Chapter Six
Azkaban
Like Hogwarts, Azkaban was built on a nexus of powerful magical energies. However, unlike the thousand year old institution of learning, which was built on a confluence of light magic, Azkaban, conversely, was built on dark. It was rumoured that the island had been bathed in the blood of an entire race of people; that the island was borne out of genocide. Its very rocks sang with malice. It hungered for victims to share in the agony that was perpetrated on it so long ago. In 1546, to be precise. It was also rumoured that the ring of water that encircled the island had turned red with boiling blood, and that, from it, rose the dementors, who were thus, forever called to serve the island.
Harry lightly touched down on the edge of the terrible place, the sound of his black combat boots clicking against the smooth black rock being swept away by the rush of wind that streamed out over the ocean. Harry was not surprised to see that the magic that permeated the place was entirely black, much like the energy of the dementors themselves, who sought to sap warmth and light from everywhere they went. He was more surprised that the normally grey stone had been turned black, almost as though the magic had fused so deeply with the island that it had been rendered visible to the naked eye. Like stains of blood.
The outer rim of rocks that lined the island were a lustrous black, which made Harry think of obsidian, though he doubted it was anything so pedestrian. In sharp contrast, the sands that led up to the front gate of the seven storey high building were a mixture of finely ground, silken grains of a crisp, snow white, on the one hand, and, on the other, a myriad of shards of the black, obsidian-like rocks that encircled it. As he stood there, silently gazing upon the dark magnificence of Azkaban, Harry understood acutely the reason that people shuddered to think of it. Azkaban was not unlike the Dark Lord, in that respect - so unique, so brilliant and having come so far as to be incomprehensibly powerful to the average witch or wizard.
Harry took his first steps onto the beach, his boots crunching slightly as he made his way up the gentle slope, his black cape streaming out behind him, his hands, insulated by shining, black gloves, clenched to either side. The magic, he knew, was trying to eat him alive, and it was all he could do to shield himself against it. Stan, your life better seriously be worth this, Harry grumbled. He was suddenly no longer sure that he actually had the power to penetrate Azkaban and free prisoners, which was a thought that wrangled a bit. He felt so strong, so alive all the time. His elven half gave him strength and perceptive and madness that coagulated to form a feeling of invincibility. It didn't hurt that he could take on ten wizards at once. Still, he had never counted on the full power of Azkaban to be quite like this.
Don't be such a Goddamned wimp, he told himself. Get your ass in gear and get over to the doors. For all you know, this is the only defense this hovel's got, and you're letting it kick your ass. What kind of a Chosen One are you?
the kind that spends his time trying to insult the Ministry, it seemed.
Harry marshalled whatever energy he could to reinforcing the pools of magic that he had to constantly keep around his person and proceeded to continue up the slope to the main doors, which, to his dismay, were not guarded by anything as mundane as a human. A ward of some kind protected it, but, like the rest of Azkaban and unlike the normal wards that Harry was used to seeing, these ones seemed to ooze out of the very door itself, as opposed to manifesting itself as a barrier around the property.
What kind of a bloody place is this? Harry thought irritably. Finite incantanum, he thought, waving a spread of magic at the door, which he already knew would fail. Before the puddle of magic even reached the door, it dispersed like light rays trying to penetrate the ocean depths.
Bloody useless, he thought, throwing as much magic as he could muster at the door, and proving that that method was simply not effective.
Harry tapped his foot thoughtfully and stroked his chin with one gloved hand. Eventually, he settled on conjuring a really big axe with a really sharp blade and swinging it at the door. It clicked uselessly against the wood, and, to Harry's further dismay, proceeded to disintegrate where it came into contact with the door. Okay, Harry thought, no touching anything around here. Check.
"Oh fuck this," Harry said impatiently. He stood back and charged a killing curse, which he flung at the door with all his strength. "Ain't nothing gonna block that baby." And, to Harry's ever-growing frustration, the curse disappeared, as though it simply sailed through the door.
"MOTHERFUCKER!" Harry screamed, stamping his foot against the ground, his magic rolling off his body in waves and making tracks in the sand. Dammit, Potter, get a hold of yourself. Think. Think think think think. There's gotta be a way to break these wards. Voldemort did it, after all. Okay, you can't actually block the killing curse. Everybody knows that. And you know what happens to magic when it's blocked. It bounces off, and that didn't happen to your curse. Harry experimentally sent a stunner, which, sure enough, bounced off with the tell-tale sign of red light rippling backwards in a dissipating wave. Harry then cast another killing curse, followed by a cruciatus, which also seemed to just disappear into the door, as though it were going beyond to some other point. Harry maintained the cruciatus for several seconds so that he could study the magic of the wards on the door, and, to his surprise, he found that the wards seemed to disappear on impact with the deadly dark magic, leaving a gentle void behind.
I can get on board with voids, Harry thought, a crazy and poorly thought out plan forming in his mind. You're the Chosen One. Come on, no matter what you do, a mere door's not going to kill you. Nervously, Harry charged a killing curse, though, instead of rooting it in his palm, he let the curse sizzle over the skin of his entire body, giving him an eerie, life leeching aura that was hard to watch for any decently light-sided person.
The guards who had been laughing on the other side of the door at Harry's futile efforts were now shitting their pants. Calmly and with purpose, Harry walked through the door, the energy of the killing curse sizzling as it interacted with the dark wards that were meant to protect Azkaban prison.
