Chapter 45
Harry sat quietly on the bed, watching, as Riddle stood in the center of the room. Magic poured out of him, spiraling out of his wand and washing across his target. It warped, distorting oddly before resolving into a cow, and then a dog, flickering rapid fire through different animals, as Riddle kept moving his wand. Eventually the deluge of magic slowed to a stop and a peaky looking goat sagged to the ground, painful bulges covering its body.
"Thirty eight," Harry called out.
Riddle swore.
"Only thirty eight in a minute. Still too slow." He eyed the now goat-shaped target as it lay on the floor drooling. "Thirty seven really, that hardly counts," he sneered in disgust.
The gargoyle slunk out of the trunk where it had been resting, slithering towards the defective transfiguration. The target disappeared into its black mouth, vanishing in a single bite, before it retreated back to its make-shift bed. Riddle watched it in uneasy fascination.
Harry shrugged. "Seems pretty good to me."
Riddle fixed him with an unamused look. "Pretty good will not be enough for Grindelwald. I need to be perfect."
He'd been at it all morning, and the last few days. Harry nodded distantly, looking away as Riddle started up again. They were alone in the room, Snape and Crouch already returning back to the village. They'd be staying there for the most part to keep Europe from getting suspicious, only slipping out to Riddle when called.
The flickering wand caught Harry's eye as Riddle threw another barrage of curses at a wheeling target. He looked down at the wand grasped loosely in his own hand. His fingers rubbed across the familiar wood grain, rolling it between them. They were totally identical.
He'd known that of course, he was the one who had fetched the replacement wand for Riddle before returning to Europe. The one he pretended to win all those months ago. But it still produced a visceral response every time he saw it in Riddle's hand. They were not just the same wood or core, not just similar looking—it was his wand. It felt...wrong, somehow, to see it in an other's hand. It itched at him.
Harry looked up at the ceiling, letting the familiar weight of his wand twirl around his hand with deft movements of his fingers. It reminded him of something he hadn't thought of in years. His wand had been brothers with Voldemort's back home—and, presumably, Riddle's here. It had stalled out their battles for years, even more than his mother's protections. Even when Voldemort had used his follower's wands, it had sparked the connection. Until eventually they had committed to seeing it through, forcing the effect to stay in place, throwing magic and willpower at each other in a waterfall of energy, letting it build up till one side broke, and the wand snapped.
Voldemort had avoided him for a while after that, only emerging after Dumbledore's death. His new wand never provoked the same response.
But now, here, they were the same wand. Same piece of wood from the same tree, the exact same feather from the same phoenix. Did it count as brother wands if they were from different worlds? Or, really, weren't they something more than brother or twin wands? Did they sense their own similarity? Would they act the same way?"
He was drawn from his musing as Riddle let loose with two identical red jets of light, rocketing towards the floating target. As they approached the beams bent towards each other, drawn together like magnets, before finally merging together in a blinding flare. The spell that emerged was twice as large as either before, and glowing so bright that the entire room turned brilliant red for half a second before it slammed into the target, shredding straight through the material and crumbling it to dust.
Harry blinked the stars from his eyes.
"Huh."
Riddle looked at him, his smile wide and dangerous. "Now that is acceptable."
The gargoyle spilled out of the trunk like a nebulous shadow of ice-cold rocky lava, pooling across the ground in a large clump, before pulling itself up onto four jagged limbs. It bent down and swept a digit through the smoldering dust, and then sat back on its haunches, disappointed that it was inedible. It prodded Harry with its mind.
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, sitting up and grabbing the sack of Mandrakes from where they had been laying on the bed next to him. He straightened the bag with one hand so could peek inside to grab one; but it was empty. He'd run out.
"Ah, damn it," he groaned. The gargoyle saw what happened the same time as he and let out a dissatisfied grumble.
"What?" Riddle asked, stopping his practice to eye the gargoyle warily.
"Out of Mandrakes."
Riddle sighed despairingly. "Of course. And I assume the creature is hungry?" Harry nodded. "Well, you'd better go find it some food before it decides to eat someone. Probably you, considering proximity and whatnot."
"It wouldn't eat me," Harry scoffed. "We're friends."
"No you are not," Riddle snapped.
