~~~
Chapter Eighteen: In which the very long night ends
- Twenty-two feet later -
~~~
Dumbledore landed in a hedge two stories below the window, and a thud on the ground some ten feet away told him Grindelwald hadn't been so lucky. Slowly, painfully, he hoisted himself out of the hedge. His entire body ached from the impact, and he'd lost his wand in the fall, but he was alive. And Grindelwald's landing hadn't been nearly as soft as his. Perhaps it had knocked his enemy unconscious… or worse…
"Lumos," Dumbledore said, hoping his wand had landed nearby. It had, and its glowing tip was lying a few feet away. He picked it up and looked around. Grindelwald was indeed on the ground, not moving. He didn't approach him yet, though. Something told him apprehending the powerful dark wizard wasn't going to be that easy.
"Albus!" came a voice from above.
He looked up and saw a familiar face looking down at him from the window. "Minerva!" he said.
"I'm coming down!" she said, and hoisted one leg onto the windowsill.
"No!" Dumbledore replied. "I think Grindelwald's unconscious. Get help. I can hold him off if he wakes up."
She nodded and ducked back inside.
Dumbledore moved closer to Grindelwald to better assess the situation, and found himself staring at the man lying on the ground. He'd never seen the man who'd murdered his sister and so many others face to face, and he was both awed and disgusted by what he saw. Grindelwald had been handsome once, and a trace of his former appearance still lingered, but his face now was gnarled and distorted by a long, deep scar and the absence of an eye. The eye that remained was closed, and he wasn't breathing. Maybe the fall had killed him.
Suddenly, Grindelwald's eye opened, and before Dumbledore had a chance to react, something hit him hard in the face – Grindelwald's fist. Dumbledore staggered backwards, dizzy from both the hit and the burning pain now emanating from the center of his face. The warm, salty taste of blood filled his mouth. When his vision came back into focus, he saw Grindelwald, on his feet, wand pointed at his enemy.
"Don't move."
Grindelwald's voice was even more sinister than Dumbledore thought it would be. He tightened his grip on his wand and tried to block out the pain.
"I will have no more delays," Grindelwald said, taking a step toward Dumbledore. "Too long have I waited for this day, and I will not have my revenge taken from me."
Dumbledore wondered what Grindelwald meant by that, but this was not the time to ponder his enemy's motives for being here. He raised his wand and kept it pointed at the other wizard. "You can't win," he said. "Not here, and not now. You know this."
Suddenly Grindelwald pointed his wand toward the sky and cried, "INCENDIO!"
Flames leapt from the tip of his wand and shot into the air. When they descended back down to the ground, they formed a ring of fire around the two wizards.
How discrete, Dumbledore thought. Help would be here in an instant once someone took notice of a bonfire in the courtyard. But until then… He prepared to cast a disarming spell, but a statement from Grindelwald stopped him.
"I know you," Grindelwald said with a smirk. "You're Lucy Black's brother."
Dumbledore froze at the mention of his sister, and Grindelwald took advantage of the distraction and hit him in the chest with a blast of white light. Dumbledore flew back several feet and hit the ground hard. More blood gushed from his nose. The pain was making his mind reel and his stomach churn. Rational thought was leaving him. Nothing mattered more to him than killing Grindelwald before he killed everyone else. Nothing.
He stood up and said the last two words he ever thought he would. "AVADA KEDAVRA!"
When the green light faded, Grindelwald was nowhere to be seen.
~~~
At the same time Grindelwald was turning the courtyard into ashes, Minerva was running through the school, looking for someone to aid in the fight. It was a difficult task; Hogwarts was a large school, and the teachers were spread to every end of it. She found Halo Pokeli and Jason Rose in the Transfiguration corridor, told them that Dumbledore and Grindelwald had fallen out the window, and then left to find more help. Even with Rose and Pokeli – two of the school's most competent professors – going to help, Minerva couldn't shake the feeling of dread that had been following her for the last few minutes. Dumbledore was in trouble, she knew it. She could only hope the others would get there in time.
Minerva came off the staircase leading to the fourth floor, went down a hall, rounded a corner, and then gasped as her eyes fell upon a familiar figure. "Tom!"
Tom Riddle turned around and looked at her. "Minerva! I thought you were with Dippet and Nay!"
"And I thought you were with Cutler," she replied, referring to the Ancient Runes instructor.
Tom shook his head, and a section of his dark hair fell into his eyes. He reached up to brush it away and said, "I got ahead of him a few staircases ago, and we got separated. I've been looking for him."
"Then we'd better keep looking," Minerva said, taking her friend's wrist and breaking into a jog. "Where do you think he could be?"