Once inside, Harry was surprised to see that the entry way was pretty much a large open wall with desks to either side. On the far wall, he could see the scorch marks where several killing curses had hit home. Klaxons were now sounding and there were two guards firing some very disturbing curses at Harry, who discovered shortly that his curse shield was most effective at insulating him against those attacks. Hmm, he pondered. I think I'll call this the Green Shield. It had a nice ring to it, though Harry would eventually come to regret that decision, as most people would associate it with environmental terrorists.
Both the guards eventually threw down their wands in disgust and fear, and fled the sight of Harry, glowing with curse energy, his eyes ablaze and looking like fiery orbs from behind his sunglasses. Harry moved through the prison with relative alacrity, which made him distinctly uncomfortable. Where were all the protections? Was the door and the trek across the sand all these people had? He supposed that, once upon a time, there were dementors, but surely they would have been replaced with something else. Moody's words rang in his head, regarding the recall of the aurors, but Harry couldn't believe that only two would be left to maintain security.
Finding Stan Shunpike was proving to be far more difficult than Harry had anticipated. Most of the cells he entered hosted Death Eaters, which tended to die after throwing their battered bodies at him in a feeble attempt to escape, only to come into contact with his Green Shield and unknowingly snuff their own pitiful lives out. Harry wasn't terribly concerned. He was more interested in figuring out the extent of his ability to cast magic from other parts of his body. One Death Eater stared up at him from the far wall, unable to lunge forward, because he had been nailed through the wrists to the stone.
"Maybe you'd be good for an experiment," Harry mused, his eyes twinkling. "Legilimans," he intoned, magic rushing from his own eyes and impacting with the anonymous Death Eater's.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" the man shrieked, his whole body gyrating lewdly from the pain. Harry's magic didn't have quite the intended effect. Instead of letting Harry into the Death Eater's unprotected mind, it just liquefied his eyeballs so they dripped down his face and burned his skin. "Well, that was unexpected," Harry said aloud as he killed the Death Eater. If it weren't so gruesome, it could serve as a party trick.
Harry eventually found Stan on the fifth floor, and much worse for wear than the last time Harry had seen him.
"Neville?" Stan croaked, looking up into Harry's green eyes of death.
"Er, yeah, it's me," Stan," Harry said, suddenly uncomfortable. Who would've thought that lie would come back and bite me in the ass. Harry moved into the cell and closed the bars to try and muffle the klaxons, which were still going in full force.
"You look like the Devil," Stan said blearily.
"You'd be surprised how often I get that," he responded, scaling back his Green Shield so he could undo Stan's shackles. To Harry's horror, the man looked to be suffering from the Razor curse that Moody had shown him. The curse still seemed to be acting on Stan, albeit ever so mildly.
Harry concentrated all his magic to dispel the horrid thing before conjuring a simple cot that Stan could lie down on. "Listen, Stan, I'm going to get you out of here," Harry said, wincing as a flap of Stan's cheek peeled off and blood spurted onto the cotton sheets. Harry resolved to learn some healing magic the next time he was at Grimmauld Place.
Stand just wheezed in response.
"Harry conjured a cup of water and put it to Stan's lips. "Drink this, and then we're going to get you out of here, okay?"
"Sure, thing, Neville," Stan said, coughing up a lungful of mucus that dribbled viscously down his chin. Harry unconsciously vanished it and managed to get some water down the wiry man's throat. "Listen, Stan, I need to know whether you're going to be able to walk. If you can't, let me know and I'll just float you out of here."
After a moment, in which Harry wondered whether Stan was going to respond, he finally said, "yeah, I can walk. Just - just maybe give me a hand, would ya, Nev?"
"Sure thing, Stan." Harry helped lift Stan to his feet and then let Stan throw his arm around Harry for support. Harry then conjured Stan some shoes around his swollen feet and they proceeded to make their way out of the cell. For the first time in his life, Harry felt a sense of something immeasurable working its way through his stomach. He wasn't sure what it was, except that, maybe, for the first time, he felt like going after Stan Shunpike was more than just a matter of saying, "fuck you," to the Ministry, to Scrimgeour, to Percy Weasley. Harry glanced over at Stan's weary but determined eyes, and saw a resolve there.
Adversity can break us, or it can make us hard, Harry mused, and he suddenly found himself gaining a whole new respect for the gawky Knight Bus conductor.
Before Harry and Stan made it ten steps down the hall towards the nearest stairwell, they ran across a peculiar sight. The door to a nearby cell burst open, a now lifeless Azkaban guard's head thwacking flatly against the opposite wall and oozing its way down to the floor.
"Ugh," Stan said, peeling his eyes away from the sight with disgust.
"Er, I didn't do that," Harry said uncertainly, his gaze flickering between the broken up iron door and the severed head. Not a minute later, two tall, gaunt figures strode purposefully out of the cell. Two figures who Harry hated more than Lord Voldemort himself.
Severus Snape and Bellatrix Lestrange.
CRUCIO! Harry thought furiously, charging a ball of liquid-like amber energy in his palm an spraying it forward in a shower of sparks.
However, neither Snape nor Bella were hit, despite the suddenness of the attack, because Lord Voldemort strode out of the room, Lucius Malfoy, in all his glory, immediately following, as though he had never been a prisoner in the first place, but a revered guest.
All four of them were now facing Harry and Stan, their wands drawn and a transparent shield deflecting the multitude of cruciatus sparks that were trying to sizzle their way past the magical barrier that Lord Voldemort had erected.