"Well, I'm the only one who would help it get food. That's close enough in its mind."
"I'm sure it is," Riddle said, unconvincingly.
"I'm its favorite human."
"You're the only human it knows," Riddle said, rolling his eyes. "Now go, get it some food. Something with a lot of magic—find a quidditch team or something."
Harry's eyes lit up with an excited gleam. "Actually, that reminds me of something. That's not a bad idea at all."
It wasn't a quidditch team—he didn't know if this city had one—but it was the second best thing. Something he tore out of one of the Eyes when he had been interrogating them. A small warehouse, further towards the outskirts of the city than most magical buildings, almost well into muggle space, used as a forward post by the Eyes—which consisted of mainly storage for the most part. Small smatterings of magical knick-knacks and tools, spare potions and leather oil. And the centerpiece: a stockroom full of sixty top-of-the-line, mostly unused, racing brooms.
The same brooms that had been grabbed by the Eyes all that time ago when they had taken to the skies to hunt Riddle and Harry down, fleeing Haywood's burning house. Each one of those objects was absolutely brimming with enchantments, almost vibrating with pent up energy, aching to be set free and explode into the air.
It was perfect.
It also didn't seem to be much of a priority for the remaining Eyes, with only a single guard stationed outside. The gargoyle had picked him up with its mind well before Harry could see him. It sent him a mental query.
"Yeah, sure, if you must."
A streak of glinting obsidian edges and cool stone emerged from the shadows and flashed across the shaded cobblestones, keeping its mass light and low to the ground. It exploded in size as it reached the wizard—who was still lounging against the concrete, staring off, apparently unaware of its approach—rocketing up in height as two razor sharp scythe-like arms burst from each shoulder. They punched through the wizard's chest on either side, shearing through ribs and organ without any resistance, killing the man instantly. The gargoyle shifted, swinging its limbs up above its head and stuffing the man into its aphotic mouth like some sort of demented kebab. In a matter of seconds all traces of the man who had been stationed there were gone, vanished into the abyssal depths of the creature.
"Merlin's tits," Harry coughed, shaking his head in disgust.
The gargoyle melted back down to the seemingly baseline bipedal size he recognized as it approached the front of the warehouse. There was a layer of enchantments guarding the door: anti-lockpick, anti-charm, strengthening reinforcements. The gargoyle punched a stake like fist though the metal, gripping tight before tearing the entire thing off its hinges. It dropped to the ground with a cacophonous ringing clatter, twisted metal strips poking up out of the center like gleaming flower petals from where the creature had forced them through.
It loped into the darkly lit bay, and Harry followed behind quickly.
There was another set of enchantments on the door that separated the brooms from the storeroom; a better one, which couldn't just be simply battered down. Or, at least, not that easily. The gargoyle butted its horned head against it, slamming its cranium into the metal hard enough that the wall shook against the bolts holding it to the foundation, but the structure held.
It let out a grumbling roar, shuffling around the area in front of it.
Harry mentally asked it to make room. With a wave of his wand he tore apart the wispy anti-theft charms, pulling them straight off the door and dashing them to pieces with a flare of magic. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small golden skull. Straub's Eye badge; he'd kept it, figuring it could come in handy. He pressed the small golden object into a depression on the door.
For a second nothing happened, but then with the screeching wail of rusty hinges the door swung open. The gargoyles gratitude flooded Harry's mind, washing through him.
It rushed past, spare limbs sprouting from all across its back, grabbing handfuls of the sleek looking brooms as it went. Some of the brooms went into its gaping mouth, the others pulled inside the shell of its body as the limbs holding them slipped back through, ferrying them away to store in whatever dimension contained its body. Wood cracked, splintering apart with loud snapping sounds as the hardy material was torn like a Christmas cracker. They disappeared into the creature's mouth, most of them fitting in whole.
Harry could feel its satisfaction pulsing back into his mind.
One appendage, slim and craggy, creeped away from the beast, slinking along the floor towards Harry. He eyed it in uncertainty, and some small amount of trepidation. As it neared, it pulled itself up off the floor, flipping around and presenting the broom held within towards him.
He felt the offer drip into his head.
