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An Old and New World
by Lens of Sanity
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Chapter Twenty Nine: Demons, Daemons, Daimons
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"So there we were right on the ragged edge—" Harry's voice was excited, perched atop the back of his giant tortoise. "Tam's down and quivering. She's a mess yelling, 'Save me, save me' over and over. Totally in shock like I say—" His companion looked dubious but didn't interrupt. "...and Greyback's forces are closing in. You remember Grayback? He's a monster out of a horror story, penchant for attacking children, especially little girls. Anyway his pack were surrounding us, and we have only seconds to spare. Padfoot is being treated by Lily, I mean Mum—"
"Mum? You mean Lily Potter?"
"Yeah?"
"She seemed a little young to be your mother when I met her, Harry."
"Well she spent most of the last fifteen years dead, before getting over it—" Harry waved it off as unimportant. "...so were all down except me, and the werewolves are closing in on all sides—"
"Werewolves?"
"Yeah, Grayback and his pack were werewolves. Did I not mention that?"
"No."
"Well they were," he said offhandedly. "Anyway, just as I'm about to go down swinging, there she was, like a Valkyrie straight out of Norse mythology. And she's at the head of an entire army. Her forces sweep past me on either side, clashing dramatically with the werewolves. Fleur is just standing there backlit against the sun, looking the flawless goddess. Coming to our aide just in the nick of time, and at the most dramatic moment—"
"I have to say, the briefings regarding the goings on in the magical world seem far more exciting when you give them Harry."
"Yeah, it was totally awesome!"
This was one of the things she'd gotten them to agree to after being summoned to explain the whole "setting off nuclear weapons" thing. Harry or one of his friends were to come periodically and explain to the Queen what was really going on with her Magical subjects.
The unexpected upshot, from Harry's point of view, was that he actually liked the woman. She was sarcastic in a similar way to Professor McGonagall. And even though "Liz" never admitted it, Harry was certain she found the theft of her Rolls Royce funny, in that it was so hard to believe anyone would have the temerity to do such a thing at all!
"Yes, quite. It is simply that the majority of the reports I listen too are dry and focused primarily on facts, rather than dramatics," commented the British monarch.
"Well," Harry thought this over, "if you want that kind of story in the future I'll be happy so send over Hermione or something... She'll probably treat it like homework though."
"Not at all, it is quite refreshing. So what happened next?"
"Oh, we won. Obviously. Only Hogwarts is now under siege. The Dark Lord, you can't call him V— anymore because of the Taboo, he's in command of the magical government. My Mum's pregnant with my father's child and we're hoping for a girl. Bella is too, and I accidently got married during the exciting rescue—
"Anyway, I gotta go. Tam came up with a good idea the other day, and we have some stuff to prepare. See you when I see you."
"..."
There was a crack of dissapparition.
"What? Pregnant, in charge of the magical—, married? Damn it Harry!"
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"The Orb of Danzalthar?" Harry asked. If Tam's description was accurate the thing sounded as though it had potential.
"We're not doing it!" Hermione declared as the small group walked through the airship.
"Do we even know where the Orb of Danzalthar is currently located?"
"I've told you, no! We're not doing it," Hermione protested again. "You all promised that we aren't the evil side of this war. Remember?"
"I've got a pretty good idea yeah," Tam said, ignoring her girlfriend.
"Hello? Are you listening to me?" she screeched. "No. I do not want to be any part of this."
Harry looked her over speculatively. "Would you prefer we sacrifice a bunch of virgins like the book tells us too?"
"No. I'd prefer you didn't do it at all!"
"Well someone has to do it," Bellatrix stated the obvious. "I think finding this Orb of Danzalthar is pretty reasonable."
"Just because you had the idea doesnot mean you have to do it!" The brunette enunciated this slowly and precisely. Probably because it was more patronising that way?
"Now you're being ridiculous Hermione," Harry commented. "And you aren't helping Bella dear, not until you can stick the little bun in someone else's oven."
"Aww, c'mon—" whined the tiger animagus, "I'll be really, really careful."
"No," Harry said firmly, approaching the wooden ship's wheel which steered Caerbannog. "Where we headed then Tam?"
"Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany," answered the redhead.
"'Ze Black Forest?" Fleur half asked, half stated. These were the first words spoken in Harry's presence since the whole marriage revelation, and the caused him to rub his jaw in remembrance. The sixteen year old had made a tactless comment basically saying that, as they were now married, maybe it would be best if they go consummate their relationship.
