Chapter 3: Misfortunes
He had been laying in his bed when there was a knock on his door and his aunt poked her head into the room. He hadn't been doing too much, thankfully, and for once he had been fully clothed as well. There were a few books lying about as he had started reading earlier in the morning upon being awakened by the Sun streaming into his face. He was upset that he had fallen asleep, but not too upset about the amount of rest that he had received. He had almost instantly berated himself, and then immediately after, started to berate himself for berating himself. It had almost given him a headache.
His aunt stood in his doorway and observed his pitifully small room. Ages ago, he had stumbled into their room, and made the realization that his bedroom was only a bit bigger than their closet. It was likely more suited for an office, as opposed to a place where a person may live and spend most of their time. He saw her nose visibly flare while scanning the large cage that held Hedwig. She glanced over his spellbooks as if they didn't exist before sparing him a quick glance.
"I thought you might want some lunch, and maybe some new clothing. We're heading out, and you're coming with us." She finally spoke, not truly looking him in the eye. It was as if she was torn between commanding him and asking him. "Please."
The last word surprised Harry a great deal. His aunt had never asked him to do anything. She simply told him, and simply expected him to comply. Usually he did. He almost didn't have a response for her this time. He simply nodded his head and got himself ready for a trip out, making sure he had his wand tucked up his sleeve.
In the car, Harry surveyed the people in the car with him. They were quiet, but Harry had grown up learning to pay attention to most things around him, especially the people. To him, it was almost as if they were screaming.
Dudley, to his right, was incensed, but excited over the fact that there would be food soon. If one looked closely, they would see the small bruise forming on his left cheek from the punch that Harry had scored. It looked like someone had tried to cover it with make up. From his position though, Harry could clearly see just how bad of a job the person had done. He didn't feel sorry for his cousin. In fact, Dudley had deserved it. He was the neighborhood bully, and no one truly stood up against him. It was about time someone showed him that they weren't afraid of him. He wasn't much of a threat now, probably reevaluating the idea of picking on his smaller cousin for so long.
Harry turned his attention to his aunt, sitting in the passenger seat. She was quiet, as usual. For some reason, Harry hated her more than the other two. It was probably because of the combination of her being his mother's sister, and still treating him as if he were a burden. There was no respect nor shared loved between them. She had never raised her hand towards him, but she had never stopped her husband or fat son from doing so. It was almost as if she hated him, but for the most part he was simply a child. He had no control over his parents dying, nor him being sent to live with them. If he had it his way, he'd disappear for good. The most he thought about it, the more he realized that she was an ugly woman. Not just physically, though her horse-like features did nothing to help in that regard. But as a person, more so as a mother and his aunt, she had let a child be abused as if it were a ritual. She was weak.
Vernon, on the other hand, was still going to be a thorn in his side. The man was stubborn to a fault and did not heed warnings. He felt as if everything should be in his power, and he despised everything magical. For some reason, the very existence of Harry seemed to offend him. Harry knew, without a doubt, that Vernon would not forget the humiliation that Harry had inflicted upon him when they had arrived at the home. He would want revenge. Harry had to remind himself that he had to stay aware, and keep his wits about him. He needed to have his wand on him at all times. Vernon was a stupid man, but he was ruthless; a dangerous foe.
'How can I defeat Voldemort, if I can barely get away from these Muggles? And Voldemort throws magic!' Harry thought to himself. "Whose idea was this trip? Vernon hates me, Dudley is hungry, and Petunia pretends that I don't exist. Could my threat have made her change her mind?' He wasn't sure, but something didn't feel right about this entire trip.
His various escapades at Hogwarts had honed in him the simple idea of trusting his own instincts, despite what he could physically see around him. Even in matters as simple as deciding which route to take to class, he followed his instincts. Right now, they were screaming at him; almost as if they were physical manifestations of a real voice.
