who were about to risk their lives. "It's been an honour."
"That it has, Potter," Arlene said.
~~Firebird~~
~~Firebird~~
Voldemort watched as the tawny owl flitted through the heavy rain and alit on Severus's shoulders under the lip of their command tent.
Snape read the attached slip of parchment with a satisfied nod. "My lord, our spy has reported that the lead giant was able to stop the evacuation, just as you predicted. She says she and the other students were rushed back into the building when the giant destroyed their carriages. They will undoubtedly try Portkeys and the Floo next."
"Raise the wards," Voldemort ordered with a hungry grin. "Unleash the giants and trolls. The time is now, my friends. Let us finish this!"
They will betray you.
"Not this time," Voldemort whispered to himself.
~~Firebird~~
~~Firebird~~
"Wards are up!" Harry shouted as he saw the shimmering in the pre-dawn sky. With the heavy rain, visibility was nil, but that actually made it easier for Harry to see the shimmer of magic flow over them in a dome of anti-apparition and anti-Portkey wards. He had no doubt that the Floos inside the manor suddenly flared with blockers as well.
The defenders, including Harry himself, quickly took what cover they could behind conjured stone or cement walls, or within the manor itself. Harry had his mirror out and was listening to the broom scouts. "Three lines of monsters," he said to Danny beside him, who in turn relayed the information. "Giants, trolls, and…bollocks, Vampires! Snake managed to convince twenty vampires to join him."
"Bloody 'ell," Savage muttered before he relayed the message.
Harry's own mirror shook. With his wand, he switched to another view and saw Arlene Vance. "Potter, listen, back in '83, Brazil loaned a coven of Vampires to the EastCon and they attacked Amarillo. Think of a vampire as a solid-bodied dementor. They're related, only vampires are corporeal."
"You mean Patronuses?"
"Burns the fuckers like no one's business," the American said.
"Got it, thanks." Savage was already relaying the word—of course, only a handful of their best could cast Patronuses, but it would have to do.
He felt movement behind him and turned in surprise to see Kingsley Shacklebolt in dragon hide armour joining the lines. "This isn't a good place for the Minister," Harry said.
Kingsley shook his head. "Harry, this is absolutely the right place for the Minister. There's a time to talk, and a time to fight. We have Sybil with the members of parliament at the Ministry if anything happens to me."
While Harry was glad to have another experienced fighter, Harry realized Kingsley's motivation was not just national pride. It was essential for his own political career that he'd be able to say that he fought in the final battle as well. After all, if they failed here, the war was as good as over. But if they won…then Kingsley wasn't just a minister, he was a war hero.
The giants crashed through the trees first, four more of the giant brutes, flanked by almost a dozen trolls that barely came to their waists, but were still twenty feet call themselves. The beasts ambled forward, roaring with blood lust either natural or Imperiused.
Harry counted down their steps until they crossed the narrow road that just half an hour ago evacuated the students of Sanctuary in a carefully orchestrated case of timing. With the heavy pouring rain, he could not smell them, but he could feel them through the ground itself as they walked.
They crossed the road, and as they did, the shrubberies that formed the borders of the front garden shimmered as the Western Confederation of America 3rd Staff Corps stepped out, with Sergeant White himself in the lead. Fifty wizards with unreduced magic and the most powerful magical conduits known to witch-born set their positions, slammed the staffs down, and unleashed pure hell.
Thick, visceral bolts of magic lashed out like whips from the tips of the powerful staffs, knocking trolls down and blasting through the tough, resistant skin of the giants. So strong were the bolts that the image of the magic's passage remained in Harry's retinas even after the bolts were gone. Even Harry was awed by the sheer amount of magic the staff corps wielded. This was the magic Merlin used to cast down the walls of Dinas Emrys in his last, futile effort to stop the spread of wandlore before it enslaved wizards forever to the desires and whims of witches.
This was male magic in its purest form—destruction.
