Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-Seven—A Hurling of Force
"Are you all right, sir?"
Professor Riddle turned his head towards the class and nodded. "Of course, Mr. Potter. I am merely thinking about some of the lessons that I might need to set up in the future for a class that's getting this good at avoiding the basic hexes."
Harry narrowed his eyes. Professor Riddle looked distracted, with even his smile a little strained. And the next second, he turned and stared out the window again.
Harry didn't like being left out of things, even though he knew perfectly well that there were all sorts of things Professor Riddle didn't tell him. But those things weren't ones that he got visibly distracted in class about. Harry went back to practicing an ordinary Rope Charm along with everyone else, but he kept watching Professor Riddle out of the corner of his eye.
A cloud passed across the window, and Professor Riddle swore.
Harry heard Hermione's gasp. He shot her a quick glance, but she seemed to just be upset, or maybe surprised, by the words that Professor Riddle had muttered under his breath. Harry turned to face his teacher. "Sir?"
"Get back to your Houses," Professor Riddle said under his breath. "Quickly."
The rest of the children didn't seem inclined to question that, and started filing towards the door, but Harry lingered. So did Hermione, and Justin Finch-Fletchley, as he saw after a glance around. Justin wasn't as good at Defense as Harry, but he was pretty good and he was curious, and maybe he could get something out of Professor Riddle now where Harry or Hermione would just annoy him. He was opening his mouth to ask anyway.
"Are you all right, sir?"
"I am. But you may not be if you don't get under shelter, Mr. Finch-Fletchley."
That was enough to intimidate Justin, who took off at a jog towards Phoenix House. Hermione bit her lip and followed him after a moment. Harry folded his arms. "You're not really all right, sir."
"Harry. There is nothing you can do to help."
"Are you sure, sir? I'm a war wizard—"
"Still a child, and untrained as yet," Professor Riddle snapped, and turned and made a gesture with his wand in the direction of Harry's head.
Harry braced himself for a jinx to hit him, and then realized that Professor Riddle had actually been gesturing to the magic that surrounded Harry, which manifested as a gryphon. It manifested now and scooped Harry up in its claws, flying straight out the window with him and back towards his House.
Harry struggled and cursed, but he couldn't reach his wand from this angle, and he wasn't touching anything he could have braced himself against. By the time they landed in the first-year boys' bedroom, he was yelling bitterly, but the magic simply let him go above his bed and then curled around him protectively as he landed.
Harry fought his way back to his feet and ran towards the window, determined to see if maybe Professor Riddle was visible from where he was standing—
The window was shuttered.
Harry had never seen the shutters before. The windows were glass and swarming with protective spells, which most of the time was enough. But there were definitely shutters in place this time, made of gleaming steel, and no matter how Harry pulled and then banged on them, they remained in place.
"Harry. Stop."
That was a thin, pale boy called Allen Dunwiddie, sitting on his bed with his protective magic visible curled up around him. Harry spun around to face him. "Professor Riddle is facing something alone! Something that's strong enough to worry him! We have to—"
"If he can't handle it, then we can't," Allen interrupted, and rolled over and buried his face in his pillow.
Harry glared at the shutters. He thought he could get through them if he unleashed his magic at them, but then Professor Riddle would have to come back and deal with him as well as trying to face whatever magic was out there.
Slowly, Harry sat back on the bed, and then gave in and flopped back so that his head was resting on the mass of warm magic that manifested as gryphon feathers. His creature grabbed and held him.
Harry drummed one hand on the bedcovers. He might have to accept that there was nothing he could do right now, but he didn't have to like it.
Tom had never felt anything like the swell of magic that was building in the distance now, but he had been able to pinpoint its location.
Right in the heart of London, not far from the visitors' entrance to the Ministry of Magic.
Tom strode as fast as he could for the edge of Fortius's Apparition wards. He could feel Belasha sliding along behind him, since all the students and professors had gone to ground in their Houses or residences the minute he sounded the alarm. But he turned and shook his head at her when they were beyond the wards.
