The Lord of Stone Tower

Chapter 17; Traitor's End.

Stone Tower- 2 years after Harry's return/4 years before Chapter 16

It was during the mercenary attack on Stone Tower in 1999 that Ron managed his escape, he had only been a prisoner for a short while and he was lucky that he managed to escape. It had happened shortly after the Tower had attacked and slaughtered the remaining attackers.

Three of his guards had already been called away to help rescue people buried in rubble from the ongoing artillery barrage so when the Tower redirected its energy to wiping out its aggressors. When his little box suddenly dissipated into the ground he only took two seconds to move. Leaping at the nearest Guard who happened to be the Muggle, before the Elf had drawn his bow the ex-captive had kneed the Muggle in the groin and wrenched the man's P-90 from his hands turning it on the Dark Elf. The cluster of high-speed bullets crumpled the Elf's chest and killed him in a spray of blood, but not before the Elf managed to release his hold on the arrow causing it to fly across the small gap and lodge itself in Ron's right shoulder.

Ron left the chamber after crushing the Muggle's throat with the butt of his new gun and he was miles away from the city before the City had recovered from the chaos and Harry's day was made one of the worst of his life when he was told about the escape.

After his escape Ron had reported directly to his Master, Tom Riddle, even with the arrow still lodged in his shoulder. His master had been pleased with his escape as he was the only Death Eater to have gone against Potter and escaped, especially after being captured and locked up in Stone Tower. He had been made apprentice to Bellatrix Lestrange, the Commander of all Death Eaters and had spent the next two years training under her and became an add-on to her shadow, fighting beside her in the battles she was entrusted with and even being her second in duels against those that would contest her position as the Dark Lords second in command.

It was because of this position that he had been given command of the Death Eaters that attacked Hogwarts.

Bellatrix had been injured the day before when the Death Eaters had attacked an American Muggle base in Iceland. The Americans were the only country that still had the nerve to actively oppose his Lord. Countries like France had held out briefly against the original Death Eaters but after the British Ministry's fall Voldermort had controlled the strongest Wizarding Nation in the World. Within two months of Britain's defeat Voldermort marched on France, Holland and Belgium with a force made up of Death Eaters and defectors of the Auror Battalions. The three countries under attack fell within days and with the surrounding countries conquered Voldermort had turned his attentions inwards and had worked for the last years to defeat the rebels in Britain. Most of the smaller pockets fell quickly, like those based in the smaller schools of magic and places similar to Hogsmeade but the two remaining were the strongest. Hogwarts had been built up like a fortress more powerful than ever after the arrival of over half of the remaining Auror Battalions and had become a small country in its own right. And whilst it stood due to the sheer numbers of Magic users, Muggles and ancient spells Stone City stood due to its new technology and superior skills. Every Death Eater knew this, even their Lord knew it was nigh on impossible to crack. But they all had faith in the omni potency of their Lord that he would destroy it and that it only existed because of Voldemort's tolerance of its existence.

The Americans were no match for an all out strike with the new Wizarding forces of Voldemort's army, at least that was before they started building weapons identical to Stone City's. They had become bolder but were complacent for some reason with defending its own territories. The strike on Iceland led by Bellatrix had been a show by the Death Eaters that America couldn't take liberties. They had assaulted the base and the shields had been down making their task easier. Four hours of fighting had ensued and eventually the Muggles had self-destructed their own base killing the majority of both sides, including injuring Bellatrix. Ron had apparated out moments before as soon as he realised what was happening.

As his first Battle command had begun he had been reassured that the Muggle army sent by his Lord to destroy Stone City would keep Potter away from here if not destroy him completely. The thinking had been that Potter would build his defence based on an army of Wizards not a Muggle Army which Potter had no idea even existed.

But as he took in the forms of Potter surrounded by a Dark Elf, the kid he was supposed to have kidnapped so long ago and the newly appeared ghost of his school rival all he could think to do was to curse the muggles for being so weak.

Draco would never have admitted it in the years before his death but he really had to admire Harry's flare for things dramatic. The situation he had arrived at had been interesting to put it simply. Ron Weasley standing oblivious to the carnage behind him where Harry, Drale and Alex had swept through him one hundred people strong command centre killing everyone so silently that no-one in the group of tents had heard anything.

The look on Weasley's face had almost been comical. The so called apprentice to the Shadow General shocked into silence by Harry Potter. Even Draco, being the newcomer, could realise Weasley's hopeless situation. Ron Weasley on his own verses the four attackers, Alex being a Infernis, Drale being an Elf with above human speed, Harry being a Dark Lord who could only be killed by Voldemort himself and Draco…well Draco was already dead and couldn't die twice.

