Chapter 20
Voldemort glared at Dumbledore from his position on the far side of the atrium, his crimson eyes glittering cruelly as his face twisted into a sneer.
"Give me the prophecy, Dumbledore." He said softly.
"Oh Tom, have you forgotten that only the subjects of a prophecy can remove it from the shelf? I don't have what you seek."
"Do not lie to me, old man. My Death Eater saw the Unspeakable remove the charms and take it from the shelf, I know you have it. Give it to me now or I will simply take it from your corpse."
Dumbledore remained motionless as the Elder Wand slid into his palm and his eyes narrowed at his former pupil. He now knew that it was not Tom who had taken the prophecy, he would not come here and risk exposure if he had, but that thought was pushed aside as a cold blooded smirk wormed its way onto Tom's face.
"Very well." He whispered, his voice somehow carrying across the room.
A slab of stone intercepted the sickly green of Tom's killing curse and Dumbledore banished the pieces back towards him before he twirled his wand to animate each of the statues in the fountain, all of which rushed towards Tom. He disappeared with a soft pop and reappeared behind the headmaster, only to immediately have to deflect the whip of flame that would have removed his legs at the knees with a snarl.
This gave Dumbledore enough time to pick up the offensive as he cast an unending stream of spells towards his opponent, all of which were blocked, shielded, dodged or simply flicked away. The spells he used beyond the stunning and various binding charms that were mixed into his attacks were not inherently lethal; they could kill but were not designed to do so. Bone breakers, blasting curses, cutting curses and piercing hexes, not the entrail expelling curses or countless other curses that Tom was casting with abandon. Even against such a monstrous excuse for a human being Dumbledore couldn't bring himself to use such spells, not since Ariana, and even if he did he knew that it would be ultimately in vain. Those spells were made to kill, but he was not the person the universe intended to kill Tom Marvolo Riddle. The horcruxes made it a moot point anyway.
Tom quickly regained the advantage and hissed to cast a vivid yellow curse that seemed to shimmer as it shot across the room and Dumbledore was forced to conjure a slab of rock to block the unknown Parseltongue spell, not knowing if it could be shielded or redirected. The jet of light splashed against the rock as if it were liquid and hissed as it ate its way through Dumbledore's barrier like acid, thin lines of smoke wafting lazily from the stone even as the old headmaster flicked it into the path of yet another oncoming curse.
With a wave of his wand Dumbledore sucked the water from the fountain and quickly formed it into an orb that encased Tom before he squeezed, forcing the water inwards towards Tom at its centre and increasing the pressure inside the sphere. He saw the bubbles stream from the Dark Lord's screaming mouth as the water was forced from his lungs and Dumbledore froze the water to trap him in a sphere of ice. Only his crimson eyes were visible as his pale skin blended into the ice, and for a split second Dumbledore allowed himself to believe that he had won.
That belief was shattered when the ball exploded outwards in a shower of icy shrapnel and Dumbledore flicked his wand to conjure a transparent dome in front of him that the ice fragments bounced harmlessly off. When he looked up Tom was glaring hatefully at him, his red eyes now glowing with unnatural power as his black robes flapped in a non-existent breeze.
A great snake of flame burst suddenly from Tom's wand, its eyes flickering mesmerizingly as a low hiss echoed off the tiles, its scales orange and black like glowing coals as it struck out towards Dumbledore who brandished his wand as if it were a spear. The snake's head snapped upwards as if struck and it let out an awful, ear splitting shriek before bursting into black smoke so dense it appeared solid. Multi-coloured jets burst from the swirling blackness and Dumbledore barely had time to raise a shield before they were slamming into it at impossible speeds as the smoke twirled upwards as if sucked into a hurricane.
Dumbledore had nearly forgotten what it felt like to duel Tom, but he was painfully and forcefully reminded with each spell that struck his slowly fracturing shield. It felt like being hit by the Hogwarts Express, an impact that felt like a physical blow even as his strength was sucked from him. The sheer power behind Tom's curses was inhuman and yet he barely looked fatigued. The headmaster knew as he dropped his shield that his mastery of transfiguration was his only chance to survive Tom's relentless assault; shielding took far too much power and he was simply too old to dodge and twirl around spells as he had once done. The knowledge that he was now outmatched was painful, but it was not as painful as the knowledge that young Jack would be expected to beat this man.
He knew that if this went on much longer he would die, that was an unquestionable fact. Already he was flagging as curses began to worm their way through his defences and his movements became more and more sluggish. Every time he attempted to go on the offensive he was quickly forced back. His spells were batted away, his transfigurations were pulverised into dust and his every trick was countered and sent straight back at him. His robes were torn and stained with the blood that trickled from the shallow wounds he had been unable to avoid and his left arm was shattered courtesy of Tom's bone breaking hex and secured to his torso by a sticking charm, but still it sent agony shooting through him with every movement. Fawkes was now a chick, flightless and wrinkled as he lay motionless in a pile of ash after swallowing a killing curse that he had been unable to avoid.
Dumbledore couldn't do anything more than desperately conjure and transfigure to block Tom's endless curses and Tom, now free from the distractions that his spells and transfigured animals had been causing him, only cast faster. By now Dumbledore had once again been forced behind his strongest shield as he wandlessly summoned debris into the path of the killing curses that Tom sprinkled into his salvo. His spells seemed to merge together until they became a continual stream of lethal intent that buckled the headmaster's shield as his knees began to tremble until, just as his silver shield was about to shatter and fade into nonexistence, the floos flashed.
