Harry Potter and all characters, etc. belong to J.K. Rowling, not me.
Harry Potter: Focused – Chapter 11 – The Prophecy Fulfilled
POP!
Griphook looked around a much bigger room than the one he had briefly stayed in after his capture, yet the goblin knew it was in the same building. Harry Potter had sent a message that he needed another Horcrux transferred from its container with no harm to the vessel. He'd brought the appropriate tools to do the job, once he negotiated a price.
"Hello again, Griphook," greeted Harry. This time, the Boy-Who-Lived was not only joined by Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, but by Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood as well. Harry had taken to keeping all the Deathly Hallows with him ever since, on Luna's insistence, he'd told his Snitch, "I'm going to die." The girl seemed like she wanted to start a Master of Death cult worshiping him after that, but he'd gotten her to calm down a bit. "Do you know everyone in this room?" the boy asked.
"Yes. To get down to business, where is the Horcrux? Were you wrong about it being a snake?"
"No, that's being taken care of. However, I was recently informed about another one." Harry then pointed at his famous scar.
"Oh?" Griphook was genuinely surprised.
Hermione explained, "Because Headmaster Dumbledore refused to give any information out in an attempt to get real help in solving a problem, he came to the conclusion that Harry needed to take another killing curse from Riddle."
Ginny added, "So, because he didn't want Harry worried about his impending suicide, he chose to wait until the last possible minute to arrange him to get this information."
"I actually think it was slightly bothering Snape to know I had to actually die."
"He was probably just upset he couldn't give you any more detentions after that," suggested Ron.
Griphook stated, "Had Albus Dumbledore confided in a goblin, or even one of our curse-breakers, one of which is another Weasley, he could have saved himself a lot of self-inflicted grief." He chuckled. "That is yet another reason goblins should get more respect. We do know many things witches and wizards don't."
Harry took a deep breath. "So, anyway, how much will it cost to have you remove the Horcrux from my head?"
"Well, that does make this quite important."
"Don't forget we'll all be watching out for Harry while you do it," stated Ron, giving the distinct impression that if Harry died, Griphook would, too.
After a few seconds, the goblin realized his opportunity. "After you defeat Riddle, you will be seen with me publicly saying that we are friends and you couldn't have defeated him without my help."
"With that endorsement," concluded Hermione, "the goblins would have no choice but to give you any available promotions, including putting you on the Wizengamot if we're successful in arranging representation for them."
"You'll end up more influential than Ragnok himself," added Neville.
"Then you'll be able to put a stop to the goblin-pie conspiracy once and for all," added Luna.
"I have read that article in the Quibbler," remarked Griphook with a goblin grin, which showed a lot of fangs. "I'm not entirely sure your father's source was completely honest with him."
"Oh. Were there other recipes besides pie involved?"
"We're getting off topic," interrupted Harry. "I'll do it. I need to be rid of this Horcrux. I don't mind telling the truth about you to do that, rather than go to Bill with this." He sighed. "If something went wrong, Ron and Ginny would probably never forgive him. Not to mention the others if they explain what happened." He then grinned "Is there a way to keep my parseltongue ability, though? Sometimes it comes in handy."
"I can't deliberately do that, or I'd end up not completely ridding you of the Horcrux. However, sometimes traces of removed magic can remain. I don't know of any situations where this particular gift was involved."
At that moment, Ginny began staring hard and deliberately at the floor. Harry noticed and put it together. "Ginny, look at me." She raised her head, revealing a red face. "Is there something you'd like to say?"
She focused on her boyfriend and hissed, "I've been a parselmouth ever since the diary was destroyed. I just never told anyone." Only Harry understood.
"What? You speak snake-language, Ginny?" yelled Ron.
"Hopefully, I'll still be able to speak it after this, so we can have private conversations in front of others," replied Harry, managing to speak the language while looking at his girlfriend.
"Oh great," replied Ron. "Now they'll always be speaking parseltongue instead of English."
Griphook suggested, "Why don't we get started? Mr. Potter, please lay down on the bed." First, the goblin pulled a piece of coal out of a bag he'd brought with him and placed it next to Harry. Then, he pulled out a ritual marker and drew a rune on Harry's forehead and a similar one on the piece of coal. He then waved his hand over the first rune and chanted in a language Harry didn't understand.
"AHhhhhhhh!" shouted Harry, panting, sweating and clearly in pain as his scar began to glow bright white.
"Hold him down!" commanded the goblin, before continuing the spell. After five agonizing minutes, a ghostly image that looked like Voldemort's face, only tinted green, floated out of Harry's head and went straight into the coal. Both runes flashed brightly for a moment before vanishing completely.
"Your scar isn't as dark," commented Ginny. "How do you feel?"
"Lighter," he replied with a grin.
"Do you still speak parseltongue?" she hissed.
