NOTE: Thank you to such readers as dragonsprincess and CNJ, I have taken
your criticism into mind and changed the way that certain characters behave
- such as Cho. However, I needn't remind you that this is MY story and I am
the puppet master so the way that I bring characters across is totally up
to me.
On the other hand, I'm glad that the majority of you have presented
constructive criticism - 'tis well appreciated!
In addition to this, if any readers would like to discuss the story with me
on a more personal level, email me on: aliman99@hotmail.com Also, the next few chapters may take some time to write, as they need thinking through and time - this one took ages! *sigh* I feel a bit like JK herself!
Thanx, Alexei.
Lesser of Two Evils
As Harry entered the vortex, he kept a firm grip on the cobra, so as not to lose it in the time-space continuum. In the whirl of colour that followed him, Harry emerged in an enormous room with high stone walls, lined with stalagmites and stalactites and a large stone throne sat in a large carving of a jackal's mouth. There was no one else in the room with the group, however.
Crabbe turned to face the group, and said, "Well, it seems they must be hiding or they may have left, but before we abandon we should look around, and stay alert!"
"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Hermione yelled, making Antoine jump a foot in the air and everyone stare at her.
She looked back as if they were the crazy ones.
"Well Mad-Eye Moody used to say it to us, okay?" she said in a soft voice.
The group walked around the stone room, Harry keeping close to Cho.
"Harry what are you doing with that snake?" she asked, vexed, as Harry placed the King Cobra on the ground, telling it to follow him.
"Well I have a back up plan up my sleeve in case we do bump into Malfoy and his cronies," he said winking at her.
Suddenly there was a scream from the other side of the room, making everyone run towards the place where it was heard.
It was Martine; she had been stunned and was now lying on the ground, with her eyes widened in horror.
"There's someone else here," Amy said aloud, "Be on your guard everyone, this could be some kind of trick."
Antoine looked as if Christmas had been cancelled and it was made Friday the thirteenth everyday. Amy, on the other hand, reviving Martine, showed no signs whatsoever of giving up.
Everyone spread out again, when there was a shrill scream again, this time it was Hermione and she was still screaming from a far corner of the room.
Everyone ran to her and Dr Crabbe saw an old schoolmate of his with his arm wrapped tightly around Hermione Weasley's, with her wand in his other hand pointing directly at her neck.
"Well, well, well," Crabbe said in a calm tone, "It's been a long time, Gregory Goyle."
Goyle merely nodded and grunted.
"So I see Draco has got you to do his bidding for him now, has he?" Crabbe continued, calmly.
"You could have joined us, Crabbe. He's got Death Eaters all over the country to band together and bring back the Dark Lord," Goyle grunted.
The group looked at Crabbe, Martine was sitting on the ground, utterly bemused.
"Just because my parents were Death Eaters doesn't mean that I'm one."
"You don't know what you're missing, he'll take over soon, I tell ya. We'll be running the Ministry soon," Goyle carried on in a long croak.
Dr Crabbe sighed, "Let go of the girl, Gregory, you're cornered."
"I think not!" Goyle croaked, "Make one move and the girl gets the Cruciatus!"
Everyone paused, wide-eyed.
Then Crabbe did something out of the blue, he pointed his wand at Hermione and said, "No old friend, I'LL take care of her."
Goyle eyed him suspiciously but as Crabbe pointed his wand to Hermione, he quickly pointed it at Goyle and yelled, "Arretza Medusa!"
And in a flash of blinding blue light, Gregory Goyle was no more than a stone statue.
"What did you do to him?" Cho asked worriedly.
Dr Crabbe sighed, and helping Hermione to break free from the statue's grip replied, "It's an antediluvian curse coined by the Ancient Greeks - it hasn't been used for millennia but I came across it in an advanced Defence Against Dark Arts book last year and have perfected my technique."
Amy was staring at him as if he'd said something in Parseltongue.
"You DO know who used that curse before you, don't you, Vincent?" Amy asked him in a hushed tone.
"Yes, yes I do," he replied and continued, looking at the rest of the groups puzzled faces, "the dark wizard, Azazel used it on the people of Pompeii then blamed it on a nearby volcano - it is a very powerful curse which doesn't have a counter curse so far."
Hermione looked at him vexed, "Well it was nice of you to use the curse to save me but really - it WAS dangerous."