Aurors, hitwizards, Lords, department heads and the Minister himself all surged from the fireplaces and stared uncomprehendingly at the duel that they had just unknowingly interrupted. A camera flashed from somewhere in the crowd and Tom's head snapped to look at them with a sneer before he disappeared from the ministry atrium, and then the silence exploded into a haze of clamouring voices.
Unseen by anyone Harry disappeared from his self-made platform that jutted from the wall thirty feet above them with a satisfied smile on his face. His plan had worked even better than he had expected. He had expected Dumbledore to go to the Department of Mysteries and realise the prophecy was gone, hopefully catch the Death Eaters that Voldemort had undoubtedly stationed around the Hall of Prophecy and then question them publically under Veritaserum to force Voldemort from the shadows. And if Dumbledore hadn't caught anyone then Harry didn't actually lose anything and still got to enjoy the look on the old man's face when he discovered the prophecy was gone. It was a no lose situation. He could even have got lucky and Voldemort could have sent Death Eaters to try and ambush the old man for good and remove his biggest obstacle.
Harry honestly wasn't sure if he would have intervened had that happened.
What he certainly hadn't expected was for Voldemort to come himself. That Unspeakable casting diagnostic charms before taking the fake orb from the shelf had helped him more than he would have ever imagined possible. He had been sat up there for hours since before Dumbledore even arrived, waiting for him to finally turn up. He was sure that the old man would come straight from the Order meeting after what Sirius and Nymphadora said to him. Once Dumbledore arrived he had one of his elves follow him with a broadcasting charm cast on her so he could see exactly what she saw. It had taken some fiddling before the spell would work on a house elf and it wasn't strictly necessary, but he really wanted to see the old fool's face when he realised the prophecy was gone. It had been worth all the effort it took to get the spell to work, easily.
When Voldemort arrived Harry had stared stupidly downwards for a few seconds, unable to comprehend why in Merlin's name he had come. There was nothing for him to gain with the prophecy gone. He was thankful that he had raised a silencing charm around his vantage point so that they didn't hear his muffled snort when Voldemort had started talking about removing the charms. If they could be removed with a few flicks of someone's wand then they were pretty pathetic security charms, but in fairness that would be in keeping with the Department of Mysteries as a whole.
Voldemort's appearance did also pose a problem, however: how to make sure he was seen. The ability of magicals to ignore the obvious had always astounded him and there was no finer example than how the British magical public had reacted to the announcement that Voldemort was back. There had been mass hysteria at first, as if Voldemort was going to come to the homes of halfblood clerks or muggleborn shop assistants in muggle Birmingham or some such place to kill them and their families personally. As time went on however they became sceptical that he was actually alive. The article that had announced his rebirth had included a heavily censored version of the events in the graveyard and said that the memory had been verified by both the DMLE and the Unspeakables, but because there wasn't a picture in the paper they didn't truly believe it. That was all the justification they needed to deny it even when it was staring them in the face as people started to disappear and muggles started to get attacked. Harry knew that it would take irrefutable, undeniable proof to finally drag their heads out from beneath the sand.
Until that happened more innocent people would die; more witches and wizards would disappear, more muggles would be needlessly attacked. And that all bothered Harry – he didn't kill innocents and he didn't kill women unless absolutely necessary. He under no circumstances killed or even harmed children as he knew the Death Eaters did. Those things were unacceptable, and once Voldemort was forced into the light of day more people would be working to stop such things happening.
But if he was honest that wasn't his biggest motivator to force him out; it was the Order. He cared very little for the vast majority of them, but Nymphadora and Sirius he did. Right now the Order members as a collective were Voldemort's primary targets and with the wider community not fully accepting he was back they had less protection than they could have. They were vulnerable with Voldemort and his men allowed to move in the shadows quite freely and free to focus their efforts as they pleased without having to worry about people being on their guard. If the aurors believed it then maybe things would be different but they had no more information than the common wizard. Harry frankly had no idea why they hadn't been shown the memory. The modified ritual was pretty pointless unless they decided to make horcruxes as well and it would be impossible to piece the original back together from what he had used in the graveyard.
Hell, show it to everyone. There wasn't anything that needed to be kept secret as far as he could tell; this was just politicians wanting to keep secrets and letting everyone else suffer for it. It would also have the bonus of outing Malfoy and a few others as Death Eaters. If this plan hadn't worked Harry had planned to do exactly that and project the memory in front of Gringotts so everyone in Diagon Alley could see exactly what happened. It would be a little pointless now but maybe he would do it anyway; after his little speech in the Wizengamot the public opinion of the Malfoy family was in the gutter as it was.
It hadn't taken more than thirty seconds of fiddling around with the wards to find an alert ward that was connected to dozens of exterior charms. He had no idea who would be notified but he wasn't particularly bothered either; as long as people came and saw Voldemort, preferably with a camera, then he didn't care if they were the janitors or the Minister himself. Once he had plucked that particular thread he sat back and watched the duel that was raging below him while trying to work out their respective strategies. He did plan to kill both of them at some point after all.
Dumbledore seemed to be relying almost entirely on transfiguration as he defended himself from Voldemort's onslaught and the few spells he managed to get in edgewise were non-lethal, something that gave Harry a strange feeling of anger mixed with disappointment. Even now the man refused to kill, and he was the one who had been charged with educating the children of magical Britain. Harry just hoped that his naivety and misguided morality hadn't been passed on to them; it would only get them killed.