"I can't be sure, but it looked like the staircase was going toward the library," Tom answered, jogging alongside her.
Minerva groaned. "But that's at the other end of the school!"
"Yes, I know. What about you? Where's your escort?"
She summarized the events that had taken place from the moment she heard Arabella's scream to Dumbledore's instructions after he and Grindelwald fell out the window.
Tom's forehead wrinkled with concern as she spoke. "So it's true? Grindelwald is here?"
She nodded. They reached the end of the corridor. Minerva turned left and Tom turned right. "Tom!" she said.
Tom apologized and quickened his pace to catch up with her. "I was… distracted."
She could understand. Finding out the most dangerous wizard in the world was inside a place thought to be safe from such an invasion was very distracting. Even now, she was being distracted by another thought. She hadn't told Tom what Grindelwald said about Indira – that she was Madeline Rahmini. If that was true, it would explain a lot, but should she tell him?
Go ahead, a voice in her head whispered. You can trust him. He's your friend.
"Dippet and Nay…" Tom said. "Are… are they dead?"
"I don't know," Minerva answered. "She had an awful-looking cut on her forehead, and I didn't even see him."
Should I tell him now?
Yes, tell him.
She took a deep breath and said, "When… when I was dueling with Grindelwald, he said something about Nay. I don't know if it's true or not, but…"
"What did he say?"
"He said she's Madeline Rahmini."
Tom snorted. "Indira Nay, Madeline Rahmini? He is insane."
"But if she is, then it explains so much," Minerva replied. "Why she won't talk about him, why he put so much effort into killing Catherine Nay, why she was so quick to say Madeline was dead, why she's… the way she is…"
They passed a window, and Tom stopped in his tracks. "Gods!" he exclaimed, a genuine look of shock on his false face. "What the fuck?!?"
Minerva looked out the window too and screamed. A ring of fire was blazing in the courtyard below them, and suddenly, there was a flash of green light. "Forget Cutler!" she said, and began sprinting. "We've got to help Dumbledore!"
~~~
Dumbledore didn't understand. Where could Grindelwald have gone? There was no sign of his body, and it was impossible to Apparate on Hogwarts grounds. He must have ran when I was down, he realized. The coward!
He took a deep breath and ran at the flames, then leapt through to the other side. The ends of his outer robe had caught fire, and he cast it off without a second thought. In the pale light, he could make out a figure racing toward the school, one that could only be Grindelwald. "IMPEDIMENTA!"
Grindelwald tripped and fell, and Dumbledore ran toward him as fast as he could. A blast of light came his way, and he leapt to the side and rolled for several feet to avoid being hit. He didn't know how much more his body could take; he was beginning to feel light-headed from blood loss, and every step was like was like walking barefoot on knives. He knew Grindelwald preferred sadism, but he would kill quickly if he had to. Dumbledore knew he had to take the battle away from Hogwarts. That way, if he died, at least it would buy Hogwarts some more time to prepare their defenses.
"Accio!" Dumbledore said, pointing his wand at a statue of a griffin that stood near an entrance to the school some fifty feet away. Once the griffin was flying toward him, he shouted, "Portus!"
The griffin began to glow. Dumbledore reached Grindelwald, who was still on the ground. The statue, now a portkey, was coming up fast. Dumbledore seized Grindelwald's hand and pressed it, as well as his own, against portkey as it went past them, and they were taken away.
~~~
Seconds later, Halo Pokeli and Jason Rose stepped out into the courtyard. Both were shocked at the sight of the fire, and they began casting Extinguishing spells. The flames died, but there was no sign of Dumbledore or anyone else.
"I don't like this, Halo," Rose said, looking around. "Something's not right. Where are they?"
"What's that?" Pokeli asked, taking notice of something still burning on the ground.
The two professors ran toward it to investigate. "It's a cloak," Rose observed after putting out the flames.
Their peripheral vision caught some movement, and they turned around, only to see Minerva McGonagall running toward them, with Tom Riddle on her heels. "What's happened?" she asked. "Where's Dumbledore?"
"They're gone," said Pokeli.
Minerva saw the cloak and gasped. "That's Dumbledore's." Frantic tears began forming in her eyes. Where had they gone? Help was so close… it could have ended then. It should have ended then.
Pokeli sighed and looked toward the sky. "Wherever they are, we no longer have any say in their fate."
~~~
Dumbledore wasn't exactly certain where they came to rest, but he had a general idea. His thoughts had not been specific when he turned the griffin into a Portkey; his only intent was to get them as far away from Hogwarts as possible. And it worked. He could not think of a single place near Hogwarts that had snow-capped crags jutting out of glaciers, their jagged peaks reaching for the menacing grey clouds overhead. A storm was coming. And not just from the elements.
