AN: new chapter up, enjoy.

Chapter 55 - Pandemonium

An incredibly loud noise hit their eardrums when they Apparated. However, it did not sound like cheering or the sound of a merry crowd of partygoers. There were no drumming noises and no bagpipe songs either. There was only screaming.

Harry and Bella unconsciously started running towards the main street from where the screams were coming from but when they got there, they froze in disbelief.

Hundreds of people were screaming in terror, pushing, shoving and stepping on each other as they desperately tried to run away from the monsters chasing them.

"Holy shit!" Harry cursed under his breath.

"Inferi?!" Bellatrix also said breathlessly.

Deathly white, their clothes soaked with blood, their movements awkward but fast, and with bite marks and missing chunks of flesh from their arms, neck, or even from their face, a legion of bloodthirsty Inferi was chasing after the fleeing crowd.

Harry's first reaction was to take out his wand but Bellatrix quickly grabbed him by the arm.

"What are you doing?!"

"Can't you see what's happening?" Harry snapped at her and yanked his arm free from her grasp. A familiar warmth coursed through him when his fingers wrapped around the handle of his fir and dragon heartstring wand.

"Are you seriously crazy?!" Bellatrix shouted at him. "You can't cast magic in front of all these Muggles! There are cameras filming the torch procession live! The Statute will be completely broken if you do that!"

But when Harry turned his head to her, Bellatrix unconsciously became silent. Looking back at the horde of Inferi and the helpless people desperately running for their lives, he said:

"Hundreds of people are about to die, Bella. I'll worry about the Statute later. How could I possibly turn my back on them?"

Waving his wand on above his own head, his body became invisible as he cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself. Bellatrix quickly followed his example and cast the same charm on herself too. If they were going to break the Statute, at least the Ministry would not have any solid proof to link it to them aside from the fact that they were living in Edinburgh.

Raising his wand, the air thrummed with magic power as Harry shouted:

"IMMOBULUS!"

It was as if someone hit the "Pause" button while playing a movie. Time appeared to have stopped as the horde of Inferi and the crowd of terrified people all became frozen, like statues.

Alternating between looking at Harry's Disillusioned silhouette next to her and then at the hundreds of people and Inferi seemingly frozen in time, Bellatrix gulped. It was in moments such as this that she was reminded just who exactly was the teenage boy she had all but adopted as her son. Magic power was filled the air around them to the point where it was almost palpable.

But she quickly recollected herself.

'I don't know how long is his spell going to last considering there are over one thousand beings on this street right now. I have no time to waste!'

Bearing that thought in mind, Bellatrix sprung into action. For someone as knowledgeable as her in all that was related to the dark arts, dealing with Inferi was hardly a challenge. The only problem was that she could not indiscriminately cast magic in fear of hurting the Muggles caught in between too. Therefore, instead of a wide area of effect spells, she had to target the Inferi individually, to destroy them one by one.

In spite of how hopeless that task ahead of her appeared to be - there were hundreds of Inferi - she did not lose her motivation. Since she had decided to follow Harry's will and break the Statute in order to save the Muggles, she would see it through until the end.

Bolts of concentrated fire started to burst from the tip of her wand as if she was firing an automatic rifle. With every firebolt that she fired an Inferius would be turned into a humanoid torch only for it to quickly combust a few seconds later, leaving not even bones behind, only a pile of ash.

'That's not a regular Fire-Making spell. Not by a long shot,' Harry thought when he looked at the result of Bellatrix's onslaught. Inferi were weak to fire but a regular Incedio wouldn't make them explode into a pile of ash and it would certainly not kill them in a matter of seconds.

'Is this one of her self-created curses? Strong.'

But he couldn't afford to admire her spellwork for too long because his Freezing Spell was going to wear out soon. As powerful as he was, completely immobilizing several hundred people and several hundred Inferi simultaneously and keeping them frozen for a long time was not an easy task, to say the least.

