Chapter Twenty Seven
Harry crouched in front of the school, his eyes on the sky, waiting for the signal that only his eyes would pick up. It wasn't long in the coming – he caught sight of an object hurtling through the sky.
It wasn't actually an 'object' but rather a spell that was trained to Harry's eyes. He stood up and signalled with a spell to the 'troops' hidden around Hogwarts – the enemy was coming.
He was nervous – there was a lot resting on his shoulders today, and frankly, he wasn't sure if he could do it.
He glanced around, sharp eyes noting everything. All was in readiness, and the Death Eaters still thought that the school would be at the Quidditch Pitch watching the game.
To that effect Harry and the teachers had worked to create a huge illusion that made it seem like there were people there, and a came going on.
There were several 'teams' hidden among the crowds, invisible, to deal with the Death Eaters who came there, Harry was fairly sure that Voldemort wouldn't go there himself – if he tried, Harry would be there to distract him.
'Elisa? You ready?' Harry asked her, not turning his head to look at the girl behind him.
'No. I'll never be ready for something like this,' Elisa responded darkly. 'Could anyone be?'
'A Seeker could,' Harry responded dryly.
'Seekers are not included in this discussion,' Elisa informed him waspishly. 'Seekers are not included in the general term 'anyone' because Seekers are not normal!'
'Who'd want to be normal?' Harry demanded, his mind skipping back in time to his 'normal' relatives.
He sensed his sister rolling her eyes as he returned his attention to the upcoming fight. In his pockets were weightless Elemental Stones, ready for his need.
Suddenly he saw them, and his breath caught, for there hundreds upon hundreds of people – Death Eaters, Dementors, and any other creature mad enough to join with Voldemort.
'Shit there's a lot of them,' Elisa remarked darkly.
'There's a lot of us,' Harry reminded her calmly watching as the force split. As Harry had suspected, Voldemort headed the party that went into the Castle to make sure that there was no one around.
Harry had made sure that all of the passwords in the common rooms had changed just that morning, and had all of the second and third years concealed in their respective rooms, they would come out when Harry had the invaders outside again.
Harry glanced over to the Quidditch Pitch – probably about time to make an appearance of sorts.
Pointing his hand in the direction of the Pitch, he called a Patronus to appear in the stadium – it was slightly more difficult this way, but there was no way that he could risk Voldemort seeing the Patronus come from anywhere else.
The huge stag appeared in the field almost immediately, scaring away the Dementors, and Harry watched with a faint smile as a few of his 'teams' appeared, falling on the Death Eaters and stunning them all.
He knew that Voldemort would be watching, and, having seen this happen, would send more Death Eaters out there before anyone could get back to the castle.
Sure enough, another set of Dementors and Death Eaters came out of the castle a minute later, and Harry's Patronus charged them almost before they could get out the door.
The Dementors fled, and Harry could actually hear Voldemort cursing as he ordered more Death Eaters outside and down to the pitch.
Harry smirked – twenty Death Eaters would be no match for the teams down on the Pitch, they would be defeated just as the last lot had been.
'Time to go inside, Eli,' Harry told her, standing up and stretching, taking advantage of the invisibility charm he'd cast on them.
'Right, following the fun?' Elisa remarked with dark humour. Harry laughed in silently and hurried up the stairs, slipping inside just before the doors managed to get closed by the Death Eaters.
Harry and Elisa hurried into the Great Hall and slipped into one corner where they wouldn't be in the way of anything. A team of Death Eaters entered the room a short time later.
"Where are the prisoners? Surely not everyone can be out at the game, some of them must be in the Library or the Common Rooms?" Voldemort said, snake like eyes watching his followers coldly.
"M-my lord," one of them stuttered, "the doors to the library were locked, and no magic would let us past them," Harry had done that so that none of the books would be harmed, as Hogwarts had a very extensive collection, and it would he hard, even impossible, to replace some of them.
"And the Common Rooms?" Voldemort's voice was deceptively calm.
