Chapter 59
In the morning a line of men and women tumbled out through the Vanishing Cabinet's doors, pale-faced, confused, and often blustering. Riddle quieted them all with a glance. He stood before them with an air of total authority, as the Director of National Security—but more than that, as the wizard he was. Tom Riddle: the most powerful wizard of his generation. Maybe in the world. They shuffled out of his sight, guided to the floo by waiting attendants.
Harry waited beside Riddle. The area was full of bodies; dark robed members of Riddle's department with combat training had been mobilized, and briefed, and now filled the building that they had moved the cabinet to; weaved heavily within their numbers were pockets of Unified servicewitches and wizards, pulled into the mix from favors and friendships, either James Potter's or Riddle's, their commanding officers inspecting the group around them with discerning eye; and lastly, lost within the masses, a weak smattering of scarlet robes, courtesy of Sirius Black. A pair of dark eyes found his and he nodded.
Bellatrix Black nodded back regally from where she stood across the room.
Riddle pulled open the wooden cabinet door and reached in. No person came jumping through—instead his hand returned with a slip of parchment. He read it quickly and disposed of it with a quick burst of magic.
"That's all of them," he said quietly to Harry. "Severus is ready."
"We go through first?"
Riddle nodded. "Of course."
This was it. The final moment of calm before it all started. For Harry it was the culmination of months of danger and pain—but for Riddle, it was years. A lifetime. As soon as they went through those doors there may not be another second to think, to settle, to be cognizant of the magnitude of what was happening. When their blood beats its drum in their ears and all they know is magic and violence—that was easy. Instinct. But now all they could feel was the gnawing anticipation, the creeping jitters.
Harry found Riddle's gaze and saw the same emotions mirrored in them. They could be walking to their deaths. There would be no second chances in the case of failure now. And in that finality it engendered something different than worry—excitement. Because Harry knew, underneath his smug enjoyment of his plots, and manipulations, and maneuvering, Riddle was at home in the same place as Harry. With his wand in his hand and magic vivifying the air around him. Where he could carve out his fate with the strength of his magic and power of his mind.
"We're moving!" Riddle's voice snapped over the dim chatter, sharp as the crack of a whip. He climbed into the cabinet and slammed the door shut. Harry stepped up, second in line, and pulled the doors open, revealing the dark grain of the boards at the cabinet's back, completely empty.
He stepped in.
He stepped back out to a totally different room, a totally different country. Riddle stood beside Snape, looking out a window at the city beyond. Harry didn't recognize their surroundings.
"We're not in the village?"
"No," Snape said as another wizard came out through the cabinet behind Harry, their gaze flicking around the unfamiliar space. "As soon as the rest of the delegation was evacuated I made my way closer to the center of the city—as the Director advised."
Riddle nodded solemnly.
Harry joined them at the window. Squinting through the bright glare reflecting in through the window, the massive bulk of Nurmengard filled his view, dominating the skyline and obscuring the rest of the city.
"When are you going to share the secret with our forces?" Harry muttered to Riddle.
"Now." Harry eyed the growing band of people milling around the cabinet. The door banged open and Bellatrix stepped out, her nose upturned as she dropped the short jump to the ground. Riddle followed his gaze and said, "In groups, as they come through. Keep them moving. Once each group is oriented Severus will get them in position to wait for our signal."
Harry nodded. "And the muggles?"
"They're still willing to be cannon fodder?" Snape said. "Remarkable." His disdainful sneer dripped off his face as Harry whipped his gaze over, and Harry was pleased to see Snape had some difficulty meeting the look in his eyes.
"How many muggles are in this city?"
Snape frowned. "What—"
"There's not that many of us. Think of how many muggles are in this city, and how many would be willing to fight. We could multiply our numbers several times over."
"Yes—with muggles," Snape hissed. "I hold no hate towards them, but what chance do they stand against wizards? Against the defenses of Nurmengard?"
"By themselves?" Harry shrugged. "Not much. But if we cooperate, we could utilize them to our advantage. They have numbers, their vehicles, their weapons—you've moved a fair number to them through the cabinet just recently—and they want to fight. We shouldn't discount them."
Snape snorted and looked away.
"Are they ready?" Riddle asked, ignoring Snape.
"I'd assume so," Harry shrugged, "but Voss isn't exactly keen on having me watching over her shoulder, go figure." Riddle sniffed in irritation.
"Then we shall trust that they are for now. Go find her leadership—you specified a meeting point correct?"
"Yeah, yesterday."
"Good. Find her, share the secret. She can spread it to her forces when the time comes. Then, you find me."
Harry hurried out of the room. Voss, depleted as her group might have been, still had more manpower than they did, but Harry and Riddle had doubts about how...insulated their information was. Grindelwald could not be clued in early, accidentally or not. And they sure as hell weren't going to share the secret early.
Only Voss, and selected leadership, were aware of the operation, upping their preparation in isolated cells. Today their forces were spread throughout the city, mobilized with their fleet of vehicles, unaware of what was happening; some were told it was routine patrols, others knew nothing at all. But when the call came through from Voss, the secret would be revealed, and so would Nurmengard, and all the vehicles would converge.
All that was left was for Riddle and Harry to overpower its decade old enchantments and Grindelwald's power, so that they could drag it back out of the unreality it was half-nestled in.
He found Voss where she had said she'd be, standing on a rooftop, surrounded by a retinue of armed figures. Harry apparated to the edge of the building, appearing with a sudden crack, startling the group.
"Voss," he said, inclining his head. Her eyes narrowed but she stepped forward.
"I'm here, like you asked," she said, with sarcastic emphasis on the last part. "My people are in the dark of your plan. Now what? Why are we here?"
"Now, you get to witness some of the magic of your enemy."
Her eyes widened in fear, her guards' grips tightening around their weapons, but he was already speaking—the secret of Nurmengard echoed across the dirty gravel of the rooftop. For Harry nothing changed. But judging by the wide-eyed gapes of the muggles in front of him he knew that the sight of Nurmengard's sinister towers had suddenly appeared before them, pushing the city away around itself as it expanded into view.
"That is Nurmengard—the home of our enemy. The battleground of today."
"Wh—how?" Voss mumbled, too taken back to maintain her usual venom.
"Magic protections," Harry said simply. "It's not all just flashy lights and curses. Grindelwald tucked himself and his entire fortress out of the knowledge of the world. Its entire existence locked behind magic. Only knowing the secret, and becoming its Keeper, could reveal it. That's why," he continued, adopting a kinder tone to blunt the harshness of the statement, "you needed us. You could've searched for centuries, picking through every inch of the city and you would not be able to find it."
"I can't believe it…"
"You hold the secret now. You can spread it to your people. Get them ready for the signal." Harry's face was deadly serious as he found her gaze. "This is it. If we win today your fight is won. Throw everything you have at them. And we'll do the same."
He spun in place and disappeared from the rooftop in a swirl of robes and the rush of displaced air.
He got to the point before Riddle—likely still stuck briefing the slowly moving assembly line of fighters coming in through the cabinet. Nurmangard took up a massive chunk of land in the center of the city, its grounds sprawling out considerably farther than the reaches of its towers, a rolling plain of natural wilderness like a massive chunk of the countryside had been uprooted and dropped into the middle of the urban center. At the edges of its expanse a tall gate surrounded it, old brick covered in twisting vines, sprouting up from the uneven ridgeline of grass that continued past it for a few dozen feet. Harry walked out onto this grassy perimeter, leaving the road a few paces behind him, and the rows of buildings that held hiding clusters of wizards in wait.
He reached into his robes and pulled out a shrunken chest. It shot back up to its normal size, thumping down onto the grass, and the lid popped open. Four massive hands of craggy obsidian spread up out of it, gripping onto each corner, and with a heave pulled the entire mass of the gargoyle back into the world.
"Wakey, wakey," Harry murmured idly, as the gargoyle slipped back into his mind, shaking off the last remnants of its sleep. Its eagerness flooded him, crackling with anticipation. He felt the emotion fuzz with the edge of his own nerves, merging, and he couldn't help the excited smile from crossing his face.
And then Riddle was beside him, without any sound or burst of movement preceding his arrival.
"Ready?" Riddle hissed, his voice slipping into parseltongue.