With Dumbledore constantly on the defensive there was little he could learn so he switched his attention to Voldemort. At first he had been impressed and slightly afraid at the way he fought. The speed, the skill, the power, the chilling elegance of his casting. All of it came together to make Harry a little worried at the fact that he was going to have fight him, but he knew that his speed, skill and willingness to use almost any spell made him a better combatant than Dumbledore was and the old man had managed to trap him in a ball of ice. The snake in particular had been special. It definitely wasn't ordinary fire but it wasn't Fiendfyre either. Was it a spell of his own creation or had he simply modified another spell? Harry's curious musings hadn't lasted more than a few seconds before Dumbledore had somehow countered it.
But then, once Dumbledore had started to falter and been forced onto the back foot, all that skill and elegance seemed to disappear. He didn't transfigure animals to attack or distract him, didn't attempt to use any subtle charms to throw him off, didn't try and force him into a more vulnerable position or use the environment to his advantage. He just continuously cast some of the darkest and most devastating curses that Harry knew of and completely stopped thinking as soon as he smelt blood. Harry saw at least three occasions where Voldemort could have ended the fight with a simple wandless summoning charm, but he didn't. That would be a weakness that Harry could exploit.
What was worrying him though was the unholy power that Voldemort wielded. He could feel it ripple through the air every time he cast, smell the ozone that burned against his nostrils and even see the way his spells bulged as if there was simply too much power in them. Harry couldn't imagine how many rituals he would have had to do to obtain it and couldn't even begin to fathom what the price for such power would be. In rituals every benefit always had an equal or heavier price to pay for it.
By the time he was having to levitate pieces of debris into the path of Voldemort's spells to stop Dumbledore dying prematurely, no matter how much doing so rankled him, Harry was wondering where the hell the people connected to the alert ward were. He had activated it over five minutes ago and if it was some sort of emergency alarm like he suspected they should definitely be here by now. He had left Dumbledore to his own devices for a few seconds as he twirled his wand and murmured under his breath only to find all the anti-transportation wards – anti-apparition, anti-portkey and anti-floo – active, but only in one direction. People could get out but they couldn't get in, which made Harry wonder why Dumbledore hadn't just apparated away as soon as he saw Voldemort. Pride, arrogance? Or had he just somehow not thought of it?
The floos started to flash emerald green the very instant he deactivated the wards, luckily for Dumbledore. It looked like his shield was about five seconds away from shattering and even from his vantage point far above the atrium Harry could see the exhausted slump of the old warlock's shoulders and the way his wrinkled skin had paled to the point of translucence. Harry had delayed over reactivating the wards to stop Voldemort escaping and in that moment of hesitation he had disappeared, but Harry thought that was probably for the best. In all likelihood Voldemort had an escape plan for such situations so trapping him would only get the people down there killed and then he would get away regardless.
Yes, it had been a good day.
~Scene Change~
It had been three days since the duel and the Dark Lord's anger hadn't abated even slightly. He had returned from the Ministry in a towering rage and immediately sent for the whelp who had been watching the Hall of Prophecies. Several times during their duel he had tried to summon the orb from the old man only for nothing to happen. It could be charmed to be unsummonable of course but he was confident that he would easily be able to overpower such spells.
Several minutes later the pathetic man had scurried in reeking of fear and prostrated himself in front of his master, but the Dark Lord was in no mood for such things. A flick of his yew wand forced the man's head upwards and Voldemort immediately forced his way into his mind, his feeble mental defences of no consequence to Lord Voldemort as he searched for the memory. It hadn't taken long to find what he sought and he watched the two men intently as they approached the prophecy only to withdraw from the man's mind in an indescribable rage bare seconds later.
The Unspeakable hadn't been removing security charms as his Death Eater had claimed when he fearfully burst into his chambers, he had been casting diagnostics! Checking for curses, charms, magical signatures. Voldemort screamed in fury as he cast the cruciatus at his kneeling Death Eater and held it until the man's screams had become gurgles as his mind slowly fractured and blood trickled from his lips. Only when the room was silent did he release his spell and banish the now brain dead wizard towards his softly hissing familiar who immediately coiled herself around him.
Voldemort ignored the sharp cracks of bones as he summoned Severus. The man was among his most faithful servants – an excellent mole within the Order's ranks and an unparalleled potions master. He was confident that his spy would be able to find out exactly what had happened. The idea that he was a double agent and working against him as Dumbledore believed was laughable; he was Lord Voldemort, he could not be fooled so easily. He would know if Severus had betrayed him.
Severus had arrived, bowed, received his orders and left again all within the space of no more than two minutes. That was something the Dark Lord liked about his Severus; his efficiency. There were no foolish questions as so many of his ranks were prone to asking, despite the fact that they were often punished for their interruption. They knew that completing his orders incorrectly would bring a much harsher punishment.
A photograph of him was plastered across the front page of the Prophet the next day beneath the headline: THE DARK LORD RETURNS. He had killed four Death Eaters of no consequence in his anger.
And now, Severus had returned.
"The prophecy was stolen, my lord. The orb that was left on the shelf was nothing more than a simple conjuration. Neither Dumbledore nor the Unspeakables have even the slightest inclination towards who may be responsible for the theft, but it is believed that it occurred months ago at least. There was no magical signature left behind and no other evidence that would point to a likely thief."
"Leave me."