Bringing his hand inside his coat, he took out a finger-sized wooden stick from the inner chest pocket. As he spread his palm, the wooden stick floated down before quickly increasing in size until it became three feet tall and as thick as a man's leg. The increase in size revealed that the wooden pole was covered all over in densely packed Ancient Runes.

At some point, Bellatrix turned her head to see what was Harry doing because she had been the only one casting spells until then. Due to his body being invisible, she did not see that he had closed his eyes but she heard the incantation that he said:

"Homenum Revelio!"

'What is he up to?' she wondered. What was the point of him casting the Human-Presence Revealing Spell when the entire boulevard was packed with hundreds of people?

⁂

As he cast the Human-Presence Reaveling Spell, Harry closed his eyes. Hundreds of glowing silhouettes took shape in his mind one by one. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead as he strained to push the spell's range further than ever before. He had never used this detection spell in such a manner until then.

Eventually, he reached his limits. The fault was not at the spell's in-built limitations but it was at him - there was a limit to how much information his brain was capable of processing. Every single living human in a radius of 800 feet around him appeared in his mind's eye as if he was watching the scene from above. Their exact location and even their postures were perfectly reproduced in his mind. It was as if he had used a bat's echolocation.

'The propriety damage is going to be in the millions, but that's still better than letting hundreds of people die.'

Kneeling down, Harry placed both of his palms on the ground. His eye still closed and his attention focused on the virtual map of the living people in his mind, he chanted:

"Ala, Goddess of Earth, grant me your blessing and smite my foes!"

An unexpected earthquake shook the entirety of the central district of Edinburgh City.

"My god...!"

Wizards and witches were not religious people but at the sight in front of her eyes, Bellatrix could not contain her disbelief. She was the Chief of the Department of Mysteries and she had created numerous spells and even several magical artefacts. She was a knowledgeable and skilled witch, one of the best in the world at the moment... ...However, she had never even heard, let alone seen anything like that in her entire life.

If watching in Sirius' Pensieve the Aurors' memories of Harry summoning a tornado in his clash with Voldemort at the Minister's residence appeared as if it had been taken out of a fairy tale, what was happening in the present looked like a scene out of a hellish nightmare. That power was not in the realm of humans. As much a sceptic as she had been in regard to Harry's Shamanism before, she could no longer deny it.

'That power is not in the realm of humans. That is the power of a god.'

In a radius of 800 feet around the Totem of Ala, every single square inch of terrain not occupied by a living human had become unrecognizable. Sharp spikes made of dirt and rocks had burst from the ground, tearing apart and impaling everything above, be it cars, buildings, streets, or Inferi. It was carnage.

Only seconds after the Earthspike spell was cast, the Freezing Charm affecting the street was broken. His mental fortitude drained momentarily, Harry could no longer maintain the Freezing Charm and the Muggles all regained their mobility. Although they had all been frozen before, they had been fully conscious of what had happened around them. The frightened crowd could only look in horror at the earth spikes surrounding them and the obscene amounts of blood and the torn body parts of the zombies impaled on them. For a short while, they were in shock, unable to process what had happened.

⁂

Several hours later, Harry and Bellatrix both collapsed on the sofa in Blackthorn's living room like puppets whose strings had been cut. The two of them had spent the better part of the night killing Inferi and helping everyone they saw in need of saving.

"I've never been this exhausted in my entire life," Bellatrix said.

It was the first time she experienced the feeling of suffering from mental and magic exhaustion. Her sight was slightly blurry, there was a vague but continuous ringing in her ears and her skin was burning to the touch. Merely breathing felt like an effort that she had to make consciously or else she feared she would stop breathing altogether.

Not receiving an answer, she called:

"Harry? Hey, are you okay?"

But as she made an effort to turn her head to look at him, she saw that he was already unconscious. His face was pale and sweaty and his body was shivering. He was having it even worse than her. After all, he was still only a teenager, not having reached his physical maturity yet. Furthermore, between the two of them, Harry had cast strenuous area-of-effect spells much more than her. He would generally freeze entire streets at a time and kill Inferi in bulk while Bellatrix would be focused on helping people individually like freeing them from the Inferi's grasp or saving them from car crashes and the sort.

