DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine. I'm borrowing them from the esteemed Joss Whedon and J.K. Rawling.
SPOILERS/BACKGROUND: Everything from BtVS Season 1 to Season 6, AtS Seasons 1 to 3, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Reviews always welcome!
CHAPTER 40:
OF POLITICS AND WAR
From a distance, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry looked as placid as ever, an expansive, magnificent castle rising high above a serene lake and rolling green grounds. Within, the atmosphere was little more lively, as the student body's excitement about the impending visit to Hogsmeade was mellowed by the imminence of summer finals on beginning on Monday. The dungeons were silent, save for a few house-elves working on preparations for the looming war.
Deep below the foundations of the castle, however, beyond even the most potent mystical eyes and ears, war already raged.
"Protego!" Willow snapped as a bolt of some kind of energy flew at her; the bolt flew back at its shadowy sender, who turned and swirled aside as though it weighed nothing more than a shadow.
"Stupe …" Harry began a stunning spell, then suddenly seized his broom and leapt into the air, just as the stone underneath him shattered into gravel.
"Petrokinesia!" Willow snapped, aiming at the shattered bits of rock; they rose from the ground and flew at their assailant as though flung by a catapult. The silhouette vanished in a wisp of smoke, only to reappear floating in the air above them.
"Stupefy!" Harry called, wheeling towards it on his Firebolt. Red bolts streamed forth from the Gryffindor prefect's wand.
The figure raised one hand, turning the bolt partly to one side while drifting in the other. A moment later, it send a jet of electric blue light like a small comet at Harry. In the air, however, Harry was extremely hard to hit, and he spun aside, weaving in and out of the pillars, daring the figure to try following him.
"Luminaris solaire!" Willow cried, raising her wand aloft like a torch. Golden-white sunlight blazed forth from the wand, and she thought she heard the figure give a high-pitched yelp as the sunlight met with the figure's cloak of shadows. When the light cleared, however, it was nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly, she felt cords of some kind of power wrap around her chest from behind, and felt her arms pulled in to her sides by the same shadowy cords that had bound Draco to the floor. Her wand tumbled from her grip.
"Finite Incantatem!" she heard Harry shout, a note of sudden fright in his voice. The cords snapped, but her assailant had not rested, and she felt a burst of power impact her in the back, and she sprawled headlong across the floor; had her hands still been bound, she would have been knocked unconscious. She rolled to her knees to see Harry diving from the sky, raining Stunning spells and Impedimentus curses. Her attacker responded with bolts of light and shadow.
At the last moment, Harry spun aside and sharply downward, and just as she thought he had lost control and was about to crash, he twisted in midair less than two feet from the floor and swept her wand back to her with one hand.
She caught it, and reflexively cried "Protego!" knowing that their assailant could not have missed that. Sure enough, a bolt of shadow was already heading in her direction; the blast turned aside.
With a sinking feeling, Willow realized that she had not felt any impact upon her shield. The bolt had never been aimed at her.
"Look out!" she screamed, but she was too late.
"Petrific … aaah!" Harry cried as the blast came upon him from behind like a homing missile. He tumbled forward and spun in a three-quarter somersault before crashing into the statue of Salazar Slytherin; his broom flew away into the darkness, and he fell.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Willow called desperately, striking him only a heartbeat before he would have struck the floor. He floated down the last few feet.
Willow felt the cords suddenly wrapping around her body again, but she had been expecting that; levitating Harry had distracted her. She kept her grip on her wand this time.
"Finite Incantatem!" she snapped, and the cords dissipated.
Suddenly, before she could react, she felt more cords spiraling around her legs like a bola; her assailant had sent two bunches of cords at her, one right behind the other, and the second one had been hidden behind the first. Without the need to chant, it was impossible to tell when he was casting two spells at once, especially when they were identical.
With a cry of alarm, she felt her feet jerked from under her, and threw out her hands to break her fall. Her wand tumbled from her grasp. A moment later, she felt more cords winding around her torso, and her mouth constricting as shadows like folds of dark cloth stuffed themselves into it.
Panic took over. There would be no help here. No one else in Hogwarts, not even Dumbledore, could find this place.
NO! she screamed into the silence of her mind, embracing the power within her once again without a wand. Power flowed through her veins; this was the lair of Salazar Slytherin, and the air here was laced with dark eldritch energy. Drawing it into herself was almost effortless.
With a feral scream, she shattered the bindings around her and sprang to her feet as though bouncing up from a trampoline. The air around her crackled. A cold, dry breeze gathered out of nowhere and whirled around her, ruffling her hair and robes.
You want to cast spells without chanting? I can play that game. With a dark, primal cry, she raised her hands to the ceiling as if in supplication. Can you do this?! she spat a contemptuous thought at her assailant as the eyes of all the great, serpentine pillars began to burn with a dangerous greenish-yellow light. A ray of power burst from the nearest one like a shooting star, then another from one farther down the chamber, then a hailstorm of green bursts began raining down upon her assailant, who ducked and flickered around the room to avoid them, but they followed him wherever he went.
