Chapter Fifty-Nine | The Great Empty
A strange, nearly awkward silence enveloped the crowd of aurors standing in the square, the one leading the battalion standing, mouth agape, with her bewildered gaze locked onto the macabre figure leaning against a pillar.
"Merlin. Potter, is that you?"
"Yeah."
"Damnit, I knew that girl was bad news."
"I can hear you."
Catherine smiled beneath her mask as Amelia fought not to scowl at her. The woman bit her lip forcefully, enough that Catherine could detect a hint of blood on the air a moment later.
"Hands up, Potter."
Arms crossed, she leaned closer into the pillar, scanning the crowd and pondering how she'd go about dispatching the lot of them without too many injuries. From behind her, muted through thick doors, she could still hear the laboured breathing of two dozen stunned goblins.
"I said hands up! And drop your wand!"
"No."
"Potter, I swear to god-"
"I'm sorry, but I can't come with you Amelia. I'm not keen on being locked away in either Azkaban, or the Department of Mysteries. Not that you'd be able to hold me, anyways."
"Ma'am."
"Quiet, Shacklebolt." Amelia hissed.
"Listen to him." Catherine inclined her head towards Shacklebolt. "I'm sure you know his night job. Right?"
"I know everything that goes on in my department."
Removing herself from the pillar, Catherine dusted off her knees - ignoring the sudden shuffle from the aurors - and sat down on the banks steps, hunched, elbows on her thighs and chin resting on her knuckles. "I insist you listen to what he has to say. Look. He's positively shaking."
With tension nearly radiating from her, Amelia slowly turned her head, gaze still locked on Catherine, to offer Shacklebolt her ear. "Tell me."
"She drank Dumbledore's blood.".
"And what does that have to do with anything?"
"He explained that… she has his memories, ma'am. Everything."
Her brow furrowed, and slowly, realization washed over Amelia. It began with the heavy wrinkles around her nose clearing as her brow raised, pupils suddenly blown wide, and the grip around her wand tightening, the sound of a cracked knuckle just barely gracing Catherine's ears.
Amelia's voice was thick with worry when she spoke. "Why was I not made aware of this earlier?"
Playfully, Catherine tilted her head, as if a curious puppy.
"Ma'am."
"I swear to god if we live through this you won't have a job to come back to, Kingsley."
"I'm not going to kill you." Her gaze swept over to Shacklebolt, and the man flinched as though he could feel it, a tangible thing. "As poor as our last discussion went, it did… open my eyes. You can tell Albus that for me, will you?"
"Catherine…"
"I'm very sorry for this, Amelia."
"Critical threat."
A clatter, a shuffle, callused flesh scratching as wands were readjusted, aim steadied, and Amelia chewed at her lip with a ponderous expression.
"Still immortal?"
Faintly, Catherine nodded.
"Lethal force."
It was like a bomb had gone off. Silence one moment, and then so many spells flying through the air that windows rattled, doors shook, and pebbles bounced along the cobblestones - rattling away like marbles in a cup.
Catherine had already disappeared behind the pillar she was once leaning on, the door of Gringotts buckling beneath the torrent of spellfire only to flash brightly as the wards kicked into place.
Her arm poked out from beneath the now soot-stained marble, a jet of water thick as a tree trunk bursting from her wand like a cannon and knocking down a handful of aurors, the men disappearing under the sudden deluge.
Beside her, part of the pillar exploded, the cloth around her head - behind her mask - whipping in its wake. Her wand scratched the marble steps as she whirled around the corner, crouching, throwing her arm in an underhand pitch and grinning as the cobblestones beneath the aurors shot upwards. A straight line of broken stone blasted out from under them, forming a wall and splitting their ranks in two.
Arm twisting, she stabbed her wand forward, the water that had knocked the lot of them down suddenly suspended, pooling at their knees, only to be instantly frozen.
The aurors began to try and frantically chip at the ice, one throwing an errant killing curse in her direction (now that certainly wasn't protocol) and gaping when it washed over her, gentle, but a gust of wind.
"Amelia! You train your men to use unforgivables?"
An outraged shout came over the wall, muffled but unmistakable.
Her knees bent as she broke into a sprint, greaves clanging with every step as she leapt towards the frozen aurors and wrapped her hand around the face of the one who threw that acrid green.
Furrows were left in the ice where she landed, and the back of the man's head connected with the pristine cold with enough force to leave cracks in its surface. He moaned pitifully as she removed her hand from his face, flicking his forehead once for good measure as she studied the gawking aurors that surrounded her.
