The End
Chapter 37: Destiny...
The bright light dissipated. Ginny opened her eyes. Her first instinct was to look back at Neve. Neve was still in Draco's arms. She was not moving, but she was still breathing. Ginny let out a sigh of relief. She looked ahead of her and saw Hermione standing there. Tommy was also standing there, staring blankly at Hermione. Ginny squinted and saw that Hermione's arm was raised up. As the smoke cleared even more, she saw that Nicola was holding Hermione's arm up. Hermione glared at her. She stepped away from Nicola.
"Why'd you do that? Are you trying to save this unfeeling bastard?" Hermione asked, looking quite livid with Nicola. Nicola smirked and shook her head. "Then why did you stop me?"
"Why don't you ask your cousin that question?" Nicola faced her nephew. Hermione blinked.
"Cousin?" Draco asked for Hermione. Hermione looked at him.
"It's a long story, Draco." Ava said. Hermione glared at Tommy. Tommy was still holding his severely injured arm.
"What does she mean, Tommy?" Hermione asked. Tommy looked up at Hermione and cracked a weak smile. All was silent except for the occasional retching of Bellatrix.
"Neve is linked to me. If you kill me, she'll die too. She can also feel everything you've been dealing to me. I daresay she's in a lot of pain." Tommy laughed. Draco put Neve down on the ground softly. Hermione shook her head.
"You bastard..." She whispered. Tommy shrugged painfully.
"Yeah. I guess I am one of those. So, I guess I will be staying alive." Tommy snapped his fingers.
Neve's eyes blinked three times. She looked around her frantically as her vision became clearer. All she saw for a moment were dark figures. She saw Aislin come into focus. She opened her mouth to speak.
"Aislin..." She said through a strangled voice. Aislin looked down. She gasped and immediately kneeled down next to Neve. Neve rubbed her arm, wincing. "My arm is killing me." She said, her voice scratchy. Aislin nodded.
"You are linked to Tommy." Aislin said. Neve looked confused. She sat up slowly and turned her head. She saw Tommy holding his arm. Blood dripped down from his fingers. Neve gasped at the sight. She sat back. She was in too much pain to do much else.
"Explain to me how you are related to me in any way." Hermione said, training her wand on Tommy. Tommy laughed.
"Nicola est la soeur de ma mère (Nicola is my mother's sister)." Tommy said. Hermione nodded, understanding him perfectly.
"I see. So me killing you would be like spilling the blood of my own family. I guess that means that I am Voldemort's niece, then." Hermione said dismally. Tommy shrugged.
"My mother and Voldemort were never married. So, I can't really say that he is related to you because that would require being married into the family, wouldn't it?" Tommy said. Hermione inclined her head slightly.
'Where is Vanna?' Nicola thought to herself. She looked over at her nephew.
"Tomás, have you seen your mother lately?" Nicola asked. Tommy smirked and looked over at his aunt. Nicola did not like the look he was giving her. Ava and Draco looked at each other. They did not know what Nicola's reaction would be to hearing Giovanna Zaviera's horrible fate.
"Oh, she's dead. She died about an hour ago." Tommy said as easily as stating he brushed his teeth that morning. Nicola stared at him blankly. Her older sister was dead? How could this be true?
"What happened to her?" Nicola asked.
"Draco Malfoy killed her." Tommy said in a carefree tone. Nicola glared over at the platinum blond boy. Draco looked over at her, his face impassive as ever. Nicola just stared at him. Ava stepped forward, facing her brother.
"Why don't you tell her how and why she was killed, Tommy?" Neve said from her place on the floor. Nicola looked back over at her nephew. The smug look on Tommy's face disappeared. He looked over at his love. Neve had crossed her arms. He growled some curses in French, resisting the voice in his head that said to curse the girl he loved to death.
Ron shifted next to Luna, making her jump. She smiled when she saw him open his eyes, blinking furiously. He looked over at Luna.
"What's going on?" He managed to say. Luna looked back towards the center of the foyer.
"We're about to see." She whispered. Ron sat up better, looking over at Hermione. Everyone was standing still and no one was making a noise. Tommy frowned at Neve. He looked over towards Nicola. Nicola was waiting for an answer.
"She was trying to save me from a deadly curse Draco sent at me."
"Somehow I highly doubt that Draco would just send a curse at you that could kill you when he knows how Neveah is in love with you. What incentive did he have to send a killing curse at you?" Nicola asked. Tommy could not believe his aunt was questioning him like this. Did she not care that her sister was dead?
"I don't really remember what I was doing to Neve. I was too angry with her."