"Yes I'm sorry, Mrs Weasley," he replied, "Anyway, to the rest of you - we should press on and find where any other possible allies of Malfoy are."
Thus the group spread out again and moved about the room, now even more cautious and on tenterhooks because of their encounter with Goyle.
Hermione suddenly called out to the rest, "Where's Antoine?" the others made their way towards her, "she disappeared near this stone - in fact I could have sworn she became invisible right here."
She walked to the place where she had pointed and lo and behold - Hermione had disappeared too!
A light switch seemed to have been flicked on in Crabbe's head.
"Of course!" he said, happily, "this is the concealed room! That throne over there," he said pointing to the carved jackal's head, "could have someone sitting in it, and anyone on the other side of the room where we are couldn't see them!"
He turned to face the others, "We don't know what's on the other side, so remain on your guard - I see that Antoine and Hermione have not returned yet.."
Hence they all stepped into the room and what Harry saw made him be physically sick.
There was a pile of human carcasses in one corner, torn, twisted, bleeding and broken. Harry was even more repulsed when he saw that some of their limbs were still twitching and that there were weak moans coming from the pile.
On the other side of the room were a crowd of people, all wearing red wizard's robes and pointing every wand at Harry, Crabbe, Cho, Martine and Amy. Two of them had Hermione and Antoine in a headlock and had their wands pointing at their necks.
And sat on the jackal throne was, not Draco, as Harry would have thought but...
"Blaise Zabini!" Harry yelled.
"Yes," he replied in a deep hiss. He was wearing a long deep purple silk cloak and had a box-shaped hat on his head. His face was unusually charred and his eyes were deep black holes.
Harry couldn't believe it, and then spotted Malfoy standing next to Zabini, with a wide smirk across his face.
"Bet you thought I was behind all this, eh Potter?" he smirked at him evilly, "No, I'm just an ally in this - the real mastermind is my fellow Slytherin, Lord Zabini here."
"You're a Lord now?" Crabbe asked quizzically.
"Well what else would we call him?" one of the red robed witches answered in a long drawl, "It was he who created the Serpentine Myopia illness using Dark Magic of the highest calibre."
"You-you CREATED Serpentine Myopia!?" Dr Crabbe spluttered.
"But of course," Malfoy added, "Who else would be able to translate ancient Dark Magick books from Egypt, with dark spells used by Isis herself?"
"You used the spells of Isis?" Amy cried, utterly shocked, "Do you know how powerful that magic is? It's like the essence of Magical Darkness - there are some spells in there from the depths of Duat, and the valleys of Hell. It's just as bad as using the spells of Abaddon - you could break open the Gates of Hell!"
"That's the idea ...." Zabini growled, "I have undergone no less than three magical transformations. I visited the Lake of Fire itself to absorb its Darkness and evil. I have returned with utter spite in my heart."
Zabini rose up off his seat and hovered above them. He pointed his hand towards one of the red robed wizards.
He muttered something in another language, and the wizard cried out with a chilling scream. Harry watched in awe.
The red robed wizard was being burnt alive, his skin was peeling off and his skeleton was showing quickly. The person was burning away to his bones rapidly and innumerable daggers appeared from thin air and stabbed him in various parts of his incinerating body.
His cries reached the ceilings and echoed off the stone walls, hurting their eardrums.
However, this was not the end of his suffering - several whips lashed loudly against his horribly disfigured carcass. He was still alive because he was yelling in terrible pain and his cadaver was breaking into pieces now.
Cho ran out near the wizard and cried, "STOP IT! Leave him alone! NO ONE DESERVES THIS TORTURE!"
Zabini looked to her and smiled with his devilish grin. Harry was shocked to see a forked tongue poke out momentarily.
The man was still yelling, but Zabini clapped his hands together and the man returned to normal, as if he hadn't been tortured at all.
"You see, Potter," Zabini whispered to him, "True power is showing what you can do, and how far you can go, but also how you can stop it...." he clicked his fingers and the man who had been previously tortured fell to his knees and died, "...dead."
He was now right in front of Harry and was so close, their noses almost touched.
"I can do anything I want Potter," he said in a deadly whisper. Then he touched Harry's scar, making it bleed heavily. Harry fell to his knees but found that he couldn't make his arms rise to fight Zabini.