"Aye."
In unison their wands rose, pointed at the massive gate in front of them. Riddle, of course, had mastered the spell that Harry had brought from Dumbledore in no time, dragging Harry along behind him into proficiency.
Blinding light exploded from the pair of wands—eleven inches, holly, with the feather of a phoenix. The same phoenix; in fact, it was the same feather. The same wood, the same wand, down to the tiniest whorl in the wood. Brothers—twins.
The jets of light—vortexes of crackling lightning-like magic, blue and green, and sparking bright yellow—tore through the air, scorching it in their passing, leaving it hazy and smelling of ozone. And then, unexpectedly, they bent. Towards each other. Pulled together like magnetic opposites, the two curved in the air, twisting around, spiraling, forming a gleaming helix of light. The beams merged with a flash of light, and with feet to spare from the encroaching stone gate, bloomed into a massive flare of power, punching into the structure with the force of a locomotive, producing an earth-shattering clang. Crackling energy washed out over the edges of the invisible barrier between it and the standard reality, filling the air with a buzzing distortion.
Harry looked over at Riddle whose eyes were just as wide, staring at the sight in astonishment. The joint of where the jets met, a brilliant golden bead, surged backwards, tying the two spells closer together, retreating back to right in front of them where it could combine into a single beam as soon as it left their wands.
Harry's wand vibrated in his hand, scorching hot, and he had to grab on with his other hand to stop it from wrestling itself from his grip. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Riddle do the same.
It was supposed to be a struggle, a contest of wills—a slog of attrition, battling down the strength of their opponent as they dragged it back into the world. Instead the strength of their magic grabbed hold of its mass, wrapping around the massive structure so that the world tinted in color as the hazy border glowed with light, and swept straight through the resistance like it wasn't even there.
Harry could feel Riddle's determination through the magic, the single-minded desire burning so hotly it felt like he was standing too close to a fire. He gritted his teeth and pushed. With everything: his fury at his old captors, at the pain and suffering they had wreaked around him,and beneath all that, the clawing, sickeningly desperate fear that he was taking too long—that his home, his real world, was burning because he had been too slow to return and save them.
With a rumbling groan, and a shudder that shook the earth, space tore open and Nurmengard was tugged back into existence, shattering its protective enchantments as the gate crumbled into billowing dust. To the rest of the city the event had been unnoticeable—but to those secret-holders watching it expectantly, and those inside its walls, the entire world bled with power as the strongest fortress in the world lost its greatest protection. The air shook with a crack and their spell ended, the jets of coruscating magic vanishing instantly, as the world lost its glow.
The gargoyle raised its head and roared into the sky, hands grasping at the fluttering strands of residual magic, bellowing its victory.
"What was that?" Riddle gasped, his eyes wide and gleaming, face flushed. His head whipped towards Harry. "You said nothing of the magic doing that!"
"It wasn't supposed to."
"Then what happened?" Riddle hissed.
Harry stared out at the suddenly clear sight of the fortress as he blinked the darting lights out of his eyes. "I—I think I know."
"What?"
"Brother wands," Harry breathed. He held up his wand. "We have—brother wands. The same wand. I've seen it before, in opposing wands. They would refuse to duel each other. But this time—"
Riddle's eyes lit up. "This time they were working together. Working in tandem on the same spell. Yes...yes. I've heard of such things before."
"And I think, maybe, that the fact that they are the same wand magnified the effect," Harry mused. "We each matched with our wand—but in a way, they might recognize the other as its master as well. And somehow working together it combined into a more powerful version of the spell."
Harry started as a hand landed on his shoulder. His head jerked up and found Riddle smiling at him with a wild, bloodthirsty grin.
"Fitting."
Harry raised an eyebrow.
"From apprentice, to host, to equal—I am not too proud to admit that our partnership has been essential to bringing me to the cusp of my destiny. Even more than I anticipated, all those months ago when you arrived here."
The air filled with the sound of rumbling, as cars started to pour onto the street behind them. Trucks pulled onto the grass, bristling with muggles, leaning out of windows, armed with rifles, and blades, and improvised chemical explosives. Some of which were courtesy of Britain.
"Come, Harry, fate is calling us," Riddle crowed with burning eyes. "Don't let it kill you."
And then he was gone, hurtling up into the air in a smoky column. On cue he was surrounded by dozens of streaking figures, cutting through the air, bent down over their brooms as they poured out of the buildings they were waiting in.
Harry was plunged into shadow as a hulking figure loomed in front of him. In silent synchronization the gargoyle lowered itself as Harry stepped forward, his legs slipping through its impossibly strong hide like the surface of a still lake, securing themselves in the snug mass of its internal dimension. He held onto its back with one hand as it rose up, the other holding his wand at his side.
Vehicles streamed past them on either side, tires tearing at the grass as they skidded along the uneven surface, sweeping onto the plain in front of the fortress.
"Go!" Harry barked.
The gargoyle shook itself once, rearing up as more pairs of gleaming, monstrous arms sprouted from its carapace, before it shot forward with a jolt, jerking Harry back. He held on determinedly as wind whipped at his exposed head.
The gargoyle's limbs blurred, pounding into the earth and tearing out great divots as it threw itself forward, ignoring air resistance as the front side of its charging body let the wind pass straight through into its physics-defying internal space, and then blown out the back in a furious blast of turbulence. They tore past the other vehicles, speeding up faster and faster, the world blurring around them until they were at the head of the tide, meters of empty green between them and the nearest tail, as their shared connection filled with a humming thrill.
Overhead Riddle matched them, slashing through the sky in a streak of dark black, brooms chasing after his trail.
And then the protections of Nurmengard woke up.
It hit them like a gust of warm air at first, washing over Harry's face, and blanketing him in its touch, the grass rippling below the gargoyle's churning legs. And then it flared to life, searing hot. Harry gasped as his face burned, blinking the tears out of his eyes as the heat faded, before washing over them again, undulating in waves, battering at him. The gargoyle continued forward, unaffected, but Harry could hear the distant cries from above and behind him as the power swallowed them.
The powerful heat broke around Harry, fading away to nothing but the lingering burn of his face, and the slightly blackened grass that crunched beneath the gargoyle's limbs. A fierce grin split his face as relief swelled in his chest. It had been a short pulse, a testing shot—Harry suspected it should've been enough to immolate the entirety of an invading force not equipped with charms. If it had been at full strength. Which meant something was hampering it—Dumbledore had felt their entrance. And he had kept to his word.
He was close enough to the fortress to feel the weight of its defenses; they hummed against his skin, ice cold and prickly. Sparks started to leap from his hands, darting across the broad sweep of the gargoyle's back, dancing in and out of existence in tiny neon bursts. A tingling raced up his spine, and his hair stood at end all across his body, pulling towards the looming fortress, the magical potential running through him.
And then a thunderclap rent the air near him, shaking the world, as a scar of purest white detonated two dozen feet to the left, buffeting him with a draft of hot air. Grass ignited and flew through the air, raining down across the plain as it was ripped out of the ground. He was ready for the second one, focused enough to see the ribbon of magic flash between the fortress and the air; a thread of light the size of a broomhandle that existed for a fraction of a second before somewhere behind Harry exploded, his vision shaking as the ringing impact filled his ears. The plain around him was thrown into stark relief as it washed out in white, his hands in front of him disappearing in the shadow of his own body. It was echoed by a horrific screech of metal. The smell of burning wafted over him.
Harry put his head down and let the gargoyle carry him, more strikes hammering into the ground around him, blasting smoking craters into the ground, but none drew close enough to catch them. He heard the shouts behind him as the broomriders wheeled through the air, desperately avoiding the deadly strikes and the charged winds. The gargoyle's hide felt blessedly cold against his face; it still stung from the heat, and felt tight as he was jostled, like it was being pulled. Burned.
The antenna buildings, once tiny shadows in the shade of the Nurmengard, swelled to full size as they approached, rearing out from the silhouette of the fortress behind them. And as Harry grew near they started to move.
Like the ponderous movements of a waking giant, berms swelled up beneath them, rolling in seismic waves like an ocean of grass and mud, as old stone pulled itself out of the ground in sprays of dirt, warping as it twisted towards the attackers. The earth itself seemed to be alive, bulging unnaturally, like great leviathans were trapped beneath its surface, struggling up against the amniotic shell of their soil egg.
