"He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious."
~ Sun Tzu
Chapter 65 ~ Plan B
ECOTS
April 22nd, 1997 – 6:00 p.m.
Harry had waited until just before nightfall to leave Hagrid's Hut. Before that he'd slept. He'd paced. He'd sat there, sickeningly thinking of the ring in his dresser at Number 4 Privet Drive.
He would give it to her. He'd still get to. The alternative wasn't an option.
Now Harry Potter found himself being stared down by an irritated Madame Pomfrey, the mediwitch now freed from her bindings. He'd half expected her to haul off and hex him.
Really, for someone who had been commandeered by one of her time-travelling students, tied up and bound, then forced to offer first aid instruction whilst watching someone get tortured, all before having their robes ruined from the blood splatter, she was awfully calm.
She was so calm that instead of hauling off and trying to scream or hex him, she was instead rubbing the insides of her wrists as if to ensure they hadn't been damaged by the ropes.
Really, had he not been the one to tie her up in the first place he might have felt insulted.
"No offense," he drawled, eyeing her free hands dubiously, "but I'm still not sure this is a good idea."
Her steady gaze flicked up to him. "Oh?" she questioned. "And I suppose your half-cocked plan of running into the Forbidden Forest at night to take on the Dark Lord himself is?"
"Why? You volunteering?"
Pomfrey sent him a withering look.
Harry darkly smirked in response.
"Have you even considered the ramifications if you, forgive the saying Mr. Potter, 'screw the pooch?'" The older woman crossed her arms with pointed pomp.
"Sure," he casually replied, leaning against the doorframe, "but to be fair, most of my fantasies have been less focused on that and more heavily feature ole Tommy-boy missing appendages."
Her eyes narrowed critically. "Remind me to assess you for head injuries once you are quite done antagonizing enemies of the state, Mr. Potter."
Harry gave his scar a pointed tap. "Well hell, Poppy, think you missed one."
She scowled.
He smirked.
Then he fought back the nauseous wave of revulsion at what he was about to go do. It was dusk. Soon Kalliandra and Regulus would head out into the Forbidden Forest. It wouldn't be long afterwards that himself, Tonks and Mad Eye would show up on the grounds. Then shortly after that Kally would die.
His gaze remained leveled on Pomfrey, questioning his sanity for even agreeing to this. "I want you to swear on your magic that you won't interfere, Madame Pomfrey." Harry didn't know if he was doing the right thing or not. He'd considered obliviating her on the spot, but he reckoned she'd deserved better than that.
Merlin knew they'd already obliviated her enough that year. That kind of frequent thing could not be good for one's brain.
Not to mention if he did obliviate her he had no way of knowing if she'd be alert enough to save Kaylens once he got her out of that cursed forest and back to the grounds.
He needed Pomfrey on her A-game.
"Madame Pomfrey?" he repeated.
The school healer adjusted her bun calmly. "A field Healer learns rather quickly that we cannot fix combatants if we have been blasted into a hundred pieces our self, Mr. Potter. And while I would very much like to go report this to the Headmaster, so he could put a stop to all of this nonsense, I realize that had it not already occurred I never would have wound up trespassing in Rubeus' personal abode to begin with, with you."
At that Harry frowned, trying to follow.
Pomfrey sighed. "If I put a stop to it now, Mr. Potter, then it never would have happened. You never would have forged a letter impersonating the Headmaster, and I never would have come to Rubeus' quarters. If I never came to his quarters to find you breaking and entering and taking Mad Eye Moody's interrogation techniques to heart, then I never would have found out about your gruesome fight in the Forbidden Forest, and therefore would not have had the wherewithal to preemptively halt your most recent attempt to start a forest fire." She paused, emphasizing, "Ergo, if I reported you and put a stop to it now all I would succeed in doing is creating a time paradox, and while I do not know about you, I am personally quite fond of my present three dimensional state of existence."
Despite this, Harry eyed her dubiously.
The school healer let out an incensed breath. "I am perfectly capable of remaining here until whatever is going to happen, happens, Mr. Potter!"
He was silent for a long time. Finally….
"Well…that at least explains why you haven't hexed me in the nads for all of this."
Madame Pomfrey's eyes flashed. "Never say never, Mr. Potter. It wouldn't be the first time I have had to render a student impotent for their own safety."
He blanched. "Let's not."
The school healer smiled wickedly. "I seem to recall your father making the same request."
As always Harry seized onto any information about his parents that he could get, eyes darting up in automatic response. "You did that to my dad?"
"Only…temporarily. He proved somewhat incapable of appropriate school behavior where Miss Evans was concerned."