"Well, well," said Lord Voldemort, eyeing Harry and his companion critically. "This is most curious."
"What in God's ass are you doing here?" Harry spat.
"Language, Mr. Potter," Voldemort admonished.
"Fuck language, Voldemort," Harry said, switching to Parseltongue to keep the others out of the loop. "What in the world are you doing here?"
Voldemort glanced at Stan Shunpike ever so briefly before returning his gaze, placid expression and all, back to Harry. "It appears that I am doing exactly what you are doing, Mr. Potter. I am liberating one of those individuals unjustly accused and imprisoned in this God forsaken hole."
Harry found himself instinctively sneering. he gestured at Lucius and said, "That's the vermin you call unjustly accused?"
"A matter of perception, my dear boy," replied Voldemort, continuing in an infuriatingly mild tone.
"Avada kedavra," Harry said, making sure Voldemort knew exactly which spell he was using. The green ball of death advanced at lightning speed, and Harry was certain that at least one of them would be hit, which he would count as a major victory. Unfortunately, and to his chagrin, the transparent shield that Voldemort had erected absorbed the killing curse as naturally as it had the cruciatus.
Voldemort shook his head pityingly. "So powerful you are, Harry, and yet so much you still must learn." He gestured to the shield. "No doubt you are trying to fathom how it is that I can erect a shield that blocks curses you have been told are impossible to block. I've no doubt that, with enough application and enough training, you may very well come to understand the theory behind this shield. It is something that I do prize."
Harry's jaw worked soundlessly as Voldemort spoke, but, when he managed to conjure up a word, the only one he could manage was, "How?"
"Clearly your education is so lacking that you cannot even understand the simplest concepts of magic. Tell me, Harry, why are the unforgiveables regarded as unblockable? What makes them unique?"
"I don't know,' Harry admitted, albeit grudgingly. If there was one thing he didn't like, it was giving up territory to an enemy.
Voldemort smiled a benign, fatherly sort of smile. "Perhaps that should be where you begin your inquiry."
"Goddamn," Harry muttered. "I take it we're not fighting, then? You don't want to try and kill me?"
Voldemort raised a hairless eyebrow, if such a thing were possible, and then just shook his head. "I would much rather you join me as an ally, Harry. But I see by your expression and your thoughts that that will never be the case."
"You kill muggle borns," Harry said. 'You murdered my best friends."
Voldemort nodded. "It does tend to be a rather alienating part of my platform, does it not?"
Just then, four aurors burst up the stairwell, their wands poised to kill. they each managed a killing curse, as futile as it was given Voldemort's shield, before the Dark Lord, flicked his wand with a dry crack, causing the walls to distend and for two stone snakes to pincer the hapless aurors, effectively biting two of them in half. The other two aimed blasting hexes at the snakes, but only succeeded in chipping the hard stone before they too succumbed in a gurgled cry of protest.
Harry narrowed his eyes thoughtfully; a move which immediately made Lord Voldemort tense up. Finally, Harry said, "You can't move without breaking your shield. Which means you're stuck fighting me. Because, quite frankly, I'm not prepared to back down from a fight. I killed your bitch slut snake, Nagini. She begged for mercy by the time I was through with her."
Voldemort pursed his lips in a sign of irritation. "You really do have a foul mouth on you, boy."
Harry grinned viciously and pressed the attack. "Would you believe she didn't even get a decent magical death. I strangled her with my own bare hands. It was all very muggle."
Harry's words seemed to light a spark of rage that danced across Voldemort's red eyes. In clipped tones, he said, 'Lucius, Severus, Bella. Leave me."
"But my lord," Bella protested, eyeing Harry nervously. "is that wise?"
Voldemort just turned a speculative eye to the madwoman, the force of which drove her to her knees to beg forgiveness.
'I did not mean it that way, my lord," she said hastily, bowing her head in deference as she sank to her knees. "I just. Would it not make sense for us to remain?"
"You will carry out my instructions, as I have ordered them, Bella," Voldemort said in a tone that brook no argument. "Surely you must have grasped that this is a time-sensitive issue. Do not fail me, or the consequences will be unpleasant. You have not forgotten the Department of Mysteries, have you?"
'No, my lord," Bella murmured, defeated.
"go then," Voldemort ordered, and his three soldiers disappeared down the hall, past the dead aurors and down the stairwell.
"All right, Potter," Voldemort said, turning his full attention to Harry. "Now we shall see who the true victor is."
"to the death then," Harry agreed. "Once and for all."
"Once and for all," Voldemort echoed. "En garde."
Harry cast Stan to the side, where he practically melted into the wall to keep from being vapourized by the fierce magical duel that ensued.
Much like the battle between Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort in the Ministry atrium at the end of Harry's fifth year, both combatants switched exclusively to silent spells. Voldemort's first spell was not directed at Harry, but instead recreated the same animated transfiguration that killed the aurors. Only, instead of two snakes, there were four, all writhing to their own internal rhythm as they sought out their prey.