She suddenly realized that it had appeared behind her, in an attempt to lure one of the serpent-eyes into shooting her. She grinned wickedly, focused her will, and her form became transparent and ghostly. The nearest serpents fired straight through her, and the thing was forced to call up a shield of earth from the floor to block them, which immediately began to crumble under the barrage.
Remembering that it had seemed vulnerable to light attacks, she clenched her hands at her sides, threw her head back, and gave a great cry to the ceiling that echoed in the lofty chamber. The Moonlamps suddenly brightened, and their color deepened to a rich vermeil, fueled by her rage. It was as if a quintet of dark suns had suddenly blazed into being in the air above. She heard the shadowy figure behind the wall of earth give another high-pitched yelp, and it quickly turned its power on the lamps, knocking them from the sky with bolts of darkness; they were vulnerable once Willow's will was no longer bent on sustaining them.
Willow raised her palms, fingers bent upward as though clutching a ball, and ten loose, bright orbs of fire materialized above her upturned digits. A brief memory of Jonathan and Andrew, the last people she had sent one of these after, flashed into her mind, but she batted it aside.
"Dodge this," she spat, and loosed the torrent of fireballs just as the last of the earth wall crumbled. She sent them out in both directions so they would home in on their target from both sides.
The silhouette twisted aside and vanished, but the mystical arrows seemed to know where he was going before he even materialized. Suddenly, however, Willow saw where he was materializing, and her dark eyes widened. Draco Malfoy had regained consciousness and had managed to rise raggedly to his knees. Willow noted that, for some reason, he had taken off his shirt, but then a shock of alarm ran through her. Their shadowy assailant appeared right behind him.
Damn! she seethed, and loosed a barrage of ice bolts from her outstretched hands, each destroying one of the incoming fireballs with a steaming hiss. With another wave of her hand a moment later, she cut off the torrent of beams from the eyes of the serpents.
Suddenly, Draco forced himself upright, wincing in pain and stumbling as he did so; Willow could see an ugly lump on his forehead. His moves were steady and quick, however. He suddenly turned and thrust his shirt into the chest of the shadowy creature.
Another salvo of fireballs appeared above Willow's fingers, and she waited for the assailant to move and give her any kind of opening. But he wasn't moving. Neither of them were moving. Draco and the short figure within the shadows seemed to almost be having a staring contest. Willow began to move sideways slowly, both to take cover behind a nearby pillar and to get a better angle en route. The faint crackle of her ready fireballs and the light step of her feet were the only sounds in the chamber.
Suddenly, the shadowy figure backed away from Draco, and Willow tensed, but Draco suddenly threw out a hand behind him in her direction. "Wait!" he cried. He did not take his eyes off the figure, which was now holding the Slytherin prefect's shirt like it was some kind of sacred object.
"Master?" it said. Willow's eyes widened. Master?!
"Not anymore, Deggle," Draco said wearily. "You're free."
The shadowy penumbra suddenly melted away, and the silhouette began to shrink and become more solid, until standing on the floor of the chamber, facing the ruler of the Slytherin roost, was a short, innocuous-looking figure with purple skin and enormous ears.
Willow's eyes widened. A house-elf?!
"Master Draco freed Deggle!" the elf suddenly cried, prancing around as though drunk, waving Draco's shirt like a banner. Willow dispelled the fireballs and emerged from behind the pillar.
"I'm sure there's a story here," Willow prompted him.
He nodded, but slumped back to his knees, barely catching himself from falling completely prone. "Draco!" Willow cried, remembering how hurt he had to been, not to mention what he had to have been through. She quickly covered the floor between them, summoning her wand back into her hand with a glance en route, and ran a finger over the bump on his forehead; it smoothed over and faded, though he flinched, and she could not heal it all the way. The magic she was drawing from the Chamber was dark, and not really conducive to healing. Actually, considering how the cure probably burned, he was taking it surprisingly well.
"Oh, Goddess, Harry!" she suddenly exclaimed, just as Draco looked about to speak. She darted over to where her fallen boyfriend lay, and was relieved to see that he was only thoroughly bruised and dazed; she ran a Diagnostic Charm on him just to be sure, but her first impression was right. Nothing was broken. Considering half of what she had heard of his adventures, he had to be more resistant to bumps and bruises than his slight body looked.
She did what she could for him, and Draco came up alongside her, Deggle trailing behind them as though not sure if he could really leave.
Harry raised himself into a sitting position and put a hand to his head. "Ouch," he muttered.
"I'm sure there's a story here," Draco remarked knowingly. Willow flushed.
"You've missed a few things," she said.
"I see that. Can't say I ever expected to be glad to see you, Potter. How did you find me?"
"Pure luck," Willow answered. "We were just coming here for some privacy. Pansy was being a bitca."
