Hope's End
Chapter Thirteen
March Of The Dark King
"For all those people who witnessed the Dark March, they will have later named it the March of the Apocalypse, for that is what it truly was." - History of the Great Magical War.
January 15th, 1997, Twenty miles south of Hogsmeade
Three days after the invasion of England by the United Coalition of Wizarding Armies, Voldemort made his move. He ordered every single Death Eater, Dark creature, and otherwise to gather at Stonehenge. After an army of nigh one million had gathered there, they began to march north. Destination: Hogwarts. At the front of the enormous army, were Voldemort's top eight Generals: Lucius Malfor, Walden Macnair, Antonin Dolohov, Bellatrix LeStrange, Rabastan LeStrange, Rodolphus LeStrange, Daniel Mulciber, Augustus Rookwood. Along with the Death Generals, the Dark King himself, Voldemort rode in an elegant black and green carriage decorated with serpents and the Dark Mark. The only change in the Death Eater's clothing was that they no longer wore masks, and displayed their Dark Marks proudly.
If anyone was to be near them during the march, they would probably soil themselves and run for dear life.
Inside his private carriage, Voldemort smirked. 'Finally, after long years of waiting, the moment of truth. We will win. Hogwarts will fall. And Britain shall be all mine,' thought Voldemort gleefully. He looked outside. It was night, and the stars were out. Looking up, Voldemort saw Mars, shining extremely bright. 'Yes indeed, there is about to be a great, great battle,' mused Voldemort. Dimly, he could hear the stamping of feet, hooves, and could sense the Dementors floating about. They had already passed three towns, and raided them for supplies, before burning it to the ground.
Voldemort thought about what happened since his rise from the cauldron in June of 1995. He had summoned his Death Eaters, duelled Potter, lost, made more plans, killed some people, set a snake on some mudblood lover, sent his Inner Circle to retrieve the Prophecy, lost that one as well, tortured his Death Eaters for their incompetence, started to raise an army, destroyed Diagon Alley, attacked the Ministry, destroyed the Ministry, suffered an invasion by the United Coalition of Wizarding Armies, and was now marching to Hogwarts. Interesting.
Then he thought about the variety of his army. First, he had Death Eaters. Lots and lots of Death Eaters. About three hundred thousand. That was a lot. Next he had slaves. He had about one hundred and fifty thousand slaves. And next, he had his collection of Dark creatures, estimated to be at about four hundred and fifty thousand. Yep, that was a lot. He had Acromantulas, Ashwinders in hibernation for the destruction of Hogsmeade, Banshees, Bicorns, Albino Bloodhounds they had stolen from the Ministry, Blood-sucking Bugbears, plenty of Boggarts, a couple hundred of evil Centaurs, lots of Chimaeras, twenty Dragons, as they are rather hard to capture, lots of Erumpents, couple hundred Giants, hundreds of Graphorns, Gytrashes, Hags, a pitiful amount of Lethifolds, but lethal nonetheless, Manticores, and about thirty Nundus, some Quintapeds, Runespoors, thousands upon thousands of Trolls, tens of thousands of Vampires, and lots of Wizards waiting to transform into a Werewolf tonight, as Voldemort had planned his attack to take place on the full Moon. Along with Werewolves, Voldemort had Yetis, and last but not least, hundreds of thousands of Dementors, collected worldwide. It made out to be a pretty impressive army.
'One thing I am REALLY glad about, is that I finally meet esteemed Harry Potter, after so many months of discommunication,' thought Voldemort gleefully. 'By now, I am very much doubting that even a prophecy can stop me,' he thought malevolently. All of a sudden, a Death Eater Apparated into the carriage, startling Voldemort out of his thoughts. Just as he was about to kill the man for startling him, the Death Eater hurriedly dropped to his knee and spoke.
"My Lord, American and Canadian broomwizards are attacking!" Voldemort instantly snapped to attention. "Is that so? Well then," here he smirked ruthlessly. "Send the Dragons to deal with them," he ordered. The Death Eater nodded and Disapparated.
Outside, as the Army of Darkness halted, the Dragons went airborne and began to attack the Magical American Broom Force and the Magical Canadian Royal Broom Force. One Dragon, as he neared seven brooms he unleashed a huge gust of flame that instantly incinerated the seven brooms and set another three alight nearby. Further up, a Dragon swiped and five Brooms with his spiked tail and killed two, while the other three launched Killing Curses and Conjunctivitis Curses at the Dragon's eyes. The Dragon roared in pain, and fried the riders.
The wizards down on the ground got their wits back, and began to fire Killing Curses at the moving enemies. The battle was over in minutes, as the Dark Army quickly cut them down and the rest made a strategic withdrawal. All in all, no casualties within the army, and twenty two of the attack force had died.
Voldemort sat back and sighed. He was starting to sense Hogsmeade, and could start to taste the fear on his serpentine tongue. The day of reckoning approached. In his mind, he started to go over the plan of attack. Stage one would involve the Death Eaters and creatures who could swim across the lake, with some Dementors behind them. There they would begin to fight. Stage one would send all his Broomwizards and witches and airborne creatures to the skies. And last, would be the full scale assault on ground. 'Yes... tonight, tonight is the night where Hogwarts will fall!' And as the Army of Darkness marched, the Dark King Voldemort fell into a pleasant slumber, while he dreamt of evil delights... and marshmallows.