Chapter 9 - Love Blossoms, Problems Blossom
Mr. and Mrs. Granger were in the hall when the unlikely 6 people walked in. To them it only looked like 4 of them, because luckily, the fairies had remembered to shield.
Artemis quickly hid his hand behind his back and walked in innocently. Ron made that same impression. Then Harry realized something.
Ron was jealous of Artemis!
Then he knocked his own head with his clenched fist. He was being stupid. He had known Ron for 7 years, true enough, he had never had this kind of problem, except the time in his fourth year, when he accidentally asked Fleur Delacour out for the Yule Ball.
They walked out, and surveyed the lush green pasture in front of them. It definitely looked like the place Voldemort would hide.
A rat scurried past Harry's foot. He did not like rats. The image was etched in his mind, and like a camera, suddenly, the image was magnified, and Harry saw the toes.
One was missing.
Peter Pettigrew!
He dived; his Quidditch reflexes as good as any gymnast's. He caught the rat by its tail.
He got up and lifted it off. Then he showed it to Ron. Ron saw what Harry had realized too.
"Shall we force him to transform?"
" We had better. He has to explain something."
They dropped the rat, and in one fluid motion they brought their wands out and shouted, "Metamorphus!"
There was a blue flash and Peter Pettigrew lay on the road, gasping.
"Okay, Wormtail, you have some explaining to do."
His hairs were even whiter now; served him right, thought Harry, as Ron had a firm grip on him.
"Where is your boss?"
Peter's lip trembled; he did not want to explain his predicament.
"How did you know I was here?" he asked, bewildered.
" We are asking the questions around here; so you'd better answer first," said Ron menacingly.
Peter looked like he was about to lose it.
"Voldemort asked me to come here. "
"Why?"
"Apparently, there is a curse on me, and if I tell you the reason, I die immediately. If you want to force me to die, go on, but I assure you, you won't be thankful."
Harry suddenly remembered something Dumbledore had told him in his third year.
"The time will come when you will be very thankful that you saved Peter." Harry vaguely remembered him having said something like that.
It was probably for that reason that he was willing to let Peter off.
"I know that Voldemort is somewhere here. Lead me to him."
Peter shuddered. However, it would be all the more easier for him. They could finish off the whole lot of them in a shot.
(Author's Note: Here I make Harry look like a bit of a fool, and you guys out there might be thinking that it is such a wasteful end to a good story, but I will have to do this in order to prove a point in the story.)
Behind them, Artemis reached into his coat and gripped the two revolvers tightly. Hermione's eyes were wide with terror. Ron had his wand in his sweaty hand. Julius and Holly, were thankful that they could not be seen.
Peter stood on a small square of land. The others squeezed in painfully. The unseen fairies settled on Artemis's and Harry's back.
"Oh, Dark Lord, take me to your side!"
The ground rumbled; they moved downwards slowly; then they were in a small cave.
Through the dark, came a cold voice.
"Welcome to my temporary home, 4 of you."
Harry heaved a sigh of relief. Voldemort had not discovered the shielded fairies yet.
"Okay, we need some questions answered," said Harry, stepping forward.
Voldemort looked at Harry slowly. Harry knew that after the questions were answered, he was going to be killed.
"Very well. This is the last time you will see me. So I will answer your questions."
"First. Why do you want to kill me?"
No one had seen Voldemort like this. He was cool, he did not fly into a temper. He seemed as if he had been waiting for this to happen. It was impossible.
Voldemort glossed it over. Then he decided to speak.
"I used to respect Dumbledore. I, however, liked the Dark Arts. Dumbledore did not. My love for Dark Magic made me so powerful. Trust me. I really did not despise Dumbledore."
"Then I reached 16, and the Chamber of Secrets was open. I opened it, of course. Hagrid was framed for it."
"But the only reason that caused me to kill all those Muggles was because I hated them. I hated my father, who had dumped my mother at childbirth. I hated the lot of them."
"Then you came along. Dumbledore told you of the prophecy in your fifth year. You had defeated me."
"My family-that is my Death Eater family, have always fulfilled their prophecies. That night, at Godric's Hollow, where you found your house-elf friend, as faithful Wormtail told me, when I came to kill you, I realized what I was doing. You were not a Muggle. You were a half-blood. By right, I was supposed to kill your mother, because I hated Muggles, which is exactly what I did."
