Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!
WARNINGS for blood and gore, and also a cliffhanger.
The poem quoted here is Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man."
Chapter Ninety: Beneath This Storm of LightThe dawn came, and with it, the storm.
Harry met it standing on the edge of the Astronomy Tower, watching the east as it shone with gentle colors at first, orange and peach and apricot. Then those hues melted into each other, and grew fiercer and fiercer, and surged, and turned the color of gold and diamonds. The image of a gryphon hung in the sky, hovering with wings spread over Hogwarts, blazing with all the colors of fire.
Harry could hear frightened shouts from the Death Eaters behind and below him. He allowed himself a tiny smile. Did Voldemort tell them that they would be fighting beneath the Light itself today? Or did he consider that a tiny, pesky little detail that they didn't need to know about?
The gryphon's wings faded into white where they met the clouds, but the center of its body was real, defined, sharp, and full of gold. Its talons, blue, were held tucked close to its chest. Its eyes were rubies made of light, and its neck and head blared orange. Harry wondered if the talons or the wickedly curved beak were causing the Death Eaters more problems. Or perhaps it was the lion-like hind paws, though as yet they were still fighting to form out of the sunrise.
Harry lifted his left wrist, both to salute the Light and in a private memorial of his own. A year ago today, he had lost that hand.
The gryphon abruptly began to flap its wings. Harry stared, and heard the wild song of the Light in his ears, played by the turning of the sun and the moon and the stars, very close. The song melted into an echoing cry that streamed out of the gryphon's beak. Harry felt the sound uplifting him.
From behind and beneath him, the Death Eaters didn't find it nearly so inspiring. And why would they? Harry wondered, looking over his shoulder and watching their stumbling panic with a faint smirk. This was the Light screaming its defiance at the Dark and its Lord. They would know that its greeting or its blessing or both was not meant for them.
Harry turned back in time to see the gold at the center of the gryphon's body growing brighter, until he had to put his hand over his eyes. Then the image broke with a crack like thunder, and the air flooded with more music and with light cleaner and purer and richer than ordinary sunshine. Harry was not surprised, when he felt able to look up again, to see that the center of the sky was aswarm with glittering, tumbling golden waves, all of them edged with white like the gryphon's wings, all of them moving in a lazy circle that centered on Hogwarts.
The storm of Light had arrived.
Harry turned to face the Death Eaters and the battlefield again. Voldemort was moving through their ranks, heading to the front of the crowd for his morning announcement about what would happen to the inhabitants of Hogwarts if they didn't hand Harry over. Harry kept his gaze fixed on him, and hoped McGonagall was watching for his signal.
"Today is Midsummer," Voldemort called out, his voice, accented with Sonorus, striving for dignity and failing. "The thirteen days of grace that I gave you have passed. Now that the storm—"
Harry called his phoenix fire, finding no trouble in summoning righteous anger with Voldemort right below him. It flared, blue and white, and Voldemort's snake swung its head to look at him. Harry was almost sure he saw the Dark Lord's lipless mouth part in a smile, though of course he was too high up—as Draco would have reminded him—to make out such details.
Harry called the phoenix fire to leap higher and higher, and then sent it up around him in a dazzling display of light. By now, all the Death Eaters were watching him, and so was Voldemort, amused and attracted by the reckless spending of such magic.
Harry had counted on that. While they focused on him, McGonagall quietly dropped the wards in one specific place, and the Weasley twins would be making their way out through the hole under one of Honoria's illusions. They were carrying the vials of potion that would make those it touched go blind, and they were heading for the Quidditch Pitch, where their brooms were stored. McGonagall closed the wards again the moment they were through. Harry waited until he felt them tighten before he spoke.
"Here I am, Tom," he said, and saw Voldemort make a checked movement that bespoke his fury. Harry smiled more widely. He does hate being called by his name. "What do you think? Should we settle this with a duel once and for all, like Lords and gentlemen?"
"I think not, Harry." Voldemort's voice had gone back to the disgusting croon it had been when he captured the children in the Life-Web. "You should have known better than to challenge me. When you succumb to my power, and lie broken and bleeding at my feet, looking up at me, you will learn better. I will personally take charge of your reeducation myself."
And on he went, blathering, while another tiny hole in the wards opened up in front of Harry. He knelt down, scooped up a handful of what would look like tiny golden pellets from the stone in front of him, and dropped them over the edge of the Tower.
The Gloryflower insects fell until they hit stone or soil, and if they hit stone, scurried madly across it until they could reach the soil. Harry hadn't had a chance to spread them through Hogwarts's grounds before Indigena arrived. They were going now, though, with the specific imperative to bite every plant that wasn't grass or a tree. That would doubtless mean the loss of some native flowers and Hagrid's vegetable garden, but it would get rid of Indigena's vines and blossoms and thorns. Harry didn't dare send out the Gloryflower horses, among others, until he knew Indigena wouldn't be able to just grab them with vines and hold them motionless.
"What are you doing?" Voldemort demanded abruptly. His snake was apparently looking in the right direction to have noticed the insects, though not the hole in the wards.
Harry arched a brow and smiled as he scattered another handful of insects downwards. "What does it look like I'm doing, Tom?"
Another twitch from the Dark Lord. "It looks as if you think that you need help in defeating me," he sneered.
"I would say that," Harry agreed, and then lifted his eyes to scan the five hundred or so Death Eaters behind Voldemort. "But you hardly came prepared for single combat either, Tom. Giants. Really. Was that necessary?"
By now, Voldemort was shaking with anger. Harry dropped two more handfuls of insects before he was able to respond.
"They shall all die," Voldemort whispered. "They shall all perish, and I shall make you kill some of them yourself, as you did by the lake."
Harry kept himself from staggering with an effort. Voldemort's Sonorus was touching the ears of everyone in the castle, if he kept the form of the spell he had used for his morning announcements. That meant that everyone would now know he had killed those children in the Life-Web.
He pushed it aside. He would deal with it later, and hope that no one would try to stab him in the back from within the school because of it. He looked outward again, scanning the distance, the road that led to Hogsmeade.
"What are you looking for, Harry?" Voldemort called. "Aurors from the Ministry come to save you?"
"No," said Harry, softly enough that he didn't think Voldemort could hear him. His eyes locked on a glint of light that wasn't the storm reflecting off something. "A second sunrise."
A moment later, horns, or the sound of horns, broke the morning, sounding like the hunting horn that Harry had heard summoning him throughout Walpurgis. He felt his face break into a smile in answer, especially when one of Honoria's illusions answered with trumpets from within the school. Some of the Death Eaters looked uneasily over their shoulders.
"What was that?" Voldemort demanded.
Harry couldn't believe he wanted an answer to that question. But he didn't have to give it, because it answered itself in the next few moments.
Gloryflower had arrived.