Harry had a mental image of his father being hexed in the nads for getting caught snogging in a broom closet. Sirius and Lupin would have been relentless with the mockery, a barely there smirk touching his face. "Reckon I ought to thank you for not rendering him impotent permanently in that case."
"There's still time to fix that mistake." She sounded shockingly serious.
Harry attempted to not twitch, meeting her gaze levelly. "And miss out on the next generation of Potters at the school? Please. You'd get bored."
"Actually," she informed, "throw out the Weasley boys' lines with yours, and I could happily retire with the knowledge that no further mayhem would run afoot."
He inclined an eyebrow. "Just the boys?"
"I always did have a soft spot for Ginerva. Assuming of course she does not choose an imbecile to mate with."
Harry snorted. Madame Pomfrey, despite a feigned air of compassion and caring, was actually a no-nonsense smart ass that did not take any shit. Not when she was tied up and disarmed, and certainly not when she was untied and armed.
He made a mental note to do his best not to piss her off moving forward.
He still eyed her wand dubiously. Given she'd been such a sport about his new favorite sport - Umbridge blasting - Harry had actually returned it to her. Granted, he'd questioned his own judgement whilst doing so (he could imagine Ron shaking his head and adamantly waving his arms in a NO gesture for even entertaining the notion of trusting an authority figure) but given she'd spent so much time helping him, he owed her.
Now though, with all the quipping about the Potter line, he realized that he really would be it. The idea of kids was sodding terrifying. Not to mention impossible if his future wife got killed.
He hadn't asked her yet.
He was going to.
His heart lurched.
Something of his thoughts must have been betrayed by his face, Madame Pomfrey's eyes narrowing critically. "Miss Kaylens will be fine, Mr. Potter. Stick with your plan, and I'll be waiting here if I am needed." Tilting her head she once more reminded him of the collection of potions and the small vial of phoenix tears that Fawkes had cried for her, sitting right alongside a rather frightening looking and long needle.
He hadn't forgotten Dumbledore's words about phoenix tears healing most effectively when placed directly on the wound.
Really, having a literal hole torn through your chest sort of 'drove home' the point.
A needle would be a hell of a lot nicer.
His heart thundered. So, so much could go wrong. He needed to go, to leave. Still, Harry was unable to remove his conflicted gaze from the healer's. "Why are you doing this?" he'd asked the question before he even realized that he'd opened his mouth. "Why are you helping me?"
Standing there, facing off with the school healer that he'd all but abducted days earlier, he caught the shrewd expression cross her face. "I suppose you would not take 'Hippocratic Oath' as acceptable response?"
He snorted. "Doubtful."
For a moment she was silent, and then…. "Delores Umbridge was as deplorable a human as they come, Mr. Potter. You had every opportunity to kill her and yet…you did not." Her eyes flashed. "Instead of even imprisoning her you gave her an opportunity to live a peaceful and free life as a Muggle. Assuming she survives the plague, of course." She breathed loudly through her nose, telling, "However far you've been pushed, Mr. Potter, you still have retained your humanity. Given it seems rather linked to this girl, I'd rather like to see you continue to maintain it, lest I see you go the route Tom Riddle did."
It was simple. It was honest. The parallels were terrifying.
Harry's mouth had gone dry. "You're scared I'll end up like him." It was rhetoric, not a question, and Madame Pomfrey did not deflect.
"Yes."
It was honest enough.
He breathed hard, chest tense.
Then Harry turned and left Hagrid's Hut, abandoning Madam Pomfrey until it was over.
ECOTS
April 22nd, 1997 – 6:10 p.m.
After three days away, it took Harry all of five minutes to figure out that he had no clue where the clearing actually was. That was the problem with running through the forest at night: everything had looked exactly the same, and he'd lost track of the location.
Fortunately Fawkes hadn't.
All it'd taken was Harry casting him a look, dryly demanding, "A little help? Unless you'd prefer I take Mad Eye up on his suggestion of chicken for dinner?"
Fawkes dive bombed, smacking Harry squarely in the back of the head with a hard talon. Then he flew off ahead, leading. Harry scowled, rubbing his newly acquired injury as he followed. "Geeze," he drawled, "was it something I said?"
'Idiot.'
"I prefer," Harry bit back, "directionally misguided."
Fawkes trilled, as if placating a small child, before swooping off into the trees, his red and gold feathers gleaming in the shafts of red sunlight filtering through the canopy.
Seeing the glowing red all Harry could think about was one thing: red, slit like eyes peering at him through the trees, hissing his name.
And Pomfrey thought he was going to wind up like Riddle.