Having seen this transfiguration just moments earlier, Harry had already braced himself for it. However, he had not quite counted on the ferocity of the stone serpents. He rapidly conjured a shield to either side, fixing them in place while he continued to shower cruciatus curses and blasting hexes in all directions, as though he were a fountain of energy, or possibly a Weasley Whizbang. The snakes pounded against his shields, which sent jarring reverberations through his body, and shattering his shields, which he simply restored and reinforced. Meanwhile, Voldemort just watched behind his shield as Harry fended off the four-way pincer attack. The snakes to his left executed a maneuver in concert, whereby one snake would assault the shield while the other attempted to ease by it going underneath. With its vice-like jaws, the serpent crushed Harry's left shin, so that bones and blood and nerve endings all exploded outward from either side of its mouth, completely pulverizing Harry's leg. Harry, however, hardly even noticed. After all, it was the second time that summer that his leg had been utterly destroyed, and he was getting quite used to it. Instead, he brought his shield down on top of the serpent's head without giving it a moment to pull him down, and effectively cracked its skull apart. Unfortunately, this gave the first snake an opening through which to snap at Harry's head, which he only managed to block with a blasting hex that the stone serpent took clean in the face, blowing off its lower jaw so that all it could do was headbutt Harry, which proved to be sufficient. Harry found his other shield had mostly been destroyed, just as he was dragged downward and narrowly avoided having his head cracked wide open like a coconut.
Harry sent a vicious severing curse to his leg, cleaving it off at the point where the serpent had its jaws around his now useless foot. He also sent out bolts of raging energy in all directions, including conjuring stones of equal size to now bash against the three remaining serpents. One of them managed to clamp down on his arm and break it in three different places before he blew it apart with a tripartite blasting hex at point blank range to its head. Quickly, the other two fell, and Harry staggered back, only to fall on his butt as a killing curse whizzed by overhead. Lord Voldemort, it seemed, had lowered his shields.
Harry immediately sent two killing curses in rapid succession, along with a sprinkling of what he called cruciatus sparks that sizzled across the open space and seared Voldemort's skin. Voldemort hardly seemed to notice and instead focused on assaulting Harry with a barrage of heavy spellfire. To Harry's dismay, Voldemort was capable of discharging no less than four spells simultaneously, and it took all of Harry's strength to maintain a shield that would hold back all his blasting hexes, evisceration curses and various other high damage spells. Harry found himself being backed slowly and inevitably to the far wall, which was a dead end.
"Most impressive, Harry," Voldemort said conversationally as he continued to pummel Harry with spells. He glanced down at Harry's leg and saw that it had mostly regenerated. "Full body regeneration," Voldemort mused. "I hadn't executed the dark rituals to gain me that skill until I was thirty-five."
Harry dared to let one spleen extraction curse get by his shield so that he could divert his concentration long enough to transfigure the walls to either side of Voldemort into long stalactites. Score, he thought, as one of them impaled Voldemort through his mid-section. Already, Harry's magic was reforming his spleen and the open wound where it had exited and splattered across the ground. Voldemort just blew apart the stone spike with his wand and resealed his wound with almost the same level of efficiency and fluidity with which Harry had done it himself.
"As you've no doubt noticed," Voldemort said, casting two killing curses simultaneously that Harry only managed to block by summoning chunks of the floor as shields. "Animated transfiguration is much more effective. Pity you haven't learned it yet."
Voldemort swept his wand backward, giving Harry enough time to send two blasting hexes and a killing curse Voldemort's way. However, neither hit the Dark Lord as he simply shimmered ever so briefly, much like the doors to Azkaban had done, thus letting the spells stream right through him.
"How the fuck did you do that?" Harry demanded, his eyes wide with astonishment.
"Pity you haven't learned warding either," Voldemort said matter-of-factly. "Surely you now see the advantages."
"Avada kedavra," Harry said, almost resignedly and knowing the spell was pretty much useless.
"The spleen extraction curse is an exceptionally violent curse that causes certain death within minutes," Voldemort said. "Not even Albus Dumbledore could have survived it. No human could, in fact, because their magic is not designed to handle such a thing. Curious that you show so many signs of inhumanness."
"We are equals, you know," Harry said, trying to shrug off Voldemort's scrutinizing gaze. "Did you really think I'd be such a pushover?"
Voldemort brought his wand upward in a sharp arc, which caused the entire ceiling to split apart so that nearly six tonnes of rock came crashing down upon them. "Anti-apparation wards are rather pesky, aren't they?" Voldemort inquired as the rocks buried Harry in debris. Or, at least, they should have buried him.
Instead, he just stood, much like Voldemort was doing, with the rocks crumbling to dust and being sprayed out away from him as though they were being magnetically repelled. "You're so going to have to do better than that, tough guy," Harry said smugly. "There's more here than just a pretty face."
"I see I am going to have to step up the assault," Voldemort said, eyeing Harry critically. "So be it. Let us duel then." Voldemort adopted a dueling posture and took a step back to ready himself.
Harry charged magic around him, letting it whisper to him its dark thoughts. Yes, he mused. I'm so going to nail your ass.
Both of them coiled their shields tightly around their bodies. Let only the strongest survive.
In a flash, both began launching spells as hard and as fast as they could manage.
Reducto - disfugio - eviscero - razurro. Voldemort launched four spells simultaneously from his wand, each one honing in on Harry's form, each one impacting with the force of a bludger and causing enough damage to put an average wizard down for the count. The reductor curse tore apart Harry's hip bone and shattered his pelvis so that bone fragments shot out through his torso and leg like shrapnel, while the disfiguring curse snaked seventeen lacerations across his chest, while the evisceration curse slashed a deep gouge across his torso and began pulling out each major organ one by one, while, finally the skin peeling curse began slicing off parts of his face.