She'd hit him pretty hard, loosening three and knocking out one of his teeth. A mean right cross was just one of the things Harry wouldn't admit to liking about the woman.
The upshot caused him to do something he regretted—and he always did regret any and all time spent with Parkinson—just to prove how much he didn't need the French girl.
"Cool," Harry concluded bringing the ship about. "Remind me to pick up a Black Forest gateau while we're thon the way back."
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It would have gone so much smoother had Luna been with them. Harry knew that to his bones. He didn't mention it aloud though, his mulish insistence the woman was still alive caused his companions to look at him with sympathy. It was irritating and he really didn't like at all.
"What the hell happened to you guys?" Bella wailed on first catching sight of their battered appearance.
"Boating accident?" Harry replied irrelevantly.
Yeah, the whole group was covered in pretty blatant cuts, bruising, and injuries, and in Harry's expert opinion it was mostly Fleur's fault. What in the hell possessed the woman to try distract those zombie ninjas using a fan dance of all things he'd never know. She caught him looking at her and correctly guessed what he'd been thinking.
"I said eet before, eet seemed like a good idea at 'ze time!"
"Against zombie ninjas?"
"Shut up 'Arry, eet worked didn't eet?"
"Barely," he admitted. "It barely worked. It really shouldn't have worked though!"
"I am more impressed at how Hermione managed to stop those spiky walls from closing in around us. I mean, you saw it but it was kind of unbelievable." Tam words were muffled beneath the thick bandages wrapped around her head, jaw, and eye. "Just in the nick of time too. Stupid trapdoor!"
"Wasn't that big of a deal actually," Hermione said with fake modesty. "The most difficult part was outrunning that big spherical boulder chasing me."
"That was not my fault."
"I am not saying you did it on purpose Harry. Only that outrunning the thing was hard."
"Did you obtain the Orb of Danzalthar at least?" Seeing the group was hurt but sniping at one another, Bellatrix concluded they would all be fine, setting about healing Harry's injuries once again. The boy just couldn't keep himself out of trouble without her there looking after him.
The boy in question reached into a magically expanded pocket and wandlessly summoned the trinket they'd gone to such terrible lengths to obtain. It was barely small enough to fit in the palm of Harry's large hands and glowed ethereally as if from some unimaginable depth.
"Ooh, pretty." While not exactly appropriate, nevertheless this description was quite accurate.
"Wait," Harry said, eyes going wide. "Where are Tonks and Sirius?"
"Gods we didn't leave them floating in the—"
"Yeah, I think we did."
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Tonks and Sirius were fine. Padfoot even thought it was funny, but the metamophmagus was quite snippy with Harry especially. She wasn't happy they'd left her behind—"to die" as she saw it—but physically she was okay.
The Caravel of Caerbannog's crew currently consisted of only seven people; Harry was the captain, and Bellatrix his first mate—being the only one willing to wear the pirate costume—Hermione and Tam both flatly refused and were relegated to swabbing the decks, a pastime Harry was unsure as to neither the purpose nor the methodology. Sirius was map-guy, or as he preferred to call himself "cartographer" or "navigator" pretty much interchangeably, and Tonks was quartermaster, mostly in charge of ensuring a healthy blood alcohol level for the rest of the team.
Fleur for whatever reason protested her obvious designation of ship's "buxom wench," but as she refused to wear the totally not trampish costume either, Harry ignored her remonstrations.
As they were in no real hurry to return to the castle, the path back to the airship's hiding place on the Shetland Islands took three fairly restful days. As restful as any time spent in close proximity with Harry at any rate. During the trip Harry had not gotten a chance to see the inside of Fleur's new room even once, and it was not for lack of trying.
So a few days later the small group portkeyed as close to Hogwarts as they could and got on with breaking back into the school. For a full mile around the normal defences of Hogwarts were a secondary set of wards, preventing easy ingress and egress for the witches and wizards of both sides. The house‑elves were capable of bringing in food and supplies, so it wasn't like the Death Eaters were trying to starve everyone out. Instead they were in place to prevent reinforcements and positioning in any kind of simple way, giving Voldemort's curse breakers the opportunity to chip away at the millennia old protections.
They even had Phoenix Wards.