With a big smile, he hissed back, "Yes I do."
While Ron groaned, Neville suggested, "Why don't we destroy that coal?"
"Then it'll be time to call everybody to get ready to fight," added Harry.
-HPF-
"Imperio!" Snape cast the unforgivable spell on a rabbit he'd seen outside the Minister's mansion. He was disillusioned and silenced. He commanded the animal to hop around the corner of the house, where Severus knew Nagini was lounging. He followed and watched as the snake noticed the rabbit and immediately attacked, biting the poor creature's head off. "Reducto!" Snape shot the spell into Nagini's open mouth, bypassing its spell-resistant snakeskin and killing it. He then pulled the fang out of his pocket and stabbed the corpse, causing a ghostly image of Voldemort to momentarily appear and scream. He then released his silencing spell. " Kreacher, get Potter." The elf, which had been watching from a safe distance, disappeared without a word while Snape walked toward the gate.
-HPF-
POP!
"Kreacher, was the mission successful?" asked Harry.
"Yes, Master Harry. Snapey had no problems."
Harry looked around at everyone gathered with him. It wasn't just his inner-circle. All the able-bodied muggle-borns they'd rescued as well as most of the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore's army were with him. Many of them had helped free other Muggle-born labor camps. "You all know the plan. Everyone, disillusion and silence yourself so Snape can sneak us through the wards. Then, it's time to end this."
They cheered and did as he said. Once the last of them was invisible, Harry commanded, "Grab the portkey." It was a large length of rope. After waiting ten seconds so that everyone would have time to touch it, he activated it. He'd always hated the feeling of traveling by portkey, but it was the easiest way to get everyone to Voldemort's new headquarters – the Minister's mansion. This attack was planned when as many Death Eaters as possible were there. It wasn't that they wanted a difficult fight. It was that they wanted the war to actually be over after the battle, rather than having to keep fighting left-over Death Eaters organizing under a different leader.
Harry landed with his usual grace, falling on his bum. He grinned, thinking that at least this time no one actually saw how clumsily he landed. He got up and walked toward the gate. There was a man in an auror uniform lying dead on the inside of the fence. He appeared to be a victim of the sectumsempra spell. Harry walked up and canceled his silencing spell, keeping himself invisible.
"What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" asked Harry with a sneer nobody saw.
"I don't know, sir," came the sarcastic voice of Severus Snape before the door seemed to open itself. Harry felt Snape's hand on his shoulder, which meant he could walk through the wards. No one without a dark mark could enter without being escorted by someone who had one. Severus stayed at the gate until the last person had entered and then closed it.
"Everyone get in position and start blasting the house when you hear me say, 'NOW!'"
The Chosen One allowed two minutes before making himself visible. After putting a sonorus spell on himself, Harry shouted, "NOW!"
On all sides of the house, reductos were blasted at the walls, causing the mansion to go from pristine to a wreck in just a few seconds.
-HPF-
"Lucius, find out what's delaying Severus," commanded Voldemort. He was seated at the head of a very large table in the center of a room that was nearly full of Death Eaters. Bellatrix Lestrange was to his left and Pius Thickness was to his right. He had called them for a meeting about how to flush out Potter. "He's delaying this meeting."
"Yes, my Lord." As he stood up, the outer walls caved in. Fortunately for them, those seated at the table, the inner-circle, were not injured and most of the ceiling above them wasn't completely collapsing. Those who were standing next to the wall, a dozen new recruits, were under a lot of rubble, either dead or dying.
"We're under attack!" screamed Bellatrix unnecessarily while pulling out her wand.
A magically amplified voice could be heard throughout what was left of the mansion. "VOLDEMORT! This is Harry Potter. Come out to fight me if you dare. Our people will fight each other, but it'll be you and me who decide the real winner. What do you say?"
Turning to Bellatrix, Riddle ordered, "Summon the others, and then take charge of my forces. Potter is mine. Kill everyone else."
"You heard the Dark Lord!" she shouted as he left. "Let's kill them all!"
-HPF-
Harry didn't have to wait long for his nemesis to arrive, but the fight had already begun. The most feared witch in Britain had led the charge outside of the walls of the dining room while others made their way to the other sides of the house. He longed to join that fight, but knew that the only way for the prophecy to be fulfilled was for him to personally fight Lord Voldemort
The remains of the front of the house were blasted forward toward him, but not far enough to hit him. Lord Voldemort stepped out toward him, appearing calm and collected.
"Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, come to die."
"How long have you been planning to say that?" asked his opponent.
"Do you have any last words to say before I kill you?"
"My condolences for your snake," replied the Chosen One with a smirk.
"What!?" shouted Tom Riddle.
"Reducto!" shouted Harry, beginning the fight.