The ground gave out beneath the gargoyle, dropping away as the space behind them swelled a dozen feet, blocking out the view of the their convoy tail. It tumbled, Harry hanging on desperately as he did a rotation, its thick arms wrapped around him a protective cage. Two obsidian hands dug into the backslope, scoring deep furrows into the earth as it dragged itself to a stop.
Harry whipped around at the sound of a hiss; roiling molten liquid poured out of the gashes it had torn in the earth, like sprays of blood in a great beast. The underground fountain of lava sprayed a rain of white-hot fragments over them. They pattered across the gargoyle's extended limbs with a chorus of little hisses. A handful of glowing cinders bounced off his robes; he hissed as one burned through the thin material of his sleeve and scorched his arm. The rest died in fiery burn spots across the material, leaving it streaked with soot.
"Glacius!" Harry yelled. The lava wailed as it cooled instantly, sealing the holes in the ground with dense black rock. The gargoyle scaled the small hill in front of it in two strides, throwing itself up the back side and into the air. Brooms whistled by overhead, flashes of light spilling off them in barrages that poured into the surrounding ground. Where they struck the earth froze, the magic manipulating it nullified so that they no longer warped; spitting calderas cooled, turning into dark black stumps, or detonated into pillars of steam as their insides were transfigured into water.
The muggles had faltered behind Harry, drawn up short by the moving earth. Some of the convoy had split, taking long looping paths around the moving hills, seeking to surround the fortress, while some braked as their few brave comrades drove straight into the madness, closely following the paths laid down by their broomriding cover. Pockets of brooms broke away from the swooping mass and made runs down at the level of the vehicles, casting repairs on broken down crews stranded at the mercy of Nurmengard's protections, or healing injured muggles.
Harry caught a glimpse of staggered wisps of smoke rising into the air, marking where the plain was pockmarked by the blown out melted ruins of vehicles caught by the blasts of magical lightning. There would be no saving those crews—they'd been killed instantly, before they could react.
Harry grunted with the impact as the gargoyle slammed back down, and resumed its ground eating pace.
A watchtower pulled itself out of the ground fifty paces in front of them, its supports groaning as it swayed in the open air. Its tall head turned towards Harry, the narrow window at its top lit by torchlight, gleamed like a single, great eye.
The steeple topped roof of its conjoined guardhouse speared down from the air. The gargoyle threw itself to the side as Harry cast a shield charm over the pair. It blew apart instantly, showering them with sparking magic splinters, and the sharp-tipped building punched into the grass with a dull boom, flattening a massive crater into the hillside. Dirt billowed out in a wide cloud, washing over Harry and enveloping them, leaving him coughing.
Strands of magic and warped wooden beams connected the guardhouse to the tower, and they moved in a mockery of strain as it ripped it out of the ground with a tug. Clods of earth rained down on Harry as they ran under it, falling with dangerous force.
The guardhouse steeple slipped out of the deep gouge it had punctured in the ground, dripping with a metallic black sheen. As the tower swung its psuedo arm around in a slow arc the fluid fell from its dip in an onyx shower, particluates flung loose from its movement. They splashed across the ground in small patches, and where they landed the grass immediately grayed and died, shriveling up on its roots. A dark shadow filled Harry's vision as the lumbering arm swung overhead. Tennis ball sized drops hit the gargoyles back, barely missing Harry; they hissed against its rocky skin, letting off streamers of grey smoke as they ran down its sides, but it seemed to feel no pain. Harry Vanished them with a flick of his wand.
He looked back in time to see a cloud of dark smoke rise up out of the hole that had been put in the ground. It dispersed into fumes in the open air, but not in time before the grass around the pit blackened.
Poison, he thought rapidly, some sort of toxic gas.
The thought was abandoned as the gargoyle slammed into the base of the watchtower. Its clawed hands cut straight through the stone, grabbing on. It heaved upwards and another pair of arms sprouted from its chest, grabbing on and throwing the pair even higher, scrabbling up the side of the giant automation. Harry whipped his wand down and yelled, "Depulso!". The spell picked them up as the gargoyle leaped and threw them even higher.
The two of them were in perfect agreement—following their first instinct. Go for the head. As they tore up the side of the structure the stone started warping, sprays of razor-sharp bricks tearing at them, pulverizing into dust against the gargoyle's chest. The whole structure swung beneath them as it turned ponderously, the world around Harry spinning; but the gargoyle kept climbing, fixed on the burning globe of magic it could sense in the top of the tower.
The section of brick near Harry suddenly shattered, spraying him with chips and dust. The echo of staccato cracks finally reached his ears.
"Don't fucking shoot me!" he yelled into the air.
Down below, the first of the convoy's vehicles poured over the rim of the small valley the tower loomed over, splitting around the bowl to circle the creature while spraying it with testing shots. The broomriders must've cleared enough of a path for them. Harry watched as the guardhouse crashed down again into the earth, this time catching a the side of a car with its steeple, pinning it to the ground before the mass of the guardhouse crushed it with a metallic wail. Their comrades weaved around the massive structure, and a bundle blurred out of a car window, bouncing across the wooden slats of the structure. It exploded in a shock-white flash, tearing the side of the guardhouse away.
It reared up, pulling the house off the crumpled wreckage of the muggles. Tongues of flame licked at the charred holed in its side, as loose boards tore free and dropped to the ground. The gargoyle's hands grabbed onto either side of a window, lower down on the tower's body. It started to pull itself inside.
Harry's ears ached as they filled with a low rumbling, shaking his brain inside his skull. And then the world around him exploded.
They hurtled through the air, spinning end over end in a cloak of dust, the wind tearing at Harry's face, and as they fell he heard the rumbling drop ever quieter in volume: it was the tower. Screaming. The gargoyle oriented itself with the help of the nearby muggle viewpoints, bouncing off the ground and skidding to a stop on six legs, splayed out like a cat, tearing up the grass as it went. Harry's face felt uncomfortably hot as they gathered themselves, the start of headache swelling from just behind his temple. He rubbed at his head, freeing a cloud of chalky dust and dirt, and his hand came away wet. He looked down at red-stained fingers.
The watchtower loomed in front of them, a massive chunk of its structure missing—not destroyed, Harry realized, but expelled to knock them away. The loose stone it had torn from itself to rebuff the gargoyle spun around it in an orbit of bricks, suspended by magic. He patted himself down to make sure it hadn't caught him anywhere else, but all he found were a few tender spots—tomorrow's bruises.
As a few of the circling vehicles got too close the spinning band dropped, rocketing down to ground level. They tore around the base of the tower in the opposite directions of the vehicles circling them, intersecting them in two distinct points on opposing sides. Magically hardened stone, hurtling through the air at the same speed as a muggle vehicle at full speed, met them head-on, blowing straight through windscreens with loud cracks, and broke apart into cloud of razor-sharp fragments that pulped the occupants into bloody slivers. The vehicles swerved, driver-less, careening into another, and the base of the watchtower, smashing apart in a cacophony of broken metal.
The circle of vehicles, now slightly depleted, pulled back, retreating to a higher orbit of the valley. One drove too close to the gaping scar in the side of the hill and suddenly veered off, skidding to a halt. Harry could see the slumped forms of the diver and his passengers crumpled against the windows. Taken by the fumes.
Harry screamed with wordless fury and hurled a scalding packet of orange at the watchtower. It was too big to move fast, to dodge; the curse carved into its head, melting straight through the stone and into the structure inside. It erupted into a gleaming sphere of flames, bursting out from every window and curling up into the night sky as the tower stumbled.
A thick streak of black swung overheard, wreathed in smoke. Riddle.
The sky flashed red, as shadows danced across the ground. And then the lumbering watchtower exploded. The gargoyle held onto the ground with every limb to stop itself from toppling over as the shockwave blew past them, slamming Harry into the gargoyle's back like a flag caught in a storm. A wave of smoke followed right after, thick and black and choking, washing over them, obscuring their sight. Harry's eyes stung and his mouth filled with an awful burning taste as they moved carefully through the dispersing smoke. Flaming brick and wood rained to the ground around them, removed so violently they drove deep pockets into the ground where they landed, smoldering. The tower remained where it had stood, the entire top half removed, blackened spars curling up and outwards, blown out, like the petals of blooming flower. Flames danced all along its sides. And it remained still.