Where in the hell the Dark Lord was getting so many of those from was a mystery. The only set in the British Isles before the second war began were on Azkaban Island, and had been stolen by Voldemort himself when he'd broken out Bella and the imprisoned Death Eaters two summers ago. Those had been destroyed by Harry's nuclear bomb.
There was a simple reason Phoenix Wards were so rare. The cost of constructing such interdicting magic was around the same as training and outfitting an entire Auror battalion. So the question as to where in the name of Circe's soggy panties Voldemort was getting them from was quite pertinent.
The upshot was that they could not portkey directly to the Headmaster's Office, nor could Hermione ask Fawkes to fyreflash them to their destination.
Oh, and it wasn't just powerful wards between them. There were Death Eaters, and some Death Eater controlled Ministry people, and several Goblin regiments, and the army of Dementors, and a double handful of Giants. Oh, and at least one Founder, and possibly Voldemort himself. The Dark Lord had taken to camping out with his forces sometimes, so he may well be there too.
Surprisingly enough Harry did not think this was all that much of a big deal, after all, he was Master of the coolest Deathly Hallow, and so the only threat he believed to be actually dangerous was the Dementors. Dementors being creatures which could sometimes detect him when under the cloak's protection, if his experience visiting Bellatrix in Azkaban was still valid.
It would eventually turn out that this experience wasn't valid, and that the Dementors only became shirty and disagreeable because they could detect the missing prisoner. But they didn't know it, so the plan remained the same.
"Come on then ya scabrous curs, Patronus up. Expecto Patronum!"
The group kind of looked at him a little funny but eventually began repeating his incantation.
"Expecto Patronum!" A giant Grim-like dog from Sirius.
"Expecto Patronum!" An elegantly majestic hawk from the beautiful Fleur.
"Expecto Patronum!" An otter of all things from Hermione.
"Expecto Patronum!" A gigantic viper from Tam.
"Expecto Patronum!" A feisty Jack Rabbit from Tonks.
"Expecto Patronum!" And of course, identical to Harry's own, a powerful Royal Bengal tiger from Bellatrix.
Harry closed his eyes and felt out at to the variable magic in the air, holding his Patronus wandlessly with little more than a thought. He reached out at Bellatrix's construct and the two tigers began wrestling with one another. Once he got the feel of holding both he reached out to the hawk, and the avian began playfully dive bombing the felines. Grim, otter, jack rabbit, and viper, took him the better part of a quarter hour but eventually Harry was comfortable he could hold them all.
"Okay, I've got it," he said with confident green eyes. "Now you're up."
The others began transfiguring themselves into small inanimate objects, and eventually Sirius went Padfoot form and took the other five in his mouth. They were all stuffed into Harry's magically expanded pocket along with the shrunken dog animagus.
It took a fair amount of concentration to hold seven Patroni all on one's own, but Harry managed as he wrapped himself in the Cloak of Invisibility, and began trotting toward Castle Hogwarts. He had probably a five mile run ahead of him and could only hope his passengers' innate magic didn't reverse the transfigurations before he reached his destination.
It wasn't exactly what you would call a subtle infiltration, with seven shining guardians blazing happiness, galloping, swooping, and padding their way through the enemy lines. However the Patroni were spread out, so could only give a rough indication of Harry's location, and concealed beneath his Deathly Hallow he could simply focus on his feet.
It had worked when they escaped the blockade last week.
Easy as pie.
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Life in the castle sucked Merlin's saggy balls. This downturn was due entirely to Hermione "Satan" Granger, and her big stupid mouth, and said big stupid mouth's unapologetic blabbing of things which would be best kept to herself. She'd done it at pretty much her first opportunity on returning to the castle following their cruise to southwestern Germany.
She, Satan Granger, had informed everyone in Hogwarts who would listen, that Harry and Fleur were now married. As an upshot of this, Harry could find nobody at all who would sleep with him. Not Tracy Davis—who'd finally taken his advice and gotten herself a real boyfriend. None of the giggling fangirls he usually stayed clear of. Poppy had turned him down. Not even Pansy Parkinson!
That last made Harry shudder thinking about it.
It was like he was a fucking leaper for gods' sake. And the worst part of the whole thing was Hermione's—unfortunately accurate—assertion that Luna would agree with her if she was still alive. Because let's face it, Luna would find the whole turn of events incredibly amusing, and use it to needle him about Fleur.
