Later that evening, right before midnight, Harry and Tom left their castle and got ready to apparate to Britain. Tom carried a leather bag which held a generous amount of magic masking potion, and Harry checked to make sure he had his invisibility cloak stuffed in the pocket of his fur cloak. V hopped up and down a few times on Harry's shoulder in nervous anticipation.
"For now, we're giving the Lestranges the potion, just like everyone else," Tom said as he stared off into the distance. "We pretend we're planning to free them just like we'll do the rest of my followers."
"So they won't give the whole game away as an act of vengeance," Harry guessed in a quiet voice. He understood this must be very difficult for Tom, to basically betray some of the people who were once completely loyal to him. But Tom was no longer the Dark Lord he'd once been. These loyal followers would sooner turn on Tom than accept living peacefully among muggleborns and werewolves.
"Exactly." Tom inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly, clearly torn by the decisions he was now forced to make. "And then next week, when we go to Azkaban to actually free the prisoners, I'd like you to take their souls and make it look like they died suddenly, perhaps as a side-effect of taking the potion. I'll make sure I'll look properly shocked and dismayed."
Harry couldn't hold back a chuckle, even though he knew Tom was being utterly serious about these plans. "Don't worry. No one will notice me reaping their souls. They'll just drop dead on the spot without anyone being any the wiser."
"Thank you," Tom whispered and held out his hand. Harry placed his own hand in it and without further delay, Tom apparated them to the east coast of Britain. "The approach towards Azkaban is warded against boats and brooms and flying carpets," Tom said as a cold wind whipped around them, tousling their hair and ruffling V's feathers. "But since everyone is convinced that wizards and witches cannot swim this far or fly without tools, it's not warded against magical individuals."
"Why not?" Harry asked, thinking it was rather stupid to not ward a prison against people sneaking in.
Tom gave him a wide grin, looking thoroughly amused by the Ministry's incompetence. "It would make changing the guards too complicated. Wards that can filter individuals like that are complicated and very expensive to maintain. Ward Masters expecting to work around dementors demand a generous amount of hazard pay. So the Ministry bets on just the dementors to keep any unwelcome visitors away."
"Yeah, those won't be a problem for us." In fact, Harry hoped some of the dementors would be foolish enough to attack them, so he could rip a few more of them apart. Those soul-sucking creatures, whatever they truly were, didn't belong in the world, Harry was sure of that.
"Exactly." And with that, Tom rose into the air and shot forwards into the dark, windy night. Harry followed at once, with V bringing up the rear. V cursed and complained because his light body had the hardest time flying against the wind, but he did manage to keep up as they flew across the choppy waves.
It took them perhaps an hour to make it to the wizarding prison. Azkaban loomed tall on the horizon, a crumbling black silhouette against the starry sky. The whole building looked rather decrepit, as though the dementors' presence caused even the stone walls to decay.
They touched down on the rocky shores right beside a small pier. "We'll step through the wards here, where the guards usually dock when they change shifts," Tom whispered, urging Harry along quickly. "Once we're through, we can fly up to the roof, where the ventilation openings are only protected by very weak wards."
They did just that and before long they stood on a small piece of flat roof, right beside a larger, slanted roof covered in slate tiles. Tom flicked his wand a few times, easily dismantling the wards without raising any alarm. Then he enlarged the vent's opening so it became wide enough to allow them through. Harry held V against his body with one arm as he followed Tom inside. They still had to duck as they crab-walked through the tight tunnel, but they soon came upon an exit that opened up into a dark corridor. V hopped up onto Harry's shoulder the second Harry could stand upright again.
The stone walls around them suddenly developed a film of hoarfrost while the air around them grew colder and colder. Harry knew what that meant, and he stepped in front of Tom, holding a hand at the ready. A whole swarm of dementors rounded the corner, eager to confront the intruders. Without saying a word, Harry sent out his powers and felt the souls trapped inside the disgusting creatures. He yanked the souls right out of the nearest dementors, which had its rotting hands outstretched as it rushed towards him. The dementor exploded in a shower of grey flesh and strips of mouldy fabric.
