AN: All owned by JK the Magnificent Rowling
8:
Lord Voldemort laughed. He waved his wand and flung Phoenix against the wall. "Welcome, Harry Potter. I daresay you
must be very glad to see me. Come on out." The Death
Eaters came to stand a respectful distance behind the Dark Lord.
"You got lucky last time, Potter. But there isn't a Portkey to take you away now, or any
spirits. Phoenix would be your only
way out, and you can be assured she won't be helping
you."
Phoenix
gasped, trying to regain air, her eyes glowed red. Voldemort looked at her and laughed some more. "I
suppose that you want to know how innocent little Phoenix
turned out to be the danger to you? The
foolish brat did whatever
I wanted after I showed her a few simple little spells. She was all mine from the first day, and she
did whatever I wanted.
And what I wanted was you."
It was
agony for Phoenix, she wanted to hurt Voldemort as badly as she could. How could he have done this to her.
How stupid she had been to believe every lying word he
uttered. She shape-shifted into her
merlin form and flew straight for
him, as Potter watched her with his green eyes full of anger
and pity, and fear that directed itself at Voldemort.
Voldemort
simply jinxed her and she fell to the floor, and laughed his high, cold laugh
that was like a snake of ice.
"So you're an Animagus now too. You did really have quite a talent, I didn't lie there. What a pity though, that
your talent will be wasted. I'll probably have to kill you tonight." He lifted her small, gold-brown form from the ground and
flung her out an open window. "I'll get back to you later."
She
landed at the base of a small tree in the yard of the Malfoy Manor. Hate filled her. Now she and Potter would
die, because of her naivete. She was tired though, she tried to relax more, to escape the
pain. Then she found her bird-self
spirit. Maybe the birds would help…no,
they would be jinxed out of the way, she didn't want them to die. She had to contact
someone, an Auror. She thought back to what Chris had said on their first morning at
Hogwarts. Dumbledore was a
powerful Auror. But
she couldn't reach him. She felt the
minds of the birds tugging at her. She
felt Fawkes' mind too.
Maybe he could help!
Fawkes? she though out, Can
you hear me, the merlin-girl? She
felt an answering ripple in her consiousness, the
phoenix had heard her. Get help, Fawkes. Someone is
in trouble. Get Professor Dumbledore,
get anyone. Tell him,
or them or her, to come here quickly. Just please get help. Somehow she knew Fawkes would get help,
she just needed
to help Potter now.
Phoenix
concentrated all her power, and that of a few helping birds, onto freeing
herself. With one cannnonball of
magic, she burst out of the invisible restraints on
her. Phoenix reentered her human form
and pulled out the Invisiblity Cloak.
She threw it on and became the hunting-bird again, this time
invisible.
Stelthily
she glided in, small bird's heart hammering. She saw Potter on the floor, writhing in the pain of the
Cruciatius
Curse. She became
Phoenix-the-girl again, and threw off the Cloak. "Stupefy!" she yelled at Voldemort. Her curse missed,
and she braced herself for a counter-jinx, preparing to die,
as long as it bought time for Potter.
"You
little brat!" Voldemort said as he
whirled to face her, "Crucio!"
Phoenix yelled, but remained upright until somehow she threw off the curse. The Death Eaters were moving in. "Petrificus Maximus!" she screamed. Every one of the masked wizards froze.
"You really shouldn't do things like that," Voldemort hissed. "Imperio."
Stay still and out of my way.
Make me…let me go…
Stay where you are!
NO!!!
The curse was off. "I'm not going to die here," she breathed to herself. "Iciclinio!"
It didn't work that time either. "Do you think you can defeat me with my own spells?" the Dark Lord laughed.
"I can try."
"Stupefy!" Potter cried from Voldemort's back. The curse faded in mid-air.
Voldemort turned to Potter now, a smirk on his face. "I really think it's time I ended this little game. I do believe I've won it. Ava—"
Phoenix held up her hand so that Potter could see it, with three fingers up. Potter pulled out his wand, and was ready by the time two of the fingers were down. So by the second syllable of the Killing Curse, the two of them were ready.
"Stupefy!" both of them shouted.
And toghether, they had made the spell work.
Phoenix jumped around the Dark Lord and helped Potter, suffering from a prolonged use of the Crutacius Curse, back to his feet. "Are you alright?" she asked, wide-eyed.
He nodded and she helped him to his feet.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Potter smiled kindly. "I'm not angry. Well, not at you, anyway. I don't really consider this your fault. But," he looked around nervously, "We should be getting out of here."
"Oh—of course."
Both of them hurried out the door, going as fast as Harry could. "I tried to tell Fawkes—you know, Dumbledore's phoenix—that we were in trouble."
"I think the passed on the message."
Right in front of them was Albus Dumbldedore, with Fawkes swooping down onto his shoulder. "What happened?" he asked gravely.
"Voldemort—and a bunch of Death Eaters," Harry said rapidly.
"Inside?"
Phoenix nodded.
"I'll send for some Auror crews," the Headmaster said.