"I'm safe as long as I'm with my aunt though right?" Harry thought to himself. From what Dumbledore had told him, he was protected by his mother's sacrifice, by her love. Dumbledore had also told him that because of that protection, he would not have to worry about Deatheaters or Voldemort, because it would hurt them to try to hurt him. Harry was sure that Dumbledore wasn't in the wrong, after all Quirrel, with Voldemort attached to him, had burned to ashes at Harry's mere touch. But, he was equally sure that Voldemort would have some way around it all, or at the very least, a way to get his followers to be able to attack. Harry wasn't sure if it were the Dark Mark or simple ill intentions that triggered the protection. If it were the latter, shouldn't the Dursley's have been unable to cause him any sort of pain? Or, was it because of their shared blood that allowed them to actually harm him?
"My blood!" Harry thought instantly. His memories automatically took him back to the time after the Triwizard Tournament, and the ritual that Voldemort used to bring himself back to life. "Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son! Flesh of the servant, willingly sacrificed, you will revive your master. Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe." He himself had been the cause of Voldemort's return. As his enemy, specifically the one enemy that he could not turn, taking his blood broke that protection that he once had. Indeed, immediately after being resurrected, Voldemort had physically touched his scar, inciting far more pain than he knew was possible.
"So I'm not safe then. Or rather, I'm not as safe as I used to be." Harry asked. Now that the world knew that Voldemort had returned, he had gotten the Prophet delivered to him only once so far this summer, he was sure that the Dark Lord would no longer be acting in the shadows. He no longer had a reason to hide from the public. But Voldemort was a man of immense pride, and a defeat, especially at the hands of a babe with no magical talent. Voldemort craved revenge.
BOOM!
It all happened in slow motion. Harry felt a spike in the magic around him, heard the concussive boom, and felt the car seemingly levitate in the air. The Dursley's couldn't even get a scream out before another BOOM was heard a second wave of energy hit the car and blew it several meters away. Harry lost count of the number of rolls that the vehicle took once it finally hit the ground as he faded in and out of consciousness. Before he slipped fully though, he heard the maniacal laughter of the one person he hated more than Voldemort: Bellatrix.
Harry woke with pain seemingly coming from everywhere in his body. A quick check brought a sigh of relief that he could feel no broken bones. The car was upside down with smoke fogging his vision of the outside world. He knew that at least Bellatrix was likely to still be around, but he wasn't sure on whether or not she'd bring back-up with her. The car, empty, let Harry know that the Dursley's were no longer in it; whether they were alive or not was a completely different matter altogether. With Bellatrix still around, he could not waste too much time on checking the surrounding area, he'd just have to hope for the best. Outside of his other pains, Harry noticed that he did not feel any unusual pain in his scar, which meant that Voldemort was not around. Distantly though, he could hear screams of the various people in the area as the clash of spell-fire created more vibrations in the ground beneath the car.
Harry reached down, or up, from his point of view, and unclicked his seat belt, ever so thankful that he had always worn one whenever he was in the car. Bracing himself for the short drop to the ground, Harry nearly landed himself on a sharp piece of metal that had been pushed into the car. A few inches more to the right, and the world wouldn't have had to worry about the Boy-Who-Lived. He pushed those thoughts into the back of his mind before they got him killed; there was no use in pondering over death, when his entire life had seemingly already been planned out for him. Even worse, knowing the type of animal that Bellatrix was, Harry was reasonably certain that she was still around. He didn't think that he had been unconscious long, and she wasn't the type of adversary to allow time for an opponent to recoup. As he crawled out of the vehicle, further scraping and scratching his arms and chest, Harry thought of a plan of action.
He did not know how to Apparate. Calling the Knight Bus would be stupid and only allow for more innocents to be involved. Further, he did not know how to make a Portkey, and he did not know how to send a message to Dumbledore letting him know about the trouble. It was he and his wand versus an unknown number of enemies hell bent on killing him. It was with that thought that he knew what he'd do; he'd fight, at least until an opening appeared.