They had not annihilated all the Inferi in the city - Edinburgh was not a small city and they were only two people - but they had killed any large group of them that they had come across. Thoroughly exhausted, they could only leave the stragglers and the rest of the work to the Muggle authorities. They had done all they could.

"Niki!"

At her call, her House Elf popped into the living room instantly. The elf did not waste time asking questions. She had seen them coming from the moment they entered the courtyard and she had sensed her mistress' condition too. Snapping her fingers twice, she levitated both Bellatrix and Harry and quickly took them to Bella's bedroom.

"Mistress need not worry. Niki will take good care of mistress and mistress's Harry," Niki said as she carefully placed the two of them on Bella's bed.

With another two snaps of her fingers, the House Elf took off their shoes and their jackets before covering them with a thick and fluffy blanket. Then, Niki popped away, only to return a few seconds later with four bottles filled with hot water. She shoved the bottles of hot water under the blanket and stuck them close to Harry's and Bellatrix's bodies. Lastly, she snapped her finger once more, casting a House Elf version of the Warming Charm on their blanket.

In spite of her words of reassurance before, Niki was fiddling with her gnarly fingers with an expression of deep worry etched on her face. Mustering up her courage, she asked in a shaky voice:

"Should Niki go to Missus Dromeda and ask for help?"

However, she received no answer. Bellatrix had fallen asleep too. In the end, a determined expression appeared on Niki's face before she popped away. Her mistress was too precious to her, she could not simply leave her be. Even if she ended up being scolded later on, she would rather be safe than sorry. She decided to go ask for Andromeda Tonks' help right away.

⁂

It was the 31st of December. Normally, this day was one of the happiest days of the entire year because it was New Year's Eve. People would be celebrating with their family or partying hard with their friends or wilding out in clubs and indulging in debauchery. However, in the present, the atmosphere could not be any more different. There was no joy, no happiness, no fun, and no pleasure. There was only fear and death.

"A tragedy like the United Kingdom had never seen. Our reports indicate that over 30 thousand people have perished last night but the number of casualties is on the rise as accounts of missing and dead people keep flooding in. Police forces are working at full capacity and the army has been mobilized as well [...]"

Andromeda Tonks sat with her face buried in her palms as she listened to the Muggle radio station. Nobody had expected such a catastrophe to happen so out of the blue. There had been no warning, no prelude. Furthermore, most of the large cities in the UK had been hit simultaneously - London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, and so on so forth.

Every single Auror and Hit Wizard employed by the Ministry of Magic had been dispatched in an attempt to quell the chaos but everyone could see that it was a lost cause. How could a few dozen people contain an army of several hundred thousand Inferi, an army whose numbers continued to rise with every Muggle they killed?

'Please make it back safely, Nymphadora,' Andromeda silently prayed.

Bites and wounds such as gashes and scratches caused by Inferi were not fatal to magicals who could easily disinfect them with a Wound-Cleaning Potion - a potion that any wizarding household had in stock at all times, similar to how most Muggle households would also have medicinal alcohol at all times. In addition, wizards and witches' immune system was very much superior to that of Muggles when it came to combating foreign agents. They were, after all, beloved by magic.

Nevertheless, that did not mean that Inferi were harmless. Children and untrained adult wizards and witches who did not know the right method to combat them - by using fire - could be overwhelmed quickly and torn apart by a mob of Inferi. Even experienced wizards were not perfectly safe when they faced several dozens of them at once. On the battlefield, anything could happen. As a mother, Andromeda could not help worrying for Tonks even though she knew that she was more than capable of keeping herself safe.

In an attempt to distract herself from worrying about her daughter, Andromeda stood up and went to check up on Bellatrix and Harry. After rapping softly with her knuckles on the door of the bedroom she opened the door and peeked her head inside. When she saw they were still sleeping deeply (it was noon already) she stepped in quietly and closed the door after her.