The potions master bowed before he left the drawing room of Riddle Manor with his cloak billowing behind him as Voldemort considered what he had been told. He had revealed himself and lost all the benefits that came with being in the shadows for nothing. A rage fuelled slash of his wand scored a deep gouge into the dark wood of the drawing room floor that he repaired a second later to leave only the faintest of scars. The anger had barely receded but it gave him just enough clarity to think.
Beyond that though, a thief was… troubling. Breaking into the Department of Mysteries with the Unspeakables none the wiser was an impressive feat, but the fact that he had taken the prophecy worried him. Why break into the hub of British magical experimentation only to steal a prophecy that didn't concern you? It was likely that the thief was an adversary, and a clearly powerful unknown working against him was not something that the Dark Lord needed. But how did he take it from the shelf? Was it possible that the thief was the subject and not Potter? No, that was impossible. Potter and Longbottom were the only two possibilities and it was Potter that had torn him from his body that Halloween night, Potter that had the scar. He may not remember it but that was the only possibility. Potter was the subject of the prophecy.
The question of why still remained. The words of the prophecy had not been leaked to anyone as far as he knew, and had they been whispered in the filth of even the darkest corner of the wizarding world the Dark Lord was sure that he would have heard about it. The first two lines made it obvious that it was he that it referred to; the words would have found their way back to him. Voldemort had no answers, not even the slightest of clues, but there was nothing he could do about it. He hated being in the dark, hated the tension that it sowed within his mind. He would need to be on guard. But for now, he had been forced from the shadows. It was time to act. The wizarding world needed to be reminded why it was that they feared to speak his name.
~Scene Change~
Hogwarts was glum, the magic that had imbued every stone, every door and every breath of air that the students took seemingly gone. There was no joking in corridors, no pranks or impromptu quidditch matches. The vast majority of the student population either kept their head down as they shuffled from class to common room and back again or kept their head upright and constantly moving, swivelling around in search of threats. The Slytherin students were glared at with hostility and in some cases outright hatred, whether they subscribed to the pureblood philosophy or not. Ravenclaw students spent long hours in the library, scouring book after book for spells to protect the people they cared for. Children had been introduced to war.
Jack Potter picked at his food one morning shortly after the students had returned to the castle while his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger watched on, both of them in similar moods. Hermione was biting at her nails as she tried to force herself to become engrossed within her textbook just as she had countless times before but not even magic could hold her attention. Instead her head would glance frequently towards the charmed holes in the masonry of the great hall through which owls would swoop to deliver the morning mail. Her hair was bushier than it usually was, her skin ever so slightly paler and the bags beneath her eyes more pronounced.
Ron was acting in the exact opposite way to Jack as he shovelled food into his mouth at speeds hitherto unseen by even him. Jack knew why; he wanted to eat before the Prophet came and the articles describing the gruesome death and boundless destruction of the night marred his appetite. Jack understood that, but even the anticipation of reading about it rendered his appetite near non-existent. He still tried desperately to force food down his throat though, knowing that he would need his strength. Ever since he came back his defence lessons and several of his free periods had been rescheduled as training sessions with Dumbledore. Moody and his father were far too busy in the auror office.
The young Potter knew that his friends felt awful every time they read about the attacks, but that was nothing compared to how he felt. Every time he read another name in the obituary or another article about the Death Eater attacks he felt a flash of guilt, as if he was personally responsible for it. Until Voldemort was dead they would continue, and that was his job.
It had all started five weeks ago, bare days after Voldemort had shown himself in the Ministry atrium. Azkaban had been raided and its prisoners liberated. The Lestranges, Dolohov, Rookwood, Travers, Mulciber and dozens of other lower ranking Death Eaters had been broken out to rejoin their master. The other prisoners, many murderers, rapists, sexual deviants and psychopaths, were given a choice: join the Death Eaters or die. Only one prisoner had been found dead, alongside all eight of the aurors stationed at Azkaban. The dementors had joined Voldemort's forces and been given free rein to consume as many souls as they desired, and that had occupied many of the more powerful and more skilled aurors simply trying to chase them away from muggle settlements. Even the weather had been affected; the skies were gloomier than they should have been as the dementors bred like vermin.
From there the attacks had started. At first there had been no wizards involved on Voldemort's side as he let loose werewolves, dementors and giants to attack any outlying muggle settlement they wanted. Hundreds of muggles had died in that first week alone, their souls sucked from their bodies by invisible demons, their homes flattened by a swinging club or their bodies ripped apart by rabid claws. The casualties could have been higher, should have been higher, had it not been for the intervention of a mysterious figure in several of the attacks. He had scythed through werewolves, banished spikes through giants like bullets from a gun and driven away dementors with a silver thestral that screeched as it galloped through the air.
The aurors and obliviators had combed through the memories of the muggles present on those nights to try and identify them but found only a man clearly unwilling to be found. He was too generic to be natural; short brown hair, brown eyes, average height, an average frame and a face that looked as if the faces of every man on earth had simply been merged into one. The Order had almost caught him once in a little village in Hampshire but he had disappeared almost the very same instant that they had arrived. The Order intervened in as many attacks as they could but still the death toll continued to rise regardless; by the time the calls came in the damage had already been done.
And then, three weeks ago, the war had truly started as the Death Eaters joined the fold. Voldemort's attack forces mostly consisted of average Death Eaters, the ones Voldemort cared little for and who were at best competent duellers, but that did not diminish their prowess at simply cursing anything that moved and hoping their spell connected. The likes of the Lestranges had yet to be seen but there had been several occasions where there were Death Eaters whose skill rivalled even theirs. No one knew who they were but they did not have the same body shapes, styles or wands as any known member of Voldemort's forces. New recruits, presumably.