They'd been back weeks now, weeks! Mostly working through the primary plan, and with a healthy dose of revenge attempts against Hermione. Most of which were foiled or violently made to backfire thanks to the Riddle bitch having Hermione's back.
Weeks!
He was a fucking rabbit animagus, and as such was starting to think he'd be dead soon. It was like when Padfoot ran out of dog biscuits and became completely unreasonable.
"Morning Harry," the godforsaken brunette chirped happily. "Isn't it such a fine and pleasant morning?"
His green eyes narrowed malevolently. He took in her bright smile, slight sheen of sweat, and a barest hint of a well remembered and much lamented scent.
"You've just finished having sex haven't you!"
"I do not know what you are talking about Harry."
"Yeah, you have," his eyes widened in realisation. "And you came down here specifically to rub it in my face. God I hate you so much Hermione."
"Well, you know you could start acting a little nicer, maybe you would have an honest shot at seducing your wife."
"She is not my wife!" he roared for the hundredth time.
"Whatever you say Harry." The bitch had the balls to roll her eyes. "Anyway, I have come up with yet another reason for you to change your mind about this stupid plan of yours."
With the first syllable of a Cruciatus Curse on his lips Harry visibly restrained himself, the two moving off to the room they'd spent most of their time in since overcoming the protections on the Orb of Danzalthar: the Chamber of Secrets.
Tamsyn's plan required a fair amount of preparation, and it involved pretty archaic magic. So the little used chamber beneath Hogwarts seemed the best place to perform it. Slytherin's secret room was steeped in ancient magic as was the rest of the castle, however the feel of it—now Harry knew what he was looking for—had such a raw intensity he was amazed not to have noticed back when he was a second year.
Unlike the rest of Hogwarts School, the Chamber of Secrets' inherent magic was virtually unchanged and unused since the time of the real founders.
It also helped that Salazar Slytherin was renowned for his mastery of the Dark Arts, because what he and Tam were doing was unmistakably dark. Absolutely no shred to hide behind which might allow them to argue otherwise.
This was what had Hermione's panties in such a bunch.
"We've already made up our minds Hermione," Harry said as though talking to a small child. "After everything we went through to get that fool orb, I can't believe you want us to stop now."
They passed Myrtle and descended the... §Stairs§
"You could use it for something else. It is a powerful magical artefact."
"It is an interweaving nexus of soul energy Hermione. Are you honestly trying to convince me there is some use for it that you would condone?"
The answer to that question was of course a resounding "No." The brunette would not say so aloud, nor make any attempt she saw as a step back in preventing their chosen course of action. Hermione was therefore silent as they arrived at the huge table in the middle of the main room, overwatched by the massive statue of the simian looking Hogwarts Founder.
Harry was doing Arithmancy. Yeah, he was sitting in the long forgotten chamber with a ballpoint pen and stationary supplies bought from a Muggle supermarket, essentially doing maths. And because of the perverse nature of the world Harry lived in, neither thought to comment on the ridiculous nature of conducting Daemon Raising calculations using a pen labelled "Morrisons."
"I really don't want to be on the same side as people who summon daemons," his friend eventually complained.
Harry nodded, his wild raven hair even messier than usual. "Are you going to help with the carving? I'm still bloody rubbish at rune crafting."
"Of course she is," Tam spoke brightly. Looking up from his work Harry noticed she had sweat matted hair and absolutely stank of sex. She'd refused to shower in a blatant attempt to taunt him!
"You've got to be fucking kidding me!"
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So now Harry, Tam, and a recently de-pregnanted Bellatrix were in Wiltshire, taking in the damp air of late April. They were fairly confident in the plan, and had taken steps to prevent the worst from spilling over. They were intending to summon one of the Lost Ones, and basically point it in the right direction, hoping that the path of destruction would afflict huge losses to the Death Eaters without causing too much collateral damage.
It would also act as a blow to their enemies' moral. Hopefully.
Now, the last time anyone had successfully attempted something like this, as far as they knew, was back in the forties. Grindelwald had let one loose in France to cause random chaos and destruction. It had taken the considerable effort of Albus Dumbledore, Edgar Bones, and Nicolas Flamel all working together to kill the thing.
There were several reasons Harry was going along with Tam's obviously evil idea. This was easily a full order of magnitude moreevil than most of Riddle's questionable ideas, yet Harry was helping rather than siding with Hermione and Albus, as he normally would in this type of situation.
