Chapter 24
Sirius was having tremendous fun, he had to say. Far more than he had in any Order meeting previous. They had finally let Dumbledore back in, albeit grudgingly, and now here he was, back in his precious Order. It was some of the most personally satisfying entertainment he had had in years.
That was not to say things were anything like they had been before though; the old man no longer presided over them like a king over his knights, instead he was sat next to the Weasleys half way down the table. They were about the only people who weren't glaring at him, at least from the core group who had long since got over their hero worship. The others, well, Sirius wasn't really bothered enough about them to check. Fleur had actually moved further down when the old man sat next to her, to Sirius's indescribable delight. He couldn't wait to tell Harry about that. Bill hadn't looked happy she had done it though, something that he was equally excited to tell Harry just to see how he reacted. He was so fun to tease.
Every word the old man said was met with argument, even if he was quite obviously right. In fact, especially then. The Potters and Longbottoms, strangely, weren't saying anything at all. In fact, it looked to be taking all their concentration not to start throwing curses every time the old man opened his mouth.
Sirius was considering writing a play about all this someday.
"We need to curb Voldemort's influence in the Ministry and the Wizengamot, until that is done he cannot be truly beaten." Dumbledore said for what felt like the twentieth time.
"And how do you suppose we do that?" Kingsley spoke up, "We don't have the influence or the gold that Malfoy has. The Grey Houses are joining the Dark faction out of fear and there's nothing we can do to stop them. Either they do what Malfoy says or they die; questions or morality or ethics don't matter when it's your family's lives at stake. The only part of the Ministry he hasn't infected is the DMLE, and even that's only a matter of time. He will try to kill Madam Bones eventually, and if he succeeds no one is going to oppose him."
"There is one Lord who may be able to sway the neutral families back to the centre," Dumbledore said with a small sigh, "but he very rarely comes to the Wizengamot. If he promised to protect them, well, with his family's reputation it might just work. He doesn't seem too fond of me, unfortunately."
"You can't mean Nightshade, Dumbledore!" Doge yelped, "He's hardly better than the Death Eaters! Talking about murder as if it's acceptable in any situation."
"Is it not, though, old friend?"
Doge spluttered incoherently for an answer but came up empty, and even the Potters and Longbottoms were looking at Dumbledore with interest when he continued.
"I know many of those who were part of the Order in the first war have long since accepted the necessity of lethal force against the Death Eaters, but I myself have only just seen the truth in the argument. You need only look at the attack on Hogsmeade for the proof. Let's say you take the killer who saved us out and put me in his place. When he fought a Death Eater they didn't get back up; they didn't kill another student or another civilian, didn't burn another building. They simply weren't there anymore. But me, if I had stunned them they could have been woken up. Had I bound them in ropes or in chains, those binds could quite easily have been broken. And then they would be free to continue on their rampage.
"Now, that is not to say I in any way agree with the curses he was using. They do not just kill, they kill slowly and they kill painfully. Evil though the Death Eaters may be, they are still people. They deserve a quick death at the very least."
Sirius had changed his mind. He wasn't going to write a play, he was going to write a book, simply so he could describe the pale faced, disbelieving shock on their faces.
~Scene Change~
"As it's your birthday, I figured we'd do something a little more fun."
"What are we doing?" Anaïs asked excitedly.
"It's a surprise. You'll see when we get there. I'd go get changed if I was you though, it's in the muggle world and it's going to be quite a bit warmer over there than it is here."
"Can Fleur come?"
"Of course she can, if she wants to that is."
Fleur nodded with a smile when Anaïs looked at her before she scampered up the stairs towards her room. Once her rapid footsteps had faded away Fleur turned to look at Harry as he transfigured his button up into a simple black tee shirt and left his grey jeans as they were. His arms were scattered with scars and burns that she spent a few long seconds looking at before he realised and willed them away.
"I don't have to come if you want to spend time with her alone…" she said as she dragged her eyes back up to his face.
"No, no, I was actually going to ask her if she wanted you to come anyway. She really likes you and it's her birthday, she gets to choose who's there for it."
Fleur was quite pleased with that answer and she was still smiling when Anaïs finally came back downstairs, dressed in a plain white blouse and jeans instead of her blue school robes. Fleur got a funny, almost knowing look from the little girl as she passed which she did her best to ignore.
Harry pulled an ordinary looking muggle pen from his pocket and extended it out for them to hold on to.