From where they stood on the lip of the hill Harry could see a clearer view of the battlefield. Arrayed in staggered positions around the exterior walls, there were smoking ruins of similar looking structures, mostly smaller, and a few still lumbering around as muggle vehicles raced past them to the fortress, dodging swelling mounds of earth and flares of lava. The brooms stills swirled overhead, locked in their own battles, the sky hidden behind a glow of flashing lights, reflecting off the clouds and obfuscating the movements.
The ground around Harry was pitted, smoking holes where chunks of the tower had torn into it. One of them was particularly deep, the bottom of its hole not visible to the surface. As the battle swelled nearer the fortress, and lulled near Harry, he heard it—a distant crackling rumble, just beneath the sound of the battlefield, masked by it. Like the sound of an avalanche before it sweeps over. He could hear it coming from the hole. And as they neared he heard things emerge from within the sound: deep, pained roaring, desperate to free itself, and the cracks shaking the earth beneath him in time with the movements of rolling hilltops nearby—but beneath it all, he heard a voice. Chanting.
And he recognized it.
Dumbledore's voice, whispering faintly on the wind, and traveling through the vibrations of the earth, booming in time with the movements of the living battlefield around him. It sounded like no language he had ever heard before. And when Harry focused on the voice he started to be able to feel it, beneath the oppressive weight of Nurmengard's magic.
He could feel Dumbledore's presence, blunting its potency. Restraining its power.
What sort of monsters lurked beneath the skin of Nurmengard? What sort of unnameable magic threatened to tear loose and devastate whatever dared attack it? If this was what they faced while Dumbledore restrained its true horror—what did its full strength look like? For a second Harry felt the fear that Dumbledore had tried to instill in his heart. But then it was gone and his resolve hardened.
Dumbledore was doing his part. It was up to them to do theirs.
The gargoyle pounded towards the fortress, catching up with the line of vehicles. Nearer to the fortress the movement of the ground seemed to ease, free of dangers—too close to the foundations of Nurmengard. The magic could potentially damage the fortress as well. It was time for the non-magical defenses of Nurmengard to make their appearance.
A trio of portcullises opened along the front face of the fortress. All along the ground in front of it, stretching out to the lines of antenna buildings, canyons tore themselves into the ground, sinking open and revealing gaping slopes to the innards of Nurmengard's dungeons. And out through them came a swarm of dangerous creatures: trolls, the most numerous, ugly squished heads seething with hatred as they lumbered forth with their massive cudgels; hobgoblins and acromantulas, erumpets and chimaeras. And overhead, above the dark walls of the fortress, a cloud of robed shapes on brooms rose up, streaking towards the oncoming force.
It was a horde of nightmares—but likely a pale shade of the true terrors Harry'd heard trapped beneath Nurmengard's foundations.
The muggles around Harry turned on cue, on some unheard radio signal, veering to the side of the emerging defense, strafing them. Harry and the gargoyle kept going straight. This was the battle they wanted.
As they swept around the other side of the enemy mass the muggles opened fire. Roughly manufactured rifles, and inherited war relics, and smuggled modern guns joined together in a symphony of bangs. Trollskin was tough, magically resistant, the same with many of the other hides and carapaces in the swarm of creatures. But even they had trouble with the puncturing power of an explosively propelled dart of copper-jacketed lead. The muggles squeezed their triggers as their rides whipped around the perimeter of snarling monsters, pumping dozens of shots into the mass.
Blood and ichor splashed across the bright green landscape, spraying into the air as handfuls of the creatures were shredded apart, bullets shearing through limbs and punching holes out the opposite sides. A small runt of a giant roared, holding its leg where brightly-colored blood streamed down in a waterfall the size of a small creek. Pockets of hobgoblins clambered over the twitching legs of dead acromantulas, still moving long after their brains had died.
On the opposite side Harry saw the dazzling wall of flashes, as the report of the guns rang in his ears, followed by the distant screams of creatures. But in front of him, none of the enemy was touched. A pair of trolls bellowed a challenge at his approach, hefting massive metal beams. The gargoyle roared back, Harry's voice mixing in, pairing unconsciously. And then they met in a resounding clash.
The gargoyle threw itself at one troll, faster than it could respond, and mashed a clubbed obsidian fist into its head. Harry felt the impact travel up his body as bone crunched beneath its fist. The troll tripped backwards as blood poured out of its crushed nose and facial bones. The other troll whipped its weapon overhead at the pair. It dissolved into a flock of sparrows at a flick of Harry's wand, fluttering out of its grasp. As it stared dumbly at its hand Harry hurled another curse into its face, spearing it straight through the mouth, up into its brain. The skull blew apart in a cloud of bloody fragments, splattering its brain across the grass as it toppled.
The other troll roared and threw itself forward blindly, reaching for the gargoyle. Two clawed hands grabbed its wrists with ironclad grips, wrenching them away. The troll snorted, tugging futilely, unable to free itself. Another hand pistoned out of the gargoyle's chest, lightning-quick, bladed tip plunging into the trolls neck and then withdrawing with a quiet snickt. It gaped dumbly, choking as blood started streaming down its front, before the gargoyle tossed it away.
Clicking filled Harry's ears. A ball of acromantulas, two or three, sped towards them, clambering over each other in a frantic mess of limbs. They reared up as the gargoyle met their charge, forelimbs lashing out across the skin of the gargoyle, failing to score any scratches, as it drove a spiked club into their midst. They split around it, scuttling to each side of them, and underneath, swiping furiously with their legs and fangs. The gargoyle roared and limbs erupted from every corner of its body like an enraged sea urchin, spearing them into the ground.
Harry blinked at the array of deadly spikes tracing around where he was holding on. And then his neck prickled and he heard the hiss of something coming from behind. He tried to turn but his body was stuck in the gargoyle, letting him only crane his neck back enough to catch a glimpse of a massive spider leaping at him from where it had hidden.
The spikes retracted silently, and two new limbs fired out around Harry, catching the spider in place just before it reached him. Harry squirmed, trying to angle his wand backward and failing. The limbs not in the gargoyle's grasp, thrashed desperately, and a barbed forelimb the size of a beater's bat slammed itself into Harry's side, catching him unprepared. The wand-langth claws tore through his robes and scored a red line up his side. He hissed in pain, clutching at the wound.
The gargoyle let out a low rumble and pulled. The held limbs tore out of their sockets with a wet dribble of green fluid, sending the creature flailing backwards. The gargoyle spun around and darted after the spider, dropping the twitching legs and grabbing on to its body, sharp claws tearing straight through the carapace so that thick blood welled around its fingers, and pulled again—tearing the creature straight in two, spilling a deluge of guts onto the ground. The gargoyle turned, throwing the two halves of spider at a nearby centaur, tripping it.
The ground shook under their feet, Harry's vision blurring as wave of sound hit him. In the distance a massive bloom of smoke wafted upwards. An Erumpet had detonated. Harry winced as pain radiated from his side—his flesh felt like it was burning, sharp waves rolling away from the wound. He could feel the blood dripping down from the inside of his robes, but he raised his wand again instead of bending down to check it. While the centaur gaped backwards at the explosion Harry's spell caught it in the human torso, dropping it.
The numbers around them thickened as the main mass of the horde caught up, surrounding them. Harry's wand flickered around his body as he poured magic into their numbers, blasting, and cutting, and transfiguring everything he could, while the gargoyle moved beneath him, a darting whirlwind of bladed limbs, shredding everything that came near it. They were two parts of one whole, a furious storm of magic and death. Multicolored blood and viscera washed over the hide of the gargoyle, gathering in congealed clumps, or catching on bits of sticky organ as the creatures were torn apart. It stained Harry's robes, running over his skin and coating his fingers.
His wand bucked and another troll dropped his club, fingers burned. Another flick and the familiar rush of magic shot through his arm, tingling against his fingertips, as an inferno surrounded the troll, melting its flesh. It screamed once before it crumpled onto a pack of wyrms, crushing them.
