- Chapter Twenty-Four -
Harry and the One with a Thousand Names
When the fires had died down, Harry's ears were almost hurt by the silence that fell on the roof. After the fury of the storm and the blackness, it was so startling to see the clear, now starry blue sky that he sat for almost a minute on the ground where he had collapsed, the end of the broken arrow in his hand.
Harry looked down at his palm. All the arrows were used up, either left behind in dead dementors, or flew away or broken. Not one remained intact... The weapon was destroyed, but now so was the enemy. Not a single dementor was left alive, and Harry knew full well that this was what was happening to those black creatures everywhere in the world at this moment. The horror he had feared since he was thirteen was no more.
Harry saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and immediately picked up his fallen wand, but when he turned to face the approaching person, he realized that he had no need to fear. Al was approaching on the roof, surveying the destruction with a stolid calm.
'Did you send the patronus?' Harry asked automatically when he found his voice. He was still in the dull shock of what had happened.
Al shook his head and grimaced at him.
'No! I have no idea who sent it. You know I can't do magic here...'
The boy's words were interrupted by shouting; someone was repeating Harry's name.
'Harry... Harry...!'
For a moment they both froze and listened.
'What is this...? Someone... Hagrid!' Harry realized, and immediately ran to the parapet where his friend had fallen - and instantly a huge stone fell from his heart when he saw Hagrid clinging to a window ledge.
'Hagrid!' he cried in relief. 'You're alive!'
'It'll take more than a dementor ter take me down, mate!' the half-giant said back, but Harry could see he was exhausted and needed all his strength to hold on.
So he quickly pointed his wand at him and helped with the levitation charm. Hagrid's feet touched softly again on the safe roof, but as soon as they touched it, he collapsed from exhaustion.
'Are you OK?' Harry asked worriedly. It was only now that the fear in his chest was beginning to lift, and he was starting to realise how incredibly lucky they had both been to survive the fight with only a few scratches.
Hagrid nodded with a hum, but said nothing. There was blood dripping from his forehead, but no other injuries.
'We've done it, Hagrid!' Harry told him the news unnecessarily. 'All the dementors are gone!'
Hagrid gasped as he looked around the smoking ash heaps, a broad smile spreading across his face.
'That's it, Harry!' said the gamekeeper appreciatively. 'I told yeh it was a good crossbow. Professor Dumbledore told me ter take good care of it, because it migh' come in handy, and he was right! He was right, as always...'
'Erm... Hagrid...,' Harry muttered hesitantly. 'The crossbow is broken. The arrows are gone too, we've used them all up. That's all that's left...'
He showed him the broken end of the arrow he still clutched in his hand, and stared at Hagrid with a rueful expression. Hagrid, however, only gave a wink.
'Ah, don' bother! Yeh won' need it anymore, will you? Yeh took care of it, mate!' and with that he patted Harry on the back, which his weak legs could not do withstand without collapsing.
'Sorry, Harry,' Hagrid apologised, after helping him to his feet and dusting his robes with another life-threatening motion.
'That's enough, Hagrid, thank you...', Harry stopped him gently, and heard Al, who had been watching them silently, giggle into his palm. Harry glanced at him, and then they both grinned.
But in the next second, something quite unexpected happened.
'AVADA KEDAVRA!'
Harry and Hagrid jumped back in fright as a blinding green flash of lightning exploded out of nowhere, crashing through where Al was standing. Harry heard the boy cry out in terror, but the killing curse didn't harm a hair on his head - the beam of light passed through him and struck the parapet, ripping a large brick off it.
'Merlin's raggedy pants!' Hagrid snarled, and he wasn't alone; Al was so startled that he fell, he looked at Harry, then to where the curse had come from, and then disappeared in a puff of black smoke.
'What was that?'
Hagrid and Harry had their question answered in an instant: a figure appeared before them, a tall, lean man, as if he had just folded a curtain and emerged from behind it - and in his hand was an invisibility cloak, which he now carefully draped over his arm.
His appearance was so unexpected and startling that Harry and Hagrid could not utter a word for a while, just stared, open-mouthed, at the grey-haired wizard with a goatee wearing the most elegant robes Harry had ever seen. The man squinted at the spot where Al had been earlier, and where the glowing stone now smoked with the traces of his curse - his wand resting in his left hand, while he held a walking stick in the other.
'Who... who the hell are you?' growled Hagrid, overcoming his shock.
But Harry already knew who was in front of them - he understood the moment he recognised the silvery glint of his own invisibility cloak.
The wizard spoke now, though he still did not look at the two figures on the ground.
'Just tell me: did I hit him?'
Harry also knew who the man was referring to, but he did not understand how he had discovered the boy's presence.
'I don't know what you're talking about,' he said angrily, trying to cover the fear that was running through every cell in his body.
'Don't lie to me, Harry Potter! I can see the truth in your eyes,' the Nameless explained, and began to walk ahead of them. 'Who is the invisible man that only you can see? A ghost, perhaps? The ghost of Dumbledore?'
'Dumbledore would not come back as a ghost...'
Now the Nameless was silent, but he flicked his wand as he went. He made no threatening gesture with it, merely summoned Marius' horcrux from the pile of ashes that represented the corpse of one of the dementors. How is he able to do that – Harry thought.
'You don't mind if I keep this, do you?' he absently held the wand up to Harry, and smiled pleasantly. 'I'm sure you're used to me always coveting the wands you own...'