"This is our portkey back as well; it had to be something normal." He said by way of explanation as she and Anaïs grabbed a hold of it.
A split second later she felt the expected tug behind her naval and then she was swirling, spinning through what was comfortably the most unpleasant portkey trip of her life. When they eventually landed in an alleyway Fleur had to concentrate just to keep the contents of her stomach where they were supposed to be. Anaïs couldn't quite manage to do the same and proceeded to glare at a suspiciously blank faced Harry as he vanished the evidence with a wave of his hand.
The first thing she felt was the heat, and then it was the heaviness. Not quite bad enough to be uncomfortable but not particularly pleasant either. There was noise as well, screaming and laughing and shouting. Judging by the sun it wasn't long past midday wherever they were but back in Britain the sun had long since set. At least three or four hours' time difference. She had a pretty good idea of where they were, unlike Anaïs who looked clueless.
Harry cast a cooling charm on Anaïs and raised an eyebrow at her, to which she nodded. She could have done it herself, she thought as she felt the charm hit her like a gentle breeze, but she didn't want to. She decided not to think about why that was.
"Welcome to America. Come on."
With that Harry wandered out of the alley as Anaïs eagerly followed after him and Fleur followed closely behind.
"I don't think I need to tell you where we are." He said as Fleur blinked the sun out of her eyes.
Throngs of people were bustling past them, all marching towards a white and blue castle so large it made Hogwarts seem small. Anaïs squealed.
"We haven't got time to do everything; I didn't manage to persuade Madame Maxine to let you miss a couple days of school," he said as Fleur gave him a look that said she couldn't believe he had even tried, "but with magic we don't have to worry about queues. If you like it we'll come back over the summer."
She squealed again and hugged him before she started to duck and weave between people with Harry and Fleur following after her at a more sensible pace. That clearly wasn't fast enough for her considering that five seconds she was pulling them both after her, regardless of all the other people they had to contort themselves to avoid.
She had thought Gabrielle was bad, but after spending a few hours running around Anaïs she decided to revise that opinion. She had the energy levels of an eight year old if they downed a pepper up potion while also on a sugar high, and that was after being at school and casting spells all day. It was exhausting.
She was currently going on the same ride for the fourth time, but Fleur and Harry had decided to stop after the third. Frankly she was surprised he had let her out of his sight. Sirius had said he was protective, and while he wasn't as bad as she had been led to believe what she had seen and heard didn't do much to disprove Sirius's claim.
"I've been meaning to bring her here for a while actually. She's been obsessed with all the Disney movies since I managed to get a DVD player and a projector working little under a year ago. It took me far too long and I blew up at least a hundred of them trying to get it right before I got one to work. I was converting magic into electricity actually in the unit, because obviously there's no power lines, and then having to shield it just enough so that only the right amount of magic would get in. The runic complexes were stupidly complicated just to convert from one form to the other, and there's not exactly a direct conversion that I could use to work out how much magic makes 240 volts. Making electricity widely functional would be a nightmare, you would have to…."
Fleur felt herself smile slightly as he rambled about how he did it and why he did different things. He often did that when they were speaking about wards or any other type of magic as well, explaining exactly why that specific ward had that specific weakness or why that curse wasn't stopped by a certain type of shield. It wasn't in a 'look at me I'm so clever' sort of way, though she could certainly see how it could come across as that sometimes. It was more that he just loved magic and was fascinated by how it works. If what Sirius had accidently let slip was to be believed he had been that house learning magic for years and years and years all alone. It was one of the only things he really knew.
He was so different to how he had been the first time she met him in the drawing room of her childhood home and even to how he had been when she met him again all these years later. She wouldn't say he was happier, at least not since her second meeting with him, but he seemed more comfortable at least. It was nice seeing him like this, more open as he gesticulated animatedly with his hands and he delved into details of magic that even she struggled to understand. She liked to think it was at least partially thanks to her.
Anaïs came skipping out just then, waved at them with a cheeky smile on her face and then went straight back down the line again. Fleur didn't know exactly what spell the spell Harry had cast on the three of them was, she just knew that everyone was absolutely insistent that they go ahead of them in the queue. The three of them could effectively walk straight to the front and the people they were pushing past would just move out of the way or even pat them on the back as they passed. Anaïs was abusing it as much as she possibly could.
She quickly nudged Harry in the side to cut off his explanation as a middle aged woman in a plain white tee shirt and a hat that had for some reason had the top cut off came up to lean on the railing beside them.