But as she came closer to the bed she suddenly froze up. Its green scales glinting in the sunlight, a rather large snake was sleeping coiled up on top of the blanket on Harry's legs. It was none other than Asmodeus or, as Harry loves to call him, Big Head.

It was not the first time that she had seen the green anaconda - she had seen her sister many times petting the snake as it lay coiled up in her lap - and she also knew that Asmodeus was docile and lazy, never having displayed any violent behaviour. Regardless, she had never interacted with the snake directly; she had not even tried to overcome her instinctual fear and disgust of snakes.

Even as she began casting Healing Diagnosis Charms on the sleeping Bella and Harry, Andromeda never took her eyes away from the snake for more than five seconds at a time. Satisfied with the results she obtained from her tests, Andromeda did not dally in the bedroom, leaving as soon as she was finished checking up on them.

Going back to the living room, she called out Bellatrix's House Elf.

"Bella and Harry's condition is stable. All they need is to rest. But when they wake up, make sure they eat and hydrate themselves properly. Force them to eat if you have to. Also, tell them to drink these Invigoration Draughts after they're done eating," she said and handed the elf two transluent flasks filled with a bright orange liquid.

"My shift at the hospital starts in 2 hours but I will go to work earlier today. I reckon with everything that happened last night, they'll need all the help they can get. You call me if anything happens, okay?"

"Niki will do as Missus Andy says!" the House Elf said while bobbing her head energetically, happy that her Mistress was going to fully recover soon.

After Andromeda Flooed back to her home, Niki went in front of the fire place and sat down on a tiny couch. The House Elf's tennis-ball-like eyes began swimming in tears as she basked in the bliss of lying on such a comfortable seat. That tiny couch was the present that Harry had gifted her a few days ago, for Christmas.

Being aware of how much her Mistress cared for the young boy, Niki had always served and taken care of Harry to the best of her abilities but Harry's gift for her that Christmas touched her deeply.

"Wizards and witches be giving each other gifts when getting well after being sick. What gift should Niki give Mistress and Mistress's Harry?" the House Elf murmured to herself. With her big eyes brightening, Niki suddenly hopped up from her tiny couch and clapped her hands in excitement at the idea that had just popped up in her mind. "Niki knows! Niki will carve a memento for Mistress and Mistress's Harry!"

If Harry had gifted Niki a comfortable couch perfect for her size, not one to be outdone, Bellatrix had also given Niki a present of her own too. Knowing that the little creature had taken a liking to sculpting after watching Harry carve his totems, starting with that Christmas, she decided that she would fully support Niki in her endeavours and gifted her a rather expensive set of enchanted wood-sculpting tools.

Popping away from the living room, Niki appeared in the next second in her personal living quarters, in the Blackthorn's attic. Even before Harry's arrival in Bellatrix's life, she had treated Niki kindly and with much more care than normal pureblood families would. The attic was reasonably spacious and it was equipped with a heating stove, a window, two gas lamps, a House Elf-sized bed with clean white sheets, a table, several chairs and (recently added) a small platform where a workbench and several wooden logs lay.

⁂

It was the 3rd of January and, after a day and a night of continuous sleep, Harry and Bellatrix were now back on their feet, fully recovered. Bellatrix was currently in a meeting with all the big wigs of the Ministry of Magic while he was having a late breakfast at the Blackthorn.

As he spread sour cherry jam on his slice of bread, his eyes inadvertently went to a wooden carving on the table. It was rather small, only 7 inches in height and 4 inches in width but it was surprisingly detailed. It was a beautiful carving of an owl perched up on a tree branch, a rather accurate imitation of the real thing - it looked quite similar to Hedwig. That was the get-well present that Niki had gifted him and Bellatrix when they woke up. Although Harry did not have an educated eye when it came to sculpting, he could tell that the little creature had poured her entire heart into her work.