Firstly, if all hell actually did break loose and the daemon went totally out of control, Harry was confident his brother and he could kill it themselves before innocent people got hurt. They were prepared to dispatch it should that become necessary.
Secondly, while they'd promised Snape not to kill Draco Malfoy on purpose, they hadn't promised to avoid setting up a situation where he might die as a happy side effect. They were technically targeting Godric and the Sword Horcrux who just happened to be residing in Malfoy Manor.
And the third reason Harry was going along with the idea was because he was quite confident Voldemort was powerful enough to kill the thing himself without much trouble. Depressing but true, and Harry was not the type to underestimate his opponents. Not today anyway.
Tam admitted wanting to raise a daemon for years. It was one of those residual "I once wanted to be a Dark Lord" things which cropped up from time to time. She knew just where to find explicit guidelines on how to do it successfully, swiftly coming through with an imaginatively titled tome:
Demons, Daemons, Daimons
by Wendy Darling
They were unsure if it was a pseudonym, or if Wendy Darling from Peter Pan was a real person, and she studied daemons in her spare time. Harry liked to think the latter. Nobody was surprised by this.
The main problem they had with this book—other than the crappy title—was the demand for them to sacrifice the immortal souls of twenty four virgins during a full moon. After immediately vetoing the idea to track down two dozen evil virgins, they had instead gone in search of a pretty bauble of myth and legend: the Orb of Danzalthar.
And even now they had no idea who or what Danzalthar actually was or had been.
A bare bones explanation of Daemon Summoning would be that they intended to use the soul energy present in the orb to blast open a portal to some evil nether universe parallel to the mortal plane. The creatures which existed there—according to Tam—really liked living in our plane of existence, so once the portal was open all they had to do was wait for one of the monsters to walk through.
Harry and Tam were not naïve enough to believe they could control the otherworldly abomination, so had opted to open the portal near Malfoy Manor, pointing the creature in the right direction. It would be Godric's problem once through, and they would just sit back and watch.
"Master Harry Potter sir, I haves completed my missions."
"Thank you Dobby," Harry replied neutrally. "What's the word?"
"Masters Draco and Godric, and the Dark Lord are all in residence at bad Master's Manor," informed the excitable little creature with a squawk.
"Excellent. You may go back to Hogwarts." Just before he popped away Harry asked, "Did you warn the other House-Elves to get out too?"
"Yes Master Harry Potter, sir. Dobby did like you said." With a pop and the Elf was gone.
Harry, Tam, and Bella all cut their forearms and began the ridiculously grandiose chant, dripping blood onto the rune stone hexagram. The most difficult part of this entire plan was not obtaining the Orb of Danzalthar from the Black Forest. It wasn't all those "root two over cosec squared" Arithmancy calculations. Nor was it the rare ingredients and stone carving they'd done in the Chamber of Secrets.
No, tracking down an illegal House‑Elf dealer and getting him to free that mental critter who'd been trying to kill him back in second year... That was the most irritating part! For obvious reasons they didn't want to loose a daemon on their enemies without first checking said enemies were in residence.
Sixty six seconds of chanting and the orb cracked open.
As did a tear in creation itself.
Something quite large crawled out.
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Lord Voldemort swept into the room housing Draco and the Godric Founder, as he sat about issuing commands the Dark Lord trailed off, feeling an almighty surge of Dark Magic not one mile away. The other two felt the building power, exchanging a worried glance before moving over to the large window overlooking the grounds.
What they witnessed defied belief.
Three or four times as large as Fleur's Hungarian Horntail during the Triwizard Tournament, the silvery skinned monstrosity was armed with powerful wings, jet black claws, and a long serpentine tail. It had three heads and eyes glistening with redemptive judgement.
"Wha—" Malfoy began, but was interrupted by a high sibilant laugh.
"This should be interesting," the Dark Lord said with a terrible smile. "Unless you find good reason to do otherwise, stay here."
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"But I thought we were summoning a daemon?" asked pretty Bella in confusion. "That looks more like a dragon or a hydra or something."
"Yeah," Harry agreed. "What do you think Tam?"
"I think it's a Nova Dragon," she said eventually. "But I've never heard on one with—"
"—three heads," Harry interrupted. "Me neither."
The three sat watching for a while.
"Down there," Bella pointed, still looking through her Omnioculars. "Someone's moving toward it."