Harry's magic buzzed against his skin, dense enough that it felt like a coat on the outside of his skin, warming him, pulsing in time with the flashes erupting from his wand. It was hot in his hand, but comfortable; he realized his face was fixed in a fierce smile, eyes burning as the enemy fell around him. He could feel the gargoyle's excitement beating in time with the blood in his ears, suffusing him, mixing with his own battlefury, to where he wasn't sure where one of them ended and the other started. It reveled in the danger, the battle—the slaughter.
The gargoyle perked its horned head up, sitting up from where its bladed arms were buried in the chest of a dead chimaera. Harry barely had time to process the flood of sensory information it shared with him, before the wall of creatures around them faltered, dropping, puffs of red mist blowing out of their packed bodies.
The rest of the muggles had joined his side, charging into the mass in front of the gates. The creatures met their charge head-on—but they underestimated the danger of a muggle vehicle. Large trucks plowed straight through pockets of hobgoblins, flattening them beneath their wheels, as a troll took a speeding car directly into its chest. The car crumpled, spinning away as it jerked to a stop. The troll tumbled backwards, its chest cavity crushed, blood pouring out of every orifice in its head. The other muggle vehicles slowed, weaving in and out of each other as their occupants fired shots into the surrounding creatures in waves of fire that shredded apart whole trolls. But as they slowed, they became vulnerable.
A troll, heedless of the constellation of bleeding holes in its chest, threw itself into their midst. It brought its club down—roughly seven feet of tree trunk—straight onto the roof of a car. It collapsed under the strike, smashing down onto the muggles inside, crushing them. The troll whirled as the flesh of its back erupted with tiny sprays of blood, and caught a car in the driver's side door. It folded inwards on the driver, as the club lodged itself in the side of the car, ripping it from its hands as the car spun away. A bundle of explosives landed at its feet from a nearby muggle. It looked down, frowning, before the explosion blew off its legs below the knees.
But as the disarray grew within the muggles, more creatures broke their ranks. Acromantulas scurried along the tops of cars, leaping from roof to roof, darting in with their barbed legs and gnashing mandibles to tear strips of flesh from the occupants. Muggle screamed in terror and pain as the nightmarish creatures descended on them. Drivers were pulled out of vehicles with supernatural strength, flailing wildly, heads clutched between the mandibles of giant spiders. Clawed limbs flickered through the air and bleeding corpses bounced off the top of vehicles down to the ground. Their comrades fired upwards blindly, blowing holes in the roofs, firing wildly until their weapons clicked dry.
Harry summoned an acromantula away just as it tried to squeeze its mass in through a shattered windscreen. The gargoyle caught it as it flew backwards, hammering a massive crater into its abdomen. Green gushed out of the crushed carapace. The gargoyle skidded to a halt, coming up to the edge of the saved vehicle. Harry looked in.
Three muggles stared back at him, pupils dilated and whites of the eyes showing, giving them a crazed look. They stared at him with no sign of recognition, fingers numbly pulling on triggers that produced nothing more than a chorus of metallic clicks. Harry looked away.
He started as a robed form came sailing down from above and thudded into the ground beside them. Clouded eyes stared up at him from within scarlet Auror robes. He looked up. Brooms wheeled around each other, the sky alight with spells, as they chased each other, twisting and turning, rocked by explosions that traced paths through the air. Dark streaks filled the horizon: robed figures falling from the sky.
A trio of brooms strafed low, zipping over the heads of the creatures towards the muggle force. They threw a salvo of curses as they whipped by. Two hit vehicles—the metal frames imploded, tearing apart and impaling its passengers on rough spars. There was a crack—different than the report of a gun. Harry turned to see a dark robed figure appear on the bonnet of a stopped vehicle. The driver had parked so that their two comrades could direct sustained lines of fire from their rifles towards the distant line of Erumpets, trying to pick them off. None of them were watching the front.
The wizard's first curse burned a hole straight through the wind screen, and then through the chest of the unsuspecting driver. The windscreen shattered, rattling into the inside of the vehicle as he stomped on it, before he fired a wide band of gleaming purple light through the interior. It flickered through the two seated muggles, heads toppling from their necks in gouts of blood.
Keeping his position on the top of the car he started throwing curses into the nearby muggle ranks, blowing them apart. He never noticed their approach until the gargoyle's maw dropped over his head and snapped shut, removing his upper half. More wizards starting popping into the ground fight—possibly from above, but more than likely from vantage points on the fortress itself—picking a muggle or two off and apparating away before Harry could get them.
Apparition is possible here then—just not into here.
But not for him. Not when he was connected to the gargoyle like this.
A pair of spells slammed into his shield making him grimace as it shuddered. Looking up he saw a group of brooms approaching him from above. Another flurry of curses whizzed by, breaking against the hide of the gargoyle and hissing into the ground. One hit the ground beneath the gargoyle's feet and showered them with a spray of grass and dirt. A wall of shields glimmered around the group as his wand leveled on them in return.
"Accio brooms," he growled harshly.
His magic ripped the brooms out of the sky, pulling them out from underneath the unprepared riders. Two tumbled away, thrown into freefall as their brooms jumped out from beneath them; the rest clung on, trying to pull themselves out of the dive up till they crunched into the hard ground.
A heavyset creature the size of two cars stacked on each other, and bristling with massive quill-like spikes, charged the muggles, its shell of spikes producing an eerie rattling as its gallop made them bounce against each other. Harry watched as it shook and two meter long spears fired outwards, skewering whole cars. Pools of blood from some dead creature filled one corner of the plain, chewing through the tires of any cars that passed through, leaving a seabed of marooned vehicles.
Spilled motor oil mixed with blood of all sorts across the field, between the fires and wreckage, softening the ground into a marshy texture. It squelched beneath the gargoyle's feet as it prowled forward, and filled Harry's nostrils with a uniquely awful pungency.
As the front ranks of the creatures creeped back, more flashing lights filled the battleground. Transfigured outposts, small stone outcroppings transformed into walled structure that allowed enemies to throw curses before jumping back to Nurmangard's walls for safety. The gargoyle bulldozed into them, chasing them down as new ones popped up. Muggle's tossed bundles of explosives into others, blowing them into fragments. But more appeared, too easy to create for the enemy wizards, and too hard to approach once they got in position behind them.
There was a rippling chain of explosions overhead, a steady tearing sound like the opening of a letter, as smoke bloomed in a line fifty feet long. Around it Harry could see his forces desperately swerving, juking wildly all over the place, almost like their brooms had lost control. He squinted and saw the flickers of smaller shapes swarming around them.
The crows.
Grindelwald's flock spiraled across the sky; a pocket of riders joined too close, herded by the walls of snapping beaks. The fluttering crowd around them collapsed, and then detonated, a chain reaction of tiny blazing lights that enveloped the group of riders. Smoking bodies dropped from the rolling cloud.
The gargoyle smashed through the front of an encampment wall, showering the inside with rock dust. One wizard was too slow to apparate, halfway through his twist when Harry's curse caught him in the chest, punching a bloody tunnel to his back. Another building nearby went up in a flash of blue light, chemical fire shooting out of its narrow windows. The burned out wreckage of muggle vehicles surrounded the stone structure; the cost of finally taking it. Nearby a muggle car exploded into a ball of flame as a spell found it, buffeting Harry with a sudden hail of glowing metal shards. Tiny lines of pain twinged across his side, marking where they had cut him, and he felt warmth drip down his face from a cut across his cheek.
Up above lightning flashed, searing the air as it darted between its targets, flashing through the flock of crows in a spiderweb of light, incinerating them in its path as it decimated the swirling flock. Smoke darted through their midst, scattering the remainder, as the originator of the spell careened to the earth. Riddle hit the ground beside Harry with a boom, catching himself in a crouch as the earth cratered around him.
When he looked up at Harry his crimson eyes were smoking with darkness. Blood painted his pale skin.
"How goes the effort on the ground?" he whispered, his voice carrying unnaturally clear to Harry's ears. Harry stared down at him from the back of the bloodsoaked gargoyle, and frowned.
"It's failing," he said. "The rate of attrition favors Grindelwald—his wizards are apparating in and out, slowing us down and picking people off with barely any casualties. The muggle numbers are being decimated. We need a change."