He waved it away with a firm smile. "I'm fine," he said, repeating it mentally for the creature's sake. The arm didn't move. The creature sent him a sensation of confusion. Of worry. "Still full," he explained, pushing away the offering. "I only eat a little since I'm so much smaller than you."
It gave the approximation of a mental nod, seemingly making sense to the creature. The limb snaked back towards where it was prowling through the racks.
"Have fun though," Harry called out cheerfully.
It continued tearing into the stacks of brooms, shoveling them into its mouth.
The Eyes were struggling in the wake of Harry's assault. They had no base, no leader, no way of enslaving the populace. He'd even taken a decent chunk out of their forces. Europe had scrambled in the aftermath, and someone had must've taken over their leadership, as their patrols continued to move through the city, adapting to the increased need for numbers at the village. But their presence was vastly reduced.
Maybe, if given some time, they would recover, and start to rebuild. But the muggles had no intention of letting that happen.
The Eyes started to suffer more losses. Knowing their secret made them somewhat easy pickings for the muggle teams led by Harry and Riddle. They moved around the city, following reports from scouts who watched the government buildings for when patrols would leave, never striking at the same place. The magic wielder would stop the van in its place from a distance, using an elevated vantage point to fire down, then pull it into the shadows of an alley. Highly armed muggles would swarm the vehicle, tearing open every door and piling inside, doling out lethal force to everything inside. It would take less than a minute, and then they would all fade back into the background of the city, hurrying away from the scene. Fast, brutal, deadly.
What did the Eyes think was happening, Harry sometimes wondered. Members all over the city vanishing on patrol. Happening too often and over too varied a location for a group to be moving in and out of the village. Did they think an enemy force had taken root in the city? Because it seemed they still discounted the idea it could be the muggles themselves doing it. There were still no sweeps of muggle areas, no increased surveillance on their gathering areas.
None of the response he was somewhat expecting. Maybe he overestimated their remaining cohesion. Were members patrolling on their own initiative, falling back on their established responsibilities when there was no clear leadership to give them guidance? It would make sense for why the disappearances might never have reached the notice of someone important, lost in the noise of recovering from the sudden death of Straub. Maybe they marked it down to uncounted deaths from Harry's assault. Or perhaps poached by other branches of the chancellor's cabinet, leaving a crumbling force for better futures.
But after the disappearances started to really rack up, whatever leadership they had finally wisened up, and started sending the patrols as convoys; multiple vans per patrol, bristling with combat personnel. It was enough that Voss called off the strikes, content with the damage and waste of resources it created.
The Eyes' strength had been reduced to a mere shadow of what it was.
And so Voss decided it was finally time to make the move they'd been waiting for.
On the fading light of the Friday of that week, the night of another event in the tournament, when the attention of all the magicals and the Eyes was on the village, when Grindelwald and all his supporters were in attendance watching the competitors' performance and politicking, Riddle used the master device to recall every single one of Straub's muggle victims in the nearby city.
Riddle stood at the base of a massive square, where a densely populated residential area met the start of the largest shopping district in the city. Harry stood waiting beside him, the master device hidden within his robes. Voss and her inner circle were also nearby, shooting Riddle wary looks as they waited. Her muggle forces were spread out throughout the area, standing at every corner and on every roof, watching for any sign of European forces approaching.
As the hour ticked to the designated time, they finally arrived.
Muggles streamed into the square, a sizable crowd pouring in from each side, glazed eyes and slack faces walking quickly. They spared no glances at the stumbling masses around them, the sheer oddity of the situation unnoticed. Riddle had stripped all orders of pretension, all imperatives to act as they once did, pulling on the full strength of their curse. They did only what the curse implant told them to.
Out of the corner of his eye Harry noticed Voss shift awkwardly. Her companions squirmed at the sight before them, mouths twisting at the mass of dull gazes shambling towards them.
The first muggle, at the head of the crowd, walked up to Riddle and Harry, her gaze empty. Riddle stepped up to the woman, wand in hand. At his silent beckoning she opened her mouth. There was a flash of light and she bent over retching, a mess of blood and bile landing on the ground. Riddle idly Vanished it.
Riddle waved a hand at Harry, indicating for him to go. He raised his wand and pointed it between the woman's dull eyes.