With his list of options short, he crouched low behind the car so that he could see where the Deatheaters were. Realizing that the smoke wasn't the only thing that was blurring his vision, Harry mentally slapped himself on the forehead in realization that he had dropped his glasses. They were a true handicap for him as he could hardly see if he didn't have them firmly attached to his face. As quietly as he could he reached back into the vehicle, gloriously finding his glasses in one piece. He had just put them onto his face when he felt the tip of a wand pressed behind his ear, and a rough voice speak quietly.
"Don't move." The voice was male, the wand indicated him a wizard, and seeing as he hadn't introduced himself, he was likely a Deatheater.
Harry was not ready for the rest of the Voldemort's posse to know that he was still alive, so he ran quickly through his options. He was sure that the man knew who he was, and had likely been sent over to see if he remained alive. He was also sure that the man was inexperienced, as he had not heard his voice before and he had run into every member of Voldemort's inner circle. 'Rookie then.' Harry thought grimly. Rookies were prone to rookie mistakes. 'I've just got to distract him and get him to make a mistake. People make mistakes when they feel like they're in power right? Voldemort does it all the time.' Harry thought.
"I give up. Please don't hurt me!" Harry said quietly, hoping the man fell for the ruse. He did. Harry felt the slight motion behind him that would indicate that the man had shifted a bit closer to him. As soon as the man stopped moving Harry reacted. Most spells that could be used in this instance did not have specific wand movements to successfully use them. Even more so, he had realized not too long ago that most wizards did not have a great arsenal of short range spells, and were effectively weakened if one closed the distance. Most wizards did not know how to fight without a wand, and they generally gave up if you remove the wand from the equation. A neat trick if the Muggle world wanted to overrun that magical world.
To neutralize the threat of the wand and the man's advantage behind him, Harry quickly pivoted on his left foot with his right elbow extended outward and upward under the arm of the Deatheater behind him. Caught off guard, the man's wand was forced upward with such force that he did not even get the chance to mutter a spell. His eyes lit up in surprise as Harry completed his pivot with a left hook to his nose. There was a squirt of blood from the man's nose before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he dropped heavily to the ground, unconscious. Upon a further look, Harry recognized the man, no more than 19 years of age, as a former Hogwarts student.
'Voldemort must be getting desperate if he's recruiting that young.' Harry thought morbidly. There wouldn't be much left of several generations if Voldemort had his way.
It was still quiet after the brief encounter with the young Death Eater. Harry, full of adrenaline, was trying to decide on a course of actions. From what he could see around the neighborhood that the attack had been staged in, it looked fairly affluent. In the middle of the day, it was unlikely that anyone would be home, but Harry had been certain he had glimpsed a few faces peering out of windows in order to see what the noise was. Further, he could hear the pained crying of those unfortunate souls that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. One such cry was coming only several feet to his left, and Harry reluctantly approached, dreading what he would see.
Still crouched, he got his first look at the victim as he rounded the car, careful to keep any eye out for anyone approaching his position. It was a man. He did not recognize him, and for that he breathed a sigh of relief. Harry stood completely still, torn between wanting to help the man, and wanting to make sure the Deatheaters didn't locate him. In the end, his compassion won out and he found himself kneeling next to the man.
"Are you a doctor?" The man asked, startling Harry with the suddenness of his speech. The man didn't give him time to answer. "You.. too young to be a doctor." He finished his sentence by coughing up blood. Harry hadn't the slightest idea of what he was supposed to accomplish here. He had no medical training, and he didn't truly know any healing spells either. He did, however, know that the jagged pieces of metal sticking through the man's torso were no good. It was likely that this man would die.
"What's your name?" Harry asked, hoping to distract the man.
"Ro-ro.." The man started, struggling to speak. "M-my name is R..oger."
"Roger, I'm Harry." Harry didn't really know what to say to someone that was dying. He had never had a chance to say a true goodbye to his parents or to Sirius. Or to Cedric for that matter. Death was something that he had grown up with, and expected. In his earlier years with the Dursley, it had become more of a dream in order to escape the hell that he had grown up in. Now, here with a man that he didn't know, he felt a kinship. Here was a man that truly had no choice in whether or not he would die, or when.
