The tail ahead appeared abandoned, old, and unused as though forgotten by people and time. Feet once trod the earth into a compacted state, but plants already broke through the hard surface. Hardy, tough mountain grass and lichen encroached from all angles. Without boots and shoes to beat it back, greenery sought purchase on path. Ten years of disuse, save by the rare foot that unknowingly and unwittingly found itself upon the route, showed in every respect. Bits of detritus littered the concourse. It did not seem inviting in the least.
Dennis made for the trail. He saw it stretched along the toe of the mountain and off into the distance. How far he could not determine, so he simply set his sights far ahead. The wand remained held aloft as the man rummaged through his memories looking for the happiest he could find. Granted. Dennis Creevey did not enjoy the most care- and stress-free life imaginable, but moments existed that filled him with unmitigated joy. The day he stepped foot in Hogwarts, dripping wet after falling from the loch boat and then being saved by the giant squid, featured prominently. Although the school would bring him much grief over time, the early days got filled with a heady excitement as Dennis entered into his newfound role of wizard. Colin, his brother, helped lead the way. He recalled the first time a spell worked as intended. His mind grabbed hold of the times Peeves entertained him as much as taunted. Though some might say his store of happy memories seemed paltry, Dennis cherished each one.
"Come on, you manky lot, get a move on!" He commanded the legion of undead following in his wake, trying to capture the silvery dolphin that gamboled above their heads.
Few things in the magical world expressed pure magic like a patronus. Once, and seemingly long ago, Dennis shared the power of the patronus with his parents in an effort to help them understand what magic meant to him. He wanted them to feel the indescribable delight it inspire deep within his being. Unlike more than half the plans he made to salve the wound his brother's death left, the display of the patronus worked beyond measure. Dennis smiled as he visualized the expression on his sire's face as the magic called forth in his hands poured into the hand of his father that he clasped. Duncan Creevey's visage took on a wondrous expression. In that brief moment, he knew his father got a small glimpse, a tiny taste, of the world into which fate thrust him. He laughed as he saw the smile spread across his father's mouth. It redoubled while the memory of his mother also got a sample of the magic contained in his body and mind. Jillian Creevey gazed at her son in a way Dennis never before experienced, and he savored the fact she finally knew something more about him. That warmth never diminished in him.
Dennis defiantly ignored the fact he lost his parents to the invading hoard of zed. St. Albans fell as the northern wave swept into London. He did not learn of their fate until weeks later when he managed to get into city. It took Dennis nearly five years to realize he could not save them and would likely share their fate if he stayed at home. He lived in the open country of the islands. Years spent wandering the wilds of the British Isles in search of answers for the departed he personally knew, relationships with the wispy vestiges of life after death, made him uncommonly prepared for the undead scourge that spread across the globe. The knowledge of who and why about the creation of the zombies did little to assuage the deep, nearly fathomless hatred. The vitriol he felt toward those who made the creatures and unleashed the horror across the globe seemed incalculable. That magi, regardless if the Chinese military forced them, turned their collective backs on the magical world. The muggle world suffered equal calamity as a result. It lead to the reason why Dennis found himself alone on a mountain path being chased by an rather extensive line of undead he invited to follow him.
"Well, that's about as likely an idea as any," he mumbled to himself as he stared forward.
Dennis' wand waved every so slightly above of his head as he channeled the energies necessary to maintain the patronus. A single goal formed the basis for his current venture: Ronin and Dean needed time to get into the base and retrieve the notebook if humanity wanted any chance of surviving the zed invasion. Every military person he met, although not many, told him a time would come with the living could not beat back the dead. All major cities on the planet got lost to the foul creatures. Places like Maell Cala would become isolated outposts of humanity, and no one could guarantee they could hold their own and survive. It brought to mind the Wood family. His feelings of success at reuniting Oliver with his wife and children caused the dolphin swimming midair to glow with greater light, and the zed responded as per their want. Dennis marched along as though he carried out a perfectly normal and rational act.
Although not a mountaineer by any stretch of the imagination, Dennis could read a trail. While not undead himself, he knew them about as well as anyone person might. The two pieces of knowledge joined together. What he spied much further up the path generated the idea. Despite the notion he would not survive in the end, the narrowing trail gave him a spark of hope. He did not know if the mountain fell away on one side or the other, but it seemed a logical deduction. Thus, Dennis kept dredging up as many happy memories as he could.