Blast after blast slammed into the giants like massive bullets, slicing through their skin and deep into their bodies. Roars of bloodlust turned into shockingly human screams of pain so loud windows in the school behind them shattered. Trolls howled in agony as their blood boiled and their hearts burst.
The first sign of something going wrong was when one of the staff wielders' head went flying from his body. Arterial blood mixed with the rain, and for one brief, horrifying image Harry saw a bone-white, inhuman face dipping over the stump while holding the body upright, sucking the blood like water from a fountain.
"Vampires!" Harry shouted into his mirror. He then stood, and gathering every good memory he could, shouted, "Expecto Patronum!"
His phoenix soared through the rain, ephemeral and powerful. Under its light, he could see more vampires attacking the staff-wielders, who because of the brute-force nature of their magical foci were defenceless in close-quarters fighting. Their support squads desperately tried cursing the vampires, but the monsters moved faster than any witch could follow.
But Patronuses were magic itself. The phoenix swooped down like a bird of prey, slamming bodily into a vampire that was feeding on yet another staff wielder. It disappeared entirely into the vampire's body, but the creature itself howled like a pack of wolves and fell to the ground convulsing in pain.
Though his was the first, others followed. Kingsley stood and cast, as did both Vance cousins. Danny Savage cast his, and all around other Patronuses soared through the rain toward the vampires, while witches levitated or carried the surviving staff wielders from the front lines toward the emergency infirmary in the building. As they moved past, Harry saw bodies mangled by vampire claws, and gave thanks it was so dark. He realized why the Veela would not try to escape at night, with their fortress being patrolled by such creatures.
The adrenaline pumped through Harry's body so strongly it took effort to keep his hands from shaking as he settled back behind his barrier. First blood had been shed, and they'd so far survived Voldemort's heavy weaponry. Heaven cracked open as a huge cascade of lighting swept the sky.
In that single flash of light, Voldemort was there. He stood alone on the road, his pale, deathly skin illuminated by his inner magic against the darkness of the morning. Lightning flashed, and a second later an army stood behind him. Harry's stomach dropped at the sight of a seemingly endless mass of bodies, thousands of them.
Even with all his tricks—even with their best laid plans—Voldemort's forces still outnumbered Harry by more than half.
The Dark Lord raised his wand, and heaven itself responded with a crack of thunder and the flash of lightning that flowed from his wand and then toward the house.
The lightning slammed into the house's defensive wards, shattering them like so much glass. And with that signal, the army of the Dark Lord charged forward with an earth-shattering roar louder even than the giants themselves.
~~Firebird~~
~~Firebird~~
How could Harry or anyone describe large scale magical combat? Even in the height of the Second World War, when Dumbledore led the Allied witch-born against Grindelwald, the largest battle was outside of Alsace and consisted of a total of two hundred and thirteen combatants.
Voldemort had an army of thousands.
The air filled with conjured projectiles, monsters and any other conceivable, harmful object magic could conjure. Arrows, conjured cannon balls and even occasional pianos fell on both armies amidst screams of pain, or worse yet, no sound at all beyond the crunching of bone. Harry cast blasting curses into the oncoming line of enemy soldiers non-stop, as did all those around him. The enemy responded with Killing Curses.
While terrifying, Killing Curses killed only individuals. Blasting curses could kill several. The first line of attackers faltered under unbroken spell fire from the defenders, and then simply died en masse while the next line walked over the corpses of the first. They were oath-bound, forced by their very magic to obey their orders no matter how suicidal.
And there were so many, they were making headway.
"First line fall back," Harry ordered.
The first line of defenders tried to do that, falling back in stages of fire-shield-flee in groups, to ensure someone was always shielding them. Even so, breaking cover proved costly. With every falling figure in robes, Harry winced, and still he cast, curse after curse. He couldn't think about his friends out there in that army—of Georgina or Tina Middleton or Ron. He just couldn't think about it.
The thrust of the attack hit the first line of magical mines. A line of explosive potions ignited, shooting up in a straight wall of orange-red magic that disintegrated the hundred or so witch-born that managed to fight their way through Harry's outer defensive line.