Just then, arriving with a flutter of wings, Hedwig landed on the window sill and knocked on the window with her beak. Harry involuntarily smiled at the sight of his pretty owl and quickly stood up to let her in.

"Ew, wait, don't snuggle into me, you'll get my clothes wet!" Harry said and tried to keep the overly affectionate owl at bay.

It was to no avail, Hedwig would not let herself be denied! Letting out a helpless smile, Harry untied the roll of paper strapped to her leg and then he hugged her with one hand, using the other to carefully brush the snowflakes off her head and back.

Anticipating what Harry wanted before he could even think of it, Niki popped up in the kitchen bearing a small tray with bacon and fried chicken liver and put it down on the floor, in front of the fire place.

Harry did not even get a warning before Hedwig jumped out of his arms and flew straight at the tray of meat. He chuckled at her behaviour - as much as Hedwig loved headpats, hugs, and caresses, she seemed to love bacon way more.

"If you get any fatter, you won't even be able to fly anymore," Harry said, only for Hedwig to bark at him in outrage, momentarily forgetting about her food.

When Harry laughed out loud at her reaction, she hooted at him in indignation once more before promptly turning her back and ignoring him completely.

Shaking his head at his owl's antics, Harry untied the string holding the piece of parchment. It was the newest edition of the Daily Prophet. As he took in the contents of the first page, his smile quickly receded from his face.

London devastated by the Army of Inferi.

Muggle Military actively patrolling Great Britain's large cities armed with deadly weaponry and vehicles. Wizards and Witches advised not to leave their homes.

How to protect yourself from an Inferius attack.

But the title that worried Harry the most was - Statue of Secrecy completely broken in Edinburgh.

The article went on to say how hundreds of Muggles had witnessed an almost invisible being casting jets of fire at the moving corpses, making spears of earth grow up and impale the zombies, or levitating crashed cars and rescuing the people trapped inside them. There were even two moving photos taken from a high vantage point, showing how an entire street had been suddenly frozen as if time had stopped before earthspikes burst from the ground and killed all the Inferi on site.

"I thought we were goners. I could only watch in despair how the zombie grabbed me by the arm and threw me to the ground. It was so strong and so fast, nothing like I've seen in movies before! But then, they came to my rescue!" Martha S., a 39-year-old Muggle woman said when interviewed by a Muggle reporter.

"They? Who are the ones that rescued you, madam?" the Muggle reporter asked.

"It was an Angel, I'm sure of it. I couldn't see them well but there was a faint distortion in the air, like the body of a person. And then, the zombie was blasted out through the air before a holy fire came out of nowhere and burnt it to cinders!"

In spite of how the article included how grateful and reverent all the Muggles that had been rescued were, the overall feeling that it relayed to the reader was one of disapproval and uncertainty.

'What was I supposed to do? Let them die? I could never do that,' Harry thought, his forehead scrunched up by a frown. 'Not like me breaking the Statue in Edinburgh is of much importance now anyway. I'm sure I wasn't the only one among wizards and witches who couldn't bear with merely spectating and decided to help. Besides, the world is crawling with millions of zombies at this moment. That in itself breaks the Statute of Secrecy.'

It was just as he said. The United Kingdom had not been the only country to be attacked by Inferi. It had been merely the starting point. Only two hours after pandemonium was triggered in London, a Muggle man that had been scratched by an Inferius flew by plane to France, Paris. A few hours after arriving in Paris, while he was inside a supermarket, the Muggle man became fully zombified. From there on, what happened was just a repeat of the tragedy in the UK.

In a matter of days, cases of people becoming zombies seemingly out of nowhere and attacking all the people nearby started to appear all over the continent and even beyond. It was the same in North Africa, with the nidus of infection being Egypt, and North America as well where the BosWash megalopolis had been hit the hardest, even despite the fact that the headquarters of the militant MACUSA (the American Ministry of Magic) was located in New York. It looked like the end of the world.