Evidently someone should have pointed this out to Weasley however.

"I'll kill you Potter!"

Harry just laughed, "I cant die by your hand traitor, and I dare say that you couldn't strike me even if I just stand here and do nothing." The challenge was out and Weasley fell for it and lunged forward.

Alex moved almost in a blur as he slashed his flattened hand towards Weasley's running form. A flash of blue flames lanced from it in an almost solid spear and before Weasley could even react it plunged deep into his sternum, just missing his heart where it sat in him like a Muggle spear burning his flesh.

Even crippled it seemed that Weasley still had a tongue as he screamed as the flames burnt into him.

"That's enough Alex." Harry said and Alex clenched him fists and the flames shuttered out leaving a cauterised hole in his chest. "Draco?"

"I found the Citadel." Draco answered instantly; referring to the mission he had been on. "You don't have to keep this traitor any longer." He spat.

"Draco's right," he said turning back to Ron, "I was going to keep you alive to find out where Riddle's Citadel was but it seems your presence is no longer required. And don't think Riddle will be bringing back your spirit either. You're going to die, body and soul."

"You can't do that; even you can't kill a soul!" Ron spat but he still went pale at the implication.

"Oh yeah, you've never seen the Staff of Ra. He used it to kill his enemies, and they were Gods!" Harry held out his hand out and Draco caught the prompt, bulling the ghostly Staff out of his waistband and flinging it across to Harry. Its path took it close enough to Weasley for him to take a lunge at it. It passed straight through his closing hand and into Harry's ghostly one before it and the hand holding it turned back into flesh and blood.

"Nice try Traitor but if you can't touch Draco you can't touch this. This is one weapon that Riddle will not find out about till it is too late. And you defiantly won't be able to tell him about it."

Weasley could only watch, his jaw slack, as a stream of what sounded like ancient Egyptian cam out of Harry's mouth. The Staff lit up brightly like a dim sun and soon left Harry's and to spin in front of Ron. After a few seconds a echoing crack was heard and a bright white light flew from the centre of the twirling light and hit Weasley in the chest killing him and disintegrating his body.

Harry's eyes were strained as he turned away from the Death Place of Ron Weasley, the first true friend he had gotten. There would always be Peter Pettigrew he thought to himself.

"Lets clean this up and head home." Alex whispered to Drale as his surrogate brother walked past him. "Draco, take him home would you?" he muttered to his ghostly friend.

Hogwart's Wall

Hermione and Minerva stood side by side again at the top of the gate. The enemy was no more yet there was so much work left to do. Hundreds of bodies to bury or dispose of, at that moment small parties of people wandered through the tangles of bodies looking vainly for survivors on the grounds.

"Headmistress's?" Came a call from a few metres behind them, obviously the person was respectful not to intrude on their thinking. They turned to meet the intruder and were relieved to see the Infernis that Harry had taken into his heart.

Hermione spoke first. "Where's Harry?" She said as she gave his slightly blood stained figure a hug. "Where were you in the fight? Were you hurt?"

"Patience Hermione, I am sure he brings information and if you let him speak he will be able to answer you!" Minerva broke in before she could continue.

Alex nodded gratefully at Minerva, "Harry has returned home, the fight took its toll on him greatly." He hastily continued when he saw Hermione go pale and open her mouth. "He wasn't hurt I promise you, at least no physically. I don't know if you were aware but it was Ron Weasley that was leading this siege and Harry killed him. As you can expect it hurt him a lot to kill someone who he once loved."

He turned to Minerva so that Hermione could think on it for a while, "Stone Towers forces will split, all of our engineers must return to the City as we were hit by Muggle artillery before our shields could come online and they are needed for repairs however most of our soldiers will stay behind here to help in clearing this mess up and some of our healers will come to add to your own healers. We took few casualties in the City. Once Harry has recovered I am sure he will ask the founders to begin repairs on the Castle but it may be a few hours before he has vented his anger enough for anyone to risk reminding him of it." He chuckled slightly to try to ease the depressive mood.

"Thank you Alex, send our thanks to your troops and especially to Harry." The elderly witch said with a small smile.

"We will be in touch soon about a mission that Draco has made available to us, but I am not allowed to speak of it as of yet." He bowed briefly before heading to the Stone Ring to reach home.

A/N; Thanks for the reviews and patience! Love you all!