The ground shook with vibrations as a herd of artificial unicorns came charging, their bodies glinting silver as running water beneath the golden sky, their diamond horns sharp and lowered and playing that hunting call over and over, their hooves flashing and their manes streaming. They bound straight past the still-staring giants and slammed into the back of the Death Eaters. Harry saw more than one body go flying, stabbed by a horn through the guts or kicked by one of the hooves that Laura had told him were as sharp as knives.
Vines lashed out of the ground, grabbing and slowing some of the unicorns, but these were not the horses Laura had sent. They had no riders to take care of, and plenty of edges. The unicorns whipped up and down, and the vines fell cut and wriggling from their feet and their bodies. Harry saw spikes springing out of their necks and flanks, severing their assailants and then withdrawing beneath the silver again so that the unicorns could pick up speed.
At the same moment, some of the Death Eaters began to scream. Harry concentrated, sharpening his ears with his magic, and made out some of their words. They were blind. Fred and George had reached their brooms, and were on them above the field, scattering down drops of their potion.
Harry looked down at Voldemort, and saw the fury gathering on his face. His magic was gathering around him, too, a Dark answer to the Light overhead, and Harry could feel it opening like a pit with snakes at the bottom.
He stepped back from the edge of the Astronomy Tower, dropped the phoenix fire, and reached out his hand. The artificial animal curled up beneath the wall, so that Voldemort wouldn't see it before it was time, raised its head and blinked at him, then bowed its back so that Harry could climb aboard.
This was the creature that Laura had said her ancestor had built a prototype of. She'd sent the prototype and one other copy of the creature to Harry. Harry thought it had started out something like a thestral, but Laura's ancestor had gone slightly mad in adding spikes and horns and fins, until it looked more like a cross between a thestral and a dragon, and perhaps a unicorn if one took into account the enormous single horn rising from its forehead. It was made of iron, and ugly beyond belief, but its sides had ready-made stirrups. In spite of his lack of experience riding horses, Harry could ride this and know he wouldn't be thrown off.
He fixed his feet into the stirrups and leaned forward. The iron creature spread its wings. Harry felt the egg-shaped stone bouncing in his robe pocket, along with several other stones pried from the walls of Hogwarts. The egg-shaped stone was full of the purified magic he'd taken from Dumbledore and Voldemort, and finished cleansing last night with Peter and Draco and Snape to watch over him.
The other stones were empty.
Right now, anyway.
The iron creature took several running steps, and then launched itself from the edge of the Tower. Harry clutched the spiny neck; his Quidditch gear, especially the glove, was essential to protecting him while he rode the beast. They circled out over the battlefield, tents and fires and Death Eaters swinging crazily beneath the madly flapping blue-black wings.
Harry used one knee to nudge the iron creature upward, and it took the command, rising. Harry streamed across the grounds towards the Forbidden Forest, looking all the while for some sign that not just the Gloryflower unicorns were there.
He saw it in the form of three separate triangular flashes of light, their agreed-upon signal, and pumped his arm. The Gloryflowers, the Griffinsnests, the elder Malfoys, and the others waiting on the edge of the grounds began to move forward. They'd arrived without being noticed; the Death Eaters hadn't been worried about a threat from behind.
Harry wheeled the iron beast around again. He could see threats from at least two directions. The first was that the giants had begun to move, swinging their clubs onto their shoulders with stern grunts and heading for Hogwarts. They wouldn't care about wading into the panicking Death Eaters, Harry knew.
The second was that Voldemort was attacking Hogwarts's wards.
Harry took a deep breath and opened his absorbere ability as widely as it would go. Then he began to rake the Death Eaters gathered around the Quidditch Pitch and the edges of the Forbidden Forest, swallowing their magic with no care for if it was fouled or not. He needed as much power as he could get his hand on, and it wouldn't matter if he gulped enough to burst him, because he would pass most of it directly into the stones in his pocket.
Voldemort swung to face him at once. He pointed one hand, and a spell Harry didn't know traveled up through the air towards him in a deadly dark cone.
Harry spun the iron beast to meet it, and it obeyed him as quickly and neatly as the Firebolt would have. This was his major part in the battle, other than gathering magic. He would face Voldemort and hold him, because no one else could do that.
He broke the dark cone, turning it aside, deflecting it into small scattered particles that fell and burned themselves out harmlessly long before they hit the grass. Harry gave Voldemort a smile he was certain to feel and then began gulping more magic. Voldemort, he thought, would have to come and face him. He wouldn't want to drain his own followers of power, and to break through the wards and drain those inside Hogwarts would take moments of effort in which Harry would have a chance to become more and more powerful.
Sure enough, Voldemort, maddened by the thought of losing to him, did not leave him alone. He gave a command in Parseltongue that sounded choked in dirt, the same language he had used to control the worm in the graveyard, and several Death Eaters flew aside as something slithered over to him from the direction of his tent.
Harry fought to hold onto his breakfast. The creature was a flesh-dragon, made of stitched-together parts of Muggle bodies, the same one he had seen in some of his visions when he'd still held the Occlumency link to Voldemort open. It breathed not fire, but a great and vicious stink, if he remembered correctly.
And now Voldemort was mounting its back, accompanied by his snake, and pointing Harry out, still shouting in choked Parseltongue. Harry saw the dragon's head, slick and pale and sewn together, lift and orient on him. The great wings flashed and flapped, and the dragon began to rise from the ground.
Harry braced himself for the meeting, glad he rode a non-living mount that couldn't be affected by the stink, and hoped that his attacking allies were in a position to do something about the giants.
Lucius ducked, his hair flying, as one of the giants' clubs tried to smash him into the ground. Narcissa dropped smoothly to her knees behind him, grabbing his shoulder and shielding him with a Protego as one of the giant spears stabbed at him. The giant recoiled. Lucius knew maintaining the Shield Charm had cost his wife, but she didn't appear to be tired as she held out her hand and helped him rise.
"On three?" she asked.
Lucius nodded, and put his back to hers. They were aiming at giants who appeared to be ignoring them now for the sake of getting to Hogwarts, or had perhaps simply forgotten about the smaller creatures when they looked away. Giants had notoriously short attention spans, which was one of the difficulties with getting them to be allies in wizard wars.
"One," he said.
"Two," Narcissa echoed him.
"Three," they said together, and followed the number with the curse that alone could carry all their rage and hatred when their son was cooped up in a school and threatened by the madman Lucius used to serve.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Twin beams of green light shot away from their wands, and each felled a giant. Lucius laughed aloud, cold, fierce pleasure rising up in him. He heard Narcissa laughing with the same emotion behind him. He never felt so close to her as he did in these moments. He turned and claimed a hungry kiss, in the instant before she had to cast a Shield Charm around him to protect him from a giant's flying club.
In fact, Lucius saw as he looked up, the giants seemed to be going mad, acting as if something invisible were circling their heads and taunting them. Were there giant-gnats?
"Takes a more concentrated—" Fred shouted as he emptied one of their vials of blinding potion on a giant's head.