The attacks were never regular, never in any way predictable. Sometimes it was two in two days or even several at once, sometimes nothing for almost a week. Sometimes it was Diagon Alley or Godric's Hollow and sometimes it was muggle towns in the middle of nowhere. They had yet to attack Hogsmeade, a fact that made the students of Hogsmeade all the more anxious. He would not neglect such a viable and important target unless he had something planned. All that came together to have the entirety of the Wizarding World in a constant state of terror that pervaded every moment of life. Several shops in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade had become owl order only or shut down completely.
The day before had been a Hogsmeade day and students had flocked to the village in an attempt to escape the stifling atmosphere of the castle and try and convince themselves that everything was okay. There were some that had stayed in the safety of the castle and Jack could hardly blame them for doing so. The auror presence in the village had been immense to the point that Jack honestly wasn't sure if students outnumbered aurors or the other way around. In his opinion allowing Hogsmeade visits to go ahead was an unnecessary risk, but he couldn't deny the sense of warmth he got from simply sitting in the three broomsticks and sipping a butterbeer with his friends. It only made him more determined to improve until he had even the slightest chance of defeating Voldemort; he wanted people to be able to enjoy days like this without fearing for their lives. He wanted that for his children, assuming that he lived long enough to have any.
The beating of wings snapped the necks of every student and every teacher upwards as the owls glided downwards and dropped their packages on the tables. Jack scrambled for a newspaper and the entire hall minus a few select Slytherins gave a collective sigh that echoed off the stone. No attacks. But as quickly as that relief had come it was replaced with apprehension and fear; if there were no attacks last night it only made it more likely that there would be that night, and on a larger scale if Voldemort was saving his men for it.
Jack looked at both his friends as their eyes betrayed both their relief and their anxiety. Ron's family was involved with the Order and were known as the biggest blood traitors in the country – they were always going to be targets and Jack knew that losing his family scared Ron more than anything. This was the first year he had started to show any effort in his classes as his dread drove him to try and protect his family. He was especially protective of Ginny as she was the only Weasley younger than him, a fact that both annoyed her and made her cherish her brother that little bit more.
Hermione's fears were similar, but while the Weasleys were always going to be targets it was only her association to him that put her family in danger. Jack had tried to make her have a very public fight with him in an attempt to dissociate herself from him but she had refused, but even he knew that it would have been pretty pointless anyway. The taint of him was already in place. Ron's brother Bill had raised wards around her home and her parents' dentistry office that should stop anyone but a skilled group of wizards attacking them and at the very least give the Order time to get there but Jack still felt incredibly guilty that such measures were needed in the first place.
With a final glance at his half eaten food Jack pushed himself from his seat and said goodbye to his friends before he started to walk through the corridors with his hand firmly on his wand. He should have defence now, and that meant it was time for training with Dumbledore. The headmaster had enlarged a classroom on the third floor for his training and somehow got a hold of several duelling dummies for him to practise against. They had ten levels of difficulty but could only fire a limited number of spells, the most severe of which was a pretty mild cutting curse, so it wasn't like duelling a real Death Eater and certainly not Voldemort himself, but it would have to do.
When he got there though the room wasn't how he expected it to be. The duelling dummies were pressed up against the back wall and in the centre of the room were two comfortable looking armchairs around a low glass table on which a silver basin Jack recognised as a pensieve was perched.
"Ah, Jack," Dumbledore said, "come in, sit."
Jack raised a confused eyebrow but did as he was asked, knowing that whatever Dumbledore was doing was more than likely in his best interests. His parents had long ago explained Dumbledore's role in his brother's death but he couldn't find it in him to hate or even dislike the man for it. His intentions had been to spare Harry as much danger and pain as he could; there was no way he could have known what would happen. Jack certainly wouldn't have been able to imagine someone doing that to their own nephew if he didn't know someone already had.
"What we are going to be doing today is not your usual training but I feel that it will be just as valuable, if not more so. We will be viewing my memory of my most recent duel with Tom in an attempt to analyse his strategies, his tendencies and other things that may be of use to you when finally you face him. I must admit I have been meaning to do this since that night, but with the recent attacks I thought it more important that you are able to defend yourself should you be caught in one."
With that Dumbledore held his wand to his temple and pulled out a silvery tail of shimmering light and dropped it into the pensieve which Jack promptly followed him in to.
The memory started just as Dumbledore emerged from the elevator and Jack shivered involuntarily when he saw Voldemort's reptilian face across the atrium. He wondered about the mention of a prophecy, though he easily guessed that it was about him. It would certainly explain Dumbledore and his parents' certainty that it would be him that would beat Voldemort, assuming he won that is. He would have to ask them about it. Dumbledore was probably expecting him to; he wouldn't have included it in the memory if he wanted to keep it secret. It seemed like a rather cowardly way to tell him though.
Dumbledore gave him a 'not now' gesture and Jack focussed back on the memory just in time to see Voldemort cast the first spell: the all too familiar killing curse. He was in awe of the sheer skill that both men exhibited as they twirled their wands in intricate patterns and had to hold back a cheer when Dumbledore trapped Voldemort in a sphere of ice. He knew that wasn't the end though and he wondered just how Voldemort would escape when the ball suddenly exploded with such power that the fragments of ice appeared to be smoking.