"Do you believe in fate Roger?" Harry asked quietly, not truly looking at the man, but trapped in his own thoughts.
"I – I suppose so." The man responded, still grimacing in pain.
"I do as well. Sometimes. We don't always seem to have a choice do we? Bloody madness is what is all is. It's frustrating too. I can't save your life Roger. You're going to die. Do you have family?" Harry spoke. He could see the reality of the situation truly sinking into the man at his words.
"Wife dead. My- my young daughter Alivia. She's 12 now, so beautiful and so smart. She just came home from boarding school. Sprouting funny stories about some boy named Harry Totter, Rotter, or Potter. One of those has to be it. Who – who will protect her when I'm gone?" Roger responded, the length of his spiel draining even more of his fading energy. The faraway look in his eyes kept him from noticing the start that Harry gave at the convenience of his Alivia coming from a "boarding school" and spouting nonsense about a boy possibly named "Harry Potter". Chances were, Alivia went to Hogwarts, and had just recently finished up her first or second year at Hogwarts. If he made it out of his own predicament, he'd have to ask Dumbledore about the young girl.
"I can take away the pain Roger. You will never have to hurt again. I can – I can protect your daughter too Roger." Harry spoke, slowly drawing his wand. Roger's eye widened at the sight of it. His daughter was definitely a witch.
"Wha—what's your name son?" Roger asked, his eyes traveling from Harry's wand to his face, squinting as if Harry wasn't crouched a mere foot away.
"My name is Harry Potter." Roger nodded as if he had known the entire time.
"Tell my daughter that I love her, and that I just wasn't strong enough. Tell her that her mom and I are wa—watching her every single day…" Roger trailed off, as his chest started to heave, and his face contorted in pain. Harry, not knowing what to do, put a hand on the man's chest. He didn't noticed the golden light that flashed quickly from his hand to Roger's body. He did notice the look of relaxation crossing Roger's face, and the way his eye lit up as if seeing a dream come to life before his very eyes. Harry did notice Roger's mouth moving almost inaudibly, and moved his head closer to that of Roger to catch his dying words.
"T-thank you Harry Potter." Harry didn't cry as Roger took his last shuddering breath. He didn't cry as he passed a hand over the man's face to close his eyes. He didn't cry when he found a picture of Alivia, stained with the blood of her father. This was no time for tears. He had to keep moving if he wanted to survive.
There were still the screams of the dying, and the heavy silence of the dead. He could literally feel the weight of their deaths crashing into him, making him lightheaded and blurring his vision. He mustered up all of his skills at Occlumency in order to fight it off. This was the wrong place to pass out, he would not go down without a fight.
"Avada Kedavra!" A male voice spoke, breaking Harry out of his stupor. With a response time enhanced by Quidditch and survival instincts honed by being exclusively chased by the darkest wizard in the last century, Harry immediately rolled out of the way, forward and to his left. His roll, while capable of saving his life, was uncoordinated and only served to offer him fresh scrapes and bruises as he landed on the pieces of glass from the multiple cars in the area. He suppressed a groan as he looked toward the man that had sent the spell at him in the first place. This time there were three of them, slightly spread out and all brandishing their wands.
He immediately felt his blood heat up. Before him, standing there in all of her maniac glory was Bellatrix Lestrange. She was the only one of the three that hadn't work a mask or the usual Deatheather garb. In fact, a small part of his brain noted that he had never seen her with her face hidden, which would mean that she was extremely proud to serve Voldemort and wanted the world to know it.
"O'Neil, wake Shrivers up. Useless fool is lucky that I don't kill him!" Bellatrix commanded. She had her wand drawn but not pointed at Harry at the time being. On the other hand, the third Deatheater had his wand pointed at Harry's heart. Harry wasn't sure if the man would fire off a spell if started to stand up from his crouch.
"To hell with it, I'm not going to die without a fight!" Harry muttered quietly before slowly standing to his full height. He tried to ignore the scratches, and the blood leaking from a scrape above his right eye. Instead he focused on whether or not he could draw his wand fast enough to get a spell off. Luckily, though, the man didn't fire a spell. That meant that Bellatrix was in charge of this mission and the man wouldn't attack without her say so. That could be useful in the near future.