Shivering with fear, the Death Eater answered, "none of the passwords that you gave us worked, master."
"I see. And why not? You did not say them correctly. You will go down to the pitch now and see what's happening to my Death Eaters down there, if you let yourself get caught-" he let the threat hang.
The Death Eater bowed, though Harry knew that the man would never succeed in his mission, the defenders were too well equipped.
Looking over the forces, Harry saw far too many people in Seeker robes, about fifty, and that was bad, as there were only twelve on the Hogwarts side, plus a lot of people in training.
It took a while for Voldemort to realise that it just wasn't working, sending people one after the other to be attacked by the people on the pitch.
It took even longer for him to realise that something was wrong – why weren't people coming to see where all of the other Death Eaters were.
It was then that everything seemed to add up in the Dark Lords mind, and just as he was about to snarl at one of the Death Eaters for not realising that it was a trap, the fun started.
Suddenly all of the Death Eaters were transformed into the headless chickens 'headless chickens, Harry?' Elisa asked him.
Harry glanced innocently at her. 'That's how they generally seem to act,' he replied.
Their chairs became platters of baked vegetables and Voldemort's robes became … you guess it … PINK! He was also now wearing a pink witches hat with a vulture on top (an: don't you just LOVE that scene in PoA?).
'What happens now?' Elisa asked.
'All of the little headless chickens – or Death Eaters, whatever – are going outside, it's part of the spell, our nice pink witch – or Voldemort – follows them in fury. The prank reverses in five minutes time once they are all really furious and the battle begins,' Harry replied, as though it were obvious. 'Come on, let's go outside!'
Shaking her head at the insanity of her brother, Elisa followed him outside, where chaos was currently unfolding.
'Harry, is this supposed to happen?' Elisa asked.
'Sure it is,' Harry replied with a grin. 'I'll just lock the doors now, there aren't any Death Eaters still in there, so I can call out the younger students to guard the windows and stuff, and the real fighting can start.'
Elisa sighed almost soundlessly as the doors slammed loudly shut and Harry's magic bound it that way, at the same time the Death Eaters were once more human.
Harry quickly activated a magical message that had been specially set to be triggered by the ending of this first 'prank' spell, which appeared in all of the common rooms to let the students know it was safe.
Voldemort was shrieking in fury – Harry hadn't got rid of the vulture-topped hat, so he looked incredibly ridiculous.
The rest of the teams were heading up from their vantage points, waiting for the signal to attack. Harry wanted to be sure that he knew they were all present before he gave this signal, knowing that it would be fatal to time it wrong.
Finally, he knew that he could wait no longer, 'ready?' he asked Elisa, a daredevil grin spreading over his face.
'No. Let's do it!' Elisa replied.
Harry chuckled aloud and the pair of them leapt into the fight, for a moment keeping the invisibility charm up for maximum advantage, then it was time to discard that and get back up in.
Dropping the invisibility charm, neither Harry nor Elisa had any time to even think of that as they spun into action, dodging the spells of the Death Eaters.
Suddenly the air was filled with war cries as the teams poured out from their hiding places, shedding invisibility spells, the air alive with curses.
Smiling grimly, Harry took out a Death Eater with a thrown dagger, spinning around to slash his sword across another's throat, dropping to his knee to avoid a spell, catching another opponent with a throwing star.
He and Elisa quickly got themselves back to back, Elisa held her wand in one hand and a short sword in the other, and Harry had the Sword of Salazar Slytherin in one hand, the other free for numerous throwing implements.
In a momentary lull in the battle around them, Harry stole the opportunity to glance over the rest of the battle field, relieved to see that everyone was fighting well, and there hadn't seemed to be any fatalities yet.
Then the fighting began again, Harry and Elisa, keeping back to back since they were the only ones on their 'team', moved towards Voldemort, who was at the centre of the battle, yelling orders to those around him to get the attackers.
Harry growled under his breather – stinking coward, that's right, leave the fighting to your underlings, don't put yourself at any danger, he thought furiously.