"Demons go boom, demons go boom!" V cawed while flapping his wings in excitement.
At once, Harry did away with two more dementors. Only then did the other dementors stop their approach and hovered a few yards away. Harry sent his powers out again, to feel for the magic that these creatures might have.
"Let us pass," Tom said in an even voice. "And no more of you shall have to perish."
The essence of the dementors felt strangely familiar and Harry frowned as he reached deeper inside their powers. He'd felt them before, long ago, when he'd still been learning to walk the deathlands.
"Fuck me sideways," Harry mumbled as he slowly lowered his hand. "These are demons from the other side."
"What?" Tom looked at Harry with raised eyebrows.
"They don't belong here," Harry said, raising both hands to completely obliterate every single dementor in the entire prison. "My guess is that they came through the permanent portal to the deathlands that exists in the Department of Mysteries. They need to be destroyed." And with that, Harry yanked the souls out of two more dementors, turning them into tiny pieces. He wanted to keep going, but Tom grabbed his arms and forced them down.
"Harry, you cannot get rid of every dementor right now!" Tom gave Harry an urgent look, his face a mask of determination. "We cannot draw that much attention to Azkaban while we're implementing our plan."
Swallowing against this bitter disappointment, Harry gave a slow nod. He knew Tom had a good point, but that didn't mean that Harry wasn't full of quiet frustration now. The dementors were soul-sucking demons that should never have left the deathlands, but some enterprising wizards had, once upon a time, carelessly opened a permanent portal to the deathlands and let them out.
"This is why the world need Necromancers," Harry said, staring the remaining dementors down until they floated backwards, away from him. "So that they can clean up the mess when idiots let demons out that should never have been freed from the beyond."
"You won't hear me argue," Tom said in a soothing voice, apparently aware Harry was genuinely pissed off about this particular revelation. "But we can't change anything about this tonight. After we finish our plan and get our people out of here, you can have your wicked way with every single dementor you can find."
The dementors apparently understood enough English to comprehend what Tom was saying, because they fled the moment he was done speaking. The whole horde turned and hurried around the corner until none remained.
"Let's go find my followers," Tom said while Harry sighed in disappointment. "I doubt the dementors will disturb us again during this visit."
They used a few spells to silence their footsteps as they walked across the stone floors and down the stone staircase until they came to the correct floor. A heady, dark feeling swept across Harry and it took him a moment to realize that Tom was sending out his own powers to alert his followers of his presence. Voices could be heard whispering and mumbling beyond the wooden door and they raised in volume the moment Tom pushed it open and stepped through.
"Master?" a man in rags in the cell to their right said. "Master, is that you? Have you returned?"
"My Lord!" a female voice screeched, which Harry guessed must belong to Bellatrix Lestrange. "My Lord, we remained loyal to you! We did not denounce you like so many others did!"
"Lord Voldemort knows what you did, Bellatrix," Tom said as he casually walked down the corridor, as though he was out for a Sunday stroll instead of trying to organize a prison break. "I have come to give you all a potion, to make you appear ill. Next week, I will return and release you from this hell. I replace you will muggles so we can fake your deaths."
Bellatrix cackled at hearing that. Just as Harry approached her cell to take a look at her, she threw her head back, her matted curls spilling down her back while she bared rotting teeth as she laughed and laughed. Harry gently reached out with his power and took a good look at her soul. It was a dull, shrivelled, broken thing. Years of dark magic abuse and murder had mutilated it until it barely resembled a human soul at all. Yeah, Harry would feel no remorse taking her life in a week's time.
Tom took his time talking to each prisoner while he gave them all a vial of the magic masking potion. Harry stood watch, keeping his senses alert so he could spot any approaching dementors or human guards, but no one bothered them. Harry guessed that the human guards must have nodded off in their quarters, and the dementors were probably far too spooked by Harry's powers to approach him again.