"Your daughter is beautiful!" the muggle woman cried, "How old is she?"
Fleur made to correct the woman but Harry cut across her before she could open her mouth, his face arranged in a friendly smile.
"Thank you, she's 13 today actually. This is her birthday surprise."
"Taking a day off school is she? Oh don't worry, I won't tell. We've all done it! I did the same for my youngest just last month; we went to see a hockey match, you see, only he supports the Bruins up in Boston like his father. Terribly long way to go, but he loved it. The things we do for our children, am I right?" she laughed.
'Americans are like a different species', thought Harry as he continued in this entirely pointless conversation as he tried to stop his irritation showing on his face. In all of his times in the muggle world both in Britain and elsewhere he had never met anyone as loud or as talkative as every person here seemed to be. He imagined what would happen if he put the woman on the London Underground, where silence was actually considered noisy. Fleur had yet to stop looking at him with a strange look in her eyes that he had no idea as to the meaning of.
"I'm really sorry," he said with a nod toward Anaïs as she emerged from the ride for the fifth time, "but it appears it's time for us to move on; I imagine I'll be running after her again in a few minutes."
"Oh I bet you will!" she said with an obnoxiously cheerful laugh that sounded to Harry like fingernails on a chalkboard.
The muggle woman made a few pointless pleasantries before they left with Harry practically dragging Fleur towards Anaïs as she stared at him.
"What? The two of you look like you're related. It was just easier if she thought that Anaïs was, you know, ours." He said, and Fleur was sure she had not imagined the dusting of pink across his cheeks before it disappeared.
Anaïs gave her the same look she had given her before they left which she again ignored to the best of her ability. That actually seemed to make her smile grow. Evil little girl.
They stayed there for a few more hours until fireworks exploded overhead in a display that would have made Fred and George proud, by which time Anaïs was almost dead on her feet. Fleur wasn't much better, in fact the only one who seemed to be functioning properly was Harry. When the portkey deposited them back in Harry's entrance hall it was nearly 3:45 in the morning, and that meant it was 4:45 in France. Anaïs was expected to have flooed in to Madame Maxine's office by 8:50 for her first lesson, a fact that she was loudly groaning about.
"Can I not just miss classes tomorrow?" she protested.
"If you do that Madame Maxine might not let you come home again. She doesn't have to let you, you know, so we don't really want to push her on it if we can help it. You can sleep for a few hours now, that and a pepper up potion in the morning should hopefully be enough to get you through your classes until you find time to nap. If you feel bad at any point though just go back to your room and get your friends to cover for you."
"Okay. Goodnigh'." She mumbled as she trudged up the stairs with an audible yawn.
Fleur stifled a yawn herself as she rubbed tiredly at her eyes.
"Thank you for coming," Harry said once Anaïs had disappeared out of sight, "and sorry for keeping you out this late."
"Its fine, I am not working tomorrow anyway."
She had to hide her surprise at the word sorry ever falling from Harry's lips. This was the first time she had heard him apologise at all, and over something as small as this when he was unwilling to apologise to Nymphadora even if it meant allowing his relationship with her to remain strained. He said that it wasn't him that was causing the problem, it was her, so he shouldn't have to be the one to apologize. He also maintained that he didn't do anything wrong, of course.
"And I've added you to the wards so you can apparate out instead of having to walk all the way out of the wards every time you want to leave."
"Thank you."
"Not a problem." he shrugged as he walked up the stairs, "Goodnight."
"Goodnight." She said softly, but he was gone.
She felt herself smile as she apparated back to her apartment, only for it to be swiftly wiped off her face when she saw Bill sat on her sofa, his arms on his knees and his head leant forwards, his face hidden from view by a curtain of red hair.
"Shit. I forgot we had plans, I'm so sorry."
"Where were you?" he asked quietly.
"Out. My oath prevents me from saying any more than that."
"Ah, how could I forget, your oath. Of course. How silly of me." He said as he slowly stood up, his tone unlike any she had heard him use before, "I'm curious Fleur, when are you going to stop LYING TO ME!"
"Lying? I have told you, I have told you so many times that I have sworn an oath that prevents me from saying anything. Do you not trust me? Where do you think I'm going?" she shouted back as her own anger rose to match his.
"You're a Veela." He said, as if that explained it.
"Oh, so because I'm a Veela I must be cheating on you? Because I am a Veela, I must be a whore who will sleep with anybody who looks in my direction?"