Riddle's eyes barely blinked as they flickered across the battlefield, taking in every detail.
"We face much of the same in the air," he muttered, frowning at the fortress bulk waiting beside them. "The main gate."
Harry cocked his head. "What about it?"
"We make for the main gate, spearhead an assault straight through their center. Break it open and push the fight inside. We go for Grindelwald—while our forces hold can hold the corridors."
"The approach will be difficult, to say the least. If we fail to breach the gate they'll collapse on us. The muggles can't apparate—we'll lose them all."
"Then we must not fail."
"Tch—what's your plan?"
Riddle turned back to him with a vicious smile. "Brother wands."
"What?" Harry frowned in confusion.
"We will work together as the vanguard. Our strength together could be enough—but using this effect of our wands shall make it even stronger. Clear ourselves a path up to and threw the doors. The muggles and brooms will follow behind us."
"Are you sure that will work?"
"Do we have an alternative?"
Harry stared out across the smoking plain. Hulking corpses and burned out shells of vehicles littered the space around him. The gargoyle vibrated beneath him as its impatience made it is way into Harry's mind. It was eager to get back into the fight.
"Fuck it."
"Yes," Riddle laughed, a dangerous light gleaming in his eyes. "Fuck it indeed, Harry."
Riddle's spell carried them up into the air with him, towed behind his smoky figure. Almost at once crows swirled around them.
"Wait!" Riddle called as Harry raised his wand.
"Why?"
"Just wait...a bit longer," Riddle shouted, staring into the swarming mass around him.
"Riddle they're gonna blow us to fucking pieces, I'm not waiting!"
"Wait!" Riddle boomed, a wild expression filling his face, almost rapturous as he looked out into the crows. And then, as one, the flock collapsed, hundreds of birds diving towards the pair, almost the entirety of the remaining avians.
"Now Harry, shield charm!" Riddle yelled.
"Protego."
A shimmering blue dome surrounded the two of them, tinting the entire world in an azure glow. And then the world beyond was nothing but fire and smoke, red and orange and yellow washing across the clear surface, as the flock detonated themselves on the two—but the shield charm didn't even ripple, and they burst out of the other side of the massive cloud of smoke with the gleaming barrier still in place.
Riddle cackled into the sky, throwing a victorious glance back at Harry.
"Just tell me what you're doing next time," Harry grumbled, shaking his head. Riddle's smile widened.
"But where's the fun in that?"
They dropped out of the sky like a rock, plummeting straight down onto the front lines. Riddle caught himself with a charm, alighting on the corpse of a dead giant, magic already gathering at the tip of his wand. Harry and the gargoyle hammered into the ground at full speed, digging a trench as they plowed through a line of creatures, crushing them to paste underneath the gargoyle's mass. The gargoyle burst from beneath the churned dirt, roaring with anger, as it lashed around with its fists, smearing the hobgoblins around it into the ground.
"Fuck you Riddle!" Harry shouted, spitting in anger as he stabbed his wand at a nearby encampment of wizards. His wand sizzled beneath his fingers in response, mimicking his fury. The stone walls exploded and shredded its occupants with a bouncing hail of shrapnel.
Riddle's response was another laugh—rumbling up from his chest, it echoed across the battlefield.
"Exploding spell," he cried out.
"Bombarda Maximima." Their voices overlapped, perfectly in time.
The front ranks of the creatures disappeared as explosions ripped through them, rapidly expanding pockets of hot air boiling them in place, while the shockwave concussed them, bruising organs.
"Have the muggles charge through the center," Riddle called, waving a wand, "we'll cover them in the front."
Harry relayed the order to the muggle commanders.
A column of metal vehicles roared down the center of the plain, angled towards the massive gates of Nurmengard. Riddle dropped down onto the top of the car right behind the leading vehicle. Harry drew next to him as the gargoyle kept pace with the muggles.
Together they cast the shield charm—but this time wrapping it around the front of the leading vehicles.
One and a half tons of metal, cloaked in an unnaturally strong protection charm, traveling at near one hundred kilometers-per-hour, hit trollfkesh—and kept going on through as it splashed across the undented windscreen. The sharp v of leading vehicles blew through the ranks of creatures, driving a deep wedge into the remaining forces. Creatures were hurled out of the path, bodies shattered from glancing hits, blood spraying across the charge as enemies flew through the air, tumbling over rooftops, and disappearing under the spinning tires. A cattle-eating boa hissed into the sky as its body was flattening by churning wheels, a second before Riddle's spell lopped its head off.
Enemies struck back at the charge, massive clubs, and claws, and spellfire, splashing across the gleaming shield the coated the front line of vehicles—Harry held onto his wand with a white-knuckled grip as magic whipped around him, keeping the spell in place. Brooms started diving in bombing runs, lobbing curses downward as they passed that bloomed into blinding clouds of light when they detonated against the side of the shield.
It shuddered and Harry felt the spell start to break.
"Riddle!" he yelled.
"Right, right," he called back. He raised his wand and blue sparks arced into the sky, trailing back over the line of vehicles like electric plumage.
The broomriders dropped on cue, peeling out of the dogfight above and spiraling down to the muggle convoy. Grindelwald's guards chased them, joined with hulking winged figures.
"We guard their skies," Riddle cried, "and they guide the muggles."
A pack of guards intercepted one of the retreating groups, the two parties exchanging a flurry of curses, lights darting between them in the half second before they passed, dissipating into bright showers of sparks against shields. One of the shields shattered into crackling motes and the rider was blown from their broom as the rest whizzed by. Harry watched them tumble bonelessly downwards, smoke curling up and around them from the blackened starburst on their chest.
The thick cloud of broomriders leveled out overhead, keeping pace—what was once a force of a hundred and a quarter wands, now halved. The muggles had fared even worse.
"Protego Maxima," the pair of them shouted. The gleaming shield flickered and died around the muggle vehicles, reappearing above the cloud of brooms in a dome; just in time to catch a hail of spellfire, bouncing it back up into the diving black robes. Winged creatures skidded across the surface, clawing and beating, but unable to find purchase.
The friendly broomriders dipped, angling closer to the front. New shields appeared over the leading vehicles, as curses poured down from above and tore into the center of the mass of enemies, dropping them in time for the convoy to grind their corpses into the dirt. Wizards on the ground, apparating in and out from the fortress, started firing back from the cover of their encampments, trading spells with the fliers—but it wasn't enough to stop the momentum. Vehicles burst into flame, and crumpled into the bodies of heavy creatures, veering off to the sides as their occupants lost control—or died. But their comrades kept going, driving towards the rapidly approaching front gate.
The defenders tried their best to impede the progress, transfiguring spikes of metal and stone out of the ground, tearing trenches into the earth, or spilling liquid fire across the plain. As many vehicles as they claimed the combined efforts of the wizards above were too much to overcome. Fire quenched itself as earth rose up and made traversable bridges. Spars of metal rusted and disintegrated, stone crumbling to dust.
In minutes—less than that—the force would reach the dark metal of the gates.
But Harry wasn't sure they could last that long.
The shield above gave the whole spearhead cover as the broomriders cleared the path, dark shapes fluttering around the outside. A spiderweb of cracks spread across its surface, gleaming faultlines in blue and white where the hazy outline of the shield was visible against the sky. Sparks rained down from above as Harry's wand shook in his hand, burning against his skin, vibrating with the effort of maintaining the flood of power pouring out of him. He could feel the pressure as enemies beat themselves against it, hammering it with magic—it draped itself across his whole body like a weighted shroud, squeezing his bones uncomfortably tight. His mouth tasted of static and ash.
He turned and found Riddle with his gaze.
"It's going to fall," he tried to yell, his voice coming out scratchy and rough.
"A few more seconds to the gate."
"I'm not sure we have seconds."
"Hold it," Riddle said, turning away from Harry. "Only seconds." And then he closed his eyes.
Harry felt Riddle's strength disappear from the shield. The pressure on his body exploded, doubling in intensity, and he gasped, his breath wheezing out of his chest like he had been punched in the stomach. He felt every probing curse, every punching claw, like a blow against his core, rocking him in place as the spell unwound. Shards broke away from the dome, sprinkling down in a hail of motes as it started to shatter, breaking down. Harry felt it give as the attackers attacked with renewed ferocity.