After they were done with Tom's followers, they moved down a level and talked to some of the prisoners there. They left any violent offenders alone, since Harry refused to let unknown rapists or murderers into his country. But there were also a couple of wizards and witches there who'd been convicted of using illegal magic that shouldn't have been illegal in the first place. They were offered the potion as well and they all took it, eager to get out of there sooner rather than later.
On their way back to the vent from which they came, Harry said, "I'm going to close the veil portal tonight. It should never have been left opened like that in the first place. Who knows what else might come out of it, especially now that there's an active necromancer around. I wouldn't want my powers to accidentally summon a horde of demons from beyond the veil."
"How do you plan on sneaking into the Ministry?" Tom asked with a sideway glance as they hurried through the corridors. "Because if your entrance is registered at the Ministry and minutes later the veil portal collapses, people are going to be drawing conclusions we can't really use right now."
"Hmm." Harry grabbed a squirming V and held him against his chest as they tucked themselves inside the vent opening again. "The thing is, I don't have to sneak into the Ministry. I just have to open a portal to the deathlands nearby and then I can probably dismantle the veil portal from the inside."
"That would ensure no one can blame you for it, since no one would know you've been anywhere near the Ministry this evening." Tom sounded rather satisfied by this solution. "I'll come along and guard your portal while you get the job done."
"I'd appreciate that." Harry was grateful they found such an easy way to fix this rather glaring problem. They left Azkaban the same way as they'd entered it, and they flew back to Britain's east coast without any delays. Once they touched down on the beach, Tom apparated them to London. They landed one street away from the Ministry where Tom quickly found a small office building. A few charms later, they let themselves inside without triggering any alarms.
"It shouldn't take long," Harry said as he started preparing the runic circle.
"I could come with you," Tom offered as he took in every single thing Harry did with eager eyes.
"No, now is not the time for you to walk the deathlands for the first time," Harry said, sounding a bit distracted as he put the finishing touches to the circle. "The first time you walk it, you should be by yourself so the Figures can judge you and your necromancy."
Tom sniffed, as though being denied entrance to the deathlands was a personal insult to him. But when Harry glanced up at him in surprise, Tom quickly offered him a reassuring smile. "I'll be patient," Tom said, crossing his arms as he leaned back against a nearby desk. "And I'll ward off any critters that try to escape your portal."
"You don't know the Patronus charm, do you?" Harry asked with a dubious frown, remembering Voldemort telling him so. The Patronus Charm was the only thing he knew would stop a dementor, aside from Harry's necromantic powers.
"I still haven't bothered learning it, no," Tom said with a careless shrug.
"You might want to practice it while I'm gone. The incantation is Expecto Patronus. Think happy thoughts." And with that, Harry opened the portal and stepped through it, into the deathlands. V took flight and soared ahead while Harry ran after him. The veil portal stood out like a beacon, a half circle of bright light in an otherwise grey world. So even from a distance, Harry could easily see it.
"Hurry, hurry," V cawed, like he always did whenever they walked the deathlands. It was a decidedly unpleasant place, no matter if one was a necromancer or not.
They only encountered a few small demons that Harry easily scared off with a few simple spells. They reached the veil without interruptions and Harry took a moment to study the portal. It didn't look too different from any of the portals that Harry always created, at least on a magical level. Someone had built a stone archway around it at some point, with a curtain of sorts covering the entrance. But ultimately, it was still just a portal, and portals could be closed. Harry started the ritual to do just that, and in the end it only took a few minutes to get rid of the portal once and for all. As the portal shrank and shrank, Harry saw and heard the stone archway crumbling. So the Unspeakables would find a pile of rocks in the morning, with no sign of a portal ever having been there in the first place.
"Let's go, let's go," V cawed as he flew circles around Harry.