The anger in his expression faded as he winced, his clenched fists now open and out in an attempt to calm her.
"Come on, Flower," he said, trying to backpedal at the anger burning in her eyes, "you know I didn't mean it like that. You're going out regularly for hours on end and not telling me where or who with, what am I supposed to think? I'd think exactly the same thing if you were a normal witch."
"You're supposed to trust me, William. Now get out, go and find yourself a 'normal' witch."
"Fleur…"
"I said. Get. Out."
She could feel her nails starting to lengthen and sharpen and she could feel soft, downy feathers forcing out from her skin where it met her hair. She had only ever been angry enough to trigger the beginnings of a transformation once before, and that was when she found out Gabrielle had been taken and tied up at the bottom of the Hogwarts lake.
Bill only lasted a few seconds under her glare before he apparated away, and suddenly her anger evaporated and sadness flooded in to its place. The tears came but she barely noticed them trickling slowly down her cheeks. She had thought that she would marry Bill one day. They had been together long enough that she had started imagining it; the proposal, the wedding, the honeymoon, children and grandchildren. The idea of spending the rest of her life with someone who loved her for her was a beautiful one and something that she had always feared would be unattainable. To get a taste of that only to find out that she was still a veela first and Fleur second felt like a knife to the chest.
Her mother knew something was wrong the moment she walked through the door the next day and spent several hours with her trying to cheer her up with stories of her own failed romances from her youth. Fleur was sure that at least some of it was exaggerated or downright false, but she didn't care. It did its job. She was only twenty; there was still plenty of time for her to find someone. Her mother met her father when she was thirty four.
It might not have worked out anyway, she told herself. His mother hated her and she couldn't stand her either, and Molly Weasley was far too overbearing to ever allow them to have their own relationship in peace. No, she would expect them to stay close to her, visit her often, and when they had children she would expect them to more or less grow up at the Burrow. And Bill would let her, because none of the Weasleys were willing to stand up to that harpy.
Still though, that did not do too much to alleviate the sudden loneliness she felt even two weeks later. She had gotten used to always having someone there, and while her friends and her family tried to help there wasn't really much they could do to fill the void. It would just take time.
"Are you okay?"
Fleur pulled her eyes away from the window back to Anaïs's concerned face. She must have zoned out for a second. It was strange that the thirteen year old girl was looking at her with worry, and had it happened a month before Fleur thought that she might have laughed.
"I'm fine."
The look Anaïs gave her clearly said she didn't believe her and Fleur let out a long breath. She didn't really want to explain her love life to her, but she also knew that she wouldn't let it go. Anaïs was annoyingly persistent.
"I broke up with my boyfriend a couple of weeks ago. It is nothing."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be, it is not your fault. These things happen. I thought he saw me and not the veela and it turns out I was wrong. He didn't trust me, and there is no point being in a relationship if there is no trust."
"How do you know? If they love you and not just the veela, how do you know?"
Of course she had to ask that of all things, but the innocence and the genuine worry in her voice that she wouldn't be able to tell forced her to answer it. She wasn't even sure what the answer was; she had spent three years thinking she had found it only to now wonder if she ever had.
"There is no proper answer to that, unfortunately. If there was then it would have saved me a lot of trouble. A lot of it is their behaviour, I would say. That is what my mama told me. If they are kind, gentle, caring, trusting, willing to go out of their way to help you even if it is of absolutely no benefit to them, then chances are they do not simply see the veela. Even then, though, their perception of you might be influenced by the reputation wizards have given to veela. But there is also a look that people in love give each other. The way my mama and papa look at each other. I can't describe it, but if you see it you will know."
Anaïs's innocently curious expression changed then into something more mischievous then which instantly set Fleur on edge. It reminded her of the look a cat got when a bird was within lunging distance.
"You mean like you and Harry?"
She felt her face heat up and her eyes go wide as her brain swiped for something to say. Anaïs's grin widened.
"No," she said as firmly as she could with still burning cheeks, "Harry and I are just friends. Nothing more."
And she meant it. She and Harry were just friends, that was it. She wasn't even sure if Harry was actually capable of any more than that; she couldn't imagine him ever being one for romance.
'You thought he was going to be an emotionless killer before you met him. He has surprised you before.' A traitorous little voice whispered before she ruthlessly forced it back into the hole she had tried to bury it in.
No, she reassured herself. There was absolutely no way they could ever be that, no way.