Hagrid looked from one to the other and seemed to understand nothing of the conversation. Finally he blurted out the question again, this time trying his luck with Harry:
'Who is this man, Harry?'
He didn't need to answer Hagrid, the Nameless' next sentence made it clear to his friend who was standing in front of them:
'I assume you broke into my town for Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. I regret to inform you that you will fail. Soon my plan will be fulfilled and your friends will be dead.'
Harry listened to the wizard with wide eyes. Ron and Hermione are going to die? What could he mean by that? And what plan was about to come true?
Hagrid roared out next him, which would normally have made Harry jump back in fright a metre, but now he straight up fell because of the enraged giant.
'It's you...!' roared Hagrid, shaking with anger. 'It's your fault! You killed her! CURSE YOU!'
The desire for revenge for Madame Maxime's death overwhelmed everything else in him, and when Harry cried out to him not to do it, he knew it would be useless - nothing in the world could have restrained Hagrid's temper.
'Stay still, half-giant!' the Nameless sputtered contemptuously, waving his wand casually as if to brush away an annoying mosquito. Hagrid flew sideways - for the second time - like a thrown stone, rolled along the roof, then skidded to a halt, not moving again.
'Hagrid!' cried Harry, terrified, but before he could move, the Nameless raised his wand at him and he was forced to defend himself. Gritting his teeth, he stared into his opponent's eyes, knowing that he was only making things easier for his foe to legilimens him.
'Why waste the element of surprise on nothing?' he asked him. The Nameless just shook his head.
'Oh, Harry, but you should know... I don't want to kill you! I expect so much more from you...'
These calm words made Harry blow a fuse.
'Are you screwing with me?!'
'If you put it like that, then yes. I admit, I enjoyed our little battles over the wand more than anything. I haven't had so much fun in a long time! You remind me of old times...'
But Harry saw it very differently.
'Last time, you tried pretty hard to kill me.'
The other one just laughed at that.
'You mean the few innocent curses in the house? Don't be ridiculous, Harry! If I had wanted you dead, you'd be dead already... Surely you've figured out by now that I let you go back there so the Selwyn siblings could infiltrate you and kill Minerva McGonagall. But you exposed them...' he tilted her head to the side. 'Congratulations! I must admit, I was hoping my third trap would finally work and I'd get the wand from you... I probably would have killed you then. But now... you're too interesting to die.'
The Nameless paused, during which time he watched Harry with amusement, as if contemplating a new toy, an interesting object or a strange phenomenon. Harry was greatly annoyed by this look, and wished to put an end to the conversation as soon as possible. But he knew that there was only one way to end the argument: a real confrontation, from which he would probably come out as the loser...
The Nameless looked up at the blue sky, the faint stars, and after a deep sigh, continued:
'Your friends only have minutes to go. Soon they will be dead, along with many other wizards and witches. Then nothing and no one will stand in the way of the Fourth Tower.'
The Nameless looked away over the horizon with a lecherous grin, and Harry followed his gaze; the tall town hall stood in the middle of the circular Nurmengard. The wizard took his eyes off the tower and looked at Harry.
'But you can save your friends. You know what to do...'
'Duel with you?' Harry hissed angrily. The Nameless replied with his head held high.
'Oh, you'll duel me, Harry Potter, you can be sure of that, you can't run away from it...' he said ominously. 'No. To save your friends, you just have to agree.'
'To what?'
'To be my disciple.'
He's persistent - Harry thought bitterly. This sorcerer is determined to make him a dark wizard. So different from Voldemort, or Bellatrix, or even Marius Prince! In a strange, bizarre way, he reminded him of a sort of Dumbledore turned inside out.
'That's nice,' he grumbled. 'But I've got bad news for you: I've changed my mind. I'm going to kill you!'
The Nameless was immensely amused by this, and stopped in front of Harry with his hands on his hips.
'Uh-oh! Now, that's interesting. The Chosen One giving up his principles... Dumbledore would be so disappointed...'
'You wouldn't know that!' Harry snapped.
'No?' the man raised his eyebrows. 'Now, wait a minute... You mean you didn't look through my memories that you stole from my room?'
Harry was silent. After he looked at the memory from which he had uncovered the third trap, he completely forgot about the little vials of silvery substance and simply left the bag in the Leaky Cauldron, hidden under the mattress of his bed.
'So you didn't,' muttered Nameless. 'Well... You see, Dumbledore and I have... well, we have some... history. If you'd looked at my memories, you might be standing here with a very different attitude. You might even accept my offer to be my apprentice. I'd finish teaching you what Albus Dumbledore had only started.
As the Nameless spoke, Harry glanced stealthily around the roof, looking for a way to escape. The way down was too far away for him to reach, even alone, let alone dragging Hagrid along. Beyond the parapet was the abyss, several storeys deep, and the rooftops were too far away, for before the prison building there was a long square leading to the north gate...
'Are you going to run away from me forever, Harry?' said the Nameless suddenly. 'Or are you going to stand up to me?'
He still did not point his wand at Harry, but waited still, calmly, with the invisibility cloak on his arm, leaning on his walking stick. Harry's terror slowly began to encircle him as one by one his frivolous plans for escape fell away. There was no other way, the Nameless' presence had changed everything, and he had only one option left... Breathing deeply, he overcame his fear and concentrated on the task at hand, listening to his heart beating wildly as he had so many times before. He rose and, clinging to his last refuge, the wand in his hand, faced the patiently waiting wizard.