"You've been beaten Zabini," Harry muttered, "this illness - it's over...."
"Oh is it really, Potter?" Malfoy drawled from across the room, "What makes you so sure?"
"The Minister has secured off all the affected areas..." he stopped to mop up some blood that was running down his face, "....and pretty soon we'll end you as well."
Zabini slapped Harry across the face, making him fly across to the other side of the room where the invisible room was unable to be seen. Harry had stopped bleeding now, however and regained use of his limbs.
"You need to understand something, Potter," Zabini continued as Harry reappeared in the room, "I CANNOT be beaten! I could make everyone here have Serpentine Myopia and you'd eating your words to your sad grave!"
Harry looked at him through his long fringe - the blood that was running down his face before had now dried to form a scab. Cho was stood in the corner of the room with a red-robed wizard pointing a wand at her.
"But then, it would be no fun," Zabini hissed, "so what I did was, to make the illness have only two sufferers left..."
"Who?" piped up Hermione was who was still being held captive.
"Well it could have been you, you filthy little Mudblood, but I decided to give it to your friend Antoine here and.. Dr Crabbe!"
And in an instant, Dr Crabbe's eyes went milky white, as did Antoine's. Thin, worm-like shapes began wriggling under their skin and the two men's screams were incredible. They fell to the ground and thrashed around hysterically.
"You... you...scoundrel!" Amy yelled through the red robed wizard's arms that had her in a headlock.
Zabini looked at her and said in a deadly whisper, nearing her, "Oh look it's a half blood. Just common half-blood FILTH! Your kind are like... PARASITES! You take over and flood the country with tainted blooded wizards," he laughed a cold, menacing laugh, "but I, Blaise Zabini of Slytherin will put an end to all of this. I am going to open the Gates of Hell and using this," he brandished a long, thin sabre, "I will bring forth the Dark Thestrals from the Abyss to collect all the Muggle Born and Half Blood witches and wizards."
"That's..that's...." Amy stuttered, staring transfixed at the sabre in Zabini's hands.
"What's wrong? Owl got your tongue?" he laughed, "This is the Talvaar-e- Yawmiddeen!"
There were gasps from around the room, and Cho had fainted. Dr Crabbe had resorted to a torpor on the cold stone floor, twitching occasionally. Antoine was now talking to himself in Italian.
"Well call me soft, but I'm giving you a chance," Zabini said in a superior voice, jerking out of his dreamy stare at the sabre, "This illness will truly be over if you kill ONE of these two here," he pointed to Crabbe and Antoine who went back to rolling around on the floor in anguish.
"The surviving one will recover straightaway, as this illness only works when another person has it too."
Harry knew what he had to do, but it was so unfair. He made the decision to kill Antoine - the needs of the many were more important than one Auror. Antoine would die a hero's death.
He pointed his wand to Antoine and yelled, "AVADA KEDAVRA!" making him fly 7 feet up and his body broke into pieces. Someone else had performed the same curse simultaneously - and Harry could see that it was...
"Draco Malfoy, what in the blazes do you think you're doing?" one of the red robed wizards growled maliciously.
However, Malfoy did not answer, instead he pointed his wand towards his neck and performed the killing curse upon himself.
Malfoy's body fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.
"Well, well, well," Zabini said hovering over to where Malfoy's carcass lay, "a traitor...how very interesting. It seems Draco really WAS just a sheep."
Dr Crabbe got up the stone floor, brushing himself off and looking around, counfounded, "Where am I?"
"Dr Crabbe!" Harry cried, "You're...you're okay!"
"Well of course I am Potter! Why wouldn't I be? Now tell me why am I not in my restaurant in Paris?"
Hermione looked at him uneasily.
Zabini flew over to Crabbe, and clicking his fingers together, tied Harry in up in chains that appeared out of nowhere.
He looked to Crabbe and smiled a menacing smile.
Crabbe smiled back, "Hello. Can YOU tell me why I'm here? My niece, Artemis, I left her in charge of my greengrocery stall. I can't keep it that way, she can be terribly absent-min..."
Dr Crabbe stopped talking abruptly because after a sharp stare from Lord Zabini, he was no more than a pile of ashes.
And then Harry felt it - a deep fury rising up in his body like molten magma. He looked to his left and roared, "ANGUIS ADEO!"