A kick, foot lancing out so fast the man could scarcely see it, broke his leg at the knee. His wand dropped to the ground with a clatter and he clutched at the limb, white stained with red and poking out of the ragged fabric of his trousers.
Her fist pushed forward in the exact opposite direction, knuckles grinding into the soft flesh beneath the woman's ribs and driving the air from her lungs. She doubled over, gasping desperately, and watched through teary eyes as Catherine systematically dismantled the remainder of the aurors on the right side of the wall.
It took perhaps five, six seconds at most, the girl more a blur than anything recognizable to the human eye. Even as the length of the wall, behind and in front, was blown away to make room for the aurors on the other side, she did not falter in her swings.
Catherine curled around those she fought like a snake, back twined across their shoulders and making it impossible for any spells to be cast her way. Not without hitting their friends. It was with catlike grace that she knocked the last trapped in the ice unconscious, using one hand to leverage herself off an aurors hip, sliding across the slick frost, and firing a stunner beneath the legs of a stumbling auror - trying to climb onto the ice to get a better shot - the spell crackling as it hit the man still trapped behind him.
Half a minute. Only half of them left.
All of a sudden her vision went blurry, the right side of her body sagging as something tore through her skull and blasted out the other end. A small part of her realized it was brain damage, a hole bored through her mind, and she just barely managed to point her wand at her chin, arms shaking something fierce.
The top of Catherine's head exploded at the same moment her wand flashed, only for the scattered gore to turn to ash, pouring down in columns. It collected along the toppled goblet that was her skull - a glorious river of burnished red wine spilling over its lip - swirling as her body and clothing was reconstituted in the span of a few, painfully rapid heartbeats.
Her fist clenched before it was pressed against her chest, dragging in the remnants of blood and siphoning them under the slip of her mask and into her waiting lips. Far away from any untouched, untarnished flesh, not yet marked by the curse of Yharnam and hopefully, never to be.
The auror that put a hole in her head scrambled back across the ice, falling over the lip of it and desperately clawing away from the girl who just blew open the top of her own skull.
"She's not human," Catherine heard him murmur fearfully, the man blanching further when her head raised, slowly, and the burning ember lights in her mask zeroed in on him.
"No. Not quite."
He turned tail and ran, Amelia shouting at him with frustration as another few followed suit, not at all interested in fighting an immortal with no qualms about using suicide to their own advantage.
A trio of red lights struck them in the back as they sprinted away, the aurors toppling over and skidding an inch or so across the ground as they were stunned. Catherine's arm lowered, wand idly spinning between her fingers as she gave a cursory glance to the remainder. Seven fighters at most, Amelia included, and even she looked pale.
"I don't suppose you'd let me just walk out of here?"
They studied each other for a moment, and the instant Amelia's arm shifted, Catherine moved.
They were all so slow. Nothing like the beasts in Yharnam, or the hunters she had fought. Archibald, nattering in her ear about the lights as she ducked and weaved through every spell, was frightfully quick before she had crushed him underfoot.
Was this how Albus always felt, she wondered? To be blessed with such speed, such attentiveness at his age without the aid of the blood… Catherine nearly shuddered as she broke an auror's arm, fist crashing into their elbow, as she tried to imagine how fearsome Dumbledore would have been in his prime.
"Merlin preserve-" a knee to the gut and the red flash of a stunner knocked the next auror onto her back, or would have if Catherine didn't catch her, holding the woman's body up like a shield and spraying noxious gas from her wand at Amelia and the remaining fighters.
They coughed and spluttered, bubble head charms quickly cast, but not fast enough to take the tears from their eyes and the burn in their throat.
So slow.
A kick to the ribs, an elbow to the back of the head, fingers jabbed into a man's armpit before Catherine picked him up and flung him through an open window, a gust of wind pushed ahead of him so he wouldn't end up rolling through the heap of broken glass inside the shop.
Catherine continued to walk, only Amelia left, wading through the spells she cast her way and holding tight to the gore that sprayed out the ragged holes in her back, not once letting it touch the ground.
A quick shield dealt with one last, haphazard burst of spellfire, stunners and all manner of binding spells thrown her way, one being casually batted away to explode against the door of another storefront, slivers of wood scattered in every direction, the molten brass of the door handle spraying across the cobblestones.
Panting, Amelia went to cast another spell when Catherine took her wrist and bent it back painfully, Amelia shouting as her wand was snatched out of her hand and tucked into her pocket.
She smiled, more of a baring of teeth, her once neat hair sticking up every which way and damp with sweat. "Never stood a chance, did I?"
Blinking, Catherine just then noticed the magic that swathed her. Burning red, cut through with flickering orange undertones, flecks of it lashing out and dissipating in short sparks. She breathed in, letting go of that brimming power, the light around her flashing out of existence.