-HPF-
Neville Longbottom grinned as he saw his target run through the rubble. All his allies were fighting others around him. Many of their disillusionment spells were being canceled by their opponents, but he was still invisible. He shot a cutting curse at Bellatrix Lestrange. She quickly blocked it with her wand, reflecting it toward the ground before shouting, "Finite!" while pointing her wand at the source of the spell sent at her, hitting him and turning him visible. She followed that up with a silent body-bind. He fell down with his face up and his eyes glaring at her.
"Well, well, well," she scolded, "That's not a very Gryffindor thing to do, attacking someone while you're invisible, Neville Longbottom. I'll have to teach you the same lesson I taught your parents. Crucio!"
-HPF-
Ginny Weasley was invisibly walking around, taking potshots at Death Eater backs, when suddenly her legs snapped together and she fell. She saw a familiar man walking up, pointing his wand. Its handle was an ornamental snake head. He'd seen the distortion her body made when she moved. "Let's see who this careless person is," Lucius Malfoy taunted. "Finite!" Both her invisibility and the leg-locker were released. "Miss Weasley. How good to see you again. Perhaps I could interest you in another book."
She rolled to the side so he wasn't pointing his wand at her and got up quickly, barely dodging the curse he sent in response, and shot a bat-bogey hex.
-HPF-
"Reducto!" shouted Hermione, blasting the head off a villain she didn't know. He had managed to end her disillusionment spell. She looked through the fray to find another enemy to fight until she noticed one she would never forget.
"Antonin Dolohov," stated Hermione, looking directly at the Death Eater who'd injured her at the Department of Mysteries.
"Ah, the stupid mudblood who used a silencing spell when she should've used a killing curse. What was your name? Granger? It doesn't matter because you'll never hit anyone with a spell again. Avada Kedavra!"
-HPF-
Ron barely managed to dodge a killing curse that had been sent by McNair as the two fought. He'd long ago lost his invisibility. The reducto he sent in response was shielded against. Ron realized that shielding was that particular Death Eater's preferred method of avoiding getting hit. He needed something to go through the shield. He dodged another curse as he decided what to do. Whispering as softly as he could, he aimed his wand at the man who'd intended to execute Buckbeak a few years before and whispered, "Sectumsempra," cutting through his shield and hitting him in the throat.
-HPF-
Luna thought it was a pity that a former Unspeakable was a Death Eater, but nevertheless, she was battling Augustus Rookwood. "Do you know why the Department of Mysteries is keeping the existence of crumple-horned snorkacks a secret?" she asked while ducking under a yellow spell. She could hear Neville Longbottom screaming nearby.
"What?" he asked, although he was still paying attention to the fight.
"Is it because they want to make them extinct or use them as an army?" she asked while sending another silent spell at her opponent. "If that's the case, I should tell you they're impossible to control, even with the Imperius curse."
"Huh? I've never heard of...WHAT?!"
He dropped his wand as his hands were transfigured into hooves.
She then banished him head-first into an inside wall of the house that was still standing. He hit Bellatrix on the way, causing her to let go of the torture curse she was using on Neville. Longbottom grabbed his wand while still shaking, used both hands to hold it steady as he pointed it at the distracted woman's head and shouted, "Reducto!" ending the life of the most feared witch in Britain, and avenging his parents.
-HPF-
"You know," spat Harry as he dodged another green beam of light, "I was particularly pleased with myself when I learned what that diary actually was. That I'd actually destroyed a piece of your soul."
"What?" shouted Voldemort, "Crucio!"
Harry easily avoided that before sending a, "Bombardo!" at the floor in front of Riddle. The undead dark lord nearly tripped, giving Harry a chance to send a cutting curse at his right hand. "Of course, it was Dumbledore who destroyed the second Horcrux, in Slytherin's ring. He gave it to me as a souvenir."
"You have NO RIGHT to that ring!" he shouted, still using his slightly injured right hand to hold his wand.
Harry threw a simple fire spell at Tom's left hand, taking advantage of his opponent's distracting rage. "And you had no right to Ravenclaw's tiara!" he countered. "Of course, you did leave it in the junk drawer of Hogwarts for anyone to find."
"CRUCIO!" the madman shouted, managing to hit the Boy-Who-Lived, causing him to fall in agony. He did manage to hold onto his wand. The way the Dursleys raised him, as well as his previous exposure to that curse, gave him some resistance to pain.
"Y-y-you'll n-never g-g-guess where Slytherin's locket w-was," Harry gloated.
"Where!?" Riddle demanded, twisting his hand to increase the pain. However, his wand touched the cut on his hand and caused him to say, "Ouch!" and lost his concentration for a second.
The Chosen One used that moment to send another silent cutting spell at the Dark Lord's hand, increasing the cut by a significant margin, making it painful to hold anything. "Regulus Black stole it and left a note to you in the cave. It was actually at Order headquarters for years, until that house became my property." He felt no need to continue that story with the extra details. "Reducto!"