In a simultaneously occurring counter-move, Harry managed to nail Voldemort right between the eyes with a bone breaking hex that fractured his skull along two axes, giving his head the look of an amoeba that was trying to cell divide, while putting the rest of his power behind a slicing curse that cleaved most of the way through Voldemort's abdomen and an incendiary spell that lit Voldemort ablaze.
Despite the gravity of their wounds, neither paid attention, to their injuries instead choosing to let their magic do its thing, each one reserving just a little bit to heal their respective wounds so they could continue firing without pause. A muggle watching the battle probably would have described it as similar to the first few days of world war one, where machine gun fire darkened the skies in Europe, and where each side mowed each other down like grass.
Voldemort, now a flaming specter of death with his tall gaunt figure, bone-white face and red eyes, discharged no less than five spells at once, all of them coming out so rapidly that smoke began to issue from his wand tip and, with so much energy being forged, the spells seemed to thicken and pool together, their respective colours forming an indistinct purplish-black mass that writhed and moved hungrily towards Harry, who was furiously drawing together as much magic as he could muster to deliver an equivalent blow to his nemesis. Come on, baby, come on, come on, come baby, come baby, come! Fuck, yeah! Harry let out a stream of viscous blue-flecked golden magic that zigzagged around the black mass of raw energy that Voldemort was spewing at him and impacted his nemesis, just as he himself was hit dead center in the chest, his mostly healed body groaning under the protest as his body immediately sutchered together a tight magical shield to soften the blow. Harry's shield, for the briefest moment, groaned and bent, barely holding together and seeming to stop the mass of raw spell energy, which was rapidly dissipating, before it shattered with the sound of sizzling glass, the backlash of which seared large burns across his chest. Harry staggered backward, the black pool hovering for a brief second as if to enjoy the moment of its victory, before launching itself forward at unusual speed and gouging at Harry's flesh, ripping him apart thirstily, eating at his body, drinking his blood, slashing apart his stomach, spreading out to rip out deep chunks of flesh and bone from his arms.
Harry's eyes were watering so badly from the excruciating pain that he could hardly make out Voldemort, who was falling to his knees from the continuous stream of blindingly bright energy that he was still managing to send against him. Dimly, Harry was aware that Voldemort too was now continuing to discharge a constant stream of bolts of raw energy at Harry, continually eating away at his defenses.
Like acid against metal, both Harry and Voldemort were slowly being eaten away, their magic waxing and wherever needed, and slowly but inevitably being overwhelmed by the intolerable pressure that was being placed against them.
Harry, seeing that Voldemort was grinning like a madman and wanting nothing more than to wipe the smirk off his face, diverted a small stream of energy to impact him right in his clean white teeth, which, to Harry's pleasure, worked wonderfully, as his magic blew apart Voldemort's lower jaw and sent his molars punching through the back of his throat. Take that, fucker.
However, even as his magic cleared, he saw that Voldemort was still grinning maniacally, and, suddenly concerned that there was a reason for his foe's unquellable joy, looked down and saw to his horror that he was no longer repelling the magical damage being committed to his body with the same fluid grace that he had been earlier. One of his hands had been vapourized, leaving a burnt stump at the wrist. He also saw that Voldemort's magic had already eaten its way through his chest bone.
You're losing, Harry thought distractedly. You're bloody well losing. The concept seemed almost incomprehensible to him, as though it came from another language and culture where such a thing as loss did not exist. Harry Potter had always been alone. He had lost so much in his life that he wore his loss like a second skin, but even then, he himself had always come out on top, always had survived, through one way or another, and that too had given him comfort. And now that comfort, that last mental shield that had always made him a little more reckless and a little more confident than he should have been, was now collapsing.
I'm dying, he thought morosely. I'm dying again.
In those terrible moments of realization, even as his magic was working against Voldemort and Voldemort's was working against him - even as the magical backwash from their discharges was vapourizing the walls and cell doors and ceilings and debris and even the floors around them, leaving them floating in a vacuous dark space - even then, he couldn't help but think of those people that loved him. His parents, of course. His Godfather. Dumbledore. Each one in turn had died in the process of protecting him. Each one on their feet, each one in the heat of desperate battle, and each one taking it in stride in the only way they knew how. James and Lily Potter, desperate, loving, feeling deeply for their infant son and for one another. Sirius, oblivious and cheery to a fault. And, of course, Dumbledore, who had simply remained serene. And while Harry may have hated Dumbledore at points in his life, now, facing death and having faced it before, Harry couldn't help but admire the hardness in Dumbledore's life that forged his iron will - a will that most people mistook for placidity. Dumbledore did what had to be done. He was a chess master, a puppeteer, and a brilliant one at that, and Harry knew that, while he could, nor would, never pull strings the way Dumbledore did, he nevertheless realized that, to win a war, sacrifices had to be made. And Harry realized that he was okay with the idea of being a sacrifice, of having sacrificed things like a childhood. It would not have done for him to be drunk with his own fame.
Harry's eyes blazing, he made a snap decision, knowing that it would probably kill him. He retracted his magic, pooled it around his body to form a solid, shimmering, diamond-like shield against which Voldemort's attacks splashed off in waves of searing energy that disappeared into the dark ether around them. And, before Voldemort could pause, Harry charged his arch-nemesis in a suicidal blitz attack.
Voldemort's eyes widened for a fraction of a second before Harry rammed into him full force, the magic emanating between them exploding outward, half of it being reflected off Harry's shield and into Voldemort and the other half shattering Harry's shield and laying waste to his body at point blank range.