"I cannot take you with me."
Belasha lowered her head until her tongue was flickering out a meter or so from his eyes. "I know you are strong enough to Apparate me."
"But I have no idea what is waiting for us there, only what I fear is waiting for us. And I could not keep you concealed from the eyes of so many Muggles, if I am right and it is the heart of Muggle London."
Belasha hissed hard, but lifted her head and coiled back onto the grass. "And you need me to remain here and defend the others."
"That is also true, beautiful one. If I do not return, you know what to do."
Belasha coiled her head down, but did nothing else. She would choose someone magically strong, fetch the phoenix tears from Tom's office, and make sure to bite that person with the tears already nearby. If she so willed it, her venom could grant someone else Parseltongue.
Tom did not know whom she would choose, but he trusted her decision.
"Go, or I will insist on coming with you."
Tom gave her one more smile and spun on his heel.
Lucius looked around with a quiet satisfaction. He was underneath a Disillusionment Charm and in the middle of the small alley that ran towards the visitors' entrance to the Ministry. It was right, he thought, that his first Muggle-cleansing curse, designed by Grindelwald, would be released here, to reclaim the territory around the Ministry for the magical world.
He opened his hand and stared down at the shimmering, smoky grey orb that rested within it. Although he didn't consider himself the most magically sensitive person of his acquaintance, he could feel how the orb was pulling on the magic of the world to sustain itself, passing the power back and forth. It was the only reason the curse could assume a contained shape in the first place, from what Grindelwald had said.
And now Lucius had to obey his lord.
The dreamy feeling was thrumming through his veins and his head as he cast the orb into the air. When it fell, it would shatter, and spread the curse that would tear the life from everything and everyone non-magical for a mile around.
A hand caught it, a moment before the sharp crack of Apparition itself reached Lucius's ears.
He turned around and stared in disbelief. There before him was a hooded figure in the kind of cloak that Unspeakables wore when they wished to conceal their identities. Not that it could be an Unspeakable, with how thoroughly Lucius had them under control, but it did not seem possible for it to be anyone else, either.
"Who are you?" Lucius hissed.
The stranger didn't answer, instead making a few passes around the orb with a wand mostly concealed within a cloak sleeve so Lucius couldn't make out its color. Then the person made a noise of disgust, and someone under an obvious concealing charm that made their voice hiss and rasp said, "I did not comprehend that you were so stupid."
"My lord made that," Lucius said, too angry to speak loudly himself. He took a step towards the figure, while keeping one eye on the mouth of the alley, where he supposed a Muggle might appear any moment. "Give it here."
"Your lord?"
Lucius smiled at him, and let his own pride shine in the smile, even as the slightly cloudy feeling filled his head again. He didn't need to worry about it. "Why, yes. His name is Gellert Grindelwald. And I see that you cannot keep yourself from reacting. Even if you are a Mudblood, you have heard of him."
"Now, Lucius, if I wanted you to announce me, I would have told you."
Lucius turned around and fell to his knees. Grindelwald had appeared in the mouth of the alley, no Disillusionment Charm of his own on him. Then again, he didn't need it when he was the greatest wizard alive. "No, my lord. I'm sorry."
"But it seems that you may have done as I wished when I gave you the orb," Grindelwald went on thoughtfully, and pulled the gleaming wand from his holster. "Roland Peverell, I assume?"
That is not Grindelwald.
It could not be. Although Tom was aware that the former Dark Lord was alive and in Nurmengard, and he could have been retrieved and healed of any injuries he had suffered while in the prison, no one could have given him back his youth.
Tom took a step backwards, watching the wizard, or the summoned creature, or whatever it was, carefully. At least Lucius seemed convinced it was Grindelwald, which meant that it probably had powerful magic. His wand moved through the motions of the glamour that would make him look like Roland Peverell, and then he ripped the cloak back.
"You assume correctly." He canceled the charm that kept his voice hissing and rasping and smiled at Grindelwald. It didn't show any of his caution, because he had better control than that. "Was it really the best idea to send this one to drop a curse like that in the middle of Muggle London?"