-HPF-
"Hello, Remus," greeted the voice he hated more than any other from behind him.
"Fenrir Greyback," replied Lupin as he turned around and started firing curses. He could see that Voldemort's backup had arrived. There were about fifty different creatures, some werewolves, giants and Dementors.
"You should've joined me when you had the chance. Now, you'll have to die."
-HPF-
Despite being hit with the infamous bat-bogey hex, Lucius Malfoy was continuing to fight Ginny Weasley, but he had been injured by a cutting spell to his left thigh while dealing with the bats. He was just glad the redhead had missed her actual target. In any case, he now had a limp and was moving more slowly than usual, barely keeping his shield up, therefore staying on the defensive while Ginny shot spell after spell at him. She then got an idea and blasted a hole in the ground under him, causing the experienced Death Eater to fall, getting hit in the head with a "Reducto!" before he had the chance to get his bearings. She smiled in victory for a moment before suddenly she felt cold and began hearing a sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle taunting her as she lay in the Chamber of Secrets.
-HPF-
Hermione waved her wand, silently summoning a piece of rubble in front of her. The green spell hit it, ending the killing curse but exploding the concrete. Some of the shrapnel hit her, but the worst result was the dust in her face, temporarily blinding her.
"You stupid mudblood! Trying to show off!" taunted her hated opponent.
She heard his taunts, giving her an area to aim at, and shouted, "Sectumsempra!" completely taking him by surprise and hitting him with multiple cuts. He fell down, dropping his wand as he bled out. "I never wanted to use that spell," grumbled Hermione to herself before she heard a loud pounding on the ground behind her. She finally wiped off her eyes and looked at the giant approaching her with a large ax.
-HPF-
'This did happen,' thought Ginny to herself as she relived her experience in the Chamber of Secrets, "but Harry rescued me!" She didn't even realize she'd said that last part out loud, and concentrating on her rescuer who was now her boyfriend, and the happiness that thought gave her, she shouted, "Expecto Patronum!" and was surprised to see a silver doe, rather than a horse, come out of her wand to chase the Dementors away. "I guess that matches Harry's stag better," she whispered to herself with a grin.
-HPF-
Moony's patronus was keeping the Dementors near him at bay while he charged at the person who had ruined his life while he was only six years old. He swung a punch at the old werewolf, surprising him before grabbing him by the throat and pulling him to the ground.
"What are y-you? Y-you don't f-fight like this," accused the choking man.
"I usually don't," answered Remus, "but this is special for you. I want to feel the life leave your body." The middle-aged man used all his strength to choke Greyback to death.
-HPF-
Hermione screamed and jumped out of the way as the giant swung his ax at her, barely escaping. At this moment, she wished it was a troll with a club. That would've been easier to handle. As it swung its ax once more, she got an idea and sent a banishing spell at the ax, forcing it to cut deep into the giant's right shoulder. It roared in anger.
Hermione then quickly shot an incarcerus spell at its ankles, tying them together so it fell face-down, driving the ax into its neck.
-HPF-
"Of course, the trickiest Horcrux was the one at Gringotts. I had to pay a lot to get a goblin to handle that."
"I'LL CRUSH ALL THOSE FILTHY ANIMALS!" vowed the Dark Lord, gripping his wand tighter until it hurt his cut. He tried to casually switch hands, but found that the burn on his left hand didn't make holding his wand any easier. He dropped the wand and pointed his hand, causing fiendfyre to come out of his cut-up palm.
Harry was lucky he was using the Elder Wand, because a shield from any other wouldn't have stopped the flames from reaching him. He was unaware that there were very few powerful spells his opponent could cast effectively without his wand. Voldemort's spell wasn't stopping and Harry had to keep powering his shield. Keeping as much concentration as possible, Harry dropped his left hand to his left pant pocket, pulled out his original wand, aimed it and shouted, "Reducto!" before dropping to the floor and rolling to avoid the fire as Tom Riddle's head was blasted off his body. No spirit rose from the corpse. Harry saw that the fiendfyre was now out of control. He quickly summoned Voldemort's wand for a souvenir before using the Elder Wand to cast a sonorus spell and shouted, "This is Harry Potter. Voldemort's dead and this property is on fire! It's time to leave! We will be chasing down any Death Eater that doesn't surrender now!" He looked around, summoned a few nearby giants into the flames and started running around the house and making sure everyone on his side was leaving.
He found some casualties on his side, but many more from the enemy. He saw Penelope Clearwater standing, surrounded by Death Eater and Snatcher corpses that had been killed so viciously Harry didn't want to know what she'd done to them. He then noticed that a lot of the muggle-borns that had been rescued from concentration camps were particularly brutal to the monsters that had put them there. He made sure to gather the bodies of his allies before being the last one to leave the scene.
-HPF-
Chapter end