Both of them tumbled awkwardly together through space until they reached the far side of Azkaban, two floors down, where part of the flooring was still intact and where they impacted flatly, skulls jarring, bones breaking as the unyielding concrete broke their fall.
"Oof!" Harry wheezed, his front teeth spraying out in a pool of blood across Voldemort's ripped up, bloody chest.
Voldemort just grunted inarticulately as his head contacted with the far wall, creating a second fracture point just behind the occipital lobe.
Harry tried to roll over in an attempt to extricate himself from Lord Voldemort, but he found that he had almost no strength and his magic seemed non-existent, as it was still trying to heal the heavy wounds and simply keep him alive. He found to his dismay that even his cracked ribs and broken arm were apparently on the low priority list for his internal magic, because they didn't seem to be getting better anytime soon. On the contrary, his arms looked like they were becoming infected.
Before Harry could manage to formulate another plan of attack, he felt himself being bodily removed from Voldemort and thrown roughly to one side, only to land in a heap next to the Dark Lord. the glassy, unfocused look in Voldemort's eyes was slowly returning to normal as Voldemort regained control of his faculties. Desperately, Harry tried to conjure a knife with which to stab the Dark Lord and hopefully put an end to their collective misery. He held out his one good hand and concentrated as hard as he could to will a blade into existence. Come on, he thought bitterly, this is your last chance, you wretched fuck. Make it happen. Unfortunately, all that materialized was some wilted lettuce. Harry stared at the rubbery pieces of whitish flaps for a long time, as though he couldn't comprehend their meaning, before, finally, he simply hung his head in shame.
Voldemort, meanwhile, coughed up part of his stomach lining, which he spat disgustedly into Harry's lap before inhaling deeply and looking around. From the few markings on the wall, he could tell that they had somehow landed on the third floor of the fortress, though how they managed to drop two floors was beyond him. He glanced over and saw Harry slumped over and looking terribly dejected. This is your chance, he told himself, gazing about in the hopes of spying his wand. to his dismay, the only thing he saw that looked remotely close was a stick of burnt wood, which, upon further scrutiny, did appear to be his wand. As if to rub insult to injury, a gentle breeze came out of nowhere and cause the deadly yew-phoenix combination to crumble to nothing more substantial than dust. Voldemort picked at his nails in frustration before finally reaching one hand out and aiming a blasting hex at Harry's throat. Like Harry, however, all he could muster up were some sparks that only served to singe his own fingers. Voldemort pursed his lips in frustrated silence.
"So now what?" he asked to no one in particular.
Harry just shrugged.
However, before either of them could marshal a plan, either to escape or to kill one another, something neither of them expected, happened. A series of narrow stone blades punched through their already mangled bodies, effectively pinning them to the wall. Harry watched, mortified, as a long claw like stone knife extruded from the stone behind him, snaking its way through his body and piercing his already fragile heart in a spurt of blood that spattered against his legs. Similar blades were oozing out around him, slicing through his arms, his legs, and one through his shoulder. He only barely managed to move his head to one side to keep from being lobotomized. Thankfully, that seemed to be the last of them, for the tingling feeling of magic being performed subsided and Harry felt it was safe to glance around. To his satisfaction, he saw that Voldemort was in no better shape. In fact, there seemed to be no less than three blades impaling him through the torso, which was a fact that made Harry both satisfied and unnerved. Who exactly, had done this to them? It didn't make sense for it to be the aurors, and he doubted it was a natural defense of the building, since it had taken so long to manifest itself.
It was Voldemort who asked aloud, though from his tone, Harry could tell that he wasn't nearly as bewildered as himself. "Who's there?"
Harry focused on looking around for magical disturbances, knowing that even invisible people would not be able to hide. Quite the opposite, actually. After a bit of scanning and peering about in the gloom, and tearing his eyes away from the surprising amount of vermin that were scampering in the darker recesses of the prison, Harry's eyes fell upon two distinct shapes. He glanced over at Voldemort and saw that the Dark Lord was already gazing intently at that particular space. Harry too, decided to focus on it and see what he could gleam.
"They're young, he mused, not quite sure how his magic knew that, other than they felt fresh, more alive. One's a girl, he thought.
"Very good, Harry," the female said. "That's quite the magic you've got. You've improved since we last met." And then, before his eyes, two people he never thought he would see materialized. Hermione and a twenty-four year old Tom Marvolo Riddle. Harry instinctively felt a surge of joy at seeing his long-time best friend; the one who had saved him so many times before, like during the Triwizard Tournament. The one whose loyalty had never wavered.
But then, almost immediately following this momentary euphoria, a cold dread began to settle in the pit of his stomach, as his rational mind began asking questions. Disturbing questions which led to answers that made him distinctly uncomfortable. Questions like: Why's she so chummy with a horcrux? And: Why's her hair no longer bushy?
"Hermione?" Harry asked tentatively, silently praying that there was a perfectly good explanation for all this. Maybe the horcrux is really a born-again light-sided squib. Yeah, right, and maybe I'm a cuntlicker.
