Chapter Twenty-five: Break Down the Door

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I don't own the lyric from
"Sound the bugle" that I slipped in here, and I don't own the Cowboy
Bebop song "Gotta Knock a little Harder" from the movie. So there!!!
Yet again THIS IS NOT THE END!!! I'LL TELL YOU WHEN THE END HAS BEEN
REACED!!! Thank you.

Talon stood beside her father's desk in his office. She had heard something, but the door had been locked. When she tried it a few minutes ago, she had found the door open and signs of a fight evidenced about the office. She now stood beside her father's desk, a piece of paper in her hand, trembling. The note was from her father and read, "Be the shining star that I know you can be for good or evil. I will not see you again in this world, but I know you are my daughter." Talon felt her throat constrict. Sirius had gone to tell Dumbledore what had happened, and walked in to find the girl still standing where he had left her with the note in hand. "Talon?" he asked concern masking his fear over what she might do. "Happiness is just a word to me, and it might have meant a thing or two, if I'd known the difference. Emptiness, a lonely parody, and my life, another smoking gun. a sign of my indifference." Her voice was soft and filled with malice. She lifted her eyes to see a white squirrel standing outside gazing up at the moon. She climbed out the window. "You squirrel!" She cried. Blacktooth whirled around and chattered his teeth at the girl. "Do you know those who took Severus Snape this night?" "Why of course I do. Bellatrix LeStrange the escaped Deatheater did and none other." "You're one of the Remwefavson tribe, aren't you?" "Chief Starbuck Blacktooth at your service." He bowed. "You serve the Dark Lady Doyle, the student Rekka Doyle?" Starbuck nodded wondering where this might lead. "Kill her, serve me, and I will grant you and your tribe whatever you seek." "What is your name?" Blacktooth clattered his black teeth in pleasure at the prospect. "Andrea Talon Snape-Black." She said proudly, taking Sirius by surprise with her pronouncement of his own name in combination with hers. "Well then, Mrs. Snape-Black. You do away with the Deatheaters of Voldemort and I'll do away with Doyle."

"Always keeping safe inside, where no one ever had a chance to penetrate a break in. Let me tell you some have tried, but I would slam the door so tight. that they could never get in." Talon watched Blacktooth disappear into a dark window and heard screams from within. Then she cast a spell to take herself to her father; Sirius came with her still unsure what was happening. "What do you plan, Talon? To simply avenge your father or take his ex-master's place on the throne of Darkness?" "Both," Came the cold reply. Severus lay dead upon the floor before a nameless, faceless Deatheater when the two arrived. Bellatrix was standing on a raised stair laughing cruelly. "Kept my cool under lock and key and I never shed a tear. Another sign of my condition." Talon whispered, then she stood and screamed. "Fear of love or bitter vanity that kept me on the run. the main events at my confession, but no longer. I kept a chain upon my door that would shake the shame of Cain into a blind submission. The burning ghost without a name was calling all the same, but I wouldn't listen." She raised her wand and pointed it at the Deatheater's heart. Her father's killer dropped dead without so much as a sound echoing from his lips. "The longer I'd stall," Another Deatheater fell to Talon's wand. "The further I'd crawl." And another fell. "The further I'd crawl," and another, "The harder I'd fall." And another fell. "I was crawling into the fire." And another fell. "The more that I saw," another, "The further I'd fall," another, "The further I'd fall," another, "The lower I'd crawl," another, "I kept falling into the fire," another, "Into the fire," another, "Into the fire," and another Deatheater fell to her deadly spell of tragedy woven hatred.

Tears welled up in Talon's eyes as she pointed her wand at the last remaining Deatheater, Bellatrix LeStrange. "Suddenly it occurred to me. the reason for the run and hide had totaled my existence. Everything left on the other side could never be much worse than this, but could I go the distance? My father was my key you bitch, and now he's dead. Because of him I faced the door and all my shame, tearing off each piece of chain until they all were broken. But now no matter how I try, the other side is licked so tight that door. it won't open. I gave it all that I got, for my father and for his lover Remus and for my lover Sirius and I stared to knock. I shouted for someone to open the lock. I just got to get through the door." Talon seemed over-taken by the same monotonous calm that had grasped her father when he was bound for his death. "And the more I knocked," A jolt of the Cruciatus Curse shot from Talon's wand licking across Bellatrix's back. "And the more I knocked, the hotter I got." The jolt was followed by another and another as the curse submerged the Deatheater's body in crashing tidal waves of pain. "The hotter I got, the harder I'd knock. I just got to break through the door." Bellatrix was washed in a sea of agony. "Got to knock a little harder. Got to knock a little harder. Got to knock a little harder; break through the door. Avada Kedavra." Bellatrix fell dead without a sound. The last of Lord Voldemort's true Deatheaters was dead.

Sirius looked at Talon. "You've learned well, but what do you plan to do now that you've killed them all?" Talon didn't seem to hear. She was looking at her father's dead body. "I'm a soldier now, fighting in a battle to be free once more. And that's worth fighting for! That's worth fighting for." She fell silent after unwittingly repeating the words that had condemned Severus to death. "I will become the new Dark Lady, and build a new army in their place. Stay with me Sirius. Please?" Sirius wrapped his arms around Talon. "Always." He promised. Thus The new Dark Lord got her first follower.