Harry's scar was again searing with pain. He wanted to tear Voldemort apart. He wanted to devour the pain that Voldemort would feel when he did it
"You see, your father was an accident. You very well know that he blocked me, so I removed the block."
Holly felt guilty. She had said that to Commandant Terryl when she had wanted to bring Artemis belowground for investigation on smuggling.
" There was a person responsible for me at Godric's Hollow that night. This person was Regulus Black."
"Regulus was not a faithful Death Eater, and he was on the run. That day, he told me, half the prophecy he had heard in the Hog's Head, to redeem himself. "
"On the way, Regulus rushed past another fellow Death Eater, Macnair. Regulus told Macnair the part of the prophrcy he knew and hastened to see me."
"I killed Regulus, and then realized that Macnair was identified as the Death Eater who had heard the prophecy."
" I was lucky. I had liked Regulus's parents. They liked the way that I was going about killing Muggles."
Harry wanted to rip Voldemort apart. The others were listening intently, shocked.
" The problem was that since I had not heard the prophecy fully, I did not know that we were supposed to have a battle. But what I saw that night changed me."
"Dumbledore did not tell you something that he did not know himself. Now I know the prophecy, and it clearly states that either one of us has to survive."
" I went easy on you, Harry Potter. I gave you a small Avada Kedavra curse. But the reason for that, Dumbledore must have told you. It was because I saw myself in you. You were a half-blood, I was a half-blood. You went to live with Muggles, I went to live with Muggles. That time, though, I did not realize it."
"See, when the curse rebounded upon me, it was magnified, because I had cheated. When you were helpless I had attacked you. Therefore that was cheating in the prophecy."
Slowly, Harry began to see things clearly. Now he knew why Voldemort had lost all his powers.
" I was egoistic. I wanted to kill you, but now for a different reason. I did not know about the prophecy until your sixth year, where Viktor Krum came to me with it written out."
"Krum, I killed him too." Behind, Hermione was crying silently.
"But after I kill you, there is a job I have to finish. I have to kill Dumbledore."
"I told you at first I respected him. But, Dumbledore was a Squib when he was born."
Harry jumped. "WHAT?"
"Yes. Dumbledore did not know any magic when he was born. This is the worst part of it."
Harry suddenly lost all anger for Voldemort.
"Dumbledore used Dark Magic to make himself magical."
"WHAT?" Harry shouted for the second time.
"I did not like Dark Magic to be used for such reasons. Since them I have hated him, and have always wanted to kill him."
Harry, Ron and Hermione could not believe it. Dumbledore, one of the greatest wizards…use Dark Magic?
"Harry, I will have to kill you now. You know too much. You friends will have to die too."
Harry could not take the surprises anymore. He had suffered too much pain, too many deaths, too many hardships. Even Dumbledore had cheated them.
Sirius Black. He wanted his godfather back too.
Tears rolled slowly down his cheeks.
"Please kill me. I can't take it anymore."
Ron, Artemis and Hermione stepped forward instinctively.
"No, Harry!"
"Don't do it!"
"It's not worth dying for Voldemort!"
Voldemort had his wand raised. "Avada Kedav"
Then a very weird thing happened.
Peter Pettigrew had been looking from the corner. He could not believe his eyes. There were too many surprises in store for Harry Potter. Including the one he was going to give him.
He could never forget the time when Harry saved him from getting killed by Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. It was time to call in the debt.
Voldemort had his wand raised." Avada Kedav"
Then with a roar, Peter lunged forwards, in the way of the path of the curse.
"Avra!" came Voldemort's surprised voice. He wanted to stop himself, but he was too late.
Peter was blasted straight into the wall. He slumped down and lay motionless. He was dead.
"No, no ,no…" cried Ron.
Taking advantage of the confusion, Harry stepped up and yelled, "Crucio!"
Voldemort writhed on the ground, screaming. No one had heard Voldemort scream. The force of the curse that Harry had unleashed on him was too much.
"Get out, now!" Harry yelled. They scampered onto the small patch of land.
Harry ran forwards, and saw Peter's body.
He wondered whether to leave it there; then he instinctively dragged it onto the small patch. He made it upright.
"How to go up?" Harry muttered.
Then he had a spark.
"Oh, Dark Lord, return us to Earth to do our sins!"
The patch moved up slowly.
Whatever the problem, there was a new one.
They had to talk to Dumbledore and find out the truth.