"Dose to bring them down," George finished, nodding as he emptied two vials on the same giant, flying his broom with his knees, and then reached into his robe pocket for another. "Yes, it does."
Fred grinned at him, and George grinned back, thinking that this was really the perfect way to test their new products. Protected by their illusion, no one could see them to hit at them, and that meant they only had to dodge randomly fired curses and, now that they were among the giants, wildly swinging clubs. And since they had both been Beaters on the Gryffindor Quidditch team for the majority of their school careers, that was no trouble.
"Bet I can get that one," Fred said then, nodding to one giant in the center of the tangle, which was staring at its blind, flailing brothers in dumb wonder.
"Not before me!" George shouted, and urged his broom forward. Fred laughed and rose over the giants' heads. George, meanwhile, took the lower route, around and through the giants' arms and weapons.
A club passed close enough to cause a whiffle of wind to run up his ribs. George shivered and put on a burst of speed to carry him clear. He nearly hit a second giant in the armpit, but spun the broom twice, in a maneuver that Connor had shown him, and ducked around the obstruction. He had to keep one hand on the vials in his pocket so they didn't fall or fly out, and he had to watch all the time just in case he missed a shadow that would indicate a weapon was coming at him, and he was blasted again and again with the foul smell of sweating giants in close quarters.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this madly happy.
He came out under his last raised arm, and saw the giant he and Fred had targeted immediately ahead. He also saw that Fred was going to reach him first; his route had been faster after all. George cursed and pulled up, hovering, ready to listen to whatever taunts Fred gave him in good humor.
Fred turned and glanced back, seeing him. A smile lit his face, and he drew breath to shout something.
Their target had had his head lifted. Now, for the first time, George saw his nose working. Then he grunted, and swung his club around in a steady circle.
Fred never saw it coming.
The club caught his broomstick and smashed it to kindling. Then it broke his legs—George could hear those snaps of bones as if they were his own—and traveled on, straight into his ribs. George shrieked, on fire with his twin's pain, sharing the sensations as he never had before.
He was diving without conscious thought, falling and falling, his eyes locked on Fred's motionless, falling form. He felt himself draw his wand and chant the Levitation Charm without realizing he would do it, either. With Fred unconscious—hopefully unconscious, at least—he felt only half-alive.
He saw Fred slow. And then he caught him, he caught him, oh he had him, wrapped close in his arms, held tightly, and he could feel Fred's ribs twitching and folding inward in a way that no ribs ever should, and Fred choked on blood and met his eyes.
"Don't you dare die, you son of a bitch," George breathed, as he spun his broom and rose, flying directly towards the castle. He would get through the wards, he would burst through them if he had to, and if they went in through the Owlery, they would get to the hospital wing that much faster.
"No call to go insulting Mum," said Fred faintly, and shut his eyes.
George dismissed the glamour that would keep anyone from seeing them and realizing they needed help, and flew.
Harry cursed softly as Voldemort forced him to wheel high enough, and bring up enough defenses, that he could no longer easily reach and drain the Death Eaters. Voldemort was laughing at him, and his laughter sounded just as unpleasant aloud as it ever had in Harry's dreams.
"What good is magic if you do not use it?" he said now, and another spell that Harry didn't recognize came at him, this one a purple stream of light that forked again and again as he looked at it, like intelligent lightning bolts splitting to attack a target.
Harry swallowed that magic, too, and saw Voldemort's face twist. They were high enough now that Harry was shivering, and the lazy swirls of golden light turning overhead seemed closer than the people struggling on the ground.
Voldemort said something else, but Harry didn't really hear it. He was struggling with the flow of power he'd swallowed. He'd pressed most of it into the stones, but he had to retain some of it in case Voldemort hit him with a spell that couldn't be shielded against and was too vile to gulp down. And already he felt distant and detached from the world, floating above it in a way that had nothing to do with his mount. He could do almost anything with this much magic. Why shouldn't he do it?
If he feels like this most of the time, Harry thought, eyes lingering on Voldemort as he spun the iron beast away from another bolt of forked lightning, this time green, it's no wonder that he thinks other people are of no account.
Voldemort touched the neck of his flesh dragon, and it drew its head back. Harry saw the slick jaws part, and he sucked in a quick, deep breath of air.
The dragon breathed, a clinging, choking cloud of inky murk that flowed around Harry's face. He could feel the oiliness of it against his skin even before he was forced to open his mouth to take in new air and smelled the reek. He began to hack. The smell was burning the lining of his throat and mouth, and the only solution he could think of to keep from vomiting his guts out was to aim the horned thestral for the sky and hope that it would bring him clear of the cloud soon.
It appeared to have worked; Harry could see light and golden sky a moment later, and he breathed clean air frantically to ease the burning. But his mount shook a moment later, and Harry realized that the flesh-dragon hovered not far away. Its tail had just slammed the thestral, and barely missed breaking his own leg. Now its head was coming around again, the jaws parting.
Harry dropped into the instincts that he usually kept for Quidditch, and willed the beast to dive. It obeyed him, dropping like a stone for long enough that Harry knew people would have been yelling his name in fear and fury from the stands if this was a true game. Then he kicked out, and the thestral turned and began to climb again in steady circles.
Harry turned his head, scanning for Voldemort, and saw the dragon bearing down on the battlefield. The Dark Lord had either got bored with him, or realized the best way to infuriate and incapacitate Harry was actually by attacking his allies.
I'm not going to let him do that.
Harry opened a conduit directly to Voldemort's magic, as he had done in the Chamber of Secrets, and last Midsummer in the graveyard, and began to drain him. The foul taste was enough to make him vomit this time, but he succeeded in getting Voldemort's attention. The dragon swung around again, a strange whistling shriek bursting from its throat.
"You dare?" Voldemort breathed, staring blindly down at him.
Harry thought that was fairly obvious, and tugged furiously at the siphon. He threw up again, but Voldemort was losing strength.
And now he had the Dark Lord's attention fully fixed on him.
Harry prepared to do some fast flying.
Ignifer shifted anxiously as she waited for Hogwarts's wards to part enough to let her and the other fighters out. McGonagall had been reluctant to agree at first, since they didn't know if Yaxley's plants were gone or remained to restrict their free movement, but Ignifer had pointed out that her fire could burn most vines and flowers, even magical ones, away. And since the Weasley twins had come back to the castle wounded, and Harry's allies on the far end of the field were tangling with Death Eaters now, someone had to do something about the giant problem.
Honoria stood close at her side, now and then giving her smiles as if to remind her of what they'd done last night. Ignifer avoided her glances, but only some of the time.
At her back were Harry's other adult allies and some of the older students. Minerva had also been extremely reluctant to let them risk their lives, but they could make a difference on the battlefield. Scattered though the Death Eaters were, distracted though their Lord was, some of them might make a concentrated effort on the wards, and then they would be fighting to protect the lives of defenseless students. And there simply weren't enough fighters on the field if they sent only the adults.