~Scene Change~
She cursed once again as all her work unravelled yet again, a string of muttered expletives falling from her lips that made even Harry smile in amusement.
"Close, but not quite. Only the best warders can even cast this and it's just as difficult to break so don't get too disheartened. You'll be able to break it soon, and once you can we'll practise it more until you can do it even when there's spells whizzing past you. It might not even get cast again – I'm betting most of the ones who can cast it have run from Voldemort's service by now, although Bellatrix, the other Lestrange or maybe Malfoy would be capable of it too if they learnt how to – but in case it is, you can break it so the old man can get his bird to give him a piggyback in and save the day."
"You really don't like Dumbledore, do you?"
"No."
"Why not? I understand he's a stubborn old man who treats people like chess pieces, but there's more than that for you."
"Albus Dumbledore is a bastard who lords his morals and his 'wisdom'," Harry sneered, "over everyone else while giving no regard to the lives of other people. We have a personal history."
"Is there anyone you don't have a personal history with?"
"Less than those I do. Now then, again. Remember what I told you."
Fleur tiredly pulled herself up from the floor for what felt like the hundredth time and got to work trying to break the anti-phoenix ward that Harry had cast for her. She really appreciated him trying to teach her how to break such a complex ward. Hell, she appreciated that he even let her read the theory behind it. It was a fascinating, beautifully complicated piece of magic and just as rare. The book looked like it had been written centuries ago.
The fact that he was confident enough in her abilities to even let her try, never mind believe that she could actually do it brought a warm feeling to her chest and a smile to her face even despite the tiredness and the constant failures. If he thought she could do it, well she probably could. It reminded her of Bill, a comparison that was slowly becoming less painful. He had always been encouraging of her where most men would have been embarrassed that their girlfriend was as good as or even surpassed them in some aspects. It had been one of the things she had loved most about him.
She cursed under her breath as the door swung open and cut off her concentration with a bang against the stone wall. Sirius looked entirely unbothered by her glare as he waltzed in and conjured a fancy leather armchair that he promptly leapt into. He was just lucky she had only just started; if he had wasted much more of her time she would have cursed him.
"Morning!" he said with an obnoxious amount of cheer in his voice.
Fleur just stared at him in annoyance while Harry looked completely unsurprised. This was entirely normal behaviour for Sirius Black.
"I thought you were working today?" Harry said.
"I was, it didn't take long. I mean, I was there. The guy didn't stand a chance." He replied, brushing in imaginary piece of lint from his jacket.
It was pointless even trying to continue trying something so difficult with Sirius yapping away in the background so Fleur conjured her own seat with a slightly annoyed flick of her wand and dropped down into it far more gracefully than Sirius had into his.
"What is your job, exactly? I didn't think you had one, oh mighty Lord Black."
"If I told you that I'd have to kill you," he replied dramatically.
"Good luck, you –"
She cut off abruptly and Sirius followed her eyes to Harry. He looked as if he had been hit with a body bind. His pupils were wide, his fingers were clenched, his every muscle and his every sinew straining with tension.
"Anaïs." He breathed, and then he was gone.
Sirius grabbed a hold of her arm almost instantly and she was pushed through the familiar tube of apparition, and when they reappeared she saw the familiar sight of Beauxbatons. And then she was sprinting after Sirius as he ran straight through the wards, her eyes locked on the distant figure of Harry as he pounded across the grass.
The charms. Her heart rate was raised, adrenaline was flooding her system. The distress signal had been sent. This wasn't simply running from teachers or a prank gone wrong. She was being attacked. So he apparated, and he ran.
He sprinted as fast as he possibly could across the grounds, pushing and pushing and pushing just for that little bit more his legs could give him. He was just following the charm, he didn't care where it took him as long as she was there. And then he saw them, most of the way to the edge of the wards. She was being dragged kicking and screaming away from the school by two men while three others held off the professors who were desperately trying to get her back.
Black cloaks. White masks.
He saw red.
A single cutting curse separated the three men from their shoulders at the very same moment one of the men dragging her away started choking on his own windpipe. He couldn't hit the other one without risking hitting her. The one remaining Death Eater spun to face him and held his shaking wand to her neck as his comrade thrashed in the dirt at his feet, his hands clutching at his throat. The last Death Eater looked around at the bodies of the three now headless men as blood trickled from their twitching corpses before he turned to face Harry with his eyes wide and darting behind his mask.
"Take another step and I'll open her throat! I will, I'll do it!"