"No, but…" Catherine cocked her head, looking back to survey the damage done. The main square was reduced to rubble and a collection of softly keening aurors, unconscious or just barely aware of their surroundings. "...if I wasn't immortal, well- that'd be an entirely different story."
"And you're not a danger to anyone?"
"Only Death Eaters."
Catherine let go of Amelia's wrist, a quick spell fixing the swelling, and hopefully dampening whatever bruise was soon to grow. The woman shot her a thankful, but chagrined look, still breathing heavily.
"Well, that's good to-"
Quickly, Catherine reached out as Amelia toppled over, never once noticing the stunning spell that leapt from her open palm. She lowered her gently to the ground, eyes flickering up as she noticed a beetle flying by, practically bleeding magic.
With deft hands she jumped and plucked Rita out of the sky, shaking her head as she brought her closed fist up to her lips and whispered. "You ought to be more careful, flying around when there's curses being thrown about."
She let her go, a spell catching Rita as she tried to fly away, tearing away her animagus form and leaving her to crash heavily onto the ground a few feet away, a whimper escaping her as she landed. "Really, you could have been killed by any of those, all of you!" Catherine continued, shouting as she glanced around to see some people quickly throwing closed their blinds, or pulling their heads out of open windows. "And I thought I was reckless," she ended with a whisper.
With that she left, striding past hiding passersby and the few stragglers that still kept to the streets to watch the brawl, turning the corner to the apparition point. She let out a sigh, pressing one hand to her rapidly beating heart before turning on the spot and disappearing with a crack.
-::-
Catherine landed on a Hogsmeade rooftop, the weather in Scotland cloudy and soon to rain. She could see the lightest droplets of it just barely pattering against the rough shingles, too faint for even her to hear. The roof was precarious, but the thick-layered soles of her boots, strung through with little metal spikes, held strong.
For a while she stayed there, watching as the sun occasionally slipped through cracks in the clouds to shine its light on the paving stones. It would only show for a scant few seconds before the gap was swallowed up by billowing gray, snipping out the ray like a guillotine.
Two days, two horcruxes.
She doubted she would have gotten it done as quickly with Albus and Sirius at her side. They were… far more fragile than her, and the way she had gone about destroying the things would have resulted in broken bones for them, if not death.
There wasn't much that could hold someone back if they couldn't be killed.
If she wanted she could walk into the Ministry right now. Slowly march her way towards Fudge's office and smack the man, berate him, all the while aurors and whoever else would pepper her body in all manner of destruction, barely able to slow her down.
It terrified her.
A drop of regret made itself known, for taking memories from Albus without his approval. It felt necessary at the time. Still did. Yet, it didn't change the fact that the power at her fingertips made even her unsettled. Was this what was required to slay Gods? Would she have swept through Gringotts and those aurors ranks in much the same manner if she hadn't stolen a century's worth of experience?
Flashes of Dumbledore's fight with Grindelwald suddenly came to mind. A field in western Germany already left to ruin by bombing runs had all but cratered from their duel, a veritable meteor shower of flame and fury crashing upon the bomb-strewn soil and forever changing the landscape.
These were men that could crumble mountains if they so wished, given enough time, effort, and creativity. Voldemort was among their ranks. And now, her.
No wonder Tom feared Albus, if even past a century of age he could still bring the sky down on another man's head. It left her wondering of Fudge's state of mind, if he truly believed that walking into Hogwarts with not even a handful of aurors at his side was enough to stay Dumbledore, or if the man was truly of the belief that Albus would have come with nary a fuss nor struggle.
A fight between them - Albus and Voldemort - left unchecked and with no regard to their own lives, would be as if mortars had been dropped for hours, pulping the soil and stirring it up until nothing remained but blood, broken trees, and a memory of what that place once looked like before a cataclysm had visited it. It would shatter the statute, something so monumental unable to be hid from muggles no matter the effort.
Her hands flexed, and she looked down at them, wondering if it was always intended for her to become like this, or if it was only the blood that had made her so.
So much power, and still the vile temptation of godhood lingered. Catherine reviled it, looked at such a thing with utmost disgust, already so far from human that the thought of taking that one last step into absolute and total oblivion of the soul - of the person - was as if a second form of undeath. Worse than the immortality foisted upon her shoulders, by far. It would be the final nail in the coffin of Catherine Lily Potter, leaving nothing but a pale shade.
Knuckles cracked as her hands closed into fists, and she pondered her next step.