"He put the Heart Constricting Curse on her." Ava said. Nicola nodded.
"So, Vanna died trying to save her son from a curse he probably deserved for trying to kill the girl he supposedly loves? This is too much." Nicola said. Tommy looked at her with a quizzical look. He did not understand this conversation at all and it was making him angry. Tommy held his hand out.
Ava watched her brother intently. What was he planning to do? He was just staring out at all of them, his eyes narrowed. Nicola was puzzled as well as to what Tommy was going to do. Suddenly, strings of light managed to hit everyone on some part of their body. Hermione ducked as one came for her. Nicola threw up a barrier around herself. One even went for Luna and got her. Ron looked puzzled why one did not come for him either. Neve watched her friends. All her friends began to fall to the ground, ill. Hermione looked at everyone.
"What did you do to them?" Hermione asked. Tommy lowered his arm, smirking at her.
"You'll see in about ten minutes. Now, it's time for you to make a choice. A very hard choice." Tommy looked at both Ron and Nicola. Tommy raised his arm again. "Serrement doppio." He whispered. Nicola and Ron both gasped and started grabbing at their shirts. Nicola fell to her knees. Hermione turned around, looking at her mother and her lover. Something about this predicament seemed familiar.
A circle of fire surrounded Voldemort and Aurora. Harry was nowhere in sight. Aurora winced as she felt the feeling in her foot where the bite was start to become a little numb. She stood back up, facing Voldemort.
"Impressive, Miss Assante." Voldemort looked around for Harry. "Where is Potter?" He asked. Aurora smirked.
"I thought we couldn't best you, Voldemort. Are you sure you don't see him?" Aurora said. Voldemort frowned at the girl and started looking around frantically. He did not like being able to see Harry. He spotted him behind the flames. He smirked and shot a spell at the boy. It seemed to go right through him.
"Having trouble finding me?" Harry's voice echoed in a mocking tone. Voldemort growled something illegible. He kept shooting at all the images of Harry. Aurora smiled at how well Harry was doing evading Voldemort's shots.
'How is the little ingrate doing this?' Voldemort asked himself. Before the answer occurred to him, he felt a presence behind him.
"Flagrate!" Harry yelled. Voldemort hissed in pain as a line of fire burned into his back. Aurora smirked and began shaking her foot like crazy. She was happy that Harry had mastered the Toshi Technique. Voldemort reached at his back. Harry disappeared again. Aurora nodded and hopped away, not knowing how much longer she had before paralysis took over her. She was already losing the feeling in her foot.
'Aurora?' Aurora stopped moving as she heard Harry's voice in her head.
'What?'
'We're going to have to use basic spells. He won't expect us to do that,' Harry said. Aurora nodded.
'The paralysis is starting,' she thought to him.
Harry stopped for a moment, searching through the fire for Aurora. He saw her balancing on one foot. He looked at the blood-soaked cloth around her ankle. They needed to finish this and do it quickly. Harry looked back around for Voldemort.
Aurora looked around. Voldemort was gone. She turned her head to the side when she felt a hand clamp across her mouth. Her scream was muffled but it was audible enough for Harry. Harry looked back in Aurora's direction. Voldemort held what looked like a dagger to Aurora's neck.
"Look how the tables have turned, Potter. Ironic, isn't it?" Voldemort walked forward, pulling Aurora with him. Harry circled around him, glaring vindictively at Voldemort. The old wizard just smiled evilly. Aurora felt her left leg up to her knee go numb. The poison was traveling. She shifted on her feet uncomfortably.
"Let go of her. She's already dying from that poison. She can't harm you." Harry said, looking into Aurora's eyes. He made a movement with them and Aurora understood immediately. She gripped her wand.
"You really think I'm going to let the little brat go just because she's dying from poison? Why the hell would I want to do that?" Voldemort asked with a hint of a joke in his voice. Harry just shrugged. Voldemort looked genuinely confused for a moment. He did not like Potter's calmness at the situation on bit. Before he could address it, Aurora struck.
Aurora kicked Voldemort with her right leg. His grasp on her loosened. She pushed herself away from him. As she did this, she was turning and falling at the same time. She pointed her wand at Voldemort's face.
"Incendio!" She yelled. Fire flew from her wand and hit Voldemort right in his eyes. A deafening scream filled the air. Aurora hit the ground, her entire left leg numb now. Harry went to her side. Voldemort was knocking into things around him, holding his face in pain.
Hermione looked past Tommy at the Great Hall's large doors. She heard the horrific screaming going on in there. Tommy smirked.
"Would you like to go and see what the problem is?" He asked her. Hermione glared back at Tommy.