'So you choose to fight?' asked the Nameless. 'Good! I hope you've been practicing since the last time, because your performance was dismal... Of course, I understand, you haven't had a wand in your hand for months...'
'Enough of your crap!' shouted Harry suddenly, and snapped his wand.
He didn't want to listen to his empty ramblings, his calm yet mocking words that were like poison dripped in his ear. He wanted him silenced, and now he was pouring all his anger and despair into his spell.
'Vinculo!'
The bubbles flew out of the wand, but at the same time the Nameless moved: each spell was neutralized in an instant and counterattacked before Harry knew what was happening. He even had time to pocket the Cloak of Invisibility and throw his walking stick at Harry, deflecting one of the curses he had fired.
Beams of blue light pierced the air with a maddening crack, smashing with devastating force into the flooring and the parapet where Harry had deflected them.
'So you really have practiced!' said the Nameless in appreciation. 'You're faster than last time...'
He underlined his words with one or two well-directed curses, the nature of which Harry did not know, and his opponent uttered incantations he had never heard, which he thought he detected in them the ring of exotic, oriental languages, and sometimes they did not appear as rays of light. Sometimes a flock of butterflies would drop on Harry, their bright wings made of tongues of flame, and other times a roaring gust of wind would sweep across the roof, almost burning Harry's skin. And he held on and fought back, extinguishing the flaming butterflies with a jet of water, defending himself against the scorching wind with a heat-cooling spell, and using the Wand of Destiny's powerful shield to bounce back any curse the Nameless threw at him.
'I heard about the flood downstairs, Harry!' yelled the Nameless, after he had defused Harry's Sectumsempra curse. 'I'll show you how to do it properly, okay?'
And there the water masses came, but so unexpectedly and in such huge quantities that Harry was momentarily frozen. The sudden change of the Nameless made his earlier tit-for-tat curses look like buffoonery, and Harry was immediately in big trouble.
The water covered him, trapping him in a glass-like prison, just as Dumbledore had done with Voldemort during their duel at the Ministry. Through his watery prison, he saw the Nameless lower his own weapon and move towards him. He held out his hand and reached into the cool water with his long fingers to snatch the wand he had been longing for from Harry's hands.
What to do, what to do? - Harry thought desperately, fighting the lack of air at the same time. If the Nameless didn't reach his wand now, sooner or later he'll able to easily take it from his corpse. His opponent's fingers had almost reached the tip of the wand, and Harry was choking; he couldn't hold his breath any longer...
The rescue idea came like a thunderbolt from the sky. Concentrating hard on the charm, Harry conjured up another bubble from his wand, but this time he wasn't aiming it at the Nameless. The magical prisons, as they formed, instantly enclosed the water around them and floated away with it into the sky.
'What is it? What is happening?' The Nameless stepped back and stared at Harry with a surprised expression, who had now slipped backwards out of the remaining water and fallen to the ground.
All his limbs ached and shivered in the freezing cold of the north, but he could not hesitate - the Nameless's attention was waning. He must do it now!
Harry turned, flat on his back, and thrust his wand forward, aiming it straight at the wizard's face, and then he cried out:
'Avada Kedavra!'
He threw all his magic into the attack, brushing aside all doubts and fears, everything that could have distracted him, including the knowledge that for the first time in his life he was striking with deadly intent...
The Nameless did not have time to dodge the attack, nor could he have defended against the curse - instead, he too shouted the spell:
'Avada Kedavra!'
The two curses collided in the middle. The rays of the wands did not fuse together as they did when Harry fought Voldemort in the graveyard, nor did the curses snap apart as they normally would have...
At the meeting point of the two green bolts there was a terrible explosion that threw the duelists apart; Harry skidded across the stone floor, scraping his back and elbows, but gritting his teeth he gripped his wand lest it fall out of his hand again - he could not afford to make such mistakes now as he had with the Viking.
A beautiful and terrifying emerald orb shone before him, with lightning bolts zigzagging and lights flashing, its hot heat scorching Harry's face, making him think his body was about to burst into flames.
He couldn't see what happened to the Nameless, the green explosion blinded him, and then the huge cloud of dust and constant shaking, crackling and sizzling left him out of sight, but he assumed he was also trying to protect himself from the consequences of the two clashing curses...
It became clear that the prison had actually split in two where the explosion had occurred, and half the building had begun to collapse - Harry felt he had been lucky enough to fly to the more stable half, but the unconscious Hagrid lay in the danger zone, ready to fall into the abyss where the black wall had started to collapse.
'Hagrid...!' shouted Harry, even though he knew it was useless, Hagrid couldn't hear him.
Watch helplessly as his old friend falls and breaks his neck? No, he won't let that happen! He covered his face with one arm to protect himself from the still shining green star and ran to the lying gamekeeper. He couldn't move him with his hands, so a levitation spell caught Hagrid just before he fell victim to the gradually crumbling floor.
The ball of light slowly began to shrink as it continued to vibrate, but by then Harry and Hagrid had retreated to the most stable part of the roof, close to the stairway. The building, however, continued to shake and rumble, and Harry didn't know how much longer the dungeon would stand, but he couldn't help but hold Hagrid tightly, as if that was the only way to protect him.
Harry spotted a ball of fire forming out of the corner of his eye, and without thinking, he cast a shield spell...