"Yep, right behind you," Harry said the second the portal closed for good. But as he turned around, he noticed he was no longer alone. All around him, demons emerged. They stood at least twenty yards away, spread all around him as they stared at him with empty eye sockets. They were the size of an average human, though their bodies appeared like grotesque impersonations of what a human actually looked like, their limbs too long and their bodies too skinny. Their skin was grey and decaying and where their mouths should be they only had a toothless hole.
It was only now that Harry realized that these were essentially dementors without their cloaks. Or rather, that dementors were these demons with cloaks covering most of their form.
"Go, go!" V urged as he flew in a wider circle.
Harry reached out his power and sensed that a few of the dozen demons that had now gathered around him had consumed souls in the past. That was the only way Harry could destroy them, by ripping out the souls. He did so without delay, obliterating five of them, turning them into small pieces. But the other seven had no souls inside of them, and thus Harry couldn't simply rip them apart. He quickly reached for his wand and cast a Patronus.
The silvery barok sprang out of his wand and circled him, opening its wide mouth at the demons, who backed away from the bright light. Harry started running, trusting his Patronus to keep him safe. The demons released a chilling shriek that might inspire madness in the average person, but Harry had heard it before. So he did his best to ignore it, even though it felt like his blood turned to ice in his veins. He ran across the deathlands, V cawing above him as he led Harry towards their portal. The demons were in hot pursuit, crawling on all fours and stumbling on two legs, reaching towards him with their rotting hands. But they never dared to come too close to Harry's Patronus, even when more and more demons joined the horde.
Harry had never seen anything like it before. Sure, he sometimes encountered these demons when walking the deathlands, but only ever a handful, if even that. Now there were twenty following him, their numbers still growing as Harry ran across the grey interior of the Ministry. Could they sense Harry had killed some of their numbers that evening? Could they smell it, perhaps? Harry had no clue and now was not the time to find out. Harry was rather out of breath by the time he reached his portal. V flew through first and Harry threw himself out of it, landing on the carpeted floor with a thump. He stretched out his arms and pooled his magic around the portal, closing it as fast as he could. His barok Patronus paced around the portal until it was closed completely and then it dissolve into nothing.
"Was there a problem?" Tom asked, and only now did Harry look up at him from his position on the floor. Tom had his wand out and a familiar mist hovered in front of him. It seemed Tom had taken Harry's advice and he'd been practicing the Patronus charm.
"Nah," Harry said with a grin as he pushed himself up. "Just a bunch of naked dementors wanting to feast on my soul. Nothing I can't handle."
Tom shook his head and tucked his wand away. "I'm going to assume the mission was a success. Let's go home."
"Yeah, I'm knackered." Harry brushed off his cloak while V landed on his shoulder. Then he accepted Tom's outstretched hand and allowed him to apparate them home.
Joan was awaiting them in the Transportation Terminal. Those anti-apparition wards were really working well, it had to be said. "Passports, please," Joan said, voice full of determination as she narrowed her eyes at Harry.
"Got it right here," Harry said with a beaming smile, pulling his passport from his satchel. Tom also produced his passport and after a careful inspection, Joan let them through. They apparated back to the castle and Harry stumbled inside.
"That was more excitement than I'd counted on this evening," Harry said, stretching his arms over his head. "Igor, wine for two!"
"Eurgh!"
"How about we take the bottle to bed?" Tom suggested, stepping closer to Harry so he could draw him into a long kiss.
"Excellent plan." Harry smiled against Tom's lips just as Igor came shuffling inside the entrance hall. "I could do with a good fucking to distract me from that little unpleasant adventure."
"Your wish is my command," Tom whispered and pulled him along up the staircase, Igor following them obediently.
Tom did manage to distract Harry thoroughly and they finished a glass of wine each afterwards before they fell into a much deserved sleep. Harry's dreams were filled with chilling shrieks, as they always were whenever he encountered those demons in the deathlands.
"Harry, wake up!"
Eyes flying open, Harry sat up in bed, his heart hammering in his chest.
"Harry, the Ministry's under attack!" Bernadine and Henry floated beside his bed, looking stricken, their translucent faces full of shock. "Dementors are swarming everywhere, attacking all they can."