To Hogwarts she could go, or the cave. Grimmauld was… well, she didn't want to go there until last, if she could help it. Still, she didn't know if that scent of rot was the exact same as the horcruxes she had already come across, or if it was whatever dark magics had suffused the house until it was all but living. Old wards, like those of Hogwarts, changing the wood and wallpaper into something more.
Knowing the Black family, it could be one of their horcruxes. Something left from one of the old masters of the house, tucked away in the safest place they could think of.
Really, Catherine just didn't want to see everyone she'd slighted, no matter how justified she felt it was.
She'd rather check everywhere else first, than chance having to face Sirius or Albus after what had been done.
Or Molly and Arthur, Minerva, Tonks, Remus…
There was a lot of shame to go around, all of it borne on her shoulders.
Shame, shame, shame. All her life it followed her. First the Dursley's, the fiasco with the Chamber of Secrets, the Triwizard Tournament…
If she could make one wish and one alone, she would have wanted to be but another face in the crowd. To live a quiet, simple life, far away from the insanity that seemed to lurk in every dark corner of Britain's storied hills.
Her foot clicked against the rooftop as she apparated again, landing on a windy shore overlooking the sea. It was sparse with grass, tall sprigs of it that split at the ends, and if she were to pass her fingers through them they'd come back wet with dew.
The ocean roiled fitfully, white-frosted waves churning over the jagged rocks below and reaching up the cliff walls, as if to drag her down to the yawning depths. It reminded her of her dream, nearly a year ago, looking out upon that black sea - ships masts reaching out of the still and murky brine with splintered ends and ragged sails. The stench of salt clung to the air, soaking into her pores and begging her to bury her head beneath the frigid water and drown herself in its all-encompassing embrace.
Catherine dove over the cliffs, sailing down, down towards the waves, before plunging into the depths. The cold struck her like a hammer, and if not for the bubblehead charm she wore, Catherine would be choking on the silty brine. Her arms folded, before being thrown outwards and accompanied by a vicious kick, driving her towards the little outcropping she knew to be nearby.
Leaving scratches in the stone, Catherine clawed her way up the short wall and hoisted herself back onto somewhat dry land, waves still cresting over the rocks and spraying brackish foam over her leathers. A quick spell took care of the water that soaked her through, and she trudged over to the maw of the cave, pondering how exactly Tom managed to drag the other children at his orphanage down here without spilling their brains all over the cliffs.
Blood for blood, the wards upon the entrance spoke, and Catherine ripped off one of her gauntlets to lay a cut atop her wrist, smearing it all over the rough wall and shaking her head at the theatrics of it all.
Thank god for those memories, she supposed. Otherwise she would have spent an hour chipping at the wards and leaving the nearby village wondering if an earthquake had struck.
Albus had visited this place already. Not entered, but studied the warding that cloaked it. Inside, though, was another matter entirely.
The place was pitch black, not an inkling of light within the cave, bar the faint magical glow that shone far off in the distance, a murky green that brought to mind disease and other, fetid things. A light burst from her wand, shining bright and scattering across the still lake that stretched towards the end of the cave, too far and too dark for the light to reach it, left shrouded in shadow and indiscernible to even her. Outcroppings of crystal, square and layered with yet smaller and smaller fragments jutted towards the ceiling, more of them poking down from above. They shone in the light, soaking it up, their opaque surface a faintly glowing matte.
But the lake felt… wrong, as she would put it. Like death, cold and dark and untouchable, colder than cold and singing of poison, of an end far too miserable to speak of. Whether an enchantment or something worse, Catherine didn't know, but she did pick up a true enchantment that floated in the air, stationary and rigid.
She grasped at it, a chain appearing that led into the tar-black water. Without difficulty, she pulled, dragging and dragging at the rusted copper until barnacles scraped at the leather on her palms and, soon enough, a small boat came spilling out of the depths.
Charon's steed, it seemed, with a peaked stern that came up high, a shorter one at the bow. Meant to hold onto, to stand with one foot along the ridge and look out across the many winding rivers the country held. Not a seafaring thing, nor for fishing. A ferry, and Catherine knew that was its intention.
She stepped onto it, wand flicking behind her and slowly carrying it along. Across the still lake she went, hardly a ripple ebbing from the boat as it pushed forward. The water, now that she really looked at it, did not seem as such. A tad too viscous, a touch too clear, and when she spied a pale hand - bloated and waxy - she knew why the lake reeked of death.
It was filled with it, corpses beyond imagining, like the river she and her once self had passed along much like this - in a dream. Always a dream. Yet, instead of blood, it stood bare, only the dark hiding what was contained within.
Corpses did not bother her. Not any longer. So she turned her head up and waited, patiently, for the ferry to meet its end.