In an instant, thousands of snakes appeared from the chamber, some looked as if they had been hiding there all the time; some burst through the stalagmites and stalactites, others breaking through the stone floor which was now full of holes from which all kinds of snakes had come through.
There were so many different kinds as well - vipers, cobras, mambas, boas, pythons, garter snakes, rat snakes, rattlesnakes, adders, asps and even anacondas all lined up to fight.
As Harry's rage rose, the chains broke from his body and he himself hovered a few inches off the ground as Zabini did.
This was not wand magic, this was natural magic, fuelled by his fury, Harry commanded the snakes to charge forward and attack the red robed wizards. He had Transfigured Hermione, Cho, Martine and Amy into stone statues so that the snakes would not harm them.
It was pandemonium - there were screams echoing off every wall in the cave and snakes were snapping, climbing, slithering and hissing everywhere in the room.
The snakes seemed to be avoiding Zabini, however.
Noticing this, he began to laugh, a cold cruel laugh that became louder in a crescendo that shook the walls of the tunnels.
Harry's rage was not quashed by this drawback and he flew ten feet into the air and yelled in a booming, unnatural voice, "EXPERGO KRAKEN!" He brought his fists up and, as if struggling to raise them, they shook in effort. He gazed at the ground before him.
There was a distant rumbling and for the first time, Zabini looked terrified. This was not like the Dark Magick he used - this was the essence of Magick.
From the spot Harry had been staring at came a sudden explosion, as the ground broke, followed by a colossal creature that seemed to be making its way to the surface.
When it was fully out, Zabini stared, horrified. Harry had evoked the mythical Kraken, a Sea Serpent of immense magnitude, taking up all the space in the tunnel, with just the top part of its body.
Harry looked at it, with utter malice in his eyes and began spitting and hissing angrily at the Kraken in Parseltongue to attack Zabini.
In an instant, the Kraken roared with such intensity that the walls began crumbling, and the tunnels shook momentarily with a small tremor.
It ran with its vast jaws wide open at Zabini. But Zabini was more than a match for the creature and evaded its attacks with skill.
Harry continued to hiss instructions to the Kraken, which showed no signs of fatigue.
After what seemed like hours, Harry began to feel weaker. Zabini wasn't bluffing - he really was a great Dark Wizard.
Harry slowly descended to the ground and fell onto the hard, cold ground in a dead faint...
on a more personal level, email me on: aliman99@hotmail.com Also, the next few chapters may take some time to write, as they need thinking through and time - this one took ages! *sigh* I feel a bit like JK herself!
Thanx, Alexei.
Lesser of Two Evils
As Harry entered the vortex, he kept a firm grip on the cobra, so as not to lose it in the time-space continuum. In the whirl of colour that followed him, Harry emerged in an enormous room with high stone walls, lined with stalagmites and stalactites and a large stone throne sat in a large carving of a jackal's mouth. There was no one else in the room with the group, however.
Crabbe turned to face the group, and said, "Well, it seems they must be hiding or they may have left, but before we abandon we should look around, and stay alert!"
"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Hermione yelled, making Antoine jump a foot in the air and everyone stare at her.
She looked back as if they were the crazy ones.
"Well Mad-Eye Moody used to say it to us, okay?" she said in a soft voice.
The group walked around the stone room, Harry keeping close to Cho.
"Harry what are you doing with that snake?" she asked, vexed, as Harry placed the King Cobra on the ground, telling it to follow him.
"Well I have a back up plan up my sleeve in case we do bump into Malfoy and his cronies," he said winking at her.
Suddenly there was a scream from the other side of the room, making everyone run towards the place where it was heard.
It was Martine; she had been stunned and was now lying on the ground, with her eyes widened in horror.
"There's someone else here," Amy said aloud, "Be on your guard everyone, this could be some kind of trick."
Antoine looked as if Christmas had been cancelled and it was made Friday the thirteenth everyday. Amy, on the other hand, reviving Martine, showed no signs whatsoever of giving up.
Everyone spread out again, when there was a shrill scream again, this time it was Hermione and she was still screaming from a far corner of the room.
Everyone ran to her and Dr Crabbe saw an old schoolmate of his with his arm wrapped tightly around Hermione Weasley's, with her wand in his other hand pointing directly at her neck.