Light shone through the gaps of the curtains, so Harry guessed that it was morning and the usual commute of wizards and witches going to work had just started. "Were they naked dementors?" Harry asked, pushing the covers back, uncaring about his own nudity as he got dressed in a hurry.
"What?" Bernadine looked at Harry as though he'd just transformed into a dementor himself. "Why on earth would a dementor even be naked?"
"Okay, so they're clothed." Harry hopped around, trying to step into his boots. By then Tom was awake as well and quickly realized something was wrong. He jumped out of bed at once and reached for his trousers. "That means that they're the dementors from Azkaban, and not new ones from the deathlands."
"Are they at the Ministry, still?" Tom asked as he threw a shirt over his head.
Henry nodded quickly. "They swarmed the whole building, kissing who they could."
"We didn't dare linger," Bernadine added, voice barely audible. "Because they could see us and they came straight for us."
That wasn't a surprise to Harry, since his family members were souls that he summoned from the beyond. Of course dementors could see them. "Stay here, where you're safe. If any dementors show up on the island, come find me at once." Harry turned around and looked at V, who was sitting on the headboard, ready to fly up to Harry's shoulder. "You stay here, too, V."
"V come, V come," V crowed, clapping his beak.
"You are a piece of soul," Harry said, uncaring that his family members were there to hear that particular fact. Harry had never told them exactly what V was, but now he didn't care if they found out. "The dementors will come after you and I might not be able to protect you if there's too many."
V dipped his head, beady eyes narrowed. "V fight, V fight."
Harry rolled his eyes as he picked up his fur cloak and slipped into it. "Nice sentiment, but you're no match for a horde of dementors. Please stay here."
Without saying a word, V turned his back on Harry. That was good enough for Harry. V might not like it, but he was at least willing to listen and do what Harry suggested.
Harry grabbed his satchel from a nearby chair and rushed out of the bedroom, Tom on his heels. "I'm guessing they're pissed off since I killed a bunch of them last night and then closed their only way to get reinforcements."
"Possibly," Tom said, sounding like he didn't care to find out why the dementors had gone rogue right at that time. Perhaps he was right, and they should save any investigation into their motivation until a later time. The second they stepped outside the castle, Tom apparated them to the visitor's entrance. The red phone booth stood empty and they crammed themselves inside, wands at the ready.
"Stay behind me," Harry said as Tom dialled the correct number and the booth started going down. "Cast your Patronus. Even a bit of mist will work against dementors."
The atrium was empty save for half a dozen bodies strewn across the dark floors, their eyes unseeing as they stared up at nothing at all. Harry reached out with his powers and at once two dementors came shrieking around the corner, rotten hands outstretched. Harry yanked the souls out of them, exploding them in seconds. He didn't bother to cast a shield to protect them from the bits of decaying flesh raining down but marched on. Tom did cast a Patronus at that point and kept his back to Harry as he held the whisp of mist in front of him.
They continued their trek deeper into the ministry and quickly came across a whole bunch of dementors, desperately clawing at something cowering in a corner. Harry yanked the souls out of them, too, and did away with five dementors. Once the flesh and fabric had stopped raining down, they saw a handful of people hunched together, one man with his wand out, a silvery weasel all that had been keeping the dementors at bay, and barely even that. Harry looked at the red-haired man and thought he might be Ron's father.
"Stay here," Harry told them with a firm gesture when it looked like they wanted to get up. "There's more out there and they're not playing around." It was clear to Harry that the dementors knew their end was nigh and that they'd decided to go out with a bang. Good old vengeance on wizarding kind. Tom really should have let Harry go ahead and get rid of all the dementors the previous night, but that didn't help them at that moment.
They found another cluster of dementors trying to get inside an office one floor down, where a blond witch was holding them at bay with a horse Patronus. Unfortunately, outside the office they also found three bodies of people who hadn't made it to the safety of a Patronus in time. Harry did away with the dementors even as they tried to reach for him with desperate shrieks.