Harry zoomed in on the area in question. "Yeah, that's Flighty alright. Go Snowball go!"
"Snowball?" asked Tam.
"Three heads, all spurting superheated dragonfire?" Harry said "Snowball seems as appropriate a name as any."
"Go Snowball go!" Bellatrix squeed.
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Voldemort was casting up a storm. He'd taken to the air and found he was far more manoeuvrable in flight than his adversary. Nevertheless he'd hardly injured the creature at all. The Foe Hammer he'd crashed into its underbelly caused little more than irritation, the Nova Dragon's hide seeming impenetrable.
He lost his metallic foot to a triple blast of dragonfire but as he was still in flight this injury mattered little. Taking a tremendously powerful slap from one of the creature's arms, Voldemort lost consciousness on impact, waking several seconds later at the bottom of a large crater doubtlessly created with his body's terminal plummet.
The Dark Lord could honestly say he was having a great time.
He lashed out a bullwhip of stygian energy and once again took to the skies.
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Fsshhh-t!
Tam and Bella looked over at him as he unashamedly cracked open a can.
"Want one?" Harry asked, careful to ensure the blood dripping from his left arm did not slow.
"Got any crisps to go with it?" asked the redhead, going back behind her Omnioculars.
"Yeah." He tossed a can and a bag of crisps to the other side of the hexagram and returned to watching Voldemort battle the Nova Dragon.
The Dark Lord had been going at it for a while now and seemed to be doing well.
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He'd got a wing off and managed to slay one of the heads, but the abominable creature looked to be on the winning side. Voldemort cracked open his one remaining eye and came to the only decision he could under the circumstances.
He was Lord Voldemort. The most powerful wizard in history. There was no way he would allow such an opponent to defeat him.
He banished the yggdrasill and wizard heartstring wand with a portkey variant and focused internally on his magic. A palpable increase in the ambient magic was the first sign. The Visible Aura glowing emerald and sliver the second. A colossal conclave of dread and power the third.
When the Nova Dragon struck to finish the wizard once and for all, Voldemort detonated his magic.
The explosion not only killed the summoned monster but levelled Malfoy Manor.
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"Bloody hell but that was awesome!" Harry said on the far side of the valley, behind a hastily cast Bunker Shield.
"Poor Snowball," Tam deadpanned and Bella nodded once. The three cleaned themselves up, healed their cuts, and stowed their gear. It would be a while before they'd learn if it had been successful, and now it was back to Hogwarts.
"I am so glad you have a stupid plan to kill that guy," Tam went on as they prepared to apparate away. "Because it would be years before you or I could fight him even if Albus was at our side."
"You say stupid, I say brilliant," Harry yawned his only response. "Do you think Hermione managed to get one of the other Founders?"
"Oh, I am sure she did," Tam replied. "Hermione is nothing if not thorough."
"Are we going to go play with little Rose Black now Harry?"
"Sounds like a plan."
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Greg and Vince were in the room with their boss and the Godric Founder. Draco sent out orders for the Malfoy Manor to be evacuated right after the Dark Lord left. That gigantic dragon monster with its three heads seemed to the young Malfoy Lord, to be a bad sign. Only his mother and a handful of low ranking Death Eaters were on the grounds, but retreat struck him as a sensible way to go.
The four were looking out at their lord as he swooped and dived around the multi-headed creature, firing incredibly powerful spells, and taking vicious hits. Godric knew he couldn't do it, not with his weak body and limited magical reserves. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle simply took the sight as a matter of course. Malfoy alone looked on with awe and a rising trepidation.
With the Dark Lord in residence even he, the Lord of Malfoy, could not apparate under the wards of Malfoy Manor. So when a rising sense of treacherous magic began pressing down on him, he span out the fastest solution he could think of...
"Private floo," he ordered his twin bodyguards. "More now!"
They acted without hesitation. Those two were well trained after all, and the fireplace changed from red-orange to the pale blue of emergency fire travel. The two vanished with a clockwise spin and Malfoy felt dread magic beginning to swell, knowing he didn't have time.
"You go first, I'm right behind you," he snapped to the Founder, who turned to exit as had the others. This was a mistake because a Tarantallegra was nonverbally cast, the Dancing Jinx striking Godric between the shoulders. Draco's boot stomped into the back of the man's head as he leapt through the flames.
Not a second later there was an explosion powerful enough to destroy the Sword Horcrux.