Instead of wallowing in self-pity and perpetual bewilderment, Voldemort had instead taken the precious seconds after their arrival to study his once loyal horcrux. He knew that the little bastard was no longer tied to him, and had, quite reasonably, assumed that Griffin had simply died. It appeared, now, that he did not die but instead chose to rebel against him, and had done so in the most clever of ways. The boy was now soul-bonded to the mudblood, which was a very particular ritual that had potent results. Voldemort would have executed the ritual himself to increase his already formidable magical power, except that it would have meant tying himself to another person through a form of mutual consent and partnership, and, like all dark Lords before him, he was not interested in sharing power. It was not the way of Dark Lords to have equals amongst them. Voldemort noticed with contempt that Harry was still gawking like an idiot at the dark duo, and wondered not for the first time how it was that the brat had managed to best him time and again. Focus, he instructed himself. Voldemort glanced surreptitiously at his surroundings, but he saw no feasible instrument with which to either attack or defend. With his already depleted magical strength, which was now being sapped constantly by the multiple puncture wounds in his body, he had very little magic to repel them. And, worst of all, he was mortal, not that immortality would help him against Griffin, who would surely have known where to find his horcruxes and circumvent the traps, assuming there were any left to destroy. Which, of course, there weren't. And Voldemort was sure that Harry was no better off, not that Voldemort was going to count on Harry Potter to save him.
"Yes, Harry, it's me," Hermione replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Er, I'm really glad you're here," Harry said, though his voice, even to his own ears, sounded false.
Hermione just smiled. "Me too, Harry. Me too."
"You wouldn't perhaps care to extricate me from these, er, spikes, would you?" Harry asked, almost pleadingly, as though he could pretend a little longer that it hadn't been Hermione who put them there in the first place.
Hermione just adopted a sad expression and shook her head, effectively dousing Harry's last bit of hope in kerosene and lighting it afire. "You know I can't do that."
"but why?" Harry asked, now whining. "It hurts." He looked down at his feeble body, which was still expelling blood.
"It's supposed to hurt, Harry," Hermione lectured quietly. Harry could almost pretend that they were back in the common room and Hermione was just explaining what she thought was a simple theoretical concept in transfiguration. That thought, however, seemed to just stoke Harry's rage anew. However, unlike the diffuse, unfocused rage that he was used to experiencing, the kind of rage that ended up destroying Dumbledore's office at the end of his fifth year, he instead felt a compact ball of icy rage forming in his stomach where the desolation had once resided. The power the Dark Lord knows not is not love, Albus, Harry thought fiercely. it's my sheer obstinacy. I'm going to beat this. I don't know how, but I'm going to do it, because I'm a crazy fuck with a missing hand.
Griffin came forward and knelt before the Dark Lord Voldemort, his barely restrained glee shining through his black eyes. "Hello, brother," Griffin hissed softly.
Voldemort just narrowed his eyes, not interested in giving in to his former horcrux's taunts.
"I can't thank you enough for resurrecting me," Griffin went on, as though Voldemort wanted to hear what he had to say. "Did I ever tell you how cold it was, living inside that place - that mysterious object that shall remain nameless for the purposes of suspense? Did I ever tell you how I watched, in the gloom, in the darkness, for decades, waiting with nothing more than my own burgeoning insanity for company? No, I suppose I wouldn't have, because I knew it would do no good. You would have just sent me back after dispatching Potter. I didn't grow up and survive in that fucking hell-hole called an orphanage just to be shredded up and discarded like a rabid dog, brother. You were the one that was supposed to be the Goddamned horcrux, not me. You were the brainless twit that wanted to spend all his time running around torturing muggles to feed your own fat, sadistic ego. If it weren't for you, I would have already owned this world. It was me who made the Death Eaters what they were. My ingenuity. My ambition. My brains. Do you think they would have followed a pathetic half-blood just because of an old, dead name? I gave your strategies the artistry they needed to lure the rich and the powerful. It was me, brother, and you never saw that. You and your shortsightedness set us back a hundred years."
Voldemort's iron control seemed to have been shattered, because he began ranting in explicatives at the preppy little yuppie pureblood wannabe. "You wretched, pathetic worm," Voldemort snarled, mixing Parseltongue with English in his blind anger. "You never had the guts to do what it takes to make our ambitions happen. You were weak. You couldn't even cast the cruciatus, you were so pathetic. Always looking to the imperius or the killing curse, you didn't understand that pain was the instrument through which you forge fortitude. Look at the Potter brat, for God's sake. All his life, he was kicked around like a fucking rag-doll, a worthless ragamuffin abused and beaten up and humiliated by muggles, and all of it turned him into a mindless soldier. A fighting machine, despite the fact that his only claim to fame is a dead mother and a resounding mediocrity. And still he comes out on top every single Goddamned fucking time, and it's because he understands pain. He'll never flinch; he'll never lose that one critical second in battle to wipe the blood from his eyes, or to gaze in horror at his own broken fingers. He is the horcrux I always wanted, not you, you imbecile."
Harry wasn't sure which part of Voldemort's vitriol he found more appalling. The fact that Voldemort would have liked to have had him as a horcrux, or the fact that Voldemort seemed to have some measure of respect for him amidst his litany of insults. Still, Harry couldn't help but smile inwardly as he saw Griffin flinch from Voldemort's verbal attack.
"None of that matters now," Griffin replied stiffly, as he fixed his eyes on Voldemort. "I am the victor, and you have lost. Go with God, Voldemort. There is no more for you on this mortal coil. Not now that Nagini and Raven have been destroyed." Griffin then reached forward and began twisting the spike that ran through Voldemort's heart, so that it gored Voldemort more fully, causing fresh blood to spill down his torso in rivulets. Voldemort was forced to grit his teeth and squeeze his eyes shut to deal with the pain, but not even that could hide the agony he felt as tears slipped down his face and his breathing came out shallowly and in fast rasps. Voldemort was dying, and Griffin was killing him.