Harry hardly noticed the professors or Fleur or Sirius as they stopped somewhere behind him, he only noticed Anaïs. She looked so scared. The Death Eater swivelled minutely back and forth, desperately trying to keep everyone in his sight at all times. No one moved, and just as the Death Eater made to start dragging her away once more, his neck exploded. Harry faded away into nothingness as the air behind the now lifeless corpse shimmered and there he was, sweeping Anaïs into his arms and squeezing like his life depended on it.
"Are you okay? What happened? Did they hurt you?" he whispered.
He felt her shake her head against his chest and he felt himself relax. That was all the answer he needed. She was okay. There were going to be questions, but he could handle that. Everything was going to be okay.
And then he stiffened again.
He suddenly felt the same thick, oozing blackness crawling across his skin that he had every time he had found a horcrux, and when he looked up he saw him. Pale, skeletal, reptilian, stood at the front of a group of black cloaked wizards in bone white masks, all lined up and waiting at the edge of the wards. He could feel the unnatural power rolling off him even from here, and he could tell by the fearful gasps that others had seen him too.
Now that he looked Harry could see several other blobs of black emerging from the tree line, each one in roughly the same position he knew there to be a gap in the wards. And then they started walking slowly inwards, as if daring them to try and run back to the school. They wouldn't make it; they were too far away and there were groups coming from behind and in front and to the sides. He knew he could deal with one of the groups with relative ease, especially with Sirius and Fleur's help, but not quickly enough that the other attackers wouldn't be on them.
Voldemort had played this beautifully. If he came to save her then Voldemort had him trapped, if he didn't then he had Anaïs and he could make him do whatever he wanted. He'd be a marionette and Voldemort would be free to pull his strings however he wanted.
He asked himself how he found her before that thought was swiftly discarded. He didn't have time. The Death Eaters were slowly closing in and he could see Voldemort's smirking viciously, sure that he had won. What Nymphadora had said to him suddenly forced its way to the forefront of his mind: "someday your arrogance will come back to bite you and it damn well better not be me, or Sirius or Anaïs who pays the price for it." That was exactly what had happened. He hadn't thought anyone would ever find out about her connection to him so he hadn't protected her as well as he could have. He could have done something to make sure this could never happen, but the idea that someone would find out just wasn't plausible to him. There was no paper trail, no blood relation. He didn't know how it had happened, but it had. It forcefully reminded him of the way Voldemort didn't even know his horcruxes had been destroyed because he didn't think anyone would find out that he had made them. It was almost poetic that they would both make the exact same mistake. Two arrogant wizards not protecting their own souls.
He couldn't let her be right, so he made a decision.
"Sirius, Fleur, take Anaïs and the professors and get back to the castle. You get in and you floo straight back out, and then you take her somewhere you know that I don't know about. You take her there and you keep her there until you can be sure she is safe. You promise me that, both of you. You promise me that you will keep her safe no matter what."
"I promise." Sirius said after a few seconds, seeing that Harry was not going to be swayed.
He had thought that the most dangerous emotion someone like Harry could feel was hate or rage, but now he knew that he had been wrong. It was fear. Harry was scared, as scared as he had ever been, only now instead of having nothing to lash out with he had claws sharper than almost anyone else's. Voldemort had backed him into a corner and now all he wanted to do was retaliate like a wild animal.
He had been having similar thoughts to Harry, but he thought that maybe, just maybe they could all get back to the relative safety of the castle. But even then, he knew Harry would never do it. Voldemort might not simply stop at the sight of the castle doors, and Harry wouldn't risk the safety of every child in the school for himself. If it were adults Sirius thought that maybe he would, that he would decide that anything that happened to them was their fault for not learning and not training. But it wasn't, so he wouldn't.
Beyond that though, Harry didn't want to run. He could see it in his eyes, plain as day. Harry wanted to fight back, to make them pay for daring to come here. It wasn't just about Anaïs – a large part was, Sirius was sure – but not all of it. Harry had an intense need for revenge, to gain control, at least in his mind, over the people who took it from him for so long ago. He had gotten it against the Dursleys, but Sirius knew that the fact that he had yet to take it against the Potters or Dumbledore bothered him far more than he let on. He wasn't going to pass up on an opportunity against Voldemort, the man who he believed set every miserable thing in his life in motion.
Anaïs was clinging to his hand with all her strength and Fleur was stood silently, just watching. Harry wasn't sure if she wanted to say something or not, but her eyes had yet to leave him. The few professors had, to their credit, stayed, even if they shouldn't have. They most likely didn't have the right skills for combat.