It was only moments later that he realised he had nothing to fear; it was not another curse of the Nameless taking shape, but the silhouette of two people and a crimson bird - Kinkaku had brought Ginny and Aberforth.
'Harry!' she cried, as she let go of the phoenix's tail feathers and Aberforth's hand.
She rushed up to Harry and fell on his neck; Harry tried to gently force her off him, not knowing where his foe was hiding.
'Ginny... Ginny, let go of me... He is here...'
'This explosion, kid!' growled Aberforth, also not understanding the danger they were in. 'We thought you were dead! But you managed to take out those dementors...'
'What happened to Hagrid?'
'WATCH OUT!' shouted Harry, but it was too late.
The air was pierced with a hissing sound by a giant sword blade, which shot out of the dust cloud like the head of a poisonous snake... and missed Aberforth by inches. The point of the sword stabbed into the highest point of the parapet, and with a savage movement, slashed sideways...
'What the hell is this?!' roared Aberforth.
The old man ducked from the sword, but this time the blade took a few long strands from his grey hair. Harry turned to shield Ginny with his body and cried out:
'PROTEGO!'
The magical shield surrounded all three of them and the unconscious Hagrid, and the sword got caught on its invisible surface.
'That's him, isn't it, Harry?' Ginny asked, trembling, her brown eyes reflecting clear fear. Harry had rarely seen it on her face, and suddenly he had the urge to destroy the very thing that was causing her such fear. He didn't want her in danger, he wanted her safe, that was all that mattered now, even more than Ron and Hermione at this moment...
The sword retreated back to where it came from in one swift movement; Aberforth and Ginny stared in amazement at the strange magic. Harry stood in front of them, squinting, ready for another attack from the Nameless...
As the smoke cleared, the lean form of the enemy loomed before them. At first it looked like he was standing on a high platform, but as the dust settled, it became apparent that he was actually standing on a large piece of the prison roof floor, suspended in the air - half the building was missing underneath, a stone pile covering the space in front of the north gate.
At the sight of the wizard atop the floating boulder, Ginny stifled a frightened squeal. Harry glanced sideways at her; her eyes widened, not in fear this time, but in astonishment.
'It's you...!? You...' stammered Ginny, gasping for breath.
'Who?' asked Aberforth; the Nameless now studied the old man for a long moment with an unreadable look.
'You are Benedetto Modesto!'
The way she almost screamed the name brought back vague memories for Harry. He frowned and looked up at his enemy.
'Supreme Mugwump of the ICW?' Aberforth was incredulous.
Ginny took a hesitant step towards him, but Harry caught her arm to stop her.
'Are you the Nameless? That's... that's impossible!'
But the wizard just chuckled, laughing at her with his head thrown back.
'No, I'm not Modesto,' he replied, 'I've only recently taken on his face... Since you handed him those documents about the Fourth Tower in Venice. I was forced to silence dear Mr Modesto. He's been the town's prisoner for some time... I had to come in such a hurry when my Faceless sent word that you had arrived that I didn't even have time to change back.'
Harry looked at the goateed, distinguished sun-tanned face and suddenly realised why he was so familiar: the Italian prisoner crawling on all fours towards them for help. It was the real Benedetto Modesto!
The building shook beneath them, and Ginny clung to Harry, screaming. Harry held her, and at the same time they moved away from the edge of the crumbling building, back towards Hagrid.
'No resting, Harry Potter!' The Nameless' voice boomed, and Harry caught him flicking his wand up in a broad gesture.
From the floor of the roof the immense blade of a sword burst out like a geyser, slashing through the arm of Harry, who was leaping aside.
'AHHH!'
The Nameless chuckled, looked at the boy with satisfaction - and then swung his wand in a circle in the air. The sword swung out of the stone and struck to slice Harry in two... The blade missed, however; Ginny used a quick spell to pull him out of the danger zone, and Aberforth took advantage of the opportunity:
'Take this, you son of a bitch!'
With his wand, he tore open a solid piece of the roof, already half collapsed, and threw it towards the Nameless.
'Is that supposed to scare me?' the sorcerer shouted back, and froze the rock in mid-air...
...Aberforth's next curse hit the boulder and blew it apart. Flaming fragments of stone rained down on the Nameless and hid him for a time from Harry's sight.
'That's it, Aberforth!' enthused Ginny, but Harry knew that was not nearly enough against the Nameless.
And he was not wrong: the wizard had floated his rock ahead of them, and was back in their line of sight.
'Didn't you say you didn't want to kill me?!' Harry shouted angrily, because he couldn't think of anything else.
The Nameless laughed again, his face reflecting manic excitement.
'Don't tell me you got scared!' he shouted back at the top of his voice. 'And I'm only fighting half-heartedly!'
No sooner had he said this than he reached with his left hand into the pocket of his robe and drew out Marius' wand - and then, waving both sticks simultaneously, he began to wield the swords. One after another, the metallic blades burst from the floor, turning half the prison roof into a hedgehog's back. Harry, Aberforth and Ginny leapt left and right to dodge the swords, parrying them, shielding themselves.
Harry did not know how long they could withstand an attack at such a pace, and so he could not hope that they could even take care of the unconscious Hagrid. But it seemed that the Nameless was not paying attention to him now, for the swords had evaded the half-giant, and only the three of them were attacked with increasing ferocity and in increasing numbers.