Harry wasn't exactly sure why, or where or how it was that he came to be thinking the thought that he was thinking, but now that it was in his mind, he was certain it was the right course of action. You have to save him, Harry thought grimly. You've no chance of surviving this mess without him, whether you like it or not. Besides, he's yours to kill, not some half-assed horcrux bitch. Still, Harry wasn't sure how to go about doing that, precisely. He himself was drained, physically and magically, and was in the process of continually being drained so that he had next to no magic with which to effectuate a plan of escape. But of course, that was why he needed Voldemort.
Tentatively, Harry lowered his flimsy occlumancy barriers and began to probe around in his brain for that indefinable psychic link that always reminded him he was not alone. Stepping through to the other side, Harry found, unsurprisingly, that he was met with a really large wall, which he had no hope of penetrating forcibly. Consequently, he simply proceeded to knock.
"Voldemort, you in there?" he called, hoping the Dark Lord would hear him.
After a minute's passage, the wall seemed to grind and shift, and a door appeared where there had not been one previously. "Potter?" Voldemort rasped, his mental image adorning the myriad of wounds that his physical body had.
"yeah," Harry said. "It's me."
"Bloody wretched time for you to be calling, isn't it?"
"I'm not exactly here to ask for a cup of tea. Do you want me to save your worthless hide or not?" Harry asked.
Voldemort eyed him beadily. "What's it to you?"
Harry just rolled his eyes. Fuck, we don't have time for this. "Call it my Gryffindor weakness. Now get your ass over here before you're dead."
Voldemort reluctantly complied, as he seemed to understand Harry's harebrained plan. "The further I move into your mind, the further I can take control of your faculties."
"Whatever, just do it and get us the hell out of here," Harry muttered.
"Trust me, Potter, I don't like this anymore than you do. The last time we did this, I was holed up in my bedroom for weeks."
"Yeah, well, leave when I tell you to, and we won't have any problems."
As they went further and further into Harry's own mind, Harry felt himself fading, his mental image turning translucent and sinking into the nether reaches of his own mind as Voldemort executed a possession.
God, I hope I know what I'm doing, Harry thought, sighing wearily. Please, let this day just end.
Unlike before, when Voldemort had entered him forcibly at the end of his fifth year, Harry didn't feel the overwhelming, omnipresent agony that had afflicted him at that time. Consequently, he was able to observe with a little more attentiveness. The first thing he noticed was the feeling of duplicity, as though everything inside his mind had a shadow, or an echo, or maybe just a dark half. And then, on top of that, he felt as though, when he looked out at the bewildered faces of Hermione and Griffin, who were arguing over Voldemort's now disappearing body, he could see everything in Technicolor, as though his mind were sharper, more focused. I wonder if this is how Voldemort sees the world, or if it's just a side effect of the possession, he mused, watching as Voldemort vapourized the spikes that had been pinning Harry to the wall. Separately, they lacked the magical energy to free themselves, but together, with only one set of spikes holding them down, Voldemort was able to employ all his energy to liberating them.
Harry watched amused as Griffin and Hermione gazed in horror at Harry's rising body, and Harry suspected that they were cluing into what exactly he and Voldemort had done. No doubt my now glowing red-green eyes are a big hint. Voldemort raised Harry's one good hand and pointed it directly at Griffin's hart. "Pity about the anti-apparation wards on this place," Voldemort snarled through Harry's mouth. "Not much place for you to run to, now is there?"
"You still can't take us," Hermione said, the trembling in her voice betraying her fear. Silently, Voldemort sent a reductor curse her way with as much force as he could manage. Hermione, pale-faced and wide-eyed, raised a shield, which Griffin threw all his magic behind. The blasting hex obliterated their combined shield and sent Hermione staggering backward with a large bruise forming on her now torn shirt.
Griffin whirled around to face the creature that could only be described as the Dobbharrymort and, in a fit of rage, began duelling Dobbharrymort with all the ferocity of a bear protecting her cubs. In Dobbharrymort's weakened state, he managed to overtake Griffin only slightly, backing him into a corner, where he surely would have been killed, if it weren't for Hermione's intervention.
Dammit, Voldemort, get us the fuck out of here, Harry screamed as a roasting hex seared Harry's arm. Voldemort didn't seem to be listening, and, in a drastic attempt to make the Dark Lord listen, Harry began pushing at Voldemort, trying to eject him from his body.
What the blazes are you doing, boy? Voldemort asked.
Getting your attention you bloody, venereal dildo. You can't win this.
I can. Watch me.
Harry winced as he felt his arm get skewered by a flaming barbed whip. Well, Hermione's nothing if not creative, Harry thought absently as he fought to take control of his own body.
"Stop that, Voldemort whined.
"Then get the fuck out of here. Now.
Fine, fine. Voldemort scaled back his attacks and began maneuvering his way to the stairwell. Hermione caught on quickly and tried to block his exit, but he was still magically very strong, and with twice the strength and twice the recovery speed, he was regaining his energy quickly enough, despite the onslaught by the two powerful individuals he was fighting. Eventually, Voldemort made it down the stairs, managing to collapse it before Hermione and Griffin could follow.
Good, Harry thought, breathing a sigh of relief. Now let's split. Voldemort complied and the pair escaped Azkaban, alive, mostly, and intact, sort of.