He ground his teeth so hard his enamel practically rubbed off. He had to get to that clearing before Kaylens and Black did.
And he did.
Walking out into the center of the clearing he stood there, light breeze ruffling his shirt. It was empty, devoid of the crushed organs and body bits to come.
His hair stood on end at the thought, before Harry forced his mind blank.
Soon this place would be full of ash, smoke, blood. The toe of Harry's shoe stubbed at a fairy mushroom, the things growing in concentric circles amongst the willows and grasses, cursedly reminding him of why Kaylens had been here in the first place. The overturned basket had been proof enough.
Gathering potions supplies for Snape.
After this he'd find Snape and make him regret the day he ever decided to play at pretending to be one of the good ones.
Biting back the bitter taste in his mouth, it wasn't hard to find the ditch. For a long moment he simply stared at it, Harry only able to see the limp form of Kally laying within it.
His heart lurched.
He couldn't allow it to.
There'd be time, plenty of time he promised himself, to succumb to that feeling later.
He'd been over the plan a half dozen times with Madame Pomfrey. Hell, the witch had proven quite helpful. Then again, given she'd been disarmed and tied to a chair at the time she hadn't exactly had any other pressing places to go.
He ran through the plan systematically. Anti-humana reveleo charm. Avoid first Regulus and Kaylens, then himself and Tonks, then the two Carrows, Lestrange and Avery. Then there was that trivial matter of the werewolf that had been loose in the forest. Harry had no way of knowing if it'd been by this area before they'd arrived or not, so a well-placed scent-masking charm got used. He couldn't be found. He couldn't be discovered.
If he was discovered, then Kally would die.
That couldn't happen.
His fists clenched.
"Fawkes," he uttered aloud, "if the werewolf shows up early…"
'I'll perch you in a tree,' came his familiar's mind-speak, 'like the pathetic little fledgling you are. Do you take me for an invalid?'
Harry purposefully chose not to answer that.
He had a plan. He had a good plan, as far as time traveling changes went.
Now he just had to enact it.
And he sure as hell did.
That started with stalking towards a large, dead willow tree, the thing having fallen down in a recent storm if the charred lightning marks were anything to judge by, and slicing it in half.
Then he levitated a sizeable chunk near the ditch, dropping it as if the thing had belonged there all along.
ECOTS
April 22nd, 1997 – 11:29 p.m.
That night war reached the Forbidden Forest.
Somehow, against all odds, he'd gone undetected.
No werewolves.
No unexpected Death Eaters.
No arachnids or Voldemort specters.
Really, things in his life rarely went this easily. Then again, maybe Merlin had rolled over in his grave and decided to finally give the Boy-Who-Fucking-Lived a pass.
Hell, even Kaylens and Regulus had been woefully lax in checking the clearing's perimeter, as if comfortable where they were. Harry got the distinct impression they came here a lot to collect potions' ingredients, at least enough to let down their guards. He'd hex Black in the balls for that later.
Harry had taken up shelter behind a tree near the ditch, remaining motionless. Crouching there he'd listened to Kalliandra and Regulus arguing churlishly for nearly an hour. The easy banter of the two, the similarity to Sirius' voice, the light laughter of Kaylens…
Laughter….it wasn't something he usually heard from her.
The world was too full of darkness usually. The fact that Regulus Black of all people could make her laugh….he hadn't expected that.
It made him dislike the git a little less.
"Hey Casper," Kaylens called, Harry watching with rapt, quiet interest. She stood there, moonlight sending her hair glistening, an impish smile upon her lips as the overly serious potions master turned around.
As soon as Black did she launched the mushroom directly at him, the thing smacking him directly on the nose, the wizard scowling.
Kally threw her arms up in the air and made mock cheering sounds. "She shoots, she scores!"
"Will you cease and desist with the absurdly childish-"
Kaylens paused mid-spin, eyes alight. "Childish?" she demanded, as if offended. "We're at war! I'm honing my hand-eye coordination." She tossed another fairy mushroom in hand, the beige fungus flipping mid-air before she caught it, pointing it at Black's nose. "That's a skill set I'm honing. You're my teacher. You should be helping."
Regulus' upper lip curled back in a sneer Harry was coming to realize meant absolutely nothing. "Helping or hexing…decisions, decisions…" He fondled the pocket where his wand clearly was, as if itching to use it. "Perhaps if you actually were focused on the task at hand we would be done by now." He gestured to her near empty basket, only a few mushrooms within it.
Kaylens grinned guiltessly. "You should think of honing your skills of observation there, Casper. Might want to check your hood."