'Faster, faster, faster!' the Nameless urged them on as he sent blades, thick, narrow, thin needles, massive claymores, completely unpredictable...
Harry was in a state of utter despair, he could not hope to have time to fight back during such a series of attacks. The difference in power between the three of them and the Nameless was frighteningly great, an insurmountable barrier, and Harry could not understand how a wizard could become so powerful...
Ginny was fighting the sword blades in front of him, leaping nimbly away from them, breaking, crushing, shrinking them, but they refused to run out.
Harry could see that Aberforth was not going to last much longer, though the swords had struck him far less often than they had struck Ginny or Harry - it was clear that the Nameless was concentrating on them, seeing them as his opponents, and this infuriated Aberforth.
'Here I am, you worm! What are you waiting for?' he gasped, as he dodged a sword cut that would have grazed his leg. 'Fight me!'
The next moment, three swords cut out of the ground behind Aberforth, their broad blades knocking him off his feet.
'ABERFORTH!' cried Ginny in horror.
From one blade, as if a branch were growing from a tree, another, thinner blade reached out, straight for Aberforth's heart. Harry's blood ran cold as he saw the scene, and he couldn't help...
But the sword stopped just above Aberforth's chest and stood there, stiff, forcing the old wizard to the ground. The Nameless had rendered him harmless, and now he could turn all his attention to Harry and Ginny.
He really is just playing with us! - Harry thought. He's not really fighting them, he's just having fun and holding them up while his Faceless probably capture all their friends in the process...
You have to stop this!
'Harry!' said Ginny to him, as she turned two swords into wood in one lightning quick movement. 'Throw it there...'
'You're not here to chat, miss!' the Nameless shouted over her words, and with a flick of his wand he unleashed a curse of terrible power.
Ginny tried to defend herself, but the swords blocked her way. Harry jumped in front of her and shouted the Killing Curse again, for the second time:
'Avada Kedavra!'
The green lightning now proved more powerful than the Nameless' spell - it pulverized the purple beam as if it were a mere tickling curse, and headed straight for its enemy...
The Nameless had no choice but to jump off the floating stone, which was blown to smithereens the next moment by Harry's spell. The wizard fell and disappeared from sight, the debris falling like rain into the depths below.
Taking advantage of the brief pause, Ginny turned to Harry, panting.
'Listen, Harry... We need to distract him. Throw something big at him, like Aberforth, and blow it up.'
Harry found several flaws in this at first, most notably that Aberforth had already failed, so what makes her think they will succeed?
'But Ginny...' he began, but she grabbed his arm and looked deep into his eyes.
'Trust me!' she said firmly. 'I have a plan!'
There was something in her eyes that made Harry believe her. He didn't know what, perhaps it was that he knew her better than anyone in the world and trusted her as much as he trusted himself. When he looked into her brown eyes, shining with determination and courage in spite of her fear, it made him want to pull her to him and kiss her, but he knew there was no time, no opportunity for such things...
The Nameless has already returned, floating on top of another piece of rubble, which looked like a broken column that once supported the main entrance to the northern prison. Harry had blasted the previous support from under his feet, but he still hadn't managed to wipe the confident smile from his face.
'You're getting better, Harry!' cried the Nameless. 'You're beginning to act as if you really want to accept my offer.'
Harry looked at Ginny again, but also kept his eyes on the floating wizard. She watched the swords emerging from the roof, then her eyes met Harry's. Harry nodded.
'All right,' he whispered to her. 'Let's try it!'
'Are you making plans or why would you whisper?' came the Nameless' voice. 'You should have done that before the duel! Too late now... Devastaro!'
At his last word, a bright ball shot out of the end of his wand, which Harry and Ginny just managed to dodge. The glowing bomb exploded, but it didn't tear another chunk out of the roof, it didn't shake the building, it just popped like a balloon, yet Harry knew that if he had been hit by the curse, he would have most certainly died.
Ginny's voice brought him back to his senses as she yelled:
'Harry! NOW!'
'Wingardium Leviosa!'Harry uttered the incantation, ignoring the non-verbal spell, and then spun his whole body around his shaft to give momentum to the levitating debris.
The stone flew towards the Nameless, and Harry took aim. In the meantime, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ginny casting a spell, but he didn't know what she was doing...
I don't need to know, Harry thought. Ginny knows, and that's all that matters, he'll trust her. That's what he loved about her so much: that he would have trusted her with his life, just like he trusted Ron or Hermione.
'Diffindo!' shouted Harry, aiming at the flying bomb-like stone.
'Are you trying the same thing again?' shouted the Nameless, and he waved his wand as well. Harry's curse hit its target, and the stone exploded before the Nameless; he, just like Aberforth's attack, dodged it, the stone fragments and glowing sparks flew away from him...
But what he could no longer see was Ginny throwing one of the sword blades at him, through the sea of dust in the shattered rubble. Harry watched, almost in slow motion, as the huge sword darted towards the Nameless' head, who hadn't had time to cast another protective spell with either of his wands.
The Nameless jerked his head to the side, but he wasn't fast enough - the sword cut his outstretched arm, and made a long cut across his face. The floating column tipped and the sorcerer lost his balance for a moment.
The sword flew on, then fell to the rubble of the collapsed building, and the Nameless dropped to his knees. His eyes sparked as he looked at his opponents, his hands clasped over his face, blood running in thin streaks from his fingers. For a long moment neither of them moved, just looked at each other, Harry and Ginny panting in exhaustion, Aberforth watching them from the background, speechless, from beneath the blade pointed at his heart.