Before the magical fire even finished burning, the next line of attackers was already pouring through the gap. The flashing of magic and throbbing of power in the ground and air itself left Harry numb. "Flanking units, now!"
The Americans struck with more staff wielders, ploughing into the exposed flank of the deep enemy thrust. Like pincers, two forces of witches and wizards closed in and began slicing into the enemy incursion. The screams and confusion briefly overpowered the thrum of magic as the two pincers met up, effectively cutting off almost six hundred witches and wizards from the rest of Voldemort's forces.
"Now, hit them!" Harry shouted. His second and third lines of defence opened up in simultaneous blasting curses. Billows of fire lit the surrounded incursion as the blasting curses did their gruesome work. The desperate fighters tried raising shields, but the combined fire was simply too strong.
"Vance, pull your people back," Harry shouted into his mirror.
"Vampires!" Savage pointed out.
Patronuses flew out in a shimmering phalanx of light magic to ward off the deadly threat, but not before several Americans died at the clawed hands of the monsters.
The Americans and the Norselander contingent embedded with them fell back within the British defensive line before disbursing to renew for more flanking attacks, or to defend their own flanks.
"Report from the rear, more vampires," Savage said. "Minimal losses—we're holding them back for now."
Harry nodded, trying to see through the rain, clods of flying mud, arrows, and flashes of spell fire. "Here they come again," he warned Savage. Savage sent the communication out to the various unit commanders as the beleaguered defenders prepared.
"It's going to be a long day," Harry muttered. The sound was lost in the din of battle.
~~Firebird~~
~~Firebird~~
Voldemort stood under a conjured tarp, scowling at the magical display before him. He linked a pair of far-see Omnioculars to the poles of the tarp overlooking the battle and routed the images into a magically stable mist, creating a translucent display of the battle in much greater detail than even his eyes could see.
He did not like what he was looking at. "Severus's report greatly underestimated their strength," he noted.
Beside him, Francois Durand gave a Gallic shrug. "Even with their allies, our forces outnumber them. The battle will be fierce, and our numbers diminished, but theirs will be even more so. We can and will win this, my lord."
The clanking of metal armour alerted them to the arrival of Thrashclaw, the goblin general. The wide-bodied barrel of a creature was flanked by two of his warriors in iron armour, while the general's himself was lined in gold. "You're people lied about the enemy. They wield staffs and number much greater than we were led to believe."
"My spy appears to have either been misled, or misled me himself," Voldemort admitted. "I will know the truth of it soon enough. Regardless, we have sufficient forces to destroy them utterly."
"No, oathbreaker, you do not."
Durand had just a moment to fumble for his wand before a goblin-enchanted bullet popped his head like a melon. Voldemort, though only marginally faster, was more powerful. Rather than try to shield against bullets he Disapparated the moment Thrashclaw finished speaking. He reappeared behind them and lashed at them with fire lances. The two guards died immediately, but Thrashclaw's armour bore powerful goblin enchantments that saved him from Voldemort's first onslaught.
"You call me oathbreaker?!" Voldemort howled as he placed the goblin under the Cruciatus. "You have betrayed me!"
"We heard your own words, oathbreaker!" Thrashclaw howled over the pain of the curse. "For that, you are an enemy of the goblins, you and all your kin!"
With a flourish, Voldemort released the pain curse only long enough to conjure a steal javelin that thrust down through the goblin's armour and impaled his body to the ground. Voldemort then turned to view the battle display just in time to see the goblin horde turn on his own forces with bitter, violent and devastating effect.
They will betray you.
"No." Tom Riddle stood, stunned, as his forces began to collapse under the double-threat of the goblins and Harry Potter's armies. "No!"
The American pincer arms struck again, separating another large force of his army from the rest, only to obliterate them to the last witch.
"NO!" Voldemort howled, and with a surge of magic he rushed from the tent, past his startled honour guard and into the thick of battle. He lashed about with fire and conjurations of such devastation he burned a path clear to the goblin horde itself.