"No! You're coming with us."
"I can't do that. I need to buy you guys some time."
"I said no! You are coming with us. You're not staying here." Anaïs shouted.
"Look at me, please." He said as he flicked her chin upwards playfully, "I need to buy you guys some time. I'll be okay."
"You have to promise to come back. I'm not going if you don't promise." She said as she dug her heels into the turf.
"I promise." He said with a strained smile, "Sirius, Fleur, get her and the professors out of here. You'll probably get a few stragglers coming at you. Deal with them."
And with that he turned and walked straight towards the main Death Eater contingent, knowing that if he turned around he would just waste more time and put them in more danger. He could hear Anaïs protesting as Fleur pulled her towards the school but he just used that to further stoke the anger in his chest. He knew he might not come back from this, and if he didn't she would be orphaned for a second time. Voldemort would be challenge enough to beat on his own, but there was also at least a few dozen Death Eaters with him. It seemed after Hogsmeade he had been made a priority target.
The familiar feeling of his wand against his palm brought clarity, but not enough. He was absolutely furious with himself that he had allowed this to happen, and he was angry at Voldemort for daring to come here. His last words to Anaïs might have been a lie, all because of one power-hungry, soulless reptile. He was finally face to face with the thing that had made his life what it was today, the source of all his pain, and he sure as shit wasn't going to waste his chance.
His anger grew and grew and grew until it was just one big spitting thing coiling and pulsing in his chest, hissing promises of pain and vengeance in his ear. This snake faced freakhad the sheer gall to dare step within a hundred feet of her. Harry hated the Potters, he hated Dumbledore, but Voldemort, he now hated him more than anything in the world. The Potters were friends in comparison. He could feel his rage growling in his throat, roaring in his veins, could hear the drums pounding rhythmically in his ears. The war didn't matter, Britain didn't matter, the horcruxes didn't matter. They were going to die, every single fucking one of them.
Voldemort slowed to a halt but instead of stopping the Death Eaters sped up past him like a river around a rock. Of course the bastard didn't fight fair. He was going to send his men to their deaths, knowing full well that that was where they were going, just so Harry would be slightly weaker when he eventually had to duel him. He must have known that the average Death Eater was nothing to him, he just didn't care.
Spells started flying, killing curses and blood boilers and entrail expelling curses, all of which were blocked by a wall of stone and the pieces banished back towards his attackers faster than they could blink. At least five Death Eaters fell to the floor, their skulls caved in or their sternums shattered. An acid green curse whizzed past his ear and he spun to cast a jagged pink spell that cleaved the man in two and immediately flicked the piercing hex that shot towards him at the nearest Death Eater. Earthen spikes erupted from the floor as he summoned one of his attackers, clattering into several more and sending them sprawling, screaming in pain as they impaled themselves. A ribbon twirled through the air and cut four men in half, and in the split second that their comrades spent staring in horror as they fell to the ground in pieces two more had holes drilled through their foreheads.
Throughout it all Voldemort watched, unconcerned with the agonised screams and gurgling deaths of his men. Out of the corner of his eye Harry could see that a small number of Voldemort's forces were running towards Sirius and the others, easily manageable for him and Fleur together. The vast majority had come towards him and had slowly started to box him in, no matter how hard he tried to stop them. The more Death Eaters joined the fray the less he could attack until the best he could do was flick their own spells back at them and try to avoid the rest. He had already picked up a few injuries from spells that had just managed to clip him; a shallow slash across his ribs, a broken left hand, a now weeping burn on his back. All it did was make him angrier.
"Fiendfyre!" he shouted.
Chimeras pounced, hawks swooped and snakes lunged at the Death Eaters who had encircled him, roaring and hissing and screeching in chorus to the terrified cries before their makers became ash, swirling around like a tornado with him at its centre. And then a fiery tide flooded in, crashing into his ring and fighting for dominance. Bigger, darker serpents struck at his hawks, wrapping their coils around them and squeezing and squeezing until their captured prey shuddered and died.
This wasn't a battle of wills, it was a battle of sheer magical power, and in that respect Harry knew he was beaten. He gave in and cancelled his spell, ready to try and banish himself out of the Fiendfyre's range, but instead it stopped, glaring hatefully at him before it swept backwards and faded into a smoky haze that Voldemort glided through, the smirk still on his face.