Shaking such thoughts from his mind, Harry nearly swore as he came up against a man in Seeker robes – one of the enemy Seekers, at that. The man smirked at him and tucked his wand away.
Harry was amused, it seemed that the man was going to forfeit his 'advantage' in the fight. He obviously hadn't heard about Harry's capabilities of Wandless magic.
Though, Harry thought, to be polite, he might as well not use his magic in this fight. The duel began, and Harry ducked beneath the Seekers fist, his foot snapping out – not anticipating this move, the Seeker stumbled, leaving Harry to score a vicious kick to the other's head.
On his feet again, this time more wary, the Seeker circle Harry, trying to get the boys back to the Death Eaters, but Elisa kept behind him, for which Harry was grateful.
Suddenly Harry lashed out with one sword and threw a dagger – his last – at the other Seeker, scoring a direct on the others chest. The man dropped like a stone. Dead.
"Contra ipse" he whispered, and instantly all of his throwing weapons which had been left in the dead bodies of his opponents glowed gold and returned to him.
Elisa still at Harry's back, the pair of them leapt into the fray once more, occasionally coming across other groups in the fighting, joining for a moment together, then moving on.
Closer and closer to Voldemort, that was all that Harry could think, closer and closer to the Final Battle. Suddenly he and Elisa stumbled out of the fighting, for a moment wondering where the press of bodies had gone, before they realised – and by that time it was already too late.
Voldemort had raised his wand and cried out the two words that were previously the most powerful and devastating on the world.
"Avada Kedavra!" Harry screamed in pain as the green light burst past him and stuck Elisa, his sister, bound to him, mind to mind, he felt as she did the last moments of her life.
"Eliiisaa!" Harry cried with the pain of losing his friends and protector, suddenly he spun, green-gold eyes flaming and filled with pain and insanity.
Voldemort took an unconscious step backwards, away from the furious young man before him. He'd thought that Potter would be a push-over, even after what had happened the last time the pair of them had met in a battle, but he wasn't prepared for this.
"You killed my sister," Harry's voice was utterly devoid of emotion, his eyes focused on the Dark Lord with an expressionless face. But the fury was there, so great that it appeared not to be…
And that really scared Voldemort.
The Dark Lord raised his wand, yelling the words to the only he spell he thought could help him – "Avada Kedavra!" but his opponent simply smiled slightly.
Harry reached into a pocked, drawing his own wand, mostly unused these days, but preserved for precisely this purpose. With a sigh, he used the same spell he had the last time this had happened. "Stupefy!" he yelled.
Almost immediately the beams of light that were the spells connected, forming a golden line. Harry held tightly onto the wand, in case it decided to lift them up again, but as they were on flat ground and there was a circle of space around them, they remained where they were as rays of gold splintered away from the original connection line.
The Death Eaters immediately left their battles to try and get close enough to Voldemort to help him. Harry smirked slightly – he'd thought they'd do this.
One of the enemy Seekers was trying to get the Death Eaters to turn around and deal with the attackers, but he was killed by Sirius's blade before he could do much good.
The Seekers who were 'loyal' to Voldemort immediately left their Death Eater allies to their doom and concentrated on fighting for their own lives.
Harry, however, thrust this from his mind – the little golden ball was heading his way, and he would let Voldemort have it again, he thought. After all, there weren't many spells that would come from his own wand.
Forgetting everything but the ball, Harry concentrated his will and shoved at the little thing, he gave a satisfied smirk as it shot back towards Voldemort.
But it seemed that Voldemort had learned a thing or two from their last meeting, and he concentrated, pushing the ball a tiny bit towards Harry.
"Pitiful," Harry called tauntingly to his opponent, and once more gathered his will to shove at the ball, it again snapped back towards Voldemort, a lot faster than he'd managed to get it the first time this spell had happened at the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
Voldemort once more tried to keep it from coming to his wand, but Harry gathered his will and shoved harder than ever – this time he could easily sense the resistance that Voldemort had given the ball.