"Well, well, well," Crabbe said in a calm tone, "It's been a long time, Gregory Goyle."
Goyle merely nodded and grunted.
"So I see Draco has got you to do his bidding for him now, has he?" Crabbe continued, calmly.
"You could have joined us, Crabbe. He's got Death Eaters all over the country to band together and bring back the Dark Lord," Goyle grunted.
The group looked at Crabbe, Martine was sitting on the ground, utterly bemused.
"Just because my parents were Death Eaters doesn't mean that I'm one."
"You don't know what you're missing, he'll take over soon, I tell ya. We'll be running the Ministry soon," Goyle carried on in a long croak.
Dr Crabbe sighed, "Let go of the girl, Gregory, you're cornered."
"I think not!" Goyle croaked, "Make one move and the girl gets the Cruciatus!"
Everyone paused, wide-eyed.
Then Crabbe did something out of the blue, he pointed his wand at Hermione and said, "No old friend, I'LL take care of her."
Goyle eyed him suspiciously but as Crabbe pointed his wand to Hermione, he quickly pointed it at Goyle and yelled, "Arretza Medusa!"
And in a flash of blinding blue light, Gregory Goyle was no more than a stone statue.
"What did you do to him?" Cho asked worriedly.
Dr Crabbe sighed, and helping Hermione to break free from the statue's grip replied, "It's an antediluvian curse coined by the Ancient Greeks - it hasn't been used for millennia but I came across it in an advanced Defence Against Dark Arts book last year and have perfected my technique."
Amy was staring at him as if he'd said something in Parseltongue.
"You DO know who used that curse before you, don't you, Vincent?" Amy asked him in a hushed tone.
"Yes, yes I do," he replied and continued, looking at the rest of the groups puzzled faces, "the dark wizard, Azazel used it on the people of Pompeii then blamed it on a nearby volcano - it is a very powerful curse which doesn't have a counter curse so far."
Hermione looked at him vexed, "Well it was nice of you to use the curse to save me but really - it WAS dangerous."
"Yes I'm sorry, Mrs Weasley," he replied, "Anyway, to the rest of you - we should press on and find where any other possible allies of Malfoy are."
Thus the group spread out again and moved about the room, now even more cautious and on tenterhooks because of their encounter with Goyle.
Hermione suddenly called out to the rest, "Where's Antoine?" the others made their way towards her, "she disappeared near this stone - in fact I could have sworn she became invisible right here."
She walked to the place where she had pointed and lo and behold - Hermione had disappeared too!
A light switch seemed to have been flicked on in Crabbe's head.
"Of course!" he said, happily, "this is the concealed room! That throne over there," he said pointing to the carved jackal's head, "could have someone sitting in it, and anyone on the other side of the room where we are couldn't see them!"
He turned to face the others, "We don't know what's on the other side, so remain on your guard - I see that Antoine and Hermione have not returned yet.."
Hence they all stepped into the room and what Harry saw made him be physically sick.
There was a pile of human carcasses in one corner, torn, twisted, bleeding and broken. Harry was even more repulsed when he saw that some of their limbs were still twitching and that there were weak moans coming from the pile.
On the other side of the room were a crowd of people, all wearing red wizard's robes and pointing every wand at Harry, Crabbe, Cho, Martine and Amy. Two of them had Hermione and Antoine in a headlock and had their wands pointing at their necks.
And sat on the jackal throne was, not Draco, as Harry would have thought but...
"Blaise Zabini!" Harry yelled.
"Yes," he replied in a deep hiss. He was wearing a long deep purple silk cloak and had a box-shaped hat on his head. His face was unusually charred and his eyes were deep black holes.
Harry couldn't believe it, and then spotted Malfoy standing next to Zabini, with a wide smirk across his face.
"Bet you thought I was behind all this, eh Potter?" he smirked at him evilly, "No, I'm just an ally in this - the real mastermind is my fellow Slytherin, Lord Zabini here."
"You're a Lord now?" Crabbe asked quizzically.
"Well what else would we call him?" one of the red robed witches answered in a long drawl, "It was he who created the Serpentine Myopia illness using Dark Magic of the highest calibre."
"You-you CREATED Serpentine Myopia!?" Dr Crabbe spluttered.
"But of course," Malfoy added, "Who else would be able to translate ancient Dark Magick books from Egypt, with dark spells used by Isis herself?"