He stabbed his wand upwards in a wordless roar and magic poured out of him. It scorched through his arm, stinging against his fingertips as it escaped in crackling stream. The shield gleamed with light, its decay momentarily halted.
He held it for a second. And then another. One of his ears popped from the pressure and all sound on his right side vanished. Another second passed—his eyes watered and his cry choked into silence as he ran out of breath, and smoke curled from the tip of his wand and in-between the fingers clutching it tight. The shield broke.
Riddle opened his eyes.
They glowed with power—his crimson irises tinted purple. Crackles of energy sparked out of them, dancing across his face as he stared into the sky, slackjawed, as he mouthed words Harry couldn't hear.
The world turned white, everything disappearing into shadows and glare. Harry blinked the spots out of his eyes as a thunderous crack shook the ground, bouncing across the open plain. Smoking figures dropped from above, spinning wildly. Harry braced as another bolt of lightning flashed from the sky into the midst of the defenders in an explosion of light. For a second he saw in perfect detail a cluster of wheeling broomriders before his eyes squinted instinctively—and then there was nothing but charred detritus.
Wisps of smoke continued to rise from his hand, drawing his attention. It started to throb. Burned.
Twenty meters separated the last ranks of the horde on the ground and the gate. The leading vehicle plowed through the back and out into the open grass. Brooms swept overhead, blocking the spells shooting down from the ramparts as the muggles gathered in front of it. The rest of the creatures closed in on the open path cleared through their midst, tearing at the sides of the convoy as it raced past, towards the gate.
"The gate, Harry!" Riddle shouted, forks of lightning still crackling across his body. He whispered a charm and his voice boomed over the battlefield, "Blast the gate!"
Dozens of wands leveled on the steel doors. Harry's joined them.
"Confringo," he hissed.
The front of Nurmengard disappeared behind a haze of rippling explosions, washing across the sheer face with fire and magic. They rocked on their hinges, massive planes of metal banging against their stone siding with a ringing clamor. Through the smoke a faint shimmer glowed along its face. But it was pale, faltering. Drained.
Flaming chunks dropped from above where the spells had blasted open the fortress walls. From within tiny shapes teemed forth, crawling out over the brick faces. Feral imps.
Riddle blasted away from the ground, speeding towards the shaking gates. As he flew he held his wand in front of him; deep scarlet collected on the tip of his wand, growing to the intensity of a flare as he approached, a red-tinted shadow. He whipped his hand at the gates and the bead of light tore out of his wand in a blinding jet, slamming into the gate.
The blast of light and heat vaporized the massive metal doors instantly, carving them out of existence as it chewed through their inner lining and the stone that held them in place, leaving nothing but melted slag; the walls around it were blown outwards from the wave of pressure, crumbling into themselves in a cascade of glowing wreckage. The impact blew a gale of searing hot winds backwards through the attackers, as the wave of force punched them, threatening to tear them off their brooms and flip cars. Harry clung resolutely to the gargoyle as it whipped at his hair and robes.
The gates were gone; in their place was a gaping maw of twisted steel and glowing stone.
"Forward," Harry's voice bellowed over the field. Riddle shot straight through the opening in a streak of smoke.
Muggles slammed their vehicles together into a barricade in front of the doors as they rushed out, hauling weapons and explosives, teams of men dragging their injured comrades into the cover of the fortress. The broomriders dove, swooping down to the flagstones of Nurmengard, some of them sliding off their handles and landing in a sprint on the ground as the rest flew on.
Harry and the gargoyle bounded through, leaping over abandoned vehicles and conjured obstacles, diving through the gates. As soon as they passed the threshold he felt the cold weight of Nurmengard settle over him. In here their enemies had no ability to apparate. No way to surprise them. No way to escape.
The inside of Nurmengard was a magical battlefield.
The gate opened into a massive hall, stretching out to the far side of the outer structure, lined with looming, imposing pillars, stone streaked with bands of silicates and glittering crystal. Staircases crossed over each other, switching back and forth as they climbed its formidable height, dozens of exiting corridors lining the two walls, some large enough to fit ten men abreast comfortably—others barely two. All along the polished floor, and the staircases, and in the air above, witches and wizards hurled spells at each other.
Still bodies bounced off the ground as large, grey-tinged transfigurations prowled through the battlefield, bits of rock and ice flying through the air, joining splashes of fire as the combatants warped the surroundings around their opponent in between spells to carve out their guts.
The gargoyle threw itself right into the middle of the battle, launching across the floor of the main hall. A pair of duels raged in front of them; spells whipped back and forth between the masked guards and Riddle's wizards. Their eyes widened as the gargoyle landed in their midst.
Harry's vision fractalized, merging with the gargoyle's senses. Its magic swept through the hall, easily sliding into the minds of all the combatants, their thoughts and instincts swirling back to it in a miasma of intent. The gargoyle and Harry moved together, half a second before one of the guards fired a spear of blazing orange into the ground where they stood, the image flickering through Harry's mind before it happened, like a reverse afterimage. The other raised their wand at him. Blood-sapping curse.
Harry's wand flashed at the same time as theirs, canceling the spell as soon as it swelled on their wand-tip. They gaped at him, distracted, before hurtling backwards as their previous opponent blasted them in the chest. The gargoyle was on the other, letting their spell bounce harmlessly off its hide as it drove a spiked limb straight through the space they dodged into. It punched out their back with a splatter of red and they went limp.
More enemy wizards joined the hall floor, streaming in from connecting corridors or dismounting from brooms as they left the walls above, rushing to the fight, and to aid their comrades. They were met by the roiling mass of a force of nature tearing into them.
Its senses flooded Harry as it whirled, bladed limbs flashing around him and in and out of its body: tiny flickers of intuition a moment before a wizard dodged, warning him of spells before they fired, his opponents' thoughts, their plans, their instincts, laid bare before him, translated and fed into his own. His wand spun around him in a flicker, his eyes fixed in front of him, unneeded, even as the world blurred with the rapid movement of the gargoyle. His enemies' spells fizzled out before they fired, his counter-curses hitting them in stride, as his own curses found flesh—turned backs, weakened shields, distracted fighters. The vulnerabilities flickered through his mind and his magic found its way unerringly into their path.
He leaned forward, idly letting a curse streak past his neck from behind. An auror screamed by on a broom and sank a conjured spike of metal into the attacker's head. Harry closed his eyes and said, "Lumos."
His wand flared with a pulse of impossibly bright light, and the gargoyle showed him the kaleidoscopic images of the surroundings enemies' viewpoints as they stumbled back, blinded. Its bladed tail whispered through their clumped mass, separating their bodies in sprays of viscera.
Up ahead Harry saw the silhouette of Riddle, surrounded on all sides by black robes. Spent magic scorched the air, making it blurry. And then he heard a scream, and the feeling of loss, as some of the gargoyle's viewpoints faded away.
He turned around and saw another side door swung open and a new group of guards rush in, joining the overwhelming mass bunching together. The British wizards were spread out, fighting in groups of two or three on the ground, individual duels. The mass of guards starting cutting through them, overwhelming the duels with numbers.
Wizards fell, limbs missing and eyes smoking, charred entry points littering their bodies. The muggles peeked up from whatever cover they had found, looking for a target to fire at only to be eviscerated by a lightning quick flash of spellfire, or the bulletproof arm of a golem.
The gargoyle bellowed, shaking itself as new barbed protrusions sprouted across its body, splattering blood on the ground. Harry could feel its desire burning in his mind. He chanced a look back and saw Riddle's back growing even smaller, cutting deeper into the forces of Nurmengard, racing towards the far end.
That was where Grindelwald lay, and Dolohov. But, as he watched a trio of witches falter under a salvo of explosive curses, without help their forces might end up destroyed before Riddle ever reached the chancellor. His eyes widened as he caught a glimpse of Bellatrix, supported with one arm around Snape, limping backwards into cover, a furious snarl twisting her soot-stained features as she defended against three wizards at once. Blood dripped from beneath her robes, staining her arm. Snape's impassive scowl was gone, replaced by a grimace of worry.