'We've wounded him,' Ginny panted softly, so that only Harry could hear. But Harry had something else in mind.
'Rather, we made him angry.'
The Nameless straightened and removed his hand from his face. The cut was under his right eye, and a tiny triangle had been cut out of his earlobe, where the oozing blood soaked the neck and shoulders of his distinguished robe. The injury to his arm was not so severe, only the cloth was torn by the sharp metal.
He didn't say a word, he didn't threaten, he didn't vow that they would all be destroyed or that he couldn't be beaten - he started to work magic with his own wand. And from the tip of the wand, hot flames burst forth like a volcano, and surged endlessly down onto the half-broken roof of the prison, around Harry and his friends, who tried to run from it, but the fire enveloped them completely, cutting off all escape routes.
Aberforth tried to crawl out from under the sword to escape the fire, but he had difficulty moving on his own. Ginny and Harry ran to help him, and together they crawled to Hagrid's prone form to escape the Nameless' attack.
'Now we're finished!', Aberforth said, assessing their situation.
The firestorm surrounded them, a destructive ring, and Harry remembered an old image of Dumbledore standing in the middle of the little island, in Voldemort's cave, striking the mass of inferi with devastating force, and now the Nameless stood on the floating rock, waving his wand over his head like a lasso just like him...
The fire was swirling, whirling, like the icy windstorm of the dementors before, but it was scorching, burning Harry's face, and he didn't know how long he could hold out against it.
Then a sharp shriek brought the long-awaited rescue. Kinkaku, who had been watching the duel from on high, burst into the vortex of fire and swallowed the flames, saving them again, like Harry at St Mungo. The fire disappeared down her throat, almost roaring inwards, and soon all that was left were the smoking, glowing stones around Harry, Ginny, Aberforth and Hagrid.
The building shook again, harder than ever, and where it had split, more cracks ran across the roof, metre big chunks of it fell down, the wall crumbled, and Harry and Ginny lost their balance.
'I see the ground has slipped from under your feet,' they heard the Nameless's voice above their heads. 'Let's continue the duel therefore elsewhere.'
No sooner had he said this than the roof collapsed and Harry and his friends began to fall. But the fall lasted only moments, and Harry soon found himself floating weightlessly in the air, holding Ginny's hand. He looked up and spotted Kinkaku - the phoenix had caught Ginny's arm with its clawed foot, and she had used a lasso charm to stop the falling Hagrid and Aberforth. Once they were pulled up (Aberforth was holding Hagrid), they clung to each other, and Kinkaku lifted them up into the dark blue sky, where the pale moon was just rising.
'Yes, Kinkaku! You're amazing!' Ginny complimented the bird, who responded with a cheerful squawk.
The prison building was completely destroyed in the process, leaving nothing but a huge pile of rubble and a cloud of rising dust that made Harry and Ginny cough.
'Where has he gone?' Aberforth growled, meaning the Nameless.
They all turned their heads to the right and left, and finally Harry caught a glimpse of their opponent.
'There he is!' he poked his chin southwards.
The Nameless was indeed flying on top of the boulder, straight towards the tower in the middle of the city. The sight of the tall building suddenly gave Harry an idea, as he connected it with an earlier phrase from the Nameless: " Soon my plan will be fulfilled and your friends will be dead..."
'Let's go after him!'
'But Harry...' Ginny couldn't believe her ears.
'We've got to find your friends, kid!' shouted Aberforth at him. 'Not playing duels with a madman, have you forgotten about them?!'
'Ron and Hermione are in the tower!' Harry yelled back at them. 'They have to be there, we've searched every other place but the tower.'
'Because we can't even get in!' the old wizard replied. 'There are so many guards that in a moment...'
'Kinkaku's taking us in,' Ginny cut him off.
The bird immediately squawked and lifted them a little higher with a few flaps of its wings. Harry glanced down at Aberforth, who finally nodded in agreement and sighed heavily. They couldn't have hung out there all night...
'Let's go,' Ginny ordered the phoenix, and it obeyed immediately.
They were surrounded by flames, embracing, caressing, quite different from the destructive vortex of the Nameless. Harry could not see, only feel his companions and Kinkaku's protective magic as they travelled through the flames at indeterminate speeds...
The ball of fire dissipated, and they stood inside the tall tower block, the wide black staircase facing them, the massive door to the square behind them.
'All right, looks like we've beaten the bastard to it,' Aberforth growled, as he laid Hagrid down against the wall. 'Maybe we've bought ourselves a little time!'
They immediately noticed that the tower was practically empty, and that in itself was strange, considering it was the central building of Nurmengard and the Nameless' office. The front door was locked, and Harry didn't need to examine it to know that it had been heavily protected by charms - two gold chains hung crosswise from the two wings of the door, but they were as thick as ship's rope.
'I'm suspicious about all this...''Aberforth said, standing with his hands on his hips beside Hagrid. 'But perhaps we'll have the time to explore this place. If there are three of us...'
But Harry was quick to intervene.
'It'll just be the two of us,' he announced. 'Ginny! You've got to get the others. Get the DA, because we've got to get out of here whether we have Ron and Hermione or not. We can't stay here any longer.'