"Imperio."
His curse washed over her and smashed the existing mental shackles into splinters. Just as quick he retreated, reeling his influence back out of her head. She stumbled, and started blinking rapidly, looking dazed.
"Autsch," she groaned, holding her head.
One of Voss's men collected her, leading her away to a cleared out sitting area while muttering under his breath to her in German. Halfway there she suddenly burst out into violent sobs, shaking her whole body. She spun around and sought out Riddle and Harry with suddenly alert, red-rimmed eyes.
"Vielen Danke!" she wailed at them. She tried to say more but the man pulled her away, muffling her cries. Harry looked over at Voss. Her expression was unreadable as she stared after the retreating woman. Eventually she turned towards them and met his gaze.
"So you really can do it," she muttered, trying to sound unruffled, but Harry could see the wonder in her eyes. She'd doubted them up till the last second; or rather, she'd refused to let herself believe. But now it was unquestionable.
"Stop gaping boy," Riddle snapped. "We've got a long night ahead of us."
There were hundreds of muggles there, thousands, quietly waiting their turn. Harry and Riddle worked for hours, well into the next morning, removing the curse from every single one. It was taxing, exhaustive work, draining every ounce of magic from their bodies as they slowly whittled away at the numbers.
But they refused to stop, couldn't stop. Even as Harry's arm got heavier and heavier he refused to quit, to even take a break. The mob of blank stares surrounded him, prodding him forward, condemning him the second he thought of stopping, of leaving them like that.
He gritted his teeth and cast the magic, over and over again. Imperio. Imperio. Imperio.
A countless number of times. One of the Unforgivables, one of the most reviled pieces of magic in the world. It spilled out of his lips like a breath, becoming second nature, tearing apart the remnants of Straub's work.
Unnoticed by him, his exertion started to become visible, the magic pouring off him taking the form of a hazy distortion around his limbs. It swirled around him, cloaking his body. He didn't notice as the air around him grew uncomfortably hot, pushing Voss to move farther away. He didn't notice as the stares around the square were drawn to him, watching in stupefaction as they undid the greatest terror known to these people.
The only thing he saw was the endless line of victims stretching away in front of him.
The muggles worked tirelessly around them on shifts, guiding victims away from the wizards and taking them into the fold. They were given food and drink, before being sat down with one of Voss's men who would spend a handful of minutes explaining the situation. They would then be led away again, pulled in a number of different directions based on Voss's orders. Some were taken straight back to base, to be trained as new members, others were assigned to groups that would make rounds returning lost members to their estranged families. The remaining were simply guided to transportation to take them back home.
By the time the sun finally rose and gentle yellow light warmed Harry's cheeks the last few dregs of muggles were finally ushered out of the square. He almost collapsed, as the strength that had kept him going all night drained out of his body.
Even Riddle looked a little faint, slumping slightly where he stood. Voss approached them, looking not at all like she had spent the whole night awake on her feet.
"Time to move out. We finished just in time to leave before morning traffic arrives. If we're fast enough we should avoid the notice of any magicals."
Harry nodded silently, too tired to respond. She eyed them, taking in their exhausted posture before turning and walking away.
This was only the start. There would be more nights of this—weeks, maybe. Until every inch of the Eyes' influence was broken. But he didn't dread the exertion.
Countless people, finally freed from subjugation. They could return to their families, get taken back in by their friends, try and recoup the life they'd lost. And in doing so the myth of the Eyes would crumble. Voss had said that every person had a story, a person they knew, a friend of a friend, who had vanished into the night and come back different. Everyone had a reason to comply with the chancellor. But now they would be presented with a counter-argument. The threat of the Eyes unraveling before them, friends and family returned to them with stories of muggles and wizards working together to free them. To fight against the chancellor.
And it would lead them to Voss.
At the very least there were thousands of people who owed them a vast debt, and held a powerful reason to seek revenge against their oppressors. They would seek her out, maybe not all of them, but certainly many, eager to join in the fight. Their numbers would swell, their influence expand.
Without the Eyes to stop them, they would stoke the fires of rebellion that had been smoldering under pressure in the chests of millions of muggles.
A war was brewing, but only one side knew about it.