Black's brow furrowed, the wizard jerking an arm back, swearing as he tugged out a handful of mushrooms.
"See? You're like a portable carrier, but even better because you snark back," she teased. Kally then spun, her robes flying out around her, the non-witch clearly done with her fun. The rapid footsteps towards him, the crunching of leaves as she crouched down dangerously near Harry's hiding spot…
Harry had jerked back behind the tree, holding his breath. Disillusionment spell or not he could not afford for her to so much as glimpse him.
Everything depended on it.
Harry crouched there, spine digging against the tree's bark, heart hammering in his chest, left with nothing else to do but listen as Kalliandra happily hummed. The non-witch had absolutely no talent, no sense of keeping a tune, yet the off key noise was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard.
"Will you abstain from that offensive caterwauling, or is your ultimate goal to drive my ears from my literal head?" Regulus demanded.
Kaylens only hummed louder.
A ridiculous, out-of-place smirk crossed Harry's face, his gaze closing as he let the sound wash over him.
It shouldn't have shocked him when his nostrils began burning, lungs barely able to function.
Harry Potter could barely breathe because he stood to lose everything.
He promised himself that as soon as he got her out of here that he'd lock her in a room, timeline be damned. Then he'd take his time, as much time as he could get, to find out what made her actually happy.
He'd never heard her hum before.
That calmness ended too soon. The Death Eaters eventually arrived. They became so focused on their hunt for Kaylens and Regulus that they never once checked for anyone else.
Yes, luck and undead wizards were definitely on his side tonight. Harry wondered if Merlin was a 'flowers on his tomb' kind of mage or if he'd prefer something more practical, like biscuits.
Too soon spells began to fly.
The forest began to burn.
Smoke began to coil.
In the surrounding forest animals began to screech, fleeing.
The dirt in the ditch shifted ever-so-slightly, subtly whenever Kalliandra or Black moved.
It took everything he had to not jump the hell in to stop this. Knuckles growing white around his wand, Harry kept his disillusioned back pressed up against the tree, it his ancient barricade. Carrow began to yell, taunt…
The ground exploded to his left, dirt raining down, but Harry ignored all of it. A single-minded purpose welled up within him, his gaze cutting purposefully through the smoke and flames to rest on her.
Kally was disillusioned, but he could still see where she was, because he'd seen her and Black take up position there.
His flesh prickled as she began to draw, hair standing on end as the golden light crawled across the earth, before punching into Bellatrix like a scorpion's venomous stinger. Lestrange screamed. The light from Kalliandra burst brighter with heated intensity, Harry able to physically hear her ragged breaths.
Then he heard it.
Across the clearing tore the deadly words. "Avada Keda-"
After everything he'd gone through to get here, after all of it, it really should have had more fanfare.
It didn't.
The forest crackled around him, burning.
Regulus threw a white-hot curse out, attacking the Death Eaters back, the resulting explosion launching the Carrow, Avery and Lestrange off their feet
Kally gasped, the ground disturbed, Harry able to visually picture her ducking her head.
He seized the opportunity to disillusion the chunk of willow tree, choking on smoke, "Leviosa!" raggedly thrown.
A flick of his wand sent it flying towards Kalliandra….
Across the clearing he heard himself bellowing the disarming hex, a red flash lighting up the night, just as Carrow finished the unforgivable's final syllable.
"-vra!"
Green light lit up the clearing.
Everything was loud. The fighting, the fire, Bellatrix's riotous groaning. No one heard Harry throw "Protego!" The brief flash of light flew in front of Kaylens' and Regulus' positions, it unnoticed amidst the flashing spell fire already occurring. It was like a psychedelic light show for the eyes. Reds and oranges and greens and purples. If there'd only been dancing dragons then the Weasley twins would have loved it.
The green light within the clearing barreled forward at impossible speed, yet Harry saw every second of it.
It struck not a quarter meter in front of Kalliandra's face.
The disillusioned tree chunk didn't stand a chance.
It was obliterated on impact, destroyed with a resounding crack, bursting into splintery pieces of shrapnel that lanced out in every conceivable direction. Pieces pinged loudly against the shield charm, the Gryffindor Seeker struggling to hold it.
Harry heard pieces whizzing through the air past him.
He sure as hell felt the one that impaled his leg.
Other chunks rained harmlessly down onto the leaf-strewn dirt, as if a giant had crumbled the log to bits and then sprinkled it merrily atop his midnight snack of wayward Hogwarts' students and Order members.
His shield charm flickered and abruptly died.
Harry collapsed back against the tree with a groan, grabbing at his leg. Warm, wet fluid welled between his fingers, Harry not needing to be un-disillusioned to know the wound was bad.