"You used the spells of Isis?" Amy cried, utterly shocked, "Do you know how powerful that magic is? It's like the essence of Magical Darkness - there are some spells in there from the depths of Duat, and the valleys of Hell. It's just as bad as using the spells of Abaddon - you could break open the Gates of Hell!"
"That's the idea ...." Zabini growled, "I have undergone no less than three magical transformations. I visited the Lake of Fire itself to absorb its Darkness and evil. I have returned with utter spite in my heart."
Zabini rose up off his seat and hovered above them. He pointed his hand towards one of the red robed wizards.
He muttered something in another language, and the wizard cried out with a chilling scream. Harry watched in awe.
The red robed wizard was being burnt alive, his skin was peeling off and his skeleton was showing quickly. The person was burning away to his bones rapidly and innumerable daggers appeared from thin air and stabbed him in various parts of his incinerating body.
His cries reached the ceilings and echoed off the stone walls, hurting their eardrums.
However, this was not the end of his suffering - several whips lashed loudly against his horribly disfigured carcass. He was still alive because he was yelling in terrible pain and his cadaver was breaking into pieces now.
Cho ran out near the wizard and cried, "STOP IT! Leave him alone! NO ONE DESERVES THIS TORTURE!"
Zabini looked to her and smiled with his devilish grin. Harry was shocked to see a forked tongue poke out momentarily.
The man was still yelling, but Zabini clapped his hands together and the man returned to normal, as if he hadn't been tortured at all.
"You see, Potter," Zabini whispered to him, "True power is showing what you can do, and how far you can go, but also how you can stop it...." he clicked his fingers and the man who had been previously tortured fell to his knees and died, "...dead."
He was now right in front of Harry and was so close, their noses almost touched.
"I can do anything I want Potter," he said in a deadly whisper. Then he touched Harry's scar, making it bleed heavily. Harry fell to his knees but found that he couldn't make his arms rise to fight Zabini.
"You've been beaten Zabini," Harry muttered, "this illness - it's over...."
"Oh is it really, Potter?" Malfoy drawled from across the room, "What makes you so sure?"
"The Minister has secured off all the affected areas..." he stopped to mop up some blood that was running down his face, "....and pretty soon we'll end you as well."
Zabini slapped Harry across the face, making him fly across to the other side of the room where the invisible room was unable to be seen. Harry had stopped bleeding now, however and regained use of his limbs.
"You need to understand something, Potter," Zabini continued as Harry reappeared in the room, "I CANNOT be beaten! I could make everyone here have Serpentine Myopia and you'd eating your words to your sad grave!"
Harry looked at him through his long fringe - the blood that was running down his face before had now dried to form a scab. Cho was stood in the corner of the room with a red-robed wizard pointing a wand at her.
"But then, it would be no fun," Zabini hissed, "so what I did was, to make the illness have only two sufferers left..."
"Who?" piped up Hermione was who was still being held captive.
"Well it could have been you, you filthy little Mudblood, but I decided to give it to your friend Antoine here and.. Dr Crabbe!"
And in an instant, Dr Crabbe's eyes went milky white, as did Antoine's. Thin, worm-like shapes began wriggling under their skin and the two men's screams were incredible. They fell to the ground and thrashed around hysterically.
"You... you...scoundrel!" Amy yelled through the red robed wizard's arms that had her in a headlock.
Zabini looked at her and said in a deadly whisper, nearing her, "Oh look it's a half blood. Just common half-blood FILTH! Your kind are like... PARASITES! You take over and flood the country with tainted blooded wizards," he laughed a cold, menacing laugh, "but I, Blaise Zabini of Slytherin will put an end to all of this. I am going to open the Gates of Hell and using this," he brandished a long, thin sabre, "I will bring forth the Dark Thestrals from the Abyss to collect all the Muggle Born and Half Blood witches and wizards."
"That's..that's...." Amy stuttered, staring transfixed at the sabre in Zabini's hands.
"What's wrong? Owl got your tongue?" he laughed, "This is the Talvaar-e- Yawmiddeen!"
There were gasps from around the room, and Cho had fainted. Dr Crabbe had resorted to a torpor on the cold stone floor, twitching occasionally. Antoine was now talking to himself in Italian.