Ignifer leaned forward now, staring intently, watching for the moment when the blurred vision of the Hogwarts grounds, courtesy of the wards, gave way—
And then it did. She could see the flagstones of the courtyard just beyond the entrance hall, and the grass beyond that, and the struggling shapes, without looking through a veil of mist.
She led the way out, fire flaring around her, Honoria still keeping her place close beside her. Ignifer wasn't surprised to see glamours of other fighters take shape, replicating them at first, but appearing different enough the further away they stretched to make the Death Eaters think they were fighting many more enemies than were actually present. Honoria shrugged and smiled when she saw that Ignifer was watching her.
"The more we can keep them from striking at us, the better," she said. "These will even bleed and scream like the real thing."
Ignifer stopped herself from saying that Honoria was brilliant, because that would sound too sentimental. Besides, the next moment Honoria was sprouting feathers and hurtling aloft, looking for the place where she could use her illusions to best effect. Ignifer was sure she heard her cackle before she vanished into the storm of gold hovering over the castle.
A giant, brushing off the remains of what looked like a curse that had tried to tie it with ropes, stumbled towards her. Ignifer held out her wand. Though she could not call on the Light for help as she knew some of the wizards and witches today would do, her old sympathy with fire, which normally only the Light-Declared had so strongly, had never left her.
"Ardesco!" she cried.
Flames burst through the giant's gray skin, and it began to slap at itself inefficiently, trying to put the fire out. Ignifer laughed, and ran forward, calling out the incantation for the Flame Whip. It formed in her fist, and she lashed, curling it around the giant's leg and pulling. It tottered, but remained standing upright, even as it howled in pain. Ignifer wasn't surprised. Giants could take a lot of damage before they fell. She supposed she could have slain it in a moment with the Killing Curse, but she preferred not to use the Unforgivables, and she definitely didn't want to take the chance that her curse would fly awry in such close quarters with her allies.
She laughed again, but that was cut short when the ground in front of her wrenched itself apart and vines exploded out, coiling around her legs and binding her wand arm to her side. Ignifer was a prisoner in moments, and had to stand still as the giant she'd burned hefted its club and stepped towards her.
Pansy knew she didn't have much time. So, the moment they stepped through the gate and she felt the rhythm of the battle reach out for her, she retreated into cold and darkness instead, reaching for the connection to Sirius.
He was there, a misty white dog, dancing around her like a mortal puppy. Pansy smiled faintly and ran her hand through the fur on his head.
"Ready?" she asked.
Sirius barked in answer, and Pansy began to open a gate from this quiet, dark world, this inner space, to the outer regions of light and life. It was harder than she'd been prepared for; death itself pressed against her, trying to keep them separate. Pansy had to stand still for a moment and let it see that she was one of its servants. She would not open the gates for any perverted reason, the way that the Dark Lord might, seeking a way to live forever. She knew everyone died eventually. She let the cold strike directly to the center of her mind, and share the visions she had seen, and see how she had kept her vows not to tell anyone.
Death was satisfied that she had kept the sacrifices and the vows. It rolled aside, and Sirius streamed into the world with a howl more nearly akin to a scream. Pansy knew that no one save those on the edge of death would be able to see him, but he would pull their wounded enemies into the darkness all the more quickly, and he would inspire and gift their side with strength from an unknown source as he passed by. Sirius had been a Light-Declared wizard in life, after all, one of the reasons he had so irritated his parents, and today was the day of longest Light.
Pansy opened her eyes and found herself kneeling on the grass, shaking. Her mother stood over her, stroking her shoulder and blocking a curse with a Shield Charm.
Pansy? Her hands asked the question with considerable concern.
I'm well, Pansy answered, and that satisfied Hawthorn. She even smiled for a moment, and Pansy saw Sirius bound past her and hit a group of Death Eaters staggering with the impact of curses from the elder Malfoys. They screamed. Hawthorn laughed, and lifted her wand to deal with the giants.
Pansy closed her eyes. There were two more things she had to do. One required an enormous test of her necromancer powers. The other required nothing but courage and the acceptance of the inevitable.
She raised her hands and called in a voice inaudible to everyone save those who had passed, "Dead in service of an ignoble cause! I respect you, I recognize you, I know your sacrifices and would honor them! As we pass and meet on the road, I going in one direction and you in the other, I would send you to take revenge on the one who condemned you to death! Will you hear and heed me?"
The call echoed and reechoed in a world of loneliness and darkness that lay just behind the living world, the stopping place of the newly dead. Pansy's task was to get her voice to that point. She could not control who would answer, or how they might respond. That was not up to her. A necromancer spoke to, and for, the dead. She did not compel them.
She felt a cold sigh flow past her, and then a few voices answered, followed by more, until she had a chorus of perhaps a score moaning around her. Pansy stepped back, away, sideways—English had no good words for such a direction—and showed them the gate she'd opened back to the living world for Sirius. Frost struck her side as they, too, took it.
Sirius had had to go back as a spirit because of the long time that had passed between his death and his return, and because he had no body; his had been burned in the Black funeral rites. But these dead were the fallen Death Eaters, and they had bodies to possess again.
Pansy could hear the screaming begin even as she opened her eyes. The newly reanimated dead were taking revenge on those responsible for their deaths, as they saw it—Voldemort's other soldiers, who had brought them here in the first place. The one who respected and spoke to them was on the opposite side. That further justified taking revenge on their former comrades. Pansy could hear panicky voices screaming curses that would have no effect. The dead had set minds that did not succumb to intimidation or any form of compulsion. The Death Eaters would have to destroy their bodies to make them stop coming.
Pansy laughed at the thought, finding it more than a little ironic that Death Eaters were so afraid of death. What happened to possessing the force that ends life, and insuring your own immortality? she thought, giddy. Is it too much to see the real thing walking?
She had not realized how much easier calling up the dead would make her last task. She was in their company now, and she felt them reaching out to her, stroking her with cold hands, claiming her as their kin. They knew she was one of them, and Pansy knew she was one of them, and the living world was falling away about her.
She knew what she had to do.
She turned her head, and there she was, a witch with blonde-brown hair and dark eyes and the shadow of leaves beneath her skin, riding an enormous vine that had just burst the soil and was growing upward like a tree. She had lost some of her plants to the golden Gloryflower insects inhabiting the soil, but not enough. Pansy knew she would continue to make trouble until she was driven from the battlefield.
And there was only one way to do that.
With a sense of inevitability, with a sense of the grace of fate, with a sense of turning cycles and turning wheels, Pansy faced Indigena Yaxley and called again. This time, what came down the road that Sirius had taken into the sunlit world was nothing so simple as a spirit. It was the force of cold itself, the force of death, and it struck Indigena's vine with the impact of a whole winter. Pansy saw the leaves wilt and curl, the smooth green body develop brown spots, the strength leave the vine like running sap or running blood.