"I've never seen dementors act like this," Tom murmured as he looked around with wide eyes. "They will usually back down once you cast a corporal Patronus, but not this time."
"They know this is their only chance at feeding again before they seize to exist," Harry replied as he walked down the hall only find it empty. "They cannot return home, they cannot stop me from destroying them, so this is all they have left."
Harry and Tom continued their trek through the ministry, destroying every dementor they found. Eventually they came across Amelia Bones, who was keeping three dementors at bay with her owl Patronus. Harry pulled them apart with ease and then gave Bones a challenging look, as though he dared her to comment on the kind of magic he'd just used in front of her.
Bones, much to her credit, didn't say a word about Harry's magic. "Thank you, Mr Potter. How many casualties?"
"Dozens, from what we've been able to tell," Tom replied, because Harry was busy trying to find the last few dementors he knew were still in the building. "But there were far more survivors than that."
"Well, that is something, at least." Bones, ever the pragmatic witch, looked at one of the Aurors she'd been shielding. "Parker, get in touch with Azkaban. Find out what on earth is going on. "Holstein, get me the registry of people who've visited Azkaban recently."
They left her to it and made their way to the next level, where they found three bodies and the last of the dementors clawing at a door that was being patrolled by a silvery cat. Once the dementors were destroyed, they found Minister Fudge and a few others hiding there. Undersecretary Umbridge had been the one to cast the Patronus. Harry barely knew her, only remembered her as a very unpleasant witch he'd seen during Sirius' farce of a trial.
"You're welcome," Harry said, sneering at Fudge and his flunkies. He still remembered that these people had happily executed his godfather for crimes he hadn't committed.
"You!" Fudge puffed up in outrage once he recognized Harry. His cheeks reddened while his mouth opened and closed a few times. "You did this! You'll pay for this, Potter!"
"The only thing I did was save your undeserving arses," Harry said, turning his back to the Minister. Now that he could no longer sense any dementors in the Ministry, he wanted to find out what the hell had happened.
"Arrest him!" Fudge yelled as Harry and Tom walked away. No one listened to him, since there were no Aurors nearby.
They returned to the Department of Law Enforcement, where they found Bones barking orders. Mr Weasley was there as well, running around while he tried to organize a space where they could put all the bodies.
"Any idea what happened?" Harry asked as he and Tom approached Bones.
"I was hoping you could tell me," Bones said, narrowing her eyes at Harry in clear suspicion. "How did you even know there was an attack?"
"We didn't know," Tom said at once, voice as smooth as butter. "I'd finally convinced Harry that he should sit for his OWLs and NEWTs and we came here to register for them at the Department of Education. Imagine our surprise when we saw nothing but corpses littering the atrium."
"Yeah," Harry said with a wary sigh. "But now I don't know if I even want to spend any time sitting exams here in the future, if this is how you run your Ministry. Soul-sucking demons aren't a very welcome addition to the décor, I must say."
Bones gave him a tired look, apparently not in the mood for Harry's attempt at humour. Not that he could blame her. Lots of her colleagues had just been murdered and no one knew why.
One of the Aurors Bones had sent away earlier came hurrying back, a pale, trembling man in a blue uniform on his heels. His hair was grey and his face was wrinkled and he looked as though he wasn't entirely sure if he was even alive or not. "Madam Bones, this is Mr Pluck. He's the only Azkaban guard I could reach through the floo."
"Mr Pluck," Bones said, giving the man a quick onceover before summoning a chair for him to sit in. "Please tell us what happened. Why did all the dementors leave Azkaban?"
"Dead," Pluck whispered, face paling even more as he sat hunched in his chair. "They're all dead. I was the only one who could produce a bit of mist when I cast a Patronus. Everyone else is dead."
"Who are you talking about specifically?" Bones asked, looking at Pluck with wide, alarmed eyes.
"Everyone," Pluck said in a trembling voice, hands shaking on his lap. "All the guards and all the prisoners. Everyone's dead."