"Well call me soft, but I'm giving you a chance," Zabini said in a superior voice, jerking out of his dreamy stare at the sabre, "This illness will truly be over if you kill ONE of these two here," he pointed to Crabbe and Antoine who went back to rolling around on the floor in anguish.
"The surviving one will recover straightaway, as this illness only works when another person has it too."
Harry knew what he had to do, but it was so unfair. He made the decision to kill Antoine - the needs of the many were more important than one Auror. Antoine would die a hero's death.
He pointed his wand to Antoine and yelled, "AVADA KEDAVRA!" making him fly 7 feet up and his body broke into pieces. Someone else had performed the same curse simultaneously - and Harry could see that it was...
"Draco Malfoy, what in the blazes do you think you're doing?" one of the red robed wizards growled maliciously.
However, Malfoy did not answer, instead he pointed his wand towards his neck and performed the killing curse upon himself.
Malfoy's body fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.
"Well, well, well," Zabini said hovering over to where Malfoy's carcass lay, "a traitor...how very interesting. It seems Draco really WAS just a sheep."
Dr Crabbe got up the stone floor, brushing himself off and looking around, counfounded, "Where am I?"
"Dr Crabbe!" Harry cried, "You're...you're okay!"
"Well of course I am Potter! Why wouldn't I be? Now tell me why am I not in my restaurant in Paris?"
Hermione looked at him uneasily.
Zabini flew over to Crabbe, and clicking his fingers together, tied Harry in up in chains that appeared out of nowhere.
He looked to Crabbe and smiled a menacing smile.
Crabbe smiled back, "Hello. Can YOU tell me why I'm here? My niece, Artemis, I left her in charge of my greengrocery stall. I can't keep it that way, she can be terribly absent-min..."
Dr Crabbe stopped talking abruptly because after a sharp stare from Lord Zabini, he was no more than a pile of ashes.
And then Harry felt it - a deep fury rising up in his body like molten magma. He looked to his left and roared, "ANGUIS ADEO!"
In an instant, thousands of snakes appeared from the chamber, some looked as if they had been hiding there all the time; some burst through the stalagmites and stalactites, others breaking through the stone floor which was now full of holes from which all kinds of snakes had come through.
There were so many different kinds as well - vipers, cobras, mambas, boas, pythons, garter snakes, rat snakes, rattlesnakes, adders, asps and even anacondas all lined up to fight.
As Harry's rage rose, the chains broke from his body and he himself hovered a few inches off the ground as Zabini did.
This was not wand magic, this was natural magic, fuelled by his fury, Harry commanded the snakes to charge forward and attack the red robed wizards. He had Transfigured Hermione, Cho, Martine and Amy into stone statues so that the snakes would not harm them.
It was pandemonium - there were screams echoing off every wall in the cave and snakes were snapping, climbing, slithering and hissing everywhere in the room.
The snakes seemed to be avoiding Zabini, however.
Noticing this, he began to laugh, a cold cruel laugh that became louder in a crescendo that shook the walls of the tunnels.
Harry's rage was not quashed by this drawback and he flew ten feet into the air and yelled in a booming, unnatural voice, "EXPERGO KRAKEN!" He brought his fists up and, as if struggling to raise them, they shook in effort. He gazed at the ground before him.
There was a distant rumbling and for the first time, Zabini looked terrified. This was not like the Dark Magick he used - this was the essence of Magick.
From the spot Harry had been staring at came a sudden explosion, as the ground broke, followed by a colossal creature that seemed to be making its way to the surface.
When it was fully out, Zabini stared, horrified. Harry had evoked the mythical Kraken, a Sea Serpent of immense magnitude, taking up all the space in the tunnel, with just the top part of its body.
Harry looked at it, with utter malice in his eyes and began spitting and hissing angrily at the Kraken in Parseltongue to attack Zabini.
In an instant, the Kraken roared with such intensity that the walls began crumbling, and the tunnels shook momentarily with a small tremor.
It ran with its vast jaws wide open at Zabini. But Zabini was more than a match for the creature and evaded its attacks with skill.
Harry continued to hiss instructions to the Kraken, which showed no signs of fatigue.
After what seemed like hours, Harry began to feel weaker. Zabini wasn't bluffing - he really was a great Dark Wizard.
Harry slowly descended to the ground and fell onto the hard, cold ground in a dead faint...