Indigena's head swung at once, focusing on her, the leaves beneath her skin shifting and bunching. Pansy spread the cold wind wider, acting as a conduit now, attacking the vines that held her comrades still and helpless before the onslaught of the giants.
Her head throbbed with cold and the foreknowledge of death and a very great joy.
Her hands lifted and began to move in the final patterns.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Hawthorn watched in satisfaction as the giant threatening Apollonis fell, and then turned, by habit, to see what her daughter was doing, even though she knew Pansy possessed weapons that no one else on the battlefield did.
She was in time to see a pair of green-black tendrils lift Pansy high and turn her around. Hawthorn caught a glimpse of her daughter's hands, dancing out a familiar set of signs.
Hawthorn's heart withered. She recognized the signs not because she knew the language itself, but because she knew what every necromancer said right when he or she met the moment of death.
Do not mourn me. This is my fate. Thus I die.
Hawthorn was not sure whether it was one kind of inevitability, the knowledge of disaster, or the second, the disaster that said she would be too late anyway, that held her to the spot as the tendrils wrenched Pansy apart, and she saw her daughter die. The blood came thick and fast, a spatter of gore as her arms were tugged from her body that told Hawthorn she would have needed magical healing in the first few moments to survive. And those moments were past, and then another tendril closed around Pansy's head and pulled that off, sealing her fate.
Hawthorn's heart blossomed again, and its single flower was rage. She turned and saw Indigena Yaxley gazing for a moment at the bloodied vines, as if she could not believe the violence of her darlings.
Hawthorn did not cast the Killing Curse again, though she could have. When she had run in the Death Eaters, she had been called the Red Death, and feared for her knowledge of blood curses. That was what she called on now, dropping straight past the times when she was Harry's ally and a werewolf and a pureblood witch, back into the primal violence of her youth.
"Caedes," she spat.
The spell was a single beam of thin red darkness that touched Yaxley in the shoulder. It did not matter where it had touched her, though, because the effect was the same. Yaxley shuddered and bent over as her blood began to force its way through her skin in gouts, imitating the cascades that had fallen from Pansy. She would die in a moment if that kept on, but Hawthorn did not intend that she do so. This woman had killed her daughter. For that, she would suffer.
"Sanguis sanguis," she cast next, the Blood-Renewing Spell. Yaxley's body would work furiously to create the blood to keep her alive, no matter what it cost in pain or strength. And meanwhile, the blood went on forcing its way to her shoulder and outward, and Yaxley was finally beginning to sob with the pain. The plants beneath her skin were writhing, bending into fearsome patterns try to and find some way to stop the flow of blood, but Hawthorn doubted that even they could do much against the fury that had powered her spell.
"Incruentus," she said, and saw the effect when Yaxley jerked and grunted, her hands moving frantically in the air. That was the Bloodless Curse. It Vanished the liquid from the usual parts of her body that would make blood, including the marrow of her bones from which red blood cells could come. That meant the Sanguis sanguis would have to feed directly on her magic, on her flesh, and on the other liquids in her body—including the liquids in the eye—in order to power itself, which it would need to do because the Caedes spell kept draining the blood out from her skin. Hawthorn had perfected the ability of all three curses to work together during the First War. And now for the final touch, while Yaxley was writhing in what would be only the beginnings of pain.
"Semper fidelis," she whispered.
The Permanence Curse settled on top of the other three, binding them in place. Even a skilled healer would have a hell of a time undoing them. Hawthorn laughed, and laughed again when Yaxley somehow gathered the strength to Apparate and her plants fell limp all over the battlefield, and found the laughter changing to tears when she knelt beside the torn corpse of her daughter, without awareness of having crossed the intervening ground.
"That's why you died," she whispered. "Because you knew that I would grow angry enough to drive her away if she killed you."
But also because she saw her ending here—she has known what her death was since Halloween—and knew she could not tell me.
Hawthorn cradled her daughter's severed head. Blood had never troubled her. She let it run down her arms as she kissed Pansy's lips.
Then she rose and turned to fight, the rage possessing her more fiercely than it ever had during her werewolf transformation.
Draco clamped his arms around the neck of the second iron beast for a moment. He could do this. He could do this, couldn't he? He and Harry had talked about it yesterday in the strategy meetings. It had seemed simple then. Do this, and then do this, and then do this. Harry would have to face Voldemort alone because he was the only one who could resist the Dark Lord's magic, and Draco wouldn't be able to keep up with the exchange of spells. Besides, Harry would feel the obligation to protect him if Draco was close at his side.
None of which made it any easier to direct the thestral to soar up over the battlefield until he was a good five hundred feet aloft, and then circle there, instead of flying after Harry.
Draco lay along the thestral's neck and closed his eyes. He knew he couldn't fall, since the stirrups clamped his feet in place, and he'd had the thestral coil a few of its whippier spikes around his legs, but he still hesitated for a long moment before his mind leaped free of his body and swept the battlefield, looking for someone to possess.
He found it absurdly easy to locate a Death Eater. The Dark Marks on their arms were like brands of foulness in Draco's mind, steaming piles of shit that he didn't want to step in. He selected one and landed neatly in his head, seizing his mind and slipping on his body like a glove before the idiot could object.
His name was Walden Macnair. Draco felt a certain warm glow—most definitely his own, and not Macnair's—at the memories that name brought up. This was one of the Death Eaters who had entered the Ministry last Midsummer night and tried to kill the Minister. Harry had gone charging in like the hero he was, of course, and could have been wounded or even died. Draco would happily use Macnair to further his own ends.
He made the heavyset body hold up its wand, and Morsmordre flowed easily off its lips, casting the Dark Mark into the air. Those Death Eaters who could still walk, and hadn't been drained of their magic, saw it and rallied to Macnair's side. Draco made the lips stretch in a cruel smile and nodded to each of them as he caught their gazes. All of the man's memories were open to him, and this was what he would do if he was actually trying to plan a counterstrike. The real Macnair was a small hammering presence at the back of his mind, unable to break through the wall Draco had set on him.
"This is what we do," Draco whispered in a voice much hoarser and deeper than his own. "Our Lord just spoke to me through my Mark." He held up his left arm, and all the other Death Eaters looked suitably impressed. Draco fought to keep from rolling his eyes. "He wants us to go to the foot of the North Tower in Hogwarts and attack there. There's a weakness in the wards. We'll burst inside and be able to attack the students before any of these fools out here knows what we're about."
The other Death Eaters laughed and agreed. Draco again fought to keep from rolling his eyes. Idiots. I'm surprised that none of them think to mention this. For one thing, why would Voldemort send Macnair, of all people? Indigena Yaxley would be the most obvious choice, since she has vines that can bore through stone.
But the twenty Death Eaters he'd gathered followed him across the battlefield without hesitation, ducking around and between the legs of the giants, and more came over as they saw the strength and purpose with which Macnair's delegation was moving. Draco estimated he had thirty-four or thirty-five behind him by the time he halted at the base of the North Tower and nodded to part of the wards. The Death Eaters with him squinted obediently, as if they could see the nonexistent weak place.