The fiery snake was extraordinary, but it also marked the moment that Dumbledore was forced onto the back foot and stayed there. The speed at which the headmaster conjured, transfigured and shielded was astonishing and seemingly impossible to Jack but still he was unable to mount any sort of offensive against Voldemort, and he wondered if Dumbledore couldn't do it then how in Merlin's name was he expected to.
He could see Dumbledore tiring as he retreated behind his shield but Voldemort looked only mildly drained. How the hell was he that powerful? Jack glanced towards the headmaster to gauge his reaction only to find him looking around searchingly with his neck swivelling every which way so quickly that Jack wondered if it was going to unscrew.
'There must be someone,' Dumbledore thought as he looked around, 'there has to be.' The memory had been exactly as he remembered it and he had been avidly analysing Tom's unfortunately familiar combat style when he noticed something. Fragments of rock and debris were flying into the path of Tom's curses but he was sure that it was not him that was doing it. There were even times when two rocks flew through the air and intercepted two completely separate curses simultaneously. He certainly wasn't doing that wandlessly while still concentrating on identifying the curses which were being thrown his way. There must have been someone else there protecting him, but where? He couldn't see anything or anyone. Not the slightest shimmer of a disillusionment charm anywhere in the atrium. An invisibility cloak?
He had been wondering ever since that night who activated the emergency alarm and had assumed it was simply one of the few workers still in the building that had somehow heard the duel. Maybe he had been mistaken and the alarm was triggered by whoever it was that had almost undoubtedly saved his life.
He hardly noticed the flashing off the floos as he searched fruitlessly until he was forcibly removed from the pensieve as the memory ended. He forced the issue to the back of his mind as Jack retook his seat; there were more pressing things to concentrate on.
"What did you notice, my boy?"
"His anger made him even better. Once he escaped from your ball of ice he was angry and after that he cast faster and his spells were more powerful."
"That is quite correct. Emotion of all kinds can be a powerful aid or an extreme hindrance when casting. In the case of anger, spells of a destructive nature like Tom is so fond of become more powerful, but were he to attempt a healing spell he would more than likely struggle. His increased speed is a simple psychological factor; he disregarded everything from his mind except trying to kill me, which in turn made him able to cast faster. I'm sure you noticed the way I managed to briefly penetrate his defences several times after that despite not having the advantage simply because he was too focussed on pulverising me into nothingness to notice. Use that to your advantage."
"What was that shield you were using at the end? The silver one?"
"Ah, that was the-" Dumbledore said before suddenly he stiffened, his face adopting a look of horror.
"The wards." He whispered before he leapt from his seat and ran as fast he could from the room. Jack immediately followed with his wand in hand; anything that could give Albus Dumbledore that look was serious.
~Scene Change~
Harry walked through one of the many tears in the Hogwarts wards with a look of distaste on his face, invisible though it was beneath his disillusionment charm. He had known ever since the Chamber of Secrets that he would someday have to repair the wards but he still couldn't believe that they had been allowed to decay to the point they had. Granted, many of the holes were only large enough for one person so getting an army in would take a while but Voldemort could still waltz in with Bellatrix Lestrange and kill every student and every professor at Hogwarts. It was unacceptable to have such poor protections around children.
He had been planning to repair the wards anyway but the absolutely horrendous decision to continue to allow Hogsmeade visits had forced him to do so before he had had a chance to perform an in depth analysis of the wards from the outside and research any wards that he didn't know of. Honestly, what did those fools on the school board expect to happen? Hogsmeade visits were scheduled weeks in advance, and that meant Voldemort could plan an attack there down to the second and kill dozens of children in one fell swoop. The aurors stationed there were going to do very little against the army of Death Eaters who were willing to use any spells they could find while the aurors were limited to non-lethals. That was as stupid a decision as allowing Hogsmeade visits in the first place and he had drummed it into Nymph… had drummed it into Dora that when caught in a Death Eater attack you cast to kill. Not to subdue, not to disarm. To kill.
It would only be a matter of time until Voldemort decided to attack Hogsmeade and when that happened Harry wanted the children in Hogwarts and those who would flee back to the castle to be absolutely secure, and right now they weren't.
Harry heard the low murmur of conversation bleeding through the open doors of the Great Hall as he passed and began to make his way towards the headmaster's office where the steps that led down to the central ward stone was located. It was lucky he had the portrait of one of the founders in his basement otherwise actually finding it could have taken weeks. The corridors were completely empty as he made his way to the second floor, the students clearly unwilling to be alone even behind the perceived safety of the Hogwarts wards.
The gargoyle it glared stonily at his invisible form when he eventually reached the entrance to the headmaster's office and Harry smirked slightly to himself.
"§Emyr§"
The gargoyle sprang aside and Harry stepped onto the slowly spiralling staircase up towards the Headmaster's office. Salazar had added a permanent password to the office when Hogwarts was constructed so that he would always be able to access the wards, although he had mostly used it to steal from Godric. Some of the books Godric had either owned or written himself had been incredibly useful, both to Harry and Salazar himself.
As soon as he pushed the door to the office open Harry flicked his wand to knock out all of the portraits and he let his disillusionment charm drop as he inspected the office. It was a large circular room with a wide window at the back and a skylight in the roof that allowed the morning light to stream in, shining off of delicate silver instruments that let off sporadic puffs of multi-coloured smoke. The floor in front of the enormous clawfooted desk was covered in a deep red rug and the walls were filled with portraits of unconscious headmasters and shelves of ancient looking tomes.