In short order O'Neil had woken Shrivers up and healed his broken nose. The dried blood remained, and the once unconscious look was replaced with a look of sheer murder as he noticed Harry standing their watching him smugly.
"How's the nose? I tried to get you to look like your ugly master when I smashed it. Though, his nose just may be one of a kind." Harry taunted. He figured that at best, he could get them distracted with anger, and force them to make a mistake. He did not expect to Shrivers to glance at Bellatrix and receive a slight nod in response and raise his wand in a single motion.
"Crucio!" The man spat. Harry clenched his jaw shut and forced himself to remain on his feet and fight the darkness that was threatening to overtake him again. He would not give them the satisfaction of a scream. The spell ended with the man gazing at Harry incredulously.
"My uncle punches harder than that, coward." Harry responded, surprised that his voice held a strength that his body didn't. Shrivers looked to cast the spell again, when Bellatrix spoke out.
"No. Let us show him the futility of opposing our Master! Bring the fat one." Bellatrix stated as she fingered her wand while looking at him with a curious expression. She was too demented to say that she was impressed by his lack of response to the Cruciatus Curse, but the look in her spoke that she was measuring him in a new way. Harry didn't like that. His ears perked up as the still unnamed Deatheater moved out of view and returned levitating a bloody Vernon Dursley. The man was still alive and foaming at the mouth from anger, but Harry didn't think that his Uncle understood the seriousness of this situation.
"You will unhand me you freak!" Vernon bellowed. Bellatrix eyed him with a smirk before drawing her left hand back and slapping Vernon hard across the face, making the large man stumble.
"Shut up you fat Muggle." Bellatrix stated. Vernon regained his footing with an angry look on his face. Harry had seen this look before, and knew that at this moment Vernon was going to be hurt badly.
"You crazy bitch!" Vernon yelled before attempting to rush Bellatrix with his mass. She let him take two steps before she flicked her wand.
"Immobulus. Silencio. Reducto." Harry watched with silent rage as his Uncle was frozen in mid-stride, silenced, and had his left leg shattered from the brutal force of the Reducto. His face instantly turned a deeper shade of red as the veins in his neck flexed as he attempted to scream out. "O'Neil, give this imbecile a taste of what real wizards are made up of."
Harry watched as O'Neil looked at Vernon, and raised his wand.
"Crucio!" Harry tried to turn his gaze away from the hurtful sight of his Uncle. Though he hated the man with every fiber of his body, this was no way for a defenseless Muggle to be tortured. His mind raced, thinking of all of the times he had been under that very same spell, and the feeling of a thousand hot knifes repeatedly stabbing his entire body.
He remembered all of the times that he had screamed out loud hoping for a quick death in order to escape the pain. He remembered all of the times he felt as if the pain would never end. He also remembered the taste of the potions given to him to combat the curse, but whoever had made the potion had likely never been submitted to a curse from Voldemort. Harry stood there, looking through eyes that weren't truly seeing. Unknowingly providing his magic with a reason to spike. He was angry. He didn't even physically react when the other two Death Eaters joined the first at Bellatrix's command. His Uncle had slipped in and out of conscious, and had yet to make a sound. Yet, his previous wounds from the car crash were leaking blood at a rapid manner, and the thrashing on the ground of glass only served to offer him new wounds.
Suddenly time slowed down and Harry's hand flew to his wand, or more accurately, Harry's wand met his hand in motion. As the two met, Harry aimed the duo at the huddle of Deatheaters who had seemingly forgotten about him.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry yelled out feeling his magic push through his wand. Instead of simply disarming the group, the power of the spell knocked them all off their feet and several meters away from Harry. He immediately rushed to his Uncle, but the glazed over eyes told Harry everything that he needed to know, his Uncle was dead, and likely had been for several moments prior. Harry's attention turned as he noticed the Deatheaters getting to their feet and starting to spread out. He was outnumbered and going against dangerous foes with a limited arsenal of spells, despite the rushed research he'd done at the end of the school year. He knew that he had to keep moving if he wanted to survive.
