Episode One Hundred and Seventeen

"Obviously you are my grandfather, something I had before now had the opportunity to ignore." Gwen continued, staring down the Dark Lord. "But I am of your flesh and blood and I am resigned to that. This sort of explains why Harry Potter, and not you terrified me. Dumbledore shouldn't be the wizard you fear. It should be Harry and I think part of you realized that and by some connective power of our shared blood I felt it."

What was left of Voldemort's lips curled into a smile. "I see she has grown smarter."

Neville shivered slightly at the sound of that cold voice. Harry stood rigidly in place. Gwen laughed. "Yes well, your power is in some strange way connected to mine. But I will not be your puppet. Not like him." She said pointing her wand in the direction of Jeremiah, who had joined the Order members standing in a throng outside of the bubble. She didn't note his exact entrance, but she had become aware of his presence earlier and decided now would be the time to point it out.

Voledmort simply shrugged. His son was of little or no consequence now. His granddaughter was his main concern. She was wearing her welcome thin. "Is there a point to this?"

"I might ask you the same thing."

"Power, my girl. Power is all there is."

"I'd like to think differently." She said. "I'd like to think there are still such things as love and art, knowledge. Things that are better to pursue than world domination."

"Then you are far less my granddaughter than I was beginning to believe."

"I could have told you that." Harry spat. "She's ten times your better."

Voldemort threw a surge of pain to him from the tip of his wand and Harry fell in agony once again. Neville rushed to his side and found himself captured in the Cruciatus curse as well. Gwen waved her wand and took the pain away, staring down her grandfather and not bothering to glance at the people she had just saved from pain's grip. She couldn't bear to look at them just yet.

Voldemort smiled savagely. "It matters little how you try to save them. They will die."

"Yes." She agreed quietly. "Someday. This is not that day."

Voldemort's smile was wiped from his snakish face and he pointed his wand instead at his granddaughter's chest. Her scar burned furiously, but the pain hardly bothered her because she was becoming strongly aware of another feeling. Her wand arm was levitating against her will and her wand was pointing at Harry. She was aiming at his heart and her mouth was working, though no words would come out.

Gwen struggled to fight him off. "I will not let you use me." Her wand swayed and pointed this time towards Neville. The struggle was intense and the wand shook in her clenched fist. Her arm continued to sway back and forth. She growled. "I am stronger than that and I am stronger than you." She threw her head back, her shoulders erect. Her wand had snapped away from the two young men and was now pointed directly at the Dark Lord. She looked him finally in the eye. What power he had over her was gone now and Gwen was truly at her most terrifying.

Her usually light brown eyes were blazing red around the pupil, the orange that normally existed there had swollen making her eyes appear to be dancing with flames, her entire face was a mask of strength and power unchecked. She said three words repetitiously while standing upright and facing the most evil thing alive: rehohur honugic rehohur dinthoqaf.

Voldemort began to wither and the last of his strength and power had been sapped away. Harry recognized the words in Ouranian and was truly surprised that Gwen would use them for this purpose. But instead of stopping her, he joined her, adding his voice to her chant.

Neville bowed his head solemnly and joined them, his voice quaking from time to time, but repeating the words in an unbroken chain. They pointed their wands at his chest and chanted spellbound as he withered into an empty snakeskin shell.