The most eye-catching aspect of the office though was the golden stand by the side of the desk on which a phoenix was perched. It had its head tilted slightly to the side as it looked at him, like a small child would look at a seemingly impossible puzzle, until after a few moments the phoenix straightened its head and looked at him with complete indifference as it dismissed him as both a friend and an enemy.
All in all it was exactly what he had expected from Dumbledore, portraying the image of the quintessential light wizard. That was a façade of course, and Harry was sure that Dumbledore had a hidden library filled with books on some of the darkest aspects of magic ever created. It was impossible to beat a dark wizard of Gellert Grindelwald's calibre without becoming a dark wizard yourself. If you didn't know what spell was coming towards you then you were going to die.
"Who the fuck are you and how did you get into this office." A gravelly voice demanded and Harry spun around to see the sorting hat glaring heatedly down at him from a shelf above the gently burning fireplace.
Salazar had told him that the hat had an… attitude, but he hadn't expected that. This was the hat that sung songs and was allowed free access to the minds of eleven year old children?
A flick of his wand conjured a wooden box over the hat and Harry hit it with a silencing charm to stop the vitriolic threats that were streaming from the hat's mouth. Harry really didn't know how much an enchanted hat could do to him but he doubted that it was capable of "pulling his asshole up over his ears". He berated himself for forgetting about the hat as he walked towards the back wall but was thankful that he had chosen a completely random body for the day. There was a small part of him telling him to go back and pull the hat on so that he could be 'sorted' but he ignored it. It would be nothing more than just another detail to add to his childish fantasy of Olivia surviving and coming to live with him in Nightshade manor that even now he had been unable to shed completely.
Harry pressed his palm against the tiny Hogwarts crest that had been carved into the stone of the back wall and he felt a sharp prick before the section of wall in front of him slid to the side with a rumbling scrape of stone against stone. In front of him was a narrow staircase that led steeply downwards in a seemingly endless spiral lit only with sporadic torches in which flames danced softly. He heard the wall close behind him as he walked quickly downwards until he reached a large room that looked to be carved directly into the bedrock.
The room was square and dimly lit with the same torches that had lined the staircase which cast long, flickering shadows across the room. Coming from each corner was a thick vein of bright light, but on closer inspection Harry found them to be thousands of tiny little runes carved into the floor, each one so close to another that their pure white glows blended together until each rune was indistinguishable from another at any sort of distance. The four threads all converged in the centre and coiled like ivy upwards around a stone plinth which had a huge spherical crystal glowing brightly at its top. The light coming from the sphere was not the pure white of the ley lines that fed it; instead it danced with every imaginable colour simultaneously in a mesmerising display of tangible power.
The lights within the crystal stretched for Harry as he approached, thin fingers trying to grasp him, and he had to fight the urge to press his palms to its surface. Such a thing would kill him, but only after it had sapped every drop of magic from his body. As he got closer he noticed the tiny runes etched into the sphere's surface that crisscrossed seemingly at random in a perfect pattern of organised chaos as Harry continued to stare in awe. He had seen countless ward stones, had tinkered with his own as he added new wards and removed obsolete ones, but he had never seen anything like this. The old and longstanding claim that Hogwarts was one of, if not the most strongly defended institution in the world may have once had far more truth to it than it now did. The fact that it was powered by a convergence of four ley lines certainly made it possible.
He dragged his finger across the palm of his left hand to cut a shallow line into his hand which he held over the crystal and allowed seven drops of blood to drop and he watched as each one was absorbed into the sphere which began to glow a deep red. And then, suddenly, it flashed gold and Harry was besieged with information, as if he had been pulled into Hogwarts' web and made a part of the wards. Salazar had said that the Hogwarts wards were unlike any other ward scheme and that connecting to them would be a unique experience but he hadn't imagined that it would be like this. It was utterly overwhelming, like he had been removed from his own body. His eyes stopped seeing, his ears stopped hearing and his nose stopped smelling as his brain discarded what his senses were telling him so it could focus its full concentration on the deluge of information that was pouring into his head. He could feel every thread of every ward, every slowly snapping strand of magic, could see every tear and every weak point. He could feel every single charm, room, corridor and staircase in Hogwarts and knew exactly where every student and every professor currently was.
His body moved on autopilot as his wand swished through the air, weaving new threads and sewing up the torn defences. He removed many wards that he thought obsolete or those that did virtually the same thing as another so that those that remained received more power. He added almost as many as he removed though; wards that had been created in the centuries since the founders or updated and improved versions of those that they had raised mainly. The magical world's belief that if something was old it was powerful was a foolish presumption that looked to have been believed by the vast majority of Hogwarts headmasters. He placed anti-elf wards so that only Hogwarts elves could apparate in and out, with the exception of his own elves of course. He placed wards on the secret tunnels that led out of the castle, most of which currently had no wards over them whatsoever, and placed intent based wards over every dormitory to stop the assaults that he was sure happened no matter how secret they were kept. There would always be people like that, and it was foolishly idealistic to believe that such wards were not necessary. Even if they only prevented one assault then it was worth raising them.