Saying it out loud was like an invisible hand squeezing his heart inside his body, but he couldn't help it. He knew full well that sooner or later his companions would fall victim to a prolonged prisoner release, and he couldn't do that - even if it was for Ron and Hermione. He knew his two friends would make the same decision, yet he secretly hoped Ginny would protest.
But she nodded, even though she did so hesitantly and shivering with fear, and whistled to the bird, who stopped feathering and landed on her arm, reluctantly.
'We'll get them together with Kinkaku,' she told Harry and Aberforth.
'Astoria and Malfoy?' Harry thought of two of their most problematic companions. 'And Neville and Luna? Where have you left them?'
'They're safe,' Ginny reassured him, 'Mum and Dad are looking after them now, they've treated Neville's injuries. I'll go to them first and get the team together. We'll meet you here!'
Harry sighed heavily and nodded.
'Okay... We'll look for Ron until then,' he said, sending a weak smile towards Ginny.
The look on her face made it clear that she had little confidence that they would ever be found, but she took a deep breath and, without a word, she and the phoenix disappeared in a fiery flash.
Harry turned to Aberforth, but the old man beat him to it:
'We leave Hagrid here while we search the place. He'll be all right.'
Harry didn't argue, they both started up the hill at a brisk pace. Without a word they agreed - Aberforth searched the first floor, Harry went on to the second, quietly climbing the steps. The duel with the Nameless still made his heart beat like a drumbeat, his arms and legs trembled with pain, and he panted like a bellowing beast, yet he remembered that he must proceed with great caution and deliberation, for the enemy might be lurking in any corner.
He remembered the first time he had been here, with Draco Malfoy and the Selwyn siblings, and they had escorted him to the top of the tower where the prison governor's office was. It was a huge building, much bigger inside than it appeared from the outside, yet Harry felt himself approaching his friends for some inexplicable reason.
The moment his head popped up from behind the stairs, his heart leapt. He caught a glimpse of Crookshanks in the unpeopled room with a cube-shaped room in the middle, with a single closed door, so different from the rest of Nurmengard.
Harry knew now that his destination was there, and this was only confirmed by Crookshanks, who was desperately sharpening his claws on the ivy-covered doorway. The animal had followed its master's scent all the way here, abandoning them in the prison building, and had run all the way across town.
'Crookshanks! Are they here?' Harry gasped as he ran up to him.
The cat meowed, scratched, rolled and crawled around in a complete frenzy, sometimes actually banging its flat head against the closed door. Harry had never seen the animal so mad when he led them to the prison cell. He knew that this time Crookshank's sniffer was not wrong, Ron and Hermione were in this strange room.
Finally! Maybe now he can end the search and free them...
He looked around once more, but saw no movement. Then he did notice something: at the other end of the empty floor, a shining glass sphere floated gently. Harry watched it for a while, amidst the increasingly impatient mewings of Crookshanks, but nothing happened, the glass orb remained motionless. At last, Crookshanks clawed his right ankle so hard that he felt like kicking the animal, but he knew the half-kneazle was right: it was time to free Ron and Hermione!
He pointed his wand confidently at the door and said the incantation:
'Alohomora!'
As he had thought, the amber door was guarded by a series of protective charms, but none of them gave the Wand of Destiny any trouble. The handle sparked, the ornate door leaf crackled and sizzled as if an invisible fire was raging inside, and then finally gave way.
The door opened and Harry saw a crowd of people in a beautifully decorated room. Baroque armchairs and sofas were arranged around an ivy-trimmed coffee table, the floor was parquet polished to a glossy sheen, and a luxuriously expensive Persian rug stretched across it, and along the ivory-panelled walls were showcases, also decorated with amber - but so unlike the furnishings, sickly-looking, emaciated people in rags and tattered robes huddled or paced restlessly across the room.
And Ron and Hermione were there among them, sitting in one corner behind an armchair, huddled together, making themselves as small as they could, seemingly trying to get as far away from the others as possible. They wore grey, striped prison garb, with bloody scars on their ankles and wrists - the marks of shackles.
When the door opened, they looked up and saw Harry. They stared at each other for what seemed like hours, neither of them able to say or do anything, just stared at each other, and Hermione's eyes welled up with tears.
Crookshanks slipped past Harry's feet and ran to his master. He immediately jumped up into her lap and purred, but Hermione just watched their saviour together with Ron.
'Ha... Harry?' the boy muttered hesitantly, as if he couldn't believe his eyes.
Harry didn't wait any longer, he ran up to them, dropped to his knees and hugged them. The three of them fell on each other's necks, and the joy of seeing each other again was like receiving back a severed part of Harry, or a lost, almost forgotten part of his being. They were together again, and there were no more traps, lies, and transformed Faceless - the reassuring purr of Crookshanks was proof to all three that they had finally found each other for real.
'You came back for us...' sniffled Hermione. 'You came back...'
'Of course I came back,' Harry muttered, but it was hard to get a sound out of his throat.
'Harry... Harry Potter...?' whispered a familiar voice.
Harry looked up from his friends' grip to see Ludo Bagman crawling towards them. The man was in a terrible state, looking far worse than Ron or Hermione, who had nothing but hunger and handcuff wounds; Mr Bagman's robes were in tatters, his body was covered in wounds and boils, his once shiny golden-blond hair was falling out in clumps – he offered a wretched sight.
'Yes,' Harry answered him too. 'It's me. I've come back for you...'