"Now," said Draco, and made Macnair hold up his wand. "On the count of three. Use the Blasting Curse. One. Two. Three!"
The Death Eaters eagerly intoned the Blasting Curse, and Draco rose out of Macnair's mind like a falcon just as they reached the last syllables of the incantation. He could hear Macnair shrieking somewhere in the distance as he came back to himself.
It didn't matter. They had no time to retreat. McGonagall had strengthened the wards at the base of the North Tower, as well as a few other places around the school, especially for this trick, and the Blasting Curse bounced from the layered defensive magic and came back at the Death Eaters threefold. Draco heard several screams, most of which ended in a few moments, but one of which went on and on and on.
He opened his own eyes again, and panted. He didn't look at the North Tower. He told himself he wasn't afraid of what damage he'd caused. He just didn't have the time to pause and survey every disaster he inflicted on Voldemort's forces. He was doing this for Harry, and Harry needed as many of the Death Eaters as possible dying and down. He was tearing Voldemort's power base to shreds today, and anyone on the Dark Lord's side who did survive the battle had to be aware that joining him only meant defeat and death.
Draco gave himself just a moment more of peace on his mount's steady iron back, and then went to kill again.
Ron found himself breathing hard as he charged. Defending other students from an unexpected Death Eater attack was one thing. Going out into the middle of a developing battle, even if it was to help save Hogwarts from the clutches of the Dark Lord, was…something else.
But he had the rage to do it. There was no doubt of that. Since Ginny's wounding on the last day of term, Ron had been in a constant state of low-level rage that made him look forward to a chance to yell, sit on, or punch people in Gryffindor who talked nonsense about Harry. Connor had taken to handing repeat offenders over to him. Ron had found it very satisfying indeed to break Cormac McLaggen's nose. Then Blaise had betrayed everyone, and Ron had held his sister as she cried and dreamed of revenge.
And then, just before he probably would have gone out the gates anyway, as one of the most experienced of the dueling club members, he had heard that George and Fred had come back to the hospital wing, with Fred wounded and not expected to live. Ron had broken into a volley of swearing that made Hermione scold him, before he put the rage back inside himself where it belonged, and planned on how to unleash it.
On his enemies.
He looked upward, and the waves of golden light from the storm were swimming overhead. Harry had explained that the Light respected free will, unlike the wild Dark, and so would not normally interfere in wizarding wars or politics, unless someone dedicated to it committed a great wrong. But because it so respected free will, it would come to someone who called it on a day like this.
Ron was a Light wizard, from a pureblood family that had followed the Light for generations, and right now he was breathless with rage.
He held up his arm, and he yelled, a wild, incoherent appeal of fury and need.
And the Light answered.
A whirling golden cone descended, looking like a localized hurricane as it bore down on him. Ron found himself floating for a moment as it claimed him. Then it set him back down, but he felt magic leaping and burning in him, ready to defend Hogwarts and harm Dark wizards.
A Death Eater loomed up in front of him, no doubt taking him as easy prey over an adult opponent. Ron held out his wand and incanted a variant of the fire spell. "Incendioso!"
The flames that burst from his wand looked more golden than orange, and the Death Eater howled with surprise as his cloak began to burn. He cast it off, and Ron lit his robes on fire, and his shirt underneath them, and then his mask. He staggered away, howling with pain now, and Ron let him go. He didn't know who had hurt Ginny, so he would settle for wounding those he could get his hands or his wand on.
It was the giants he was really interested in.
He ducked the sweep of a curse above his head—he was Keeper for Gryffindor, and really, this was no harder than dodging Bludgers, or especially Moody's curses—and zeroed in on a giant that so far had made it across the grounds with only minor scratches and burns. It had just stabbed a spear through a witch with bright golden hair, and as Ron watched, she spasmed and died. Ron sucked in a deep breath, but he had seen children die two weeks ago. He continued charging.
The Light leaped up in him. Giants were considered Dark creatures, and with good reason; like dragons, they simply didn't care about any will save their own, and they lacked compassion for the most basic needs of other species.
"Oculis et auribus captus!" he yelled, a spell Moody had made them practice over and over again until they got it right.
The giant bellowed, and Ron snarled, a sound that might have been a smile if he hadn't been so angry; it wasn't pleasant, suddenly going blind and deaf. Then the giant swung its club wildly, and Ron rolled under the motion of it and came up on one knee. He was about just beneath the giant's knees, and he was going to take advantage of that.
Moody had said it would happen this way, in battle, no matter how angry he was. He would see a chance, and he would take it. His instincts had more say in the matter than any strategy. Ron saw what he had to do next the way he saw a move in chess.
"Concutio!"
The Concussive Force Hex left his wand with a jolt that traveled all the way up his arm to his shoulder, and Ron grunted as he briefly went sprawling backward. He scrambled up fast enough to make his vision blur, though, and heard the giant's knee shatter with a noise not unlike Moody's wooden leg, when Neville—Neville, of all people!—had finally got through his defenses and put the Hex to work.
The giant tried to take a step anyway, since they weren't the greatest intellects around, and began to topple like a tree. Ron saw one path out, and took it, not allowing fear a place in his heart, because a Gryffindor didn't, and ducked forward between its legs. One foot tried to stamp on him, but he was too quick, and came out on the other side as the giant fell beneath him with an impact that jarred him back to his knees.
Ron turned around, but Hermione stepped up just then, aimed her wand at the giant, and said a spell that Ron couldn't hear. A moment later, the giant began to snore, rackingly. Ron nodded. She'd sent it to sleep. Someone else could handle the Killing Curse; Moody had been emphatic that none of them should try to cast it.
Ron turned, restless as a thestral being fired upon, to seek his next target.
Hermione was relieved that she'd done all right so far. That was what she told herself, at least, as she watched Ron dodge past the falling giant with her heart in her throat. Idiot, to take risks like that! her brain yelled.
She supposed she was taking a risk herself in running up to the giant and casting the sleeping spell right after, but at least it got the giant out of the way. She took a deep breath, and stilled her shaking wand hand. She'd tried to fight back-to-back with Ginny for a moment, but Ginny had seen one of her comrades from the dueling club in danger and gone to help. Since the wound on her arm limited her mobility and the amount of magic she could cast, she was playing mostly a defensive role, and letting other people take care of the offensive.
Hermione knew Zacharias wasn't on the field yet—he was waiting with the golden horses, to charge when the crowd in front of the gates cleared a little—so that was one less person she had to worry about. And she supposed she could follow Ron for a little while and guard his back. The idiot was so angry over Fred getting hurt that he wasn't watching out for himself.
She turned around to track Ron's progress, and a Death Eater jumped gracefully over the fallen giant's back and came down in front of her.