With great effort Harry stopped himself from simply flinging curses like a common thug even as his anger was screaming at him to do. He was outwatched in power, that much was clear. His only chance to win was to rely on his speed and on his ingenuity. And that was what he wanted to do: win. He didn't want to simply survive, to limp away with the knowledge that the bastard still drew breath. He wanted to put an end to the monster. The remaining horcruxes were inconsequential in his mind; he would find them later, and if Voldemort reformed from the filth before he did then he would simply kill him again. That option was almost preferable.
It was Voldemort that cast the first curse, a darker variation on the cutting curse that Harry tried to swat back towards him but only managed to divert to the side. The power behind the spell was such that it was like trying to push back a speeding truck. He returned fire with a withering curse that slammed into Voldemort's shield with a resounding clang, and then the duel started in earnest.
Harry dipped, ducked and rolled beneath curses that even he struggled to identify, all while casting curses of his own. What quickly became clear though, was that Voldemort was not used to duelling. He was accustomed to people fleeing at the mere sight of him, at worst having to cast a few spells that would quickly overpower his opponent. No one wielded the same magical power that he did, and very few had the technical skill to close the gap that created.
Harry used that to his advantage.
He flicked away a blood boiling hex and twirled around a heart-stopping hex that missed him by a hairs breadth, and as he did so he cast a blasting curse, a blood thickening curse and a piercing hex so quickly that they seemed to blend into one, and at the same moment wandlessly summoned one of the rapidly cooling corpses that now littered the lawn from behind his opponent. As expected Voldemort shielded the curses with little effort, but didn't notice his Death Eater's body until it clattered into the back of him. He stumbled forwards, then unable to stop the bone breaker from ploughing into his sternum, sending him sprawling backwards until he came to a rest.
Harry continued to cast at him, half expecting his spells to hit his sprawled body unobstructed. That curse should have killed him; it would have shattered every bone in a normal man's thorax, shredding his internal organs with tiny fragments. But instead a misted dome sprung from the grass around Voldemort's prone form that his curses bounced harmlessly off, and when he laboriously pushed himself up Harry couldn't help but stare.
His chest was caved in, just as Harry had expected it to be. He should be dead. His heart, his lungs, his liver and most of his other internal organs should have been so badly shredded they would appear a mangled, formless mass of flesh. But yet, he stood up, the smirk now nowhere to be seen. Now he glared hatefully at Harry, his red eyes glowing.
What followed couldn't even be classified as a curse, a hex or any other type of spell. It was entirely formless, a wave of magic that swept across the lawn so black that it seemed to suck the sunlight into it. Harry was forced to cast a banishing charm against the floor to send himself flying over the top of it, and when he tumbled back to earth the grass that had before been a bright emerald green was now dull and lifeless.
Harry barely had time to cast a shield before a bright blue spell smashed into it so hard that he stumbled backwards, and then another one struck his shield, and another and another. He threw himself from behind his shield and rolled to avoid the next spell that sent dirt and loam spraying through the air and released a thick black fog from the tip of his wand that almost immediately obscured the distance between the two of them. Voldemort continued to cast blindly at where Harry had been, screaming in rage as he swiped his off hand through the air to push the fog away with a gust of wind.
All Voldemort saw was scarred ground, and by the time he saw his opponent a whip of flame was already arcing towards his head. He slashed his wand upwards to deflect it only for it to disappear completely, realising far too late that it was nothing more than an illusion. The cutting curse cut a deep gash across his abdomen and Voldemort hissed in pain while Harry watched, horrified, as a thick liquid seeped from his flesh. It wasn't the familiar red of blood, instead it was a dull grey that seemed to pulse with a life of its own as it dripped slowly onto the grass in globules. It was yet more evidence that Tom Riddle no longer existed.
Both stood staring at each other for precious few seconds, breathing heavily and favouring their respective wounds. Voldemort looked to Harry like a bull preparing to charge and even the few Death Eaters that watched from afar looked nervous.
Voldemort cast a wide area cutting curse that forced him behind his shield followed by a series of overpowered blasting curses at the ground on either side of him. Harry transferred control of his shield to his off hand and flicked his wand to divert one of them just far enough away but he could only watch helplessly as the another exploded with the force of a bomb barely three feet away from him and sent him flying through the air. He landed on his back and continued his momentum to continue rolling backwards as he tried to ignore his now blurred sight, ringing ears and breathless lungs until a red flash obscured his vision as he rolled to a stop, and then everything went black.