"It wouldn't have done what he thought it would," Grindelwald said easily, ignoring Lucius's confused murmuring. He edged closer to Tom, eyes vicious and bright. "I wonder what you feel like?"
Tom didn't know what he meant, but he didn't have to wait long to find out. Grindelwald dropped the shields that kept his power contained, and it swept out around him, invisible, dark grey wings. Tom caught his breath. He wouldn't be at all surprised if it was Grindelwald the goblins had sensed, or the summoning of the creature that called itself Grindelwald. His magic was strong enough for it.
But…
Tom smiled a little.
"Have you come here to laugh at me only, then?" Grindelwald's voice was still bright, but Tom noticed tightening lines around the corner of his eyes. He added that to the evidence that this might be a human pretending to be Grindelwald after all, not some kind of summoned creature. It didn't seem like the kind of human gesture that a creature would have bothered learning. "Perhaps I should laugh at you, considering that you haven't yet shown me—"
Tom dropped his shields.
He could feel his own magic rolling through the alley, invisible smoke, darker and Darker than Grindelwald's, brushing the air and coiling around Lucius and Grindelwald. And he knew it was more powerful than the other man's.
Grindelwald had stopped smiling.
"You were saying?" Tom asked.
"You wanted to keep the Muggles from noticing us?" Grindelwald asked softly. "I'm afraid that isn't going to be possible."
He raised his wand.
Tom had no idea what he was about to do, and it wasn't important for him to know. Instead, he bore down with his magic on Grindelwald, gripping his body and nearly crushing it the way Belasha would have if she were here. Grindelwald struggled against it, but the mere fact that Tom was holding onto him made his movements slower and more sluggish than usual, including the movement of his wand.
Tom forcibly Apparated the man to another safehouse of his—in reality, not a house, just a meadow far from any Muggle areas that he could trigger anti-Apparition wards around with a flicker of will. When he landed there himself, he raised them, and then tilted his head to observe Grindelwald, wondering if he would give away some other indication about his true nature.
The man stared back and forth, as if expecting the shaggy grass around them to dissolve into a magical trap. Then he faced Tom and straightened his back.
"You will come to regret that, Roland Peverell," he said in a voice tinged with deadly promise, and attacked.
Tom whirled aside from the first curse, but he had less room to maneuver than he would in most places, thanks to the wards. It seemed Grindelwald had decided to use his magic as a battering ram, and brought it down again and again and again from overhead. Tom's shields cracked, and then splintered, and Grindelwald roared in triumph as his spell seeped towards Tom.
But Tom had been holding back most of his magic close to his body, behind the shields, and now it darted out to intercept Grindelwald's spell, while Tom hissed a curse of his own.
"Maxima auri."
The spell was one that had been developed to allow Parselmouths to hear as snakes did, through vibrations, but it was utterly disorienting for someone who wasn't used to it. Grindelwald swore and clutched at his head, then staggered, and then dropped to his back as the vibrations of his own footsteps paralyzed him with pain.
Tom followed him up closely, casting what should have been a simple Disarming Charm. The wand in Grindelwald's hand vibrated and clung closer to him. Tom narrowed his eyes, and cast a slightly more complex charm that would light up the wand.
Yes, it might be made of elder wood.
Grindelwald managed to end Tom's spell while he was pondering, and surged to his feet, shouting and roaring in German. Tom leaped out of the way of the first curse, which looked like a lightning strike, and then realized that it hadn't been aimed at him. It had been meant to crack the wards preventing Apparition, and the minute one of them broke, all of them did.
Serves me right for using interconnected wards like that, Tom thought in fury at himself, and spun around. Grindelwald had already Apparated to the far end of the field.
"You will lose," Grindelwald whispered. He had lines of pain cutting across his face still, but he had recovered from the spell more quickly than Tom would have thought possible. About the only good thing that spell had revealed, Tom thought, was that Grindelwald wasn't a Parselmouth. "But perhaps you should look at that curse that you thought Lucius was going to unleash on the Muggles of London."