Hermione felt logical thought coil into a lump in the back of her mind and scream. She recognized the man in front of her. He'd caught her on her way back to Gryffindor Tower from Zacharias's room one night and held her captive for an hour while he tried to wake Harry up, whispering in her ear all the while about what he'd like to do to her if they were alone, and what the silver collar around her neck would do to her if Harry didn't cooperate.
Evan Rosier smiled at her and swept her a mock salute. "Do bow, Hermione," he said. "That's what everyone does before a duel. And we must pay attention to the forms of propriety. As one of my favorite poets says, 'Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honour lies.'"
Hermione made herself bow back. She doubted that Rosier knew anything about honor, but he had kept his word to Harry on the matter of the life debt, in a fashion. His adherence to the formal rules of dueling might be all that saved her, because she didn't think she could survive if he simply hit her with anything. Moody himself had managed to survive duels with Rosier, but not bring him down.
Rosier began to circle, smiling all the while. Hermione fixed her gaze on his collarbone, since she couldn't look at his face. Lessons yammered in her head, barking in Moody's voice about watching her opponent's eyes during a duel, but she couldn't. She would see her death, and her violation, written in his face if she tried.
"Good girl," Rosier whispered, in that same breathy tone that he'd used the night he captured her. Hermione wondered if it was possible for a voice to sound like rape. "You're a good girl, aren't you, Hermione? A bit naughty perhaps, sneaking out at night to visit your boyfriend, but I can't imagine you've gone very far. There are parts of you no one has ever seen. Those are the parts I would like to put my mouth on. Cogo!"
Hermione already had a Protego up; Moody had made them practice the Shield Charm, in particular, until they could do it nonverbally, and she'd brought it up during his last few words. The Compression Curse bounced, though it had come in so powerfully that Hermione's shield had trembled and cracked. She dropped that shield and quickly replaced it, and saw Rosier watching her with bright eyes, never having stopped his circling.
"Very good, Hermione," he whispered. "Perhaps, after all, you have some more experience than I thought. Just a little naughty, should we say? Perhaps a bit of knowledge, a bit of wetness at the thought of being touched. Ardesco!"
Hermione could have laughed. That one Harry had taught them, and Moody had warned them that Rosier had a fondness for curses like this one—spells that started in the victim's body, and got in under shields. She knew the counter of it, binding a Haurio close to the skin and channeling the magic right into the Absorption Charm as it struck her. She was left unharmed, not bursting into flames. Rosier's eyebrows raised a little higher.
"Even better than I imagined," he said, and began to circle faster. Hermione sped up her pace to match him, and when he moved a bit backwards, she moved a bit forwards. She saw a flicker of something in his eyes, and thought she could not imagine it was fear, it made her feel more confident. "Good, good, good. I wonder what would happen if I made you want to spread your legs for me, Hermione. If you—"
She tripped over something on the ground, and fell. Rosier had led her right into the path of a body with the new dueling circle. Hermione struggled frantically to recover, to stand—
And then Rosier's Severing Curse hit her, cutting her open from collarbone to navel, and all the world was pain.
Henrietta had not been a Beater on the Slytherin Quidditch team for nothing.
She came in low across the battlefield, clinging to her broomstick and hidden under a concealing charm, because otherwise people would be so unkind as to throw curses into the air at her. Behind and ahead of her raced the Bludgers she'd enchanted to crack bone and obey her and only her. There were five of them, and they circled restlessly, her own destructive, impatient little toys.
She neared the middle of the Hogwarts grounds before she saw something she wanted to hit in the sea of madly struggling figures. She whistled, and one of the Bludgers sped forward and smashed a giant in the skull. It looked puzzled and reached up with one hand to feel the wound instead of immediately collapsing, of course; giants were famous for having thicker heads than humans, in all senses. Henrietta whistled again, and the Bludger turned back to hammer at its target. It was too small for the giant to even see, and far too fast for it to catch. It would keep on hitting until its target fell. Henrietta would trust the people on the ground to get out of the way.
She looked back and forth, searching for some place to send the other four Bludgers. If Yaxley had still been here, she would have been the one to hit, as the most dangerous of Voldemort's Death Eaters. But Henrietta had seen the vines stop lashing a few moments before she joined the battle, so she must be gone, perhaps dead. Henrietta envied whoever had managed to kill her.
Who is most dangerous, then?
Rosier if he's here, but Merlin knows if he's decided to take part in this. Karkaroff, then.
Henrietta stretched out a hand, and one of the Bludgers sped over and hovered in front of her. Henrietta smiled at the little eyes that peered at her out of the rounded top. Learning Transfiguration did indeed have its uses.
"Igor Karkaroff," she said. "Is he here? Lead me to him."
The Bludger turned and streamed away. Henrietta set herself to follow, ducking and dodging among flailing limbs and curses that hadn't hit their intended targets and screams of pain and tragedy. This was for Harry, and this was battle—a real one, not that pitiful little debacle on the beach or the scramble at Woodhouse. Here, the very number of the enemy made them dangerous. Henrietta laughed. She was happy.
Abruptly, one of her other Bludgers made a high, keening whine. Henrietta spun around on her broom to face it. She had enchanted them all to do that if they sensed Rosier, but she couldn't believe that he was really here. There seemed to be too high a factor of chaos in this battle for him to risk it.
"Where?" she demanded.
The Bludger dived. Henrietta followed, letting the concealment charm fall. She knew of no way to fool her Bludgers, and if Rosier was really there, she wanted him to see that his doom was coming for him.
She wasn't in time to warn the brown-haired girl before she tripped and Rosier cast his Severing Curse, but she did have the supreme pleasure of seeing Rosier look up at her over the fallen child, and the expression on his face change from triumph to madness. He was screaming in moments, a cry of frenzied rage, and his wand snapped up to launch Merlin-knew-what curse at her.
Henrietta smiled and made a throwing gesture with her right hand.
The remaining four Bludgers streamed past her, all aimed for Rosier. He Apparated, leaving Henrietta blinking and disappointed, but appeared again only a short distance away. Like homing pigeons, the Bludgers turned, insanely determined to follow him.
Henrietta chuckled as she plowed to a skidding stop in the dirt and cast a clotting charm to keep the girl from bleeding her life out. Then she scooped her gently into her arms. If Rosier had targeted her in particular, then she was probably a close friend of Harry's, and Henrietta would therefore save her life. She only hoped the wards would open to let someone transporting one of the wounded through.
Charles cast the Killing Curse, coolly, and the Death Eater witch with long red hair went down. He spun his wand in his hand once, by way of celebration of his victory, and looked around.
He'd been keeping track of both of his sons, a skill born of long practice. Michael was with Severus Snape, shadowing him under a Disillusionment Charm and guarding his weak right side. Snape hadn't liked it, but when Harry had looked at him yesterday and explained that, due to a change in their original plans, Draco would be riding in the air beyond the reach of most danger, and Michael would be guarding him, the man had relented. Charles had been intensely amused. At times, it was fascinating to watch another father-son dynamic at play, even though he would have hated to be in such a relationship with either of the twins.