The patronus charm worked in a very different manner than most other charms. Most spells, and some would all, required an external source of magic that often originated within the caster. The witch or wizard would sheer off a portion of magic from the stores hid inside their form. It would replenish in a few hours, but some spells left a magi weak after casting a single complex or expansive spell. Dennis learned from professors who dies centuries before his birth various means to open oneself in order to better channel magic. Over time and before he graduated from Hogwarts, the then young wizard found ways to keep himself imbued with magical energies. In the early days, it greatly aided him in his quests to help the ghosts and spirits. However, it became a liability when the zed emerged. It took Dennis months to learn how to regulate and altogether stop the flow of magic into his body. He routinely became a moving target for the zed in the beginning until he learned control. In that way Dennis gleaned the intuitive knowledge the zed focused on magic and magi, yet it took the harrowing trip to China to learn exactly why.
A sigh of relief escaped from his lungs after nearly an hour of marching and staying just ahead of the undead army trailing him. Every fifteen minutes he switched arms to hold his wand aloft. Even though the march did not physically demand much, focusing on keeping a spell active and his arm upright started to tax him. Never in his life did Dennis ever expect to keep a charm active for an hour. His brain felt a bit muzzy from the effort of trying to recall all the happy times in his life. One in particular seemed potent: seeing Ronin naked a single time at The Midnight Owl inn. Try as he might, he developed strong feelings for his friend that put one toe over the line between deep friendship and romantic inclination. He and Ronin shared numerous adventures together, and Dennis would trust him with his life. As a result, he struggled to keep from falling in love with the very heterosexual Scottish man. In a strange way, Ronin wound up being an excellent source for the patronus charm. Dennis could not remember when he last encountered a person who called up the similar emotions he felt for his twenty-year deceased brother and then more.
"By Barnaby, he is so cute," Dennis voiced part of what his mind conjured, "but he's better as a friend. If I get through this, I swear to Merlin I'm going to find one man who I can be with for good."
The personal resolve edged him toward a whole raft of negative feelings, and Dennis carefully schooled himself and redirected his thinking. Events from his past could overwhelm and dispel the patronus. He could not risk that, so he thought again about the time he got to watch Neville Longbottom wrestle a murderous plant and win. That brought to mind the various encounters with illegal and varied magic he experienced when he worked for Rapid Removal. The Odpadki family welcomed him back with open arms when he reappeared after his initial six month's absence. Although Mariusz Odpadki seemed extremely angry with him when he decided to leave, they rekindled and renewed their friendship when Dennis brought him to a tricky problem. Moreover, it proved to be a paying job that became very lucrative. Try as he might during the undead plague, Dennis never discovered if any of the Odpadkis remained.
"Happy thoughts!" Dennis chided himself. "Great Merlin, remember that ball of trash!"
Dennis laughed aloud at the memory of what Rapid Removal did for a family that got caught faking alien spacecraft to spook the local muggles. He, Mariusz, and his daughter, Sasha, compacted the pile of debris and sent it into space. As far as Dennis knew, it continued to orbit the planet. Given the amount of force they produced with magic, he suspected it sailed halfway to the moon before Earth's gravity managed to slow it, if at all. The wizard snickered at the idea he took part in possibly launching garbage out of the solar system.
"What'll the aliens make of that?" He asked no one.
As a result, Dennis did not get an answer. The grunts, growls, moaning, and wailing of the zed close at hand gave him urgency. He needed to keep as many as possible attracted to him and following his lead. The wizard mentally commanded the patronus to race back and forth toward and away from him. He sent the animated bit of magic to edge of his control, but shy of where it would dissipate. Ronin and Dean, he hoped, long since found the notebook and beat a hasty retreat away from the area. Dennis did not even want them to attempt a rescue on his behalf. The notebook needed saving first and foremost. He grudgingly made the admission he needed to be expendable. Despite the various woes that beset him over the years. Dennis knew he loved life with a tremendous ferocity. One only needed to talk to a ghost, or a poltergeist, long enough to see that death held no advantages. The dead envied those who moved on from this plain of existence, excepting the undead who apparently did not hold a single cogent thought in their heads.
The trail began to narrow and, to Dennis' relief, fell away to his left. Already he stood at least fifteen meters above where the ground leveled even a small amount. After that, it continued a precipitous drop of a hundred meters if he proved any sort of judge of distance. Everything he knew about the zed said they would not survive the fall. Despite their rather forgiving form and persistent mindset, they retained the same susceptibility to physical hazards as the living. A fall from that height would break their bodies at the least and, if luck held, smash their skulls. However much he wanted to watch the mass demise of zed, Dennis did not turn his head and kept focused on the trail ahead of him. He, too, could tumble off the edge if he lost his sense of caution.