"I think Voldemort will have gotten away by the time they get there," Phoenix said quietly.
"Yes, but any gain in our battle against him is a gain indeed. But we do need to be getting back to the school. Phoenix, you apparated here, correct?"
She nodded.
"I'll meet you at Hogsmeade station then," Dumbledore said, grabbing Potter's wrist.
Phoenix Disapparated a moment later, in Hogsmeade station in front of a line of black carrages. Dumbledore motioned for her to climb in one, and she did.
"Now, Phoenix," the Headmaster said, "I would like you to tell me your whole story up unti tonight."
Phoenix told it willingly—everything, with nothing ommitted.
"I just didn't know," she ended. "I never really wanted to consider that Riddle might be Lord Voldemort. He told me that was his name."
"It is,
though. Lord Voldemort was born as Tom
Marvelo Riddle. Tom Riddle came to
Hogwarts once, he went bad while he was still here. But after he left, he went to the most
dispicable of our kind, underwent
horrible transformations, and returned to the world as Lord
Voldemort."
"Oh." Phoenix didn't know what
to say, really.
"Several
years ago, before the Dark Lord came back to the body he has now, he brought
havoc on the school by
using another first year under the name of Riddle. The poor girl almost took the blame,
although she was saved at the last
minute."
Professors McGonagall, Black, Snape, and Sprout were waiting at the
school gates. "Just a minute, I'll talk
with you
in a second," He told them when they started to harass him
with questions. "Minerva, I need you to
take Phoenix and Harry
up to Gryffindor Tower. Do not question her on the way up, please. And please, neither of you tell anyone. I make an
exception for Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger." McGonagall nodded and took them away.
The three
of them slipped away from the knot of teachers, where Dumbledore was talking
urgently. "Are you two all
right, though?" McGonagall asked, "Do you need to go to the
hospital wing?"
Potter
glanced at her, she shook her head, and he said, "No, Professor, we're both
fine. I think sleeping would be
best now, we're kind of tired."
"Oh, fine
then Potter," McGonagall said.
The other
girls were asleep already, which was what Phoenix had hoped for. She too drifted off into slumber.
****
During
breakfast, she received an owl to meet Dumbledore in Professor McGonagall's
office. She slipped away
while the few of her friends that had stayed for Easter
Break finshed their meal.
McGonagall wasn't in the room when Phoenix walked in. Dumbledore motioned for her to sit down, and
she sank in.
"Phoenix, I would like it if you told me everything that happened last night, from where you ended last night. Can you?"
And so she told him.
Dumbledore
remained silent and motionless the whole time, and spoke only when she had finished. "Phoenix, I think we should tell you
something else, to take a small edge of guilt off. First of all, you did something almost no wizard could do
against Voldemort. You did a marvelous job holding him off, and were extremely brave. You may find it interesting that five
years ago, Riddle tricked another first year into doing
things she didn't know were wrong. She
is perfectly fine now, and I
think you don't bear any guilt at all. You do have a certain gift, Phoenix. Voldemort didn't lie about you being extraordinaraly powerful," (One of the few things he didn't lie about, Phoenix told herself.) "You have a very powerful gift. Since you seemed to have learned almost everything we can teach you here at Hogwarts, I'm offering you the chance to graduate at the end of the year."
"But—but
what would I do then?" she asked, startled by the suggestion.
"Ah, Phoenix, something very important indeed. The Auror's Leauge is streached out over all
of Europe—as well as the
other continents—and could use you help. Would you like to try?"
"That'd be wonderful, to help try and fix what I did. But there has to be loads of things I
haven't learned yet that an Auror
needs to know."
"Nothing you couldn't learn in a crash course summer with the Aurors, Phoenix. You'd be sure to be accepted. You'd also be safer here than at home. Voldemort now knows your power is prehaps stong enough to send him to a state much like the one Harry sent him to years ago. He'd be sure to come after you, for revenge."
"Oh,
Professor, I'd love to. I want to
learn, but that's where he got me…"
"Wishing to
learn is not a sin, and I do not hold you guilty for what happened. Nor," he added, looking at Phoenix's worried
face, "Does Harry, as I expect he already told you."
"And my
parents?" Phoenix asked.
"I will
send them an owl. I'm sure Ariana and
Dram will be thrilled that their daughter is carrying on the Auror tradition of
the family. They were Aurors when they
were younger too."
"Professor, thanks so much."
Dumbledore smiled. "The thanks
belongs to you, Phoenix, for your incredible bravery. I think you'll make a fine
Auror. I think you
must be wanting to spend a little time by yourself now, though. Goodbye."
Phoenix nodded and left, wondering how Dumbledore could have guessed exactly how she felt.
But she had decided. No longer would she be a pawn of dark powers. She was a champion of the light.
AN: Thus ends Pawn of Darkness. Can you believe it only took me 40 minutes to rewrite the first half of Phoenix Tears? Oh well, soccer game now. G2G now. The next story will be the second half of an Elemental-less Phoenix Tears.