It let out a groan of protest, hull grinding against the crystal as it pushed against the shore, and Catherine turned back to look across the lake from whence she came, unable to note the entrance from this distance, swallowed up by the dark.
Her attention shifted to an outcropping in the middle of the small island she stood upon, and within its carved surface was liquid, blacker than black. It looked like bottled smoke, a pensieve that had been left to rot. Beside it was a cup, hewn of the same crystal and bearing sharp edges, enough to split her lips and tear her smile even wider.
The potion stank of the selfsame death that filled the cave. Of rot, of maggot riddled flesh and shining sores that, if prodded, would spill blood and shining pus.
Knowing it would not work, but trying anyways, Catherine went to reach into the foggy potion only to have her hand meet a barrier, sliding across it. The claws along her fingers rang softly as they clattered against the crystal, and with a sigh she took off her mask, passing it to the Messengers, before taking up the cup and dipping it into the liquid.
The gravity of it was immense.
Nothing good could be contained in that softly rippling black. Nothing happy, in the pungent decay that wafted off it, putrefaction bottled and concentrated into a poison that may leave her gasping, screaming, shaking until her muscles tore from bone and left her limbs hanging like cut strings.
Her lips cracked open, and Catherine lifted her chin as she tossed the potion back.
It seemed to stick beneath her tongue, cling to the ridges of her throat. Cold, so cold as to burn like flame, it sank into her belly and she could feel as it stirred, mingling with the blood and acid that always churned in her gut. Lights flashed behind her eyes, dread like nothing she'd ever felt before curling round her spine, pricking at her nerves, and she filled the cup and drank more before her confidence left her.
Already she could feel it being dragged away, fighting every step. Voices rang in her ears, screams, calling out for her, calling out to be saved from her.
Her arms began to shake, knees trembling, and a ragged breath left her. She tried to fill the cup, but missed, a shock running up her arm as it cracked loudly against the font. Catherine frowned, jerkily looking up as she tried to remember where she was, why she could feel the scrape of claws at her back and hear her own shrieks ringing along the walls. Why she felt real, honest fear for the first time since that night beneath the lake.
Something whispered behind her, and she spun around, stumbling back and just barely bracing herself on the stone. Warmth trickled down her chin, and she brought up a hand, flicking it across her chin to see blood.
Drink your fill. Sup at the font of life and death.
"Where am I?"
She blinked, to see once more that pool of black, cup slowly drawn to her lips. Teeth dragged at her throat, and distantly she could hear Hermione screaming, begging her- "Don't, don't! Don't kill me, please! Don't kill me!"
Visions of blood, pooling along her legs, the sharp crack of bone and the sting of fire on her skin.
Cold, so, so cold.
"Why won't my heart stop beating? It's too fast, too fast-"
Clocks ticking, ticking, ticking, ticking- a siren call as sand filled the hourglass. Death was all that awaited her, aching to be the last one to take her into its arms.
Mournful cries- cold, so cold- wretched shrieks, a choir of the damned echoing out across an endless sea. The cries of one torn from its mother, stringy ropes of gore still fettered to the womb and all that was. What could have been.
"How long has it been since water touched my lips?"
Hel, it must be. So cold, so fierce, oh- how the winds whip at her pinkened flesh. How the dead cling to her bloodstained feet, bare and black with rot.
"Why? Why must I be?"
Dimly, she could feel as she wrapped a chain around her wrist, a shining golden locket- cold, cold- hanging from layers of finely wrought steel. Faintly, she noticed as her legs gave out from under her, tears streaming down her face, copper on her tongue - a stump - spitting red across the back of her teeth. She knew, knew, the spiders were coming for her. A thousand eyes and a thousand more glittering fangs, all waiting to take her for the death of their mother.
Warmth spread across the back of her head, and Catherine found herself staring into the unending darkness, no stars in the sky above her, only the faint sheen of the ceiling that would trap her evermore - jagged and unforgiving. She tried to turn over, to press her hands against her ears and stop screaming, please stop screaming-
Barely, a finger brushed the water, and the world around her began to ripple and churn. A hand reached up, grasping her by the hair, cold - cold - and slick. Still, the screaming would not stop, still, they kept begging, begging her to leave them, to save them from herself.
Catherine blinked again, her world drowned out by rotting flesh, an oppressive darkness as she was dragged deeper, deeper into the ice. Her lungs filled, soundless, and the nightmare beckoned her down - salt and saccharine love staining her lips, her chest bursting with the ichor of the dead.
"Oh, what a wonderful thing it must be, to rest atop a bed of ghosts."