And he Apparated, seeming to leave his voice to hang in the air.
Tom closed his eyes and allowed himself one moment of frustration running through his body like electrical current. Then he turned and Apparated back to Fortius.
"Is Professor Riddle back? Is he all right?"
Hermione nodded as she sat down at the dinner table with Angelina Johnson, who was becoming a friend. "Yes. I saw him. He didn't look wounded, but he looked angry."
She shivered and leaned back against the warm winds of magic behind her as they took the shapes of feathers and wings and hugged her. Since Professor Riddle had put them all behind the shutters in their Houses before he left, the magic had been a lot more present than usual, and was at least half-solid all the time.
Angelina smiled at her. Her own protective magic was visible as a phoenix, about half-size, sitting on her shoulder and looking around alertly. "I wonder what happened."
Hermione sighed. "They probably won't tell us about it. I know that we're going to fight a war someday, but they do seem to keep us awfully sheltered here." She tried not to pout as she swallowed some of the excellent lentil soup. It was good that the adults were keeping them sheltered from all the things that might happen to them because of the war.
Even though she, personally, would have liked to know a lot more about the kinds of battles they were fighting.
"You're right there." Angelina licked her spoon and then abruptly turned her head at the same time as her phoenix did, both of their eyes narrowing. "Hello."
Hermione spun around on her bench in time to see Professor Riddle lean over and speak to Professor Elthis, who blotted her mouth with her napkin, nodded, and stood up, walking around the table and out of the dining hall. Professor Riddle followed just behind. Hermione watched them go with a little sigh.
"Don't worry about it," Angelina advised her, dipping her spoon into the soup again. "With your talents and the amount of attention that Professor Elthis pays you, I'm sure that you'll be one of the people getting the important questions and the invitations to secret meetings one day."
Hermione smiled back, and tried not to let her thoughts linger on the darkest path that Professor Elthis had promised her and that she might someday still take. "You said you were becoming advanced with Potions, right?"
"Yes, but also languages."
Hermione perked up. "You mean Mermish?" She had heard they taught that at Fortius, as well as French, Latin, Gobbledegook, and a few other languages, but she hadn't taken any of them yet.
"Not exactly." Angelina was grinning so broadly that Hermione knew it would be special, but she was still startled when Angelina turned to face one of the windows of the dining hall and gave a sharp whistle.
An answering whistle came back from beyond the window, and then a small shape darted in through the door. Hermione watched with her mouth open as the bird—a sparrow—landed on the table in front of Angelina and fluffed its tail out, whistling back at her. Angelina responded with trills and warbles that Hermione never would have guessed could come out of a human throat.
"That's amazing," she breathed. "It's a real language."
Angelina nodded, even though Hermione hadn't meant that as a question. "And while owls are important, these little fellows go lots more places and see lots more things," she said, and caressed the sparrow with one finger. "And they know how to understand impressions from their non-magical kin who can't communicate so well, and they go and check out things that seem important. I've already passed on a few messages to Professor Riddle from Muggle places and the Ministry that he thanked me for." Her smile was smug.
Hermione felt a new ball of determination grow in her stomach. Angelina was already being useful to the cause, and she was only a few years older than Hermione. That meant Hermione could be useful, too.
She was going to speak to Professor Elthis after dinner, and ask for more lessons.
"I've never seen anything like this before…"
"But you see why I wanted to bring it to you, Lavinia?"
"Yes." Lavinia was staring at the orb that contained Grindelwald's "curse" with wide, piercing blue eyes, and Tom thought he felt her mind brush past him like a darting swift before it dived into the grey orb.
Tom waited a moment to make sure that she wouldn't immediately surface, and then turned and paced over to stare out the window. His muscles rippled with the desire for violence. He would have liked to go to Belasha and ride on her back as she chased down prey, or duel someone who could give him a real battle, or cast the kind of curses that would set Fortius's wards to ringing.