Once there, he called down the fires of hell itself. The roar of the Fiendfyre caused a momentary lull in the fighting as every person there watched as a dragon of elemental, demonic fire flew into the sky, only to turn and slam into the centre of the goblin horde.
Every witch-born there, either oath-bound to Voldemort or fighting for the light with Harry, stood frozen in horror at the awesome, sublime terror of the demonic fire. The goblins, though, were not witch-born. They were creatures of pure hatred, borne of perversion, hate and magic itself. They burned—Merlin knew they burned. But driven by their hatred for the man who first lured them with promises of witches and then betrayed them with threats of their own destruction, goblins charged him even as they burned.
Witch-born bound by their oaths to protect and follow Voldemort had no choice but to fight the goblins, and did so now. Harry's forces were all but forgotten by all but those witches and wizards on the periphery.
"Harry, I think they want to surrender," Kingsley said. Like Harry, the man's face was smeared with ash and mud that the rain could not completely wash away.
Harry, though, had already noticed how many of the witches and wizards on the front lines stood frozen, wands pointed forward, but not casting anything as they fought against the compelling magic of the oaths. "All units; use stunners on anyone who appears to be fighting their oaths. Stun and tag them for retrieval, but stay out of the way of the goblins and that fire!"
Blasting curses turned to red stunning curses and line after line of those who were given a choice between the deaths of themselves and their families or taking oaths to Voldemort fell, some with grateful smiles on their faces, before the non-lethal magic.
In the middle of what was once the garden of the manor, goblins and witch-born fought while Voldemort wielded the forces of hell itself. Harry slowly rose from his position behind a conjured wall as the billows of flame grew stronger and stronger. Voldemort wielded the flame with increasingly frantic motions as he sought to hold back the burning, howling goblin horde.
The only thing more terrifying than the fire was the burning goblins themselves. Some looked like little more than skeletons, but borne by their own magic and hate they came regardless. With a howl of unearthly rage, the skies above erupted in a torrent of lightning that pounded down on the burning horde, killing hundreds with each blow.
Hundreds more of the dark lord's own people died, but Harry could see that Voldemort was beyond caring. The man was shouting as he cast each bolt of lightning, or flung his arm to direct the Fiendfyre. Staring at the sheer, deadly magic rolling off the wizard, Harry knew he could not have beaten this man alone, not anytime in the near future. Voldemort was too powerful, and too much a master of his own magic.
But he was not alone. "It's time, Mr Potter," a deep, strong voice said behind him. He turned and saw the Dark Lord Murchison himself. He'd given up his jeans and plaid shirt for black battle robes, but he kept the cowboy hat and turkey feather, which were charmed impervious from the rain.
"Indeed it is," Alphard Black said. He joined Harry and held up Harry's latest wand—a Slytherin wand for a Slytherin dark wizard. They were joined by Ganpati Patil, who like Morgan and Harry was powerful enough to have founded a coven. Alphard lacked the power of the other two, but was acknowledged as a master in the dark arts.
Harry looked around at the three men, then at the field where a titan waged battle almost single-handedly against the oldest, greatest enemy of witch-born. Next to these men, he was nothing more than a boy playing at war. And yet they waited for him, watching.
Harry sunk himself down into his Occlumency, seeking that place between calm and terror that Rowena Ravenclaw spoke of in her work. When he opened his eyes, he did not see Voldemort fighting goblins while his army burned in the fires of his own creation. He saw lines of probability and chance stretching off into the future. He saw their best chance of survival.
"Alphard, take the East. Morgan, you're north. Elder Patil, you take the South. I'll be west. We go on my mark. We must wrest the fire away."
"What of the goblins?" Patil asked.
"They're already dead," Harry said in a distant voice. "They just haven't accepted it yet."
"Let's put this dog down," Morgan said.
The lines of probability converged. "Now!" Harry said.
sp
To be concluded next chapter...
sp
Author's Note: Very special thanks as always to Teufel1987, JR and Miles for beta reading. If there are any major faux-pas, they are entirely of my own doing.