"Shut up." She mumbled. Tommy nodded and continued cursing Nicola and Ron.
"It's time to choose, Hermione. I don't think they can hold out much longer. This is VERY painful, mind you." Tommy said. Hermione shook her head. She looked back at Ron and Nicola. Both were breathing erratically and they both looked as if they were about to die at any given moment.
Neve watched this from her corner. She could not believe this was happening. She could feel what Tommy felt at the moment and it was killing her to watch this. She hated feeling powerless. She looked around. Lina's wand was lying next to her hand. Neve pushed herself up on her hands and started pulling herself forward. She cursed her legs for being so weak. She prayed no one would notice her slow movement.
""I'm waiting, Hermione. You can only break the spell on one of them at a time."
"Then I will break the spell on one and then do the other." Hermione pointed her wand. Tommy laughed and Hermione turned back around. "What's so funny?" She asked. Tommy shook his head.
"I'm afraid it doesn't work that way, Hermione. Once the spell is broken on one of them, the spell will increase on the other. It will increase so much that it will instantly kill them. I have merely split the power of this curse between them. So, choose which one you will save." Tommy said. Hermione frowned and looked back at Nicola and Ron. They both looked back up at her.
"Hermione..." Nicola whispered through her pain. Hermione looked down at her.
"What?"
"Forget about me. I've lived my life. Save the boy. You love him, don't you?" She whispered. Hermione nodded and looked back over at Ron. He was silent and was squeezing his shirt tightly. Ron was not one to show pain so vividly (at least not since they started training). He opened his eyes and looked at Hermione.
"No, Hermione..." He sounded strangled. Hermione looked between the two. Tommy snickered behind her.
"Time is wasting, Hermione. Choose or both of them will die." Tommy said. Hermione closed her eyes and pointed her wand.
"Finite Incantatem!" She yelled.
Neve grasped Lina's wand just as Hermione yelled the words. She looked to her left to see the sight. She saw Ron and Nicola slump to the floor. Hermione opened her eyes. She could not tell which one the spell hit. She looked back and forth between Nicola and Ron. Were both of them dead? Her question was answered by the moaning of Ron. Letting out a sigh of relief, she started to run over to him. Tommy smirked and raised his hand again.
Ron sat up, his chest hurting. He saw Hermione jogging over to him. He looked past her and saw Tommy pointing at her. He was smirking evilly. A look of fear crossed over his face. He opened his mouth to scream at her, but nothing came out.
Hermione slowed down when she noticed the look on Ron's face. She came to a complete stop. As Hermione turned, she saw a jet of light coming towards her. The next thing she saw was darkness. Hermione flew into a wall. Ron's eyes widened.
"NO!" He finally found his voice. Hermione slumped against the wall not too far from him. Ron sat up in all his pain and started to make his way towards her. When he reached her, he saw that she was still alive. Hermione opened her eyes and looked at him.
"Ron..." She whispered. Ron smiled at her. Hermione smiled weakly back at him. She closed her eyes an inhaled. Ron noticed the roughness of the intake of breath. He touched her chest.
"Mione?" He asked. Hermione opened her eyes and looked at him.
"Yeah..." She sounded as if she was in a great deal of pain. Ron looked around her. He opened her robe and nearly choked on his own saliva. A piece of wood had stabbed her from behind. It had gone straight through her left side, missing her lung. "It's nothing. It barely even hurts." Hermione said. Ron looked back and forth, wondering what to do.
"I've got to get this out of you." Ron said. He tried to move her but every time he tried, she would cringe in pain. He sighed. Hermione put her hands on the ground and tried to scoot forward. She nearly screamed as she did it.
"Is that good?" She breathed out. Ron nodded and took hold of the piece of wood sticking out of her back. He looked her in the eyes.
"This is going to hurt...very much." He said. Hermione nodded. Ron sighed and held out his hand to her. Hermione took it and closed her eyes. Ron grasped it tightly and began to pull. Hermione squeezed his hand, determined not to show weakness by screaming. Ron cringed as she squeezed his hand tighter and tighter. Finally, she gave in to impulse and screamed. Ron finally got the wood out of her and immediately began pressing on the wound with some of his robe. Hermione leaned over his arm and spat blood.
No one noticed the small, muscular girl who had managed to get to her feet. Neve moved quickly over to Tommy. As Tommy turned his head, he was hit with her tiny fist. He stumbled backwards as Neve fought to stay on her feet. They stared at each other for a long moment. A sharp pain shot through Neve's jaw. Tommy noticed her grimace and smirked.