Harry made the decision instantly. He popped out of the gargoyle's back, dropping to the ground behind it. His knees almost buckled had he not been ready for the weakness. He hurt—the wound on his side pulsed with agony as he stood, joining the steady pounding in his head. He slapped its back.
Harry's presence, attached to its body was a restraint; it limited its ability to manipulate its body, restricted its movements to keep him safe and conscious, tied it to his focus on staying with Riddle. But it wanted to be released—to unleash itself upon their enemy, to slash, and crush, and rampage until their foes drowned in the sea of blood it spilt in their home and none were left.
"Go."
The more enemies it could defeat the more lives of their own side would be saved. The more chance their force would be able to hold out long enough. He had his own purpose to fulfill here.
Its gratitude engulfed him before it lumbered away, making for the largest clumps of fighting guards. Harry turned his attention back to Riddle.
Riddle was glowing with magic; it saturated the air around him, pouring off of him in visible, sweltering waves of power, beating down on the enemies around him. Robed figures fell before him as quickly as they appeared, his magic erupting in refulgent blasts that shredded through shield charms and human bodies alike, as easily as tearing paper.
The far gates opened, and a flood of new figures poured in: wizards and witches, and new creatures, shackled monsters with glowing magic surrounding them. And in the lead, flanked on both sides by hard-faced armywizards, was Dolohov.
The rest of the battlefield faded away from Harry's perception, as it centered in on the opposite wall. He wiped the blood, and sweat, and accumulated grime off his face, never taking his eyes off the approach. He winced as he touched his right ear and found a trail of blood leaking from it.
Dolohov charged into the battle with the same enthusiasm as the gargoyle, a wild grin contorting his face. He lurched forward in a blur of movement, slamming into a pair of wizards trying to curse him, hands snapping out to grab their heads as they fell, and then slamming them together with a wet crunch. They dropped, massive craters in the sides of their skulls leaking crimson. His wand flickered into his hand and a burst of magic shot out, exploding across a servicewitch's shield with incredible force, shattering it into scattered light. His next spell took her in the stomach—blood sprayed as bone erupted from her abdomen, fleeing her body and tearing her insides apart as it went.
Harry sprinted towards the distant group, ignoring the flashes of spellfire darting around him, the gargoyle's lingering influence and his own prickling sense for magic letting him dodge without looking, juking and sliding through burning rubble and bodies. A pair of muggle opened fire near Dolohov, peeking over the collapsed column they were hiding behind. One of the wizards beside Dolohov jerked back, clutching at their arm. He simply turned, ignoring the rippling fabric as small holes blew themselves into his robes. The two muggles died in a sea of roaring flame.
A wizard stepped in front of Harry, wand held aloft, interposing themselves between him and Dolohov. Harry didn't bother blocking their curse, snatching it out of the air with his left hand as he ran, before lowering his shoulder and driving it straight into the stomach of the surprised man. They toppled to the floor together. Harry grabbed the man's head with his left hand and slammed it back against the stone. His eyes rolled, hands desperately grabbing at Harry's arm. The arm glowed with ethereal light, small characters lighting up as magic crackled across the surface. And then it ejected, rushing through the pinned wizard's head and into the ground, fusing the two together. An acrid burning filled Harry's nose, cutting through the overpowering smell of ash and coppery blood.
The path ahead to Dolohov was cleared, no more enemies between them.
And then Riddle got there first.
He appeared before the group of armywizards in swirl of smoke, eyes blazing as bright as his wand. Two curses flashed across the distance faster than Harry could track, almost instantaneous, and erased the figures on either side of Dolohov, their broken forms hurtling backwards dozens of meters, almost like they had disappeared.
Dolohov reared up with a snarl and launched a massive blast of magic at Riddle. Like the one that had blown apart Harry's defenses in their first meeting. The ones he had seen the man use to tear apart trained aurors. The ones that Harry had never seen stopped, pure unchecked power that had swept away every defense—unstoppable.
Riddle slashed his wand and the magic tore apart in front of him, dissipating into a rush of wind that billowed around him. Dolohov froze, staring at him warily. Riddle grinned and launched his own spear of magic.
It crashed into Dolohov with the force of a missile, blasting him backwards as the floor beneath him dented, and carried on past him as a wave of force that ripped the unsuspecting wizards in its path off their feet.
Dolohov straightened up, his robes hanging awkwardly by a strand, the entire front burned away into ragged tatters. His skin beneath was bruised but his body remained undamaged. It was his turn to grin as Riddle blinked, surprised. More armywizards swarmed behind him, as a pair of golems stumped through the doors. A troll stumbled towards Riddle but he ignored it, same as the spellfire that he drew, all splashing harmlessly on a clear sphere that surrounded him, glowing faintly from the dissipated magic that clung to it.
"Where is your master?" he boomed, voice echoing through the hall.
"He doesn't need to concern himself with the likes of you," Dolohov called back.
"Hiding then, cowering in his towers," Riddle spat, thunder rumbling under his words. "But he can not escape me. I am his death!"
Flagstones cracked as Riddle shot upwards, blasting over the defenders too fast for them to respond. He shot through the open gates on the far end and into the open air of one of the massive courtyards.
For a second, once again, there was nothing but empty floor between Harry and Dolohov. He opened his mouth as his gaze bored into the man from twenty feet away, blood pounding in his ears. And then Dolohov leaped upwards, sailing much higher than he should've, perfectly intercepting a passing broomrider. He crashed into them, grabbing hold and hurling them off with superhuman strength. They slammed into the side of one of the staircases, body snapping around the banister at a painful angle. Dolohov swung a leg over the bristles and pulled up as just before it splattered him across the ground, soaring back to the open gates behind him.
Harry cursed as he watched Dolohov's back grow smaller. He whirled, sinking into the gargoyle's senses. His wand shot out and conjured a gleaming chain as it moved, swinging out wide through the air. It found a passing guard on a broom, wrapping around the handle and yanking them off path. The guard slipped, tumbling off the broom, as Harry reeled it in with a heave. He jumped on as it passed, joining its momentum as he leaned forward, tearing over the heads of the enemy in a blast of air.
Riddle and Dolohov were two black dots in the sky, darting across the many towers, flickering in and out of sight as they passed through shadows. Harry hurtled towards them, plastered to the nose of his broom as the wind tried to rip him off.
The pair bent towards him, drawing near as Riddle brushed along the edge of a tower, spiraling up its length. His hand was against its stone, bouncing along its edges as he flew. Like he was feeling for something.
"DOLOHOV!" Harry roared as he approached, eyes tearing up at the wind. Dolohov's head flickered back to him before turning away, continuing his chase of Riddle. Ignoring Harry.
Riddle approached one of the largest towers, banking around its sides. And then, suddenly, he dove. Dolohov dove after him, curses spitting from his wand, and splashing across the stone walls as Riddle accelerated.
He must have found what he was looking for. Grindelwald is here.
At the very bottom of his dive Riddle leveled out and shot straight into the tower. Harry gritted his teeth and followed Dolohov in as well.
The inside of the tower was a maze of narrow corridors, like the other ones he'd seen, with turns almost too sharp for a broom. Harry whipped around corners, bouncing off walls and pushing off with his legs as he chased the other two. Riddle turned effortlessly, darting through the labyrinth without problem—and slowly began to outrun the brooms. As Harry closed in on Dolohov's tail he saw less and less of Riddle's back as the dark corridors flashed by in a blur.
Dolohov misjudged a turn and slammed shoulder-first into a wall as his speed carried him forward despite him whipping the broom nose through the turn. The impact hardly seemed to faze him—but it gave Harry enough time to catch up. Anger pounded in his head, almost drowning out the hum of the magic building beneath his skin. He opened his mouth to shout and magic flooded into it, pooling over his vocal folds.
"DOLOHOV!" Harry's voice shook the building around him, erupting with a shockwave of force that shattered the windows lining the passage into a hailstorm of shards. It knocked Dolohov's boom off-course, sending him spinning down the hallway.
Harry slammed into him full force, driving the broom into Dolohov's stomach and ripping him off his own broom. Dolohov folded over the point of impact with a grunt of surprise. Harry grabbed onto Dolohov's shoulder, pinning him in place, as he continued forward and smashed straight through the glass window at the far end of the corridor, carrying both of them out into the open air in a spray of glass splinters.