Owen was shadowing Connor Potter, essentially serving as a guide to defensive magic at the same time as he protected him. Potter was Declared to Light, and Charles knew he wouldn't use half the Dark Arts spells that Owen showed him. That was all right. It was essential that Potter fight, since he was better-trained than most of the student fighters and they had so few, even with the other allies pouring in across the back of the Quidditch Pitch. And he had to be protected, since he was so important to Harry. Teaching him was a distant goal compared to his survival and what he could contribute to the battle.
He caught a glimpse of Potter then, wielding a blade that blazed with Light, which he'd apparently fetched from the ancestral Potter estate, Lux Aeterna, over the Easter holidays. Owen spun and shielded him from a Cutting Curse, at the same time avoiding getting hurt himself. Charles felt the corners of his mouth lift in a small smile of pride.
Then Potter charged a Death Eater who was getting ready to deal death to a black-haired Ravenclaw—the twin sister of Potter's girlfriend, Charles thought. His dark hair flew, and he yelled bravely, distracting the Death Eater into looking at him. Owen struggled to keep up with him.
And behind him came a second Death Eater, stripped of his mask and so familiar to Charles. It was Karkaroff, formerly the Headmaster of Durmstrang, and a traitor to Charles's sons and every other student who had been in his care. He had entered Owen's blind spot, if Owen was even watching for danger behind him at all and not for danger to Potter in front. His wand was already moving in the beginning stages of the Avada Kedavra curse.
Charles began to run. He cast Concutio at Karkaroff's arm. Whether the man heard him or just instinctively sensed danger, he did jerk away in time, and thus kept himself from acquiring a broken limb. He spun to face Charles, and his eyes narrowed.
Charles dipped his head, the only concession he would make to the formal bow to begin duels, and fought.
He realized in only a few moments that he was outmatched, and why. He himself was a weak Legilimens, and had weak Occlumency walls. Karkaroff was a much stronger Legilimens. He was reading Charles's every move, every spell, out of his mind before he could cast them.
Charles knew his only chance was to use a spell of such power that it wouldn't matter if Karkaroff saw it coming; he still wouldn't be able to block or shield against it. The Blood Whip Curse came to mind. Charles chanted it aloud, and saw with black satisfaction the fear in Karkaroff's eyes when he recognized it.
Someone shouted behind him, and a stunning blow hit Charles's own leg, sending his Blood Whip wide. He fell. He tried to roll over, to stand, and he couldn't. Broken shards of bone clashed together in his knee. Someone had hit him with Concutio. A moment later, the same person hit him with Expelliarmus, and he lost his wand.
That person was a second Death Eater, and he came up to stand over Charles as Karkaroff closed in from the other side. Karkaroff laughed. Charles saw his death in the other man's face.
Then Igor Karkaroff made a mistake, a rather stupid one.
"When you are dead," he whispered, leaning close to make sure that Charles could hear him over the chaos of battle, "I will find your sons. Both of them shall remain my prisoners for as long as my Lord says that I may keep them alive."
Charles narrowed his eyes, and then closed them. He heard Karkaroff laugh in delight. He thought he had made his victim succumb to despair.
In truth, Charles simply wanted to cut off eye contact, and thus Karkaroff's ability to read his mind.
His magic did not shake as he reached for the spell he would need, the only one he was able to cast like this, wandless, his will and his hatred and his protective rage powering it, and insure that Karkaroff did not go on from this moment to hurt his sons.
Their names ran through his mind, blazed in his thoughts from blue letters to red.
Owen. Michael. Medusa.
The red letters grew brighter, brighter, brighter. Charles concentrated, and he could not hear Karkaroff and his companion discussing ways to torture him; he could only hear his wife's voice, and his sons', pledging to him last night that they would take care of their mother if he fell.
Burn, burn, burn.
"Pyra," he whispered.
The Self-Immolation Curse blasted out from his belly, a wheel of flashfire that caught and vaporized both Karkaroff and the other Death Eater in instants. Then it turned back on Charles, hungry, burning, consuming him in his funeral pyre.
He knew that he died smiling.
Harry kicked the thestral into another downward spin. The flesh-dragon followed, close and irritating as ever. Any curses Harry had fired at it had simply skipped off the smooth skin.
Harry was getting frantic. He hadn't been able to absorb magic from the Death Eaters after that initial surge when he'd first flown out of the castle. Voldemort pressed him too closely, and Harry's attempts to drain him were answered with magic so choked with foulness that it only made Harry vomit it back. And then Voldemort had tried to absorb Harry's own power, which, considering how much stored magic he was carrying in the stones, would be disastrous.
I have to do something to distract him, to make him back off for a moment.
Harry invoked the communication spell. The air just above his left wrist buzzed and tingled, and a gull-like screech answered him. Harry blinked. Honoria must be in her Animagus form. He hoped that she would be able to perch in a tree or something soon and do what he required of her.
"Honoria? Can you hear me?" he asked, as he spun the thestral up and over another lightning bolt.
A second screech. Harry nodded at nothing, and whispered what he wanted: a complicated illusion, one that would distract Voldemort as long as possible, and make him think a force had arrived on the battlefield to aid Harry that he was the only one able to handle. Since it was an ally that had aided Harry once before, Voldemort should have no trouble believing it.
Honoria screeched back, and Harry cut the communication spell, wheeling up again so that he could face his enemy. The blasted remains of Voldemort's crimson eyes locked on his across the gap. Harry blinked, then shook his head. Well, of course his eyes remind me of that strange bird's eyes. I already decided that that bird is a message from him, of sorts.
"Did you know," Voldemort said, in the conversational tone that he had been using for most of the battle so far, "that your brother is dead?"
A moment of coldness made Harry's lungs stop working, but he shook his head. Don't believe him. Don't believe him. He's just saying that.
Voldemort took advantage of the distraction, though, sending a Crucio across the gap between them. Harry shuddered and clung to the thestral, grateful again for the stirrups that held his feet in place, riding out the pain. He caught crazed glimpses of light from below as he managed to end the spell, but he couldn't tell if they were symptoms of blurriness in his vision or the sight of the Light storm reflecting off the charging Gloryflower unicorns.
Then Voldemort, who must have felt magic coalesce above him, released a cry of shock and rage, and Harry managed to force his cramped, burning neck muscles to let him look upward.
Honoria had done as he asked. The illusion of an Antipodean Opaleye cut the air overhead, roaring, her jaws giving forth fire. She dived straight at the Death Eaters, and Harry had no doubt that she could and would weak havoc, for all her glamoured nature. Honoria was capable of creating the sensation of fire, and of heat, and the conviction in the minds of her victims would do most of the rest.
Voldemort turned the flesh-dragon at once to answer this new threat.
Harry took a deep breath and went back to magic-gulping, passing the power more and more rapidly through him to put into the stones, doing what he could not to think about madness and pain and death in the field below.