Not that it helped, Harry though dispassionately as the ball connected with Voldemort's wand tip.
Harry couldn't contain his rage as the first figure out of the wand was Elisa, his sister, and the moment she could, she rose and strode to stand as she had in life, behind his shoulder.
The rest of the spells began to immerge, mainly Cruciatos curses for some time, as there hadn't been an attack in a while.
Harry nearly cried, seeing how many of them were children. The little ghostlike figures came hurrying over to Harry to hide behind his legs and peer out at the creature that killed them.
As they had before, the adult figures paced the circle, murmuring encouragement to Harry, or even holding whispered conversations so that Voldemort couldn't hear them.
Harry knew that he would be waiting here for some time, because he wanted to talk to his parents before he did what he had too.
"Was your dying painful?" Harry asked his sister softly.
"No," Elisa replied. "I hardly knew what had happened, because I had my back turned to Voldemort, which was really quite stupid, I suppose."
Harry sighed. "Well, at least I'll be able to talk to you in the Garden of the Spirits," he remarked quietly.
"Yeah," Elisa agreed. "Are you waiting for your parents? You'll be here a while."
"It doesn't matter, I want them to see the downfall of their murderer," Harry replied stoutly, and Elisa sighed.
Finally out came Bertha Jorkins. "You back again are you? How long has it been since the last time?" She asked him.
"Two years," Harry replied with a faint smile.
"I thought that was about it, it's a bit difficult to tell the passing of time, though I do know most of the events that happened. You've been very busy!" She said, grinning slightly.
Then it was Frank Bryce. "You get that bad un this time boy, get him right and proper," the old man told him firmly.
"Oh, believe me, Frank, that's exactly what I intend to do," Harry replied, a grim smile playing over his lips. Suddenly, there was his father.
"Harry! Why did you let this happen?" James asked as he made it to Harry's side. "You should have killed him and been done with it!"
"I wanted you to see the death of your murderer," Harry told him stoutly as his mother joined them.
"Thank you for thinking of us, Harry, but you know that you cannot cast the spell while this phenomenon is still happening," Lily told him firmly.
Harry smiled slightly. "I know. But since a lot of the spell is to do with the preparation of the mind and the gathering of power, I decided to leave things until the last moment before I needed to cast the spell, then break this one and kill that monster once and for all.
The shades of the dead people gathered around Harry, their smoky bodies blocking Voldemort's view of him, and Harry reached into a pocket with one hand, finding a stone with his magic in it, and drew sharply, gathering it all in his mind, before doing the same with three of his other Elemental Stones.
Gasping with the effort of holding onto so much power, Harry wrenched his wand upwards, and cried out the words to the spell that would end this forever.
"Supremusa moribundusa!" Golden light flamed around him, striking at Voldemort, the air singing as the magic flashed through it. Through a gap in the shades, Harry could see the expression of shock on Voldemort's face – the dark lord had know idea what was happening.
Harry had hit the ground on his back from the strength of the spell exploding in front of him, and he raised himself up slightly, propping himself with an elbow to watch the defeat of his enemy, as were all of the shades, even as they began to thin and disappear.
Harry couldn't see what happened when the golden light hit his enemy, but when it cleared all that was left of Voldemort was some charred black robes.
Then Harry felt it, Voldemort's magical power, that he had been enhancing by stealing the magic of dying witches and wizards. Harry for a moment shied away from the darkness, then realised just what he could do with that power.
Rather than let it all to go waste, Harry sent out his powers, gathering the magic before it could disappear, not noticing the Death Eaters who were fleeing from the scene with their masters death.
Nor did he hear the cheers of his allies, as they realised that they had won, the battle was over and life could go on without the threat of the dark lord.
Harry reached into his pocket again, pulling every ounce of stored magic and anything else, especially the wakefulness, because he was worn out that he was going to go to sleep if he didn't do something about it soon.
His mind once more threatened to go into overload with the amount of magic that was racing through his mind, but again he had a use for it.