Harry could feel the exhaustion at the fringe of his mind and he forced himself to disconnect from the wards, knowing it wouldn't be long until he passed out. As soon as he did so his knees trembled and he crumpled to the ground with his breaths coming in short, sharp pants. He felt like every ounce of energy had been dragged from his body but the steady thrum of the newly strengthened wards was worth it. They weren't as good as they could be by any means – there were still several wards that he wanted to remove or add, some that he couldn't even identify and he hadn't even done anything about changing the boundaries yet – but he had patched all the holes and strengthened them as much as his own strength would allow. Voldemort would now struggle to get in at the very least, and he was already planning on coming back to continue his work. Being connected to the wards was intoxicating, and Harry thought that it would be the closest he ever felt to a god.
He had no idea how long he spent lying on the stone floor but by the time he pushed himself from the floor his back was protesting loudly. As he stood and clicked the vertebrae back into place Harry thought about some of the things he had noticed during his exploration of the wards. He had wondered ever since the Chamber of Secrets how a horcrux got into Hogwarts undetected – surely the wards would have picked it up? - but as it turned out all the wards intended to detect dangerous magic had been deactivated, and Harry had understood why when he switched them on for a split second earlier; the wards recognised almost everything as dark. Harry had no idea why and wondered whether it was a case of there actually being that many dangerous objects in Hogwarts, whether the classifications of dangerous had changed dramatically since the founders time or if they were just too sensitive but he already had plans to research a suitable alternative to add to the ward scheme next time, but for now those wards would remain disconnected.
He had also noticed some sort of connection between an object and all the wards intended to track and identify that seemed to be owned by Jack Potter. Harry had no idea what it was or how it had been done but instead of severing the connection he had simply excluded himself from those wards so that whatever it was didn't work on him. He didn't want anyone being able to identify him in any form but if it was important he didn't want to break it. A device like the one he was imagining could be very useful in the right hands, which right now Potter was as close to as anyone else. If one of his parents was in possession of it however, then he would have severed it out of sheer spite.
The other item of importance Harry noticed was a room on the seventh floor that seemed to be in a constant state of flux. A paradox. A room that was big yet small, there yet not, all at the same time. He didn't know how that was even possible and Salazar had never mentioned anything of the sort but Harry was certainly intrigued.
Now that he had connected himself to the wards it felt much like the wards around Nightshade Manor did when he was home; he could feel roughly where people were and how many people there were even when not directly connected and he was sure he would be equally aware of someone trying to break them provided he was in Hogwarts at the time. Judging by the concentration of people in the Great Hall he guessed it was either lunch or dinner, but there were also several people lying in wait for him in the Headmasters office. He knew that Dumbledore wouldn't be stupid enough to come down and try and interfere with someone when they were connected to the wards – such a thing could have disastrous consequences – but he had hoped that when he felt the wards strengthening he would leave him alone. Unfortunately not.
Harry had absolutely no desire to interact with the old man in yet another persona so instead decided to leave the room in another way. Now that he was disconnected from the tracking wards Dumbledore wouldn't even know he had left.
"House elf." He said, not calling for one of his own elves because he doubted they would be able to get in here. He had no idea if a Hogwarts elf would be able to either for that matter.
As luck would have it a pretty nondescript house elf, as far as house elves go anyway, popped in wearing a toga that looked to be made from a tea towel with the Hogwarts crest proudly emblazoned on the front. She stared wide eyed around the room and spent several long seconds gazing at the central crystal before her attention was drawn back to him.
"Yes, Master Slither sir?"
Harry had to bite back a laugh as he imagined how Salazar would react to being called that.
"Can you take me to the left corridor on the seventh floor?"
The elf grabbed his hand with an excited nod and they disappeared with a crack and reappeared an instant later opposite a strange tapestry of dancing trolls. Harry looked around and ran his hand across the wall to try and find an entrance but pulled it away a few seconds later with a frown on his face. He knew the room was here, but there was no door and nothing that would indicate a secret entrance like the engraved crest in the headmasters office to get to the ward room.
"This be's the Come and Go Room, Master Slither. Whatever yous need it can provide, it is always equipped with what the seeker needs. Yous must walk past the wall three times thinking about what yous be needing and the door will appear."
Harry nodded as he began to pace along the wall, already thinking about the near endless possibilities. Was there any limits? It couldn't produce food obviously, unless it summoned it from the kitchens. Was there a limit on how big the room could be? There must be, expansion charms only went so far. He was on his second circuit and thinking about a particularly nice beach in southern France when he stopped dead as his mind finally realised what he should have thought of as soon as the room was explained to him.
A secret room that became whatever you wanted? The Chamber of Secrets had been empty but this was exactly the sort of place Voldemort would hide a piece of his soul. The fact that it was secret would have stroked the man's ego and Hogwarts would have been his first home. Chances were there was one here.
'I need the place where it is hidden. I need the place where it is hidden. I need the place where it is hidden…' Harry chanted in his mind as he begun to pace along the wall once more until finally the stone melted away to reveal a huge wooden door that swung open as he approached. He felt his eyes widen when he was faced with the endless mountains of stuff that stretched as far as he could see even as his nose wrinkled at the blackness that pervaded his senses.
There was definitely a horcrux in this room.
AN: I never really liked the Dumbledore vs Voldemort confrontation in OOTP just because I always thought that Dumbledore would be more skilled than Voldemort was given that Dumbledore was teaching before Tom Riddle was even born and he beat Grindelwald, the Dark Lord who was half way through taking over Continental Europe when Voldemort couldn't even manage one country. There's also the fact that Voldemort is insane and so unlikely to be particularly tactical in duels. Obviously Voldemort is no slouch, but there isn't much that can make up for an extra 40+ years of experience to me.