"Avada Kedavra!" Bellatrix yelled out, forcing Harry to dive out of the way with very little grace. "If I have to keep dodging these spells, I may land on something and kill myself! That'll be a story Boy-Who-Lived committed suicide as he jumped to avoid a killing curse.." Harry thought quickly as he banished some debris towards the general direction of the Deatheaters. He knew that of the 4 Deatheaters, Bellatrix was by far the more powerful, in some ways he felt as if he could feel her power in comparison to the others. Though, it could also be because he had seen the destruction that some of her spells had caused the surrounding areas.
"Stupefy! Reducto! Expelliarmus! Incarcerous!" Harry yelled, sending a barrage of spells at the closest Deatheater to him, the man Bellatrix had called Shrivers. The stunner was shielded, though some of the concussive force of the following spell blew through the shield in order to let the next two spells find their mark. "That's one down!" Harry thought. He knew that he would have to keep the other three Deatheaters distracted so that they didn't free their comrade. It would be no good for them to keep waking one another up.
"Is that all you got Potter! I have been trained by my Master exclusively! I know spells that would make you beg for your mother! I know spells that -" Bellatrix's rant was cut off as found that she had to dodge the body of her fallen partner. While she managed to move, Harry did find great satisfaction in the sickening crunch that the man's body produced. If he had to guess, he would image that it would be very difficult for him to join the fight again, or any fight for that matter.
Tactically, the Deatheaters, didn't know how to fight as a team. Harry noticed that they never grew wise to the idea that could easily surround him and force him to fight the battle on three sides. Instead, the two younger men were looking at Bellatrix for directions, clearly having never been on this side of a battle.
"Attack you fools! Don't just stand there!" Bellatrix spat out as she shot another Cruciatus curse that went wide of Harry.
O'Neil started waving and flicking his wand and sending bits and pieces of the rubble towards Harry. No Name yelled out a spell that Harry didn't recognize and sent a short wall of flame towards Harry. The two spells connected, setting the flammable bits of the rubble alight and sped towards Harry with a fiery speed. Because of the width of the combined spells, Harry couldn't simply dodge out of the way as had become his habit. He took a quick breath, planted his right foot in front of his body, making sure that the target he presented was slightly smaller and intoned a spell that he had only read about and had never taken the time to practice.
"Scutum glacies!" Harry breathed, hoping he'd gotten the pronunciation right. From the books that he had read, this shield charm was a more specialized, and more powerful form of Protego. There seemed to be a shield of sorts for all of the elements. Harry's shield formed just as he was buffeted for the fiery debris. While his shield blocked the combined spell of the two wizards, it did nothing to stop the Cruciatus curse that Bellatrix sent. She followed that short burst with a teal colored spell that peppered Harry's body with lacerations. Harry didn't get time to cry out in pain as he was hit with another Cruciatus curse, driving all remaining breath out of his body.
The pain stopped after what seemed like an eternity, but was likely closer to 30 seconds. Harry drew breath raggedly. He had to even the odds, and none of the spells that he learned in the classroom would be of much good against the type of spells that were being sent at him. He slowly, and painfully, got to his feet, not quite ignoring the amount of blood was he was seeming to lose. He resumed his stance once more.
His actions caused a moment of shock to flicker across the faces of the Deatheaters in front of him. Bellatrix herself was seemingly at a loss for words. Harry took a deep breath and suddenly thrust his wand toward a ruined automobile to his right. Another slash of his wand threw the vehicle at Bellatrix with unnerving speed, she moved out of the way with only a split second to spare, saving herself, but allowing the vehicle to hit the one Deatheater that Harry had taken out already. He would be dead before the car finished rolling.