He held it firmly as he began his work, weaving the magic to create a strong hold for it, then, using the magic as something sharp and pointy, he thrust it through what in his mind was the border between Earth and Atlantis.
Once he had punched through this, he could actually see through a 'hole' in the air, looking straight at the front doors of the palace. Reaching his magic through the gap he began to weave the spell to a close on the other side, even as the 'hole' widened to become a gateway.
Through the gate he could see his friends, Lilith and Jaram with their two children, Sky Dawn, Tigris, Karan and many others.
He released the spell, and suddenly realised that he'd used too much effort today, he fell back, lying flat on the ground, panting slightly.
He could feel his life slipping away from him, he caught onto it, holding it in a weakening grip.
He knew that he was going to die, and there was nothing that he could do to stop that process, only halt it for a short time.
Through the gateway between worlds someone was running fast, and with a jolt, Harry realised it was Sky Dawn. What was she doing – she was crying? Why was that?
With a detachment he didn't feel, Harry realised that his mind was losing the ability to think clearly.
"Ferux?" Sky Dawn whispered, dropping to her knees beside him. Other were there now – he could vaguely recognize them, for his vision was hazy.
"Harry?" That was Sirius, Ron and Hermione, they were talking at once and it was kind of hard to tell who was speaking.
"Guys?" his voice was so weak, Harry was astounded and wished that he could take it back. Then again, he was dying, did it matter what he sounded like?
Probably not, he mused to himself.
"Harry, hold on, there must be something we can do!" Sirius's voice was frantic, mixing with the voices of others – it seemed that everyone had realised that something was wrong with him.
Harry smiled faintly, "there's nothing left to do Sirius – I've done what I had to, now it's time to move on. Goodbye, godfather, and you too, all of you! My friends, you were there to help me almost all of the times that I really needed you … my teachers, who taught me what I needed to know to survive till now … my family, all of you …" he nearly passed out.
"Please everyone! Don't crowd!" that was Sky Dawn, he realised. "Everyone who isn't part of Ferux – Harry's – immediate family, or the Weasley's, please back off and leave us alone with him for the last few moments!"
To Harry's surprise, that was exactly what happened.
"Well mate, famous till the end?" Ron asked, but there was no jealousy, and Harry could easily hear the pain in his friends voice.
He reached out his hand, and felt Ron's one placed in his. "Thanks for being there for me, Ron," he whispered, voice hoarse with emotion and weak from pain.
He lay there for a short time, listening as the friends who were his family said goodbye. He would have cried if he were not so far gone towards his death that emotions no longer choked him.
Finally Sky Dawn requested that everyone leave her and Harry alone for the last moment.
Harry turned his head towards her in surprise, seeing no more than a hazy outline of her beautiful frame.
"Ferux? Can you still hear me?" Her voice was choked with emotion and he was hard put to answer her.
"Yes," he managed, finally.
"Good. I have to tell you … I should have told you before … why must fate be so cruel? Elisa told me that you liked me … and I just wanted you to know … I loved you too, Harry, I could have loved you forever! Why do you have to go now?"
She was crying, Harry realised, this thought followed a moment later by: she means it! She loved me! "I wish I didn't have to die," he hadn't thought that he'd still be able to feel emotion, but suddenly he was once more overwhelmed by it. "I could have loved you too, Sky … foreverr…"
His voice trailed off as his weird golden-green eyes flickered closed for the last time, his final breath trailing away even as the words did.
Sky Dawn was left cradling his still form against her chest, sobbing for the cruelty of the world.
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Bet none of you were expecting that huh! Well, Deceptions is very nearly over, the Epilogue will be out REALLY soon, I promise! (Yes, there is a little more to this, just tying up lose ends – don't kill me until AFTER you've read that, please). This may take a little while to get out, since I'm away for the next five days.
Again, all thanks will be in the epilogue – have you got any idea how long it takes to write out over 800 thanks? Oh, and PLEASE review, even if it is just to say you hate me for killing him *grins* cya in the epilogue, folks!
~WolfMoon~