Hermione burst out sobbing again, holding him even tighter against her so that she almost hurt Harry's arm, but he didn't care. Let him feel the pain, let every bone in his body know for sure that he wasn't dreaming, this was real.
Ron had already let go of his friend, and now he tried a smile as he wiped his eyes, but he couldn't hide his emotion.
'Thank you... thank you...' said Bagman, and with overwhelming emotion he hugged Harry. Harry felt the man shiver.
The reappearance of his friends made him almost not hear the words of a man in tattered clothes who was pacing the room.
'You'd better run...'
Ron raised his head and looked at the stranger, and Harry did the same.
'What did you say?' Harry asked him. Hermione buried her face in his shoulder and cried.
The man opened his mouth to reply, but then suddenly he winced as if in immense pain.
'I said...' he groaned spitting saliva on the floor, and now Hermione had let go of Harry and was watching the scene. 'I said... RUN!'
The last word left his mouth as a mixture of human speech and animalistic growls, and after that only gurgling sounds came out of him, as if he were in the throes of a seizure. Along with him, almost everyone else in the room did the same, as Harry, Ron, Hermione and Bagman watched with growing terror.
'Hey... Hey, w-w-what's going on here?' Ron stammered, completely confused.
'They're werewolves!' Harry realised, and at the same time the alarm bell went off in his brain: they must get out of here now.
'Oh, no!'
Both Ron and Hermione had realised the situation and jumped up, but Bagman was still curled up on the ground, so Harry bent down to pull him up if he had to.
'Come, Mr Bagman, we must quickly...'
The next moment, a sharp, cutting pain slashed through Harry's arm.
'Ahhh...!' he cried out in agony, and Hermione screamed in horror at what she saw.
Mr Bagman clung with both hands to Harry's outstretched arm holding a wand and bit him with all his might. Blood gushed from under his teeth, splattering his once cheerful, sympathetic face, which was less and less human with every passing second. Ludo Bagman's head elongated, his eyes turned a golden yellow, thick, light fur covered his round face, and long, black claws stuck out from his chubby fingers.
'Dear Merlin!' roared Ron, and with force he kicked the werewolf-turned-Mr Bagman in the chest. The man stumbled up, but still held Harry's arm with his increasingly wolfish jaws, and as he fell, the stem of his robes slid up his leg; a new wound, a pus-filled bite mark, was visible on his calf, which the last time Harry had not seen on him...
'Harry!' screamed Hermione, who in turn grabbed his other arm to help her and pulled him towards her.
Harry finally got rid of Bagman himself: a well-directed curse knocked him down, sending the howling man flying across the room, dragging another man in the process of being transformed with him, and together they crashed into the largest ivy display case, which shattered under their weight.
'Harry, your arm!' sobbed Hermione. 'Oh, Harry...'
'We have to get out of here!' Ron yelled, and he too grabbed his wounded friend under the arm.
The three of them were clinging to each other as they dragged themselves out of the room, where everyone else had already been transformed, and four hungry monsters were already rushing towards them...
The moment they were out of the room, Ron slammed the door, which smashed the closest werewolf that came towards them in the face. The wolf whimpered and Harry pointed his wand at the door. He still had enough strength left in him to lock it up to prevent the beasts from breaking through, but then he fell to his knees. The wand twisted out of his fingers, and he clutched at his wounded arm with his uninjured hand as pain whipped through him like a whip.
There was a strange, vibrating buzz from the room, as if a portkey had been turned on... The werewolves fell silent for a moment, then all howled at once, and they began to growl and bark and yelp hungrier than before, and the strangest thing was that there were still human voices, frightened cries for help, filtering through the door.
But the three of them couldn't care less...
'Oh, Merlin, Harry!' he heard Hermione's desperate voice, and Ron's gasps.
The knowledge that they were there for him kept Harry from realising for a long time what had just happened to him. He could see and feel the bite mark, yet only slowly, gradually, did the significance of the consequences of the cursed fangs begin to seep into his mind.
His arm throbbed and ached, he could almost feel each drop of the strange poison separately as it poured out from the bite mark within his body; he could see the black streak rising in his veins, like a liquid glowing metal filling his body - burning and stinging at the same time, Harry could have cut his arm off if only it would have helped him...
The world spun around him, his eyes narrowed, and he would surely have fallen if Hermione and Ron hadn't caught him from both sides. She cried and shivered, Ron cursed incessantly and tried to squeeze Harry's arm to stop the curse or poison from spreading, but it was all useless.
'We must do something, we must suck out the poison!' Hermione shouted in a hysterical voice.
'Leave it, Hermione... it's no use,' Harry muttered dazedly, watching them with blurred vision.
'There's no cure for this,' Ron shook his head, helplessly watching the curse spread through his friend's body.
'We still have to try!' Hermione shouted, tears welling up in her eyes. 'Give me your wand, Harry, I'll try something...'
But Hermione's sentence was interrupted by a devastating crash as a sword, larger than ever, smashed into the wall of the building, piercing the tower like a hot knife through butter, just an arm's length away from the trio of Harry, Ron and Hermione, who were cowering on the ground.
Hermione screamed, Ron jumped on her to shield her with his body and Harry used his wand to push the sword away, but as soon as he reached out with his arm, a sharp pain shot through him where it had been bitten.
'What's happening?' Ron roared, his head red, hugging Hermione to him. Harry knew what was happening, but could only manage a short half-sentence:
'He's arrived...'