It only took a few minutes for Dennis to discern the zed dropping to their doom. The Doppler Effect on their voices gave him the first clue. A zed groan would suddenly grow deeper and tapper off. Sometimes he heard the thud of an undead striking the ground. The rate rapidly increased for a while as the trail became narrower. Moreover, Dennis began to see the ledge on which he walked turned into a narrow spine further along. To his right a small gouge from rain run-off showed the ground sloped downward. Twenty meters later, the toe of the mountain broke away and revealed a new valley. The gray-green hillsides became a relief to his eyes, and far below he saw a stream heading further eastward. Furthermore, the number of zed tumbling to their demise increased. Dennis could no longer hear the relentless hiss of undead feet shuffling along the land. Even though he desperately wanted to turn and watch the spectacle, he kept hold of his wits. Dennis continued walking along the ever-narrowing path.
A point came where the tenuousness of his position started to threaten him. He could not hear zed either moaning or walking. However, Dennis kept the patronus active although his brain begged him to give it a rest. He turned carefully in the spot where he stopped and stood. At the same time, he transferred his wand to the other hand that he might take up the mace if needed. While he secured his footing, preferring not to fall to his death, Dennis scanned the area. At best ten percent of the zed throng that originally followed remained standing on the edge. They pushed and shoved against one another trying to get to him, but the narrowness of the path insured they would fall to either side due to their lack of balance and clumsy gait. It brought him both pleasure and relief to see the zombies spilling over the edge and down the side of the mountain. New ideas entered his head.
The silvery dolphin returned to the zed to taunt them again. They reached into the air in an attempt to grab it. Some overextended themselves, lost their footing, and careened to their second doom. Hence, Dennis used the patronus to send as many zed to their final peace, or at least to place where they would slowly rot out of existence, as he could. Acting against caution, the wizard walked toward the mass of zed. The patronus distracted them enough that his approach did not attract their attention. Zed did not rely on sight as death glazed over their eyes as though suffering from the worst case of cataracts ever seen. It rendered zed sight useless. The undead relied on sound more often than the other human senses. No one knew if they retained a sense of smell, but Dennis thought it unlikely. Sinuses would quickly become desiccated and receptor cells inoperative. From what Dean told them, zed got created with the ability to sense magic. Thus, the use of the patronus kept the zombies thoroughly engaged.
It only took a small logical step for Dennis to realize he trapped himself. While he might be able to reduced the number of zed, he could not get rid of them all right away. New zed arrived each minute: the stragglers of the pack finally catching up to the main mass. Dennis did not know if dozens or hundreds of the things lined the path he followed. With over an estimated hour behind him since beginning this leg of the plan, he concluded Ronin and Dean either succeeded or failed in their attempt to retrieve the notebook. Making the decision came easy at that point: the wizard ceased the patronus charm much to the relief of his brain. Dennis stood feeling slightly dizzying as the flow of magical energies terminated. He lowered his tired arm.
The sudden disappearance of the magical dolphin confused the zed. The growled and grumbled as they continued to paw at the air trying to latch onto the now nonexistent ephemera. It took less than a minute before the lead creatures turned their attention to the wizard. Dennis, however, felt rather secure in his location. As the fluid in the ears that helped humans maintain balance dried or evaporated, the zed grew increasingly unstable over time. Given the estimated age of the throng assembled on the wider portion of the path, although the creatures continued to fall from it, most would no longer possess a natural sense of balance. It seemed muscle motor memory kept them upright for the most part. Dennis reasoned he could take a well deserved break. He cautiously lowered himself to a sitting position on the narrow trail.
"Here now," Dennis yelled at his adversaries. "Give it rest for bit, would you? There's not a one of you who can make it this far."
The zed ignored him. Only six or seven meters separated him from the small hoard. Experience taught the wizard zed could sense a magi from quite a distance, but those tended to be fresh ones or those who managed to stay moisturized. The short distance meant he sat within the sensory perception of the aged zombies. Given the manner in which they slowly stilled but continued to face him attested to the fact they knew he lounged in range. Dennis damned the magi who animated the creatures. They created nearly perfect killing machines. The sight of the zed alone often caused panic. The former humans also generated conflicting emotions in people. Only practice and repeated exposure allowed Dennis to dispatch them with ease. However, he got a reminder the zed could make him seize when he confronted the reanimated Harry Potter. Dennis began to appreciate he came close to doing himself in.