"Have you forgotten that whatever I feel, you feel?" He asked. Neve nodded.
"I can deal with feeling everything you feel." She said, still rubbing her jaw. Tommy nodded.
"Then you also realize that if I die, you will as well." He said, crossing his arms. Neve stared at him for a moment then nodded.
"I can deal with that. If it means saving my friends, then I won't hesitate." She said. Tommy's façade faltered for a moment. Neve smiled. "Did I hit a soft spot, Tommy?" She asked in a falsely sweet voice. Tommy frowned at her.
"So you would actually kill me?" He asked. Neve didn't move. She just stared at him, her eyes pleading with him to not make her answer that question. Tommy understood and dropped it.
"Well, if you're going to fight me, fight me." He said. Neve nodded. She dropped Lina's wand and came at him.
Voldemort stopped screaming in pain. He faced Harry and Aurora. When he removed his hands, Aurora cringed. Most of the skin on Voldemort's face had been singed off. His right eye was closed. He could only see with his left eyes. He glared at the two youngsters. Harry smiled.
"Not so pretty now, are you?" He said mockingly. Voldemort looked down at Aurora. Aurora tried to use her right leg to move away from him. Harry reached down to her and she grabbed his hand. He pulled her up and she balanced on one foot.
"You will both die right now." Voldemort hissed in a deadly tone. Harry and Aurora looked at him approach them.
"Wow. He really looks mad." Harry said.
"Yes, he does." Aurora looked at Harry and he looked at her. "Well, I guess this is it. Any bright ideas?" She asked. Harry shook his head.
"No."
"Petrificus totalus!" Voldemort yelled. Aurora turned her head and got hit with the spell. Harry watched her fall backwards. She squirmed desperately, trying to move her legs. Harry moved to point his wand, but Voldemort had his pointed at Aurora. "Drop your wand or I send her to heaven." He said. Harry obeyed and raised his hands. "So, Potter. This looks like the end for you."
"What makes you think that?" Harry asked. Voldemort snickered.
"I have this little bitch at wand-point and you can do nothing about it. All I have to do is basically think the words. If you try and Soliopathy on it, by the time your spell hits me, Aurora will be dead. Now, you could use Soliopathy on me, but you're much too noble to do that, aren't you, Potter? Your precious morals will not allow you to sacrifice Aurora to kill me, will it? You're so much like your pathetic mother." Voldemort said. Harry blinked.
"What did you say?" He asked. He was not sure he heard Voldemort correctly.
"Your mother was a very powerful witch, Harry. The thing about it is she could've easily fought me to the death. She might've even beaten me so that I could have retreated. I am not ashamed to admit that she would've been quite a match for me. But, unfortunately, she had to go and be all 'noble' and protect you. Stupid and pathetic, if you ask me." Voldemort said. Harry could not believe what he was hearing.
Aurora could vaguely feel Harry becoming angrier by the second. What was Voldemort saying to him? She could practically feel his power around her. She could feel the power from him starting to free her from the body bind. She tried to wiggle her fingers.
"My mother was not pathetic, Voldemort." Harry said through clenched teeth.
"Why wasn't she? Love is for idiotic cretins such as you. It hinders the mind and makes it do incredibly stupid things. Look at Dumbledore. Because the old man 'cared,' he is now dead, just as you soon will be."
Harry felt that heat again. Behind him, he felt Aurora coming around. He heard Voldemort gasp as Aurora sat up. Aurora managed to get to her feet. She looked at Harry and Voldemort. Just by looking at the way Harry was standing, she could tell he was livid.
"You have made him very angry at you." Aurora said. It was starting to get very hot around them. Voldemort glared at her and then looked at Harry. Harry was holding his head down. His wild hair was shielding his eyes.
"How dare you..." Harry whispered. He lowered his arms and held his head up. Aurora watched him carefully. Harry looked ready to pounce on Voldemort and rip him to shreds with his bare hands. Voldemort just smiled at the boy's demeanor.
"Have I struck a nerve, Potter?" He asked. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for Harry. He held out his hand towards Voldemort. Voldemort blinked at the redness in Harry's normally green eyes. Aurora pointed her wand at the faltering Voldemort.
"Cadere!" She yelled. Voldemort looked at her before he was sucked to the ground. He pushed himself up on his hands and knees.
"Why you little..." He pointed his wand at her, seemingly forgetting all about Harry. Aurora smiled.
"Arrivederci, il Malvagio." She said quietly. Feeling the coldness behind her eyes, she raised her and along with Harry.
"Ha! You'll never be able to..." Voldemort began.
"Go to hell." Harry whispered.
AN: Almost there...