Draco laughed. "I owe her my life, then, I guess, but not as much as I owe you."
Harry cut in. "Listen, hate to interrupt, but are there more of them?"
"What? Oh, no. There was only one talisman."
"Talisman?"
"Deggle, show … I mean, could you show them … uh, please?" Draco turned and asked the elf.
"Yes, ma … I mean, sir," the elf answered. He vanished and reappeared a moment later, holding a small jade talisman in the form of a snake. He tapped the head of the snake, and its mouth moved. "Open up," it hissed.
Harry's eyes widened. "So that's how they got you here."
Draco nodded. "Father put Mother under Imperius and had her write a letter to me. He and Deggle and Bellatrix ambushed me at Hogsmeade Station. Had Polyjuice Potion ready, just took a piece of my hair and, whoosh, Father became me."
Willow's mind lurched. "Waitaminit … Hogsmeade Station? Draco, you've been gone for weeks! Have you been down here the whole time?!"
Draco nodded. "Deggle brought me food from the kitchens. Occasionally my father would sneak in and tell me things, just to gloat …"
"Never mind!" Willow shouted, alarm and anger building in her voice. "Buffy!"
Draco nodded, and bowed his head. "Dad told me. Voldemort's at the manor, he has her prisoner there. Apparently he's really obsessed with both of you."
Willow's eyes suddenly burned darkly. "Voldemort …"
"I have no idea what they've been doing to her, but whatever it is, Father seems much too happy about it," Draco concluded darkly.
"Right," Willow said tightly. She could feel the darkness building within her again, amplified by the air of this place and the fact that she had let it loose to fight Deggle. It burned in her veins. However, at the moment, she was suddenly long past caring.
"Voldemort …" The word escaped her lips like a curse.
"Willow …" Harry managed weakly.
She turned to look at him, and he recoiled, seeing her eyes. She turned to Draco, and had the same effect. "Get him out of here," she said, an uncustomary note of command in her voice.
"Wait!" Draco called after her. "Where are you going?"
She turned briefly back over her shoulder. "I just want to take a little tour," she said, her voice suddenly soft, powerful, and dark, like the atmosphere of the chamber itself were speaking. Suddenly, she turned, and there was a burst of smoke and lightning as her form dissolved, and the dark wind that was Willow Rosenberg roared away down the tunnel.
Draco Malfoy stood, transfixed, watching the little slip of an American girl that had never once tried to move up the Slytherin table. The most impressive thing he had ever seen her do was levitate the falling Gryffindor girl in the great stairwell. That was advanced, but many of Voldemort's Death Eaters could have done it. He looked up at the eyes of the serpents that had been raining energy down on the dueling elf, the lone blazing Sunlamp still hanging at the far end of the chamber, the torrents of ice and fire that she had let loose without a wand, barely breaking a sweat. He was starting to understand what Voldemort saw in her.
He turned to his old arch-nemesis, still crouching on the stones. Potter had been hurt a lot worse than him; Draco remembered vividly flying into the wooden supports of the Quidditch field, he could only imagine what it would feel like to fly into a wall of solid rock at battle speed.
"All right, Potter, truce," he said, leaning down to recover the fallen boy's wand and Firebolt. "Let's get you out of here."
"I'm fine," Harry rasped.
"I know."
"Then leave me alone."
"Really? Can you Apparate like that? Or whatever that was?"
Harry winced. "Not exactly."
"Then the only way to get out of here is through that pipe, and you're in no shape to fly."
"And you never were."
"Come off it, you great git, I've beaten every other Seeker but you."
Harry looked about to retort, but something somehow stopped him, for which Draco was eternally grateful; he didn't want to get into an argument now, but old habits die hard, especially when one was thinking about something else.
"Fine. You better not drop me."
"Drop you?" Draco suddenly realized what Harry must have thought he was implying. "No, I'll fly your broom. Deggle can levitate you up the pipe." A moment later, he remembered again that Deggle no longer had to obey orders. "Um … is that all right, Deggle?"
"Oh, yes, yes," Deggle agreed enthusiastically.
"Right," Potter noted, a little uncomfortable with the arrangement.
Draco grinned. "Come on, Potter, I can't leave you behind, you and Deggle are the only ones who can open the door."
"Right."
"Plus," Draco continued, "you don't know where the manor is. Which means you'll need me if you plan on getting there."
Harry suddenly looked up.
Draco grinned grimly. "You weren't really planning on staying behind, were you? Or did you have something more important to do?"
Author's Notes: Dark Willow is back in action, and is a little … miffed. [Cue music: Europe, "The Final Countdown …"]
Coming Soon: "The First Gusts of the Storm." Voldemort's plans, despite being laid bare prematurely, are nearing fruition. Willow heads for Malfoy Manor; Harry and Draco—perhaps not friends but united by a common purpose for the moment—are not far behind.
Sneak Preview:
"What was that?" Elaina asked breathlessly.
Vincent grinned. "I thought I said. Willow mad."