"Good-bye, Harry," he mumbled while he released his emotional hold over the memory.
Dennis knew he did not kill Harry. Dennis knew Harry died several years before at the hands of the zed. Dennis knew he would always feel guilty about removing the head of the undead version of the man who saved the magical world from Voldemort and, in the aftermath, showed Dennis real compassion. Tears slid down his cheeks to think his world now irrefutably existed without Harry Potter or Ron Weasley. It seemed impossible, but his hatred of the zed grew.
"You bloody stupid fuckers!" He shouted both at the zombies and to those that brought them into existence. "Why'd you have to go and do this? What good did it do… anyone?"
The lone real human voice bounced off the rocks and cliffs of the mountains. The echo came back to the man. It told him he, alone, existed as a real person among the simulacrum. The animated corpses only gnashed their teeth and groaned in want at him. Dennis wiped at his face. The remorse he felt over the deceased people but now a mass of death weaving unsteadily before him acted like a hollow pit his hatred could not fill. He watched as a zed stepped forward on the path, walk no more than half a meter before it lurched to one side and fell headlong into the ravine. A few seconds later and far below the thud of its impact drifted up to the man. Dennis chose to believe the zed to be neutralized in one form or another.
"Serves you right," mumbled Dennis.
The wizard pulled out his wand. No matter how frequently he gazed at or handled his wand, Dennis felt a deep sense of affection for it. The few times he met the aged and slowly wasting Garret Olivander, he learned wands appeared to harbor some innate sense. They became attached to the witch or wizard with which it found affinity, but that allegiance could change depending on circumstances. For a smidgen over twenty years the red pine wand with a core of dragon heartstring served him so faithfully that Dennis considered it his best friend. Granted, Headmaster Flitwick, Peeves, and Ronin each competed for that spot, but his wand never never once cast any form of judgment on him. Dennis gripped the wand with the surety it would never fail him.
"Time, please," he said to it.
A spell he concocted in his second year at Hogwarts went into affect. The zed instantly made more noise as a digital-style display showed him the current local time. The numbers hovered in the air. Three and a half hours past noontime provided Dennis with concrete information he could use. He glanced to the west and saw the sun looked ready to dip behind the mountains. The undead did not seem as daunting as standing on a spine of rock while night prepared to descend. Given what he already experienced to reach the hidden research facility, Dennis knew he did not want to get caught in the mountain environment out of doors. The temperatures would drop below freezing. Despite not knowing if his friends succeeded in their task, Dennis started to make ready to depart the mountains as fast as he could.
"Time to go," the wizard said to magical numbers floating before him. "Nox."
Dennis deeply inhaled once to revive himself with the chill and thin mountain air. Two more zed toppled to their demised, yet he could not determine if they got pushed or stumbled. Either way, he thought it a good thing because two more of the vile abominations would no longer be a threat to or torment the living. A quick check assured him the antique but very sturdy German mace remained hooked to his belt. The wizard look forward to the near future when he could return the weapon to Ronin and reunite with his beloved sword. Since he planned on disapparating when he gained his feet, Dennis tightly gripped his wand. Then he started to haul himself out of the sitting position to a standing one. The toes of his boots dug into the dirt of the trail.
When he felt himself tilt, Dennis flung his arms out. The ground gave way under his right foot. It crumbled into clumps and fell away. More of the path followed suit. An unfamiliar sense of panic assailed him as the compacted soil failed under his weight. Dennis' left leg kicked into the air as he sought to right himself, but the lack of substantial ground under his right one worked against him. Dennis began to fall. His mind tried to latch onto spell, but his hands flailed wildly through the air as the effects of gravity came into play. Dennis flung himself forward in the hope he could straddle the spine of earth and rock upon which he tried to stand. He found dirt continued to break apart and sail into the valleys below. Something of a very minor and very localized landslide ensued.
"Fuck! Fuck!" Dennis hollered as he began to fight against the fall.
He dropped his wand so both hands could find something to hold, but Dennis met with only disintegrating clods of soil. He begged to find rock. Curses and vulgarities flew from his mouth as the laws of physics Isaac Newton uncovered performed as expected. The wizard slid over the side of the path. He scrambled against the descent, yet his hands only found air. It did not support him. Raw terror gripped him as the rapid realization he fell to his death captured his mind.
"FUCK!"
Then all went silent.