"Interitum Coruscantis!" Harry bellowed, intoning another spell that he had learned from his last few days at Hogwarts. A bolt of lightning lanced out of his wand and snaked its way to O'Neil who screamed loudly as the skin on his face started to melt under the heat of the spell. Harry moved out of the way as Shrivers sent a dark blue curse at him. Another Cruciatus hit him from the side as Bellatrix connected again. This time he screamed, and loudly.
Time seemed to slow for him. His mind seemed to retreat deeper into his being where the pain didn't seem to reach him. He felt the physical part of him convulsing on the ground, but he couldn't actually feel the effects of the spell itself.
"Be at ease my son. I can't protect you for long, but we need to get you away so that your body can heal." A voice spoke to him from nowhere. He was suddenly blinded by a warm light that pierced the darkness of the pain he vividly remembered.
"Mum?" Harry thought incredulously. He vividly remembered her screaming, what with the pain that he felt when Dementors were near. On the other hand, he could only vaguely recall her more normal voice not inflicted with pain. It was beautiful. Soft and warm, but strong in the sense that she was a confident woman. He loved it. The deep emotions within himself at finally hearing his mother's voice nearly burst forth. They did threatened, however, to overwhelm his brain.
"Rise my son. Go and fight!" Lilly Potter spoke strongly. So compelling was her command that Harry didn't even register his physical body rising from the ground, to further shock the three remaining Deatheaters. He wouldn't register the tickling sensation behind his physical eyes as he gazed at his enemies. He certainly would realize the significance of emphatic pounding of his heart, or the quiver of his body as his magic threatened to overwhelm him.
Harry, however, did seem to feel the magic leave his wand as he shot out a few Reductos towards the general direction of his enemy. None hit, but the impact of the spells caused the Deatheaters to lose their position of power. He forced them to separate. He immediately advanced on the one to his left of him, O'Neil, whose badly burned face could not hide the shock at the sudden barrage.
Harry threw as many spells as he could, as fast as he could, battering the shield of the Deatheater in front of him. O'Neil continued to maneuver backwards until one of the Disarming Charms broke through and stripped him of his wand. Harry, in his haste to overwhelm the Deatheater, continued casting another three spells. The first spell, a Reducto blew the man's wand arm messily from his body. The spell, a Cutting charm, neatly cut through the man's fingers from his remaining, leaving him with badly bleeding stump. The third and final spell, a Reducto Maxima, hit the man in the midsection, cutting him in two. He would be dead before he realized that his shield had failed him.
Harry, not idle, rolled backwards out of the way of the two Killing Curses sent his way. A few seconds later, and he would've still been in the same spot, but dead. The Deatheaters, still with superior numbers began to use Harry's tactic of throwing spells as fast as they could. Harry, throwing up his best shield, put his entire mental effort into focusing the shield. A few of the particularly nasty spells, such as the Skin Peeling Curse, passed through his shield with enough power to take his breath away. Concentration faltering, it was only by sheer dumb luck that he avoided the worse of the spells sent his way.
The Deatheaters, it seemed, had a vast arsenal of spells that would cause pain or unbearable discomfort. They seemed to be wanting to cause as much pain as possible in the event that they did get through his shield. They would not be disappointed as several more spells saw Harry coughing up blood, bleeding from multiple lacerations, smelling of burnt skin a clothing, his left arm dangling uselessly at his side, and his wand missing. Even battered, he managed a deadly glare at the Deatheaters in front of him.
"My Master will reward me greatly for this." Bellatrix spoke. Harry spit blood onto her robes.
"Fuck you! You and your master can go to Hell." Harry spoke vehemently, internally saying a quick prayer for his friends. He distantly heard a recognizable POP before he saw the first syllables form.
"Avada Kedavra!" Bellatrix snarled, ensuring that the Boy-Who-Lived would never be a thorn in her Master's side again. She didn't quite notice the golden aura that snapped into place around Harry Potter and the green light struck him in the chest with ferocious force, blowing his tattered body down the street. She did catch the lifeless look on his face in that fleeting moment, and she knew then that her master would reward her.
She gave a nod to her remaining Deatheater, and they Disapparated with a POP.