Instead, he had to wait for Lavinia to confirm that the orb was no contained curse, as he suspected, but something else, something that he needed his best Legilimens on staff to investigate.
A sharp gasp made him spin around. Lavinia was sagging to her knees, her hands hooked over the iron stand in the middle of his office where he'd put the grey orb. Tom hurried at once to her side.
"What was it?" he whispered.
"A mind, as you suspected." Lavinia was still gasping, but she had herself back under control a minute later, although sweat beaded on her forehead. "You—were right. The mind of a dead wizard. Muggleborn. They tortured him, took the worst memories from his last moments, and condensed it into that." She waved her hand at the orb.
Tom nodded grimly. He hadn't thought it would be quite that bad, but he had known from his brief inspection of the orb in London that it wasn't a normal curse. "What effect would it have?"
"It would pull anyone who was in the area when the orb broke into the wizard's last moments. They would suffer his pain and death with him. Not everyone would actually die, but for Muggles without our mental defenses and some other kind of weakness within their minds? The effect would probably be similar to being Kissed by a Dementor."
Tom nodded again. Not as bad as actually killing a bunch of Muggles, then, but noticeable, and the kind of thing that might expose them. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure that Grindelwald hadn't meant Lucius to use the orb at all, or there would have been no need for the swell of magic that Tom had sensed right before he'd Apparated to London, which wasn't a necessary prelude to using the orb. It had been meant to draw him out of hiding, no more.
At least I gave Grindelwald something to think about.
"Do you think you could adapt the orb?" he asked Lavinia. "Use your magic to engineer something similar, but trap something else?"
She stared at him. "I could, perhaps. But I'll need to know if you plan to torture someone, and see if it would be something I could give my consent to after all."
Tom smiled. He had expected that. "I plan to trap the essence of a thestral's aura," he said coolly. "The edge of what it is to see one, to touch one, to be near one. The merest glimpse of what it is to them to walk in the realm of death."
Lavinia's eyes were wide when he finished speaking. "Yes, I think I could do that," she breathed, and Tom knew he had her. She was one of the most experimental of his people, interested in figuring out how to do the seemingly impossible with Legilimency and wand magic combined. "But what effect do you need it to have?"
"To put someone into a coma," Tom said. "We need to put down this wizard or creature, Grindelwald or whoever he is, for a time until we can determine who he is, what he is, where he came from, and whether he truly does have the Elder Wand."
Lavinia winced. "You think he might?"
Tom thought of how the wand had looked, the way it had refused to leave Grindelwald's grip, and nodded sharply. "I would try to kill him, but I…"
"You're not sure you could."
Tom studied Lavinia quietly, closely. He wouldn't have admitted that to everyone who followed him, because of the potential problems a loss of faith in him could cause, but she was facing him with an open, accepting face, and he nodded. "Yes. He was strong enough to challenge me, strong enough to break my wards, and despite taking him off-guard, I didn't manage to move fast enough to even bind him before he got away. He still thinks I'm Roland Peverell, but that's a fragile disguise that can't hold forever."
He was also thinking about the notes on the constellation chart that Andromeda had sent him, and the way that the Elder Wand seemed to be moving strongly back into play. It might mean nothing. It might also mean that no one but Andromeda would manage to overcome the advantage of the Elder Wand, or manage to neutralize it somehow.
"We must have time."
"Consider it done," said Lavinia, and turned around to stare at the orb again. This time, when her mind dived into it, there was no gasp or falling to the floor, although Tom waited a short time to be sure. In the end, he relaxed enough to leave her with the thing and to her study.
There was yet another reason he hadn't named to Lavinia. He was thinking about the strange presence that Harry had sensed, and which had tried to take control of him.
If it was Grindelwald, and if only a war wizard could fight him…
Then they needed time for Harry to become older and more experienced with those spells, and Tom going up against Grindelwald again might result in his own death, which would leave Fortius exposed and leaderless.
I will not risk my students. I will not risk the future.