His eyes scanned the area for Grindelwald. He couldn't be far. A blast of icy wind hit him in the face, cutting like a knife into his skin. A layer of frost was forming on his glasses, and with a frustrated grunt, he cast them aside. He was farsighted anyway; surely he wouldn't need them for a battle that promised to be at close range. He was surprised they hadn't been broken when Grindelwald hit him earlier. At any rate, they would only hinder him, and he needed every advantage he could get.
Once his glasses were out of the way, Dumbledore resumed his search for Grindelwald. But it was Grindelwald who found him first. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a jet of red light coming his way just in time to jump out of the way. It whizzed past his ear, singing the ends of his auburn hair as it did. When he hit the ground, he slid for several feet on the hard surface. Ice, he realized. Battling on a field of ice would not be good for either of them. He could make out a rocky overhang some fifty feet away; if he Apparated to the top of that, perhaps he could lure Grindelwald into following.
Dumbledore Apparated just before another jet of light hit him. It took Grindelwald a few moments to realize where he'd gone once he vanished, but when he did, he, too, relocated to the top of the small cliff. "I never imagined you would be the type who wanted to die alone," Grindelwald sneered. A small trail of blood trickled from the left corner of his mouth and froze in the air.
"Who says I'm going to die?" Dumbledore asked, raising his wand.
"I do!"
"STUPEFY!" Dumbledore cried.
Grindelwald blocked the attack with a Shield Charm and returned it was a Stunner of his own. Dumbledore dodged the Stunner by dropping to his feet and tripping the other wizard. Grindelwald landed on his back in the snow, and Dumbledore tried to Stun him again, but he rolled, and the Stunner missed. Grindelwald reacted with a Blasting Curse, which made contact with Dumbledore's chest and sent him to the ground. Both of them were back on their feet at the same time.
"You are my equal in skill," Grindelwald observed with a hint of admiration to the voice that was as cold as their surroundings. "My cause could benefit from someone like you."
"We were all on your side once," Dumbledore replied. "I do not believe anyone would be foolish to make that mistake again."
A cruel smile crossed his face. "Then however did I get into your fortress of a school?"
His words caught Dumbledore completely by surprise. Was he implying the involvement of someone within Hogwarts itself? "No!" he said. "I don't believe it!" Even as he spoke, everything was falling into place. There was an insider. It was the only way to explain how Grindelwald penetrated the school's defenses.
"Madeline Rahmini had a Secret-Keeper," Grindelwald said. "Why don't you ask him how I got in?"
Dumbledore didn't get any time to react to this statement; Grindelwald hit him with a Conjunctivitis Curse and then charged. All Dumbledore could see was five Grindelwalds coming toward him, and he could only think of one way to get them all away from him until the curse wore off: a Banishing Charm. He cast the charm. All the Grindelwalds flew backward and then vanished.
Dumbledore spent the next few moments while the curse wore off to ponder what had just happened. When his vision returned, Grindelwald was still nowhere to be seen. For a moment, Dumbledore feared he'd Apparated, but then realized he would have heard the crack.
And then he realized something else. While under the Conjunctivitis Curse, he'd become disoriented, and all he knew about where he was aiming was that it was at Grindelwald. He had no idea where he'd banished Grindelwald.
Until he noticed that he was turned toward the edge of the cliff.
Dumbledore dashed to the edge and dropped to his knees. There was a hole in the ice at the base of the cliff. The ice was the frozen surface of a lake. Grindelwald had fallen through.
He Apparated to the hole in the ice and plunged his hand into the icy water, hoping he wasn't too late. They needed Grindelwald alive. There were too many questions they had that only he could answer. He could feel nothing, and his arm was going numb. He pulled it out, shook off the water, and was prepared to reach in again when something caught his eye: two pieces of wood floating on the surface.
Grindelwald's wand.
Dumbledore fished it out of the water and looked at the pieces. It would be impossible to recover Grindelwald's body, and there was little chance that he was still alive; the fall alone would have killed him. This broken wand would be the only proof that the terror of Grindelwald had finally been stopped. And it was all the proof they needed.
~~~
Half an hour later, an exhausted man pushed open the doors of the main entrance at Hogwarts, then collapsed to the stone floor.
~~~
SO SORRY this took so long! Writer's block, other stories, all that good stuff. I wish I could promise that the next chapter will be out MUCH sooner, but Freelancer-the-astrophysicist isn't getting the grades she wants, so… yeah. But thanks for all your support, and I will do the best I can! :o)
And no, Dumbledore's use of the Killing Curse will not go overlooked.