It'd been Madame Pomfrey's idea to use a log instead of a rock. She'd reasoned that a rock could explode into dozens of deadly, heavy chunks. She'd figured that the fallout alone could have killed Kaylens, Regulus, and him, while logs just created softer spears and splinters.
Soft his ass.
At least the wood would be easier to heal. Allegedly.
The ground to his left exploded. Dirt and twigs launched up, pebbles and burning leaves pouring down as Harry toppled over, shoulder bashing against the ground, hand painfully clutching at his leg. Heat blazed against his skin, his fingers clenching tighter as he frantically looked towards Kaylens.
Her form flickered like one of those old Muggle televisions that still operated on tubes, only this one's tubes were about to burn out. He caught a glimpse, then another, then-
She appeared. Her pale cheek was smashed against the dirt, her arm and wand hand hanging up, out of the ditch. Her fingers lay splayed open, lips parted, golden strands of hair blowing in the hot breeze generated by the fires.
His heart caught.
It jerked up into his throat.
He couldn't breathe.
He forced himself to. A ragged gasp, then another, smoke choking his lungs as his injured leg screamed-
It had to of been enough. It had to.
Harry viciously dug his own fingers into his wound to wake himself the hell up. He nearly screamed, biting down on his tongue hard enough to draw blood.
Then his green eyes raked across her pale form desperately, finding only bruising and dirt smeared against her skin, blood trickling down her forehead. Everywhere else…everywhere else she looked fine. Nothing had impaled her. Nothing appeared to have killed her.
Yet there she lay, limp, motionless, quiet.
Twisted laughter and detonations flared within the clearing.
Harry didn't notice.
Harry quietly, desperately needed to see her breathe…
She didn't.
She didn't fucking breathe. Her chest didn't rise. Her lips didn't part to draw breath. She wasn't moving.
Harry's arm shot out across the ground, "Respiratus!" choked. The spell lanced out of his wand, crossing two meters of dirt to strike her, Kaylens limp form jerkin as it essentially shocked her lungs-
It was the equivalent of slapping an unconscious person across the face.
Kaylens gasped.
It was like a vice around his heart had released, suddenly allowing it to again beat. She was alive. The spell had nearly stopped her breathing from the impact alone. She would have died, but she hadn't.
Pomfrey had warned him that could happen, that blunt force could still a person's diaphragm temporarily…
When it came to oxygen, temporarily was long enough to kill.
Harry choked on a shaken laugh as she continued to breathe. Pomfrey had warned him that in cases like this, that it was usually easy to get them to breathe again, barring other injuries, and now he was seeing it. It had worked. She'd been right, but…
Harry's gaze remained glued to Kally's form, her chest rising and falling, barely, but there was movement.
Pain shot through his entire body, Harry fighting it back. "Intus invenimus sangus," he heard himself mutter. The orange spell shifted out of his wand like mist, unnoticed in the burning forest, sweeping out and over her form, caressing her before settling over Kaylens like a fog-blanket.
Unlike with Madame Pomfrey, where the entire fog had glowed either red or green, unable to differentiate where the bleeding was, this time it glowed green everywhere, for but a fleeting second.
She was alive. He held onto that fact like a literal fucking lifeline.
The spell suddenly turned a bright, angry red over her abdomen.
Invisible fingers were attempting to choke him out. A whisper in his mind was demanding, telling him to calm the hell down.
Fawkes.
Harry forced himself to listen, Kally's shirt having risen up, exposing the smooth skin near her navel. Skin he'd personally run his lips over more times than he count, only now it was bruising, slowly turning purple…
She was bleeding internally.
The killing curse had missed. It'd hit his barricade, but the percussive blast, as predicted, had still damaged her. His shield hadn't been enough. It had saved her, but she was still hurt.
She was hurt bad.
Black was groaning, shifting farther down in the ditch where he'd been unceremoniously thrown by the killing curse's shockwave…
Harry clenched his eyes the hell shut, leg pounding so hard he could barely think, barely focus. Blood was trickling down, soaking his sock, cotton absorbing it like a sponge in his shoe. He could hear himself screaming like a mad man across the clearing-
In his mind Fawkes trilled.
Harry cast the spell, mind as calm as he could force it to be. Purple, dim light poured out of his wand, sweeping over Kalliandra, the stall trying to slow her bleeding. Harry waited, the bark of the oak tree's trunk digging against his shoulder, his eyes glued to the form of the only person he gave a damn about right then.
Kaylens didn't move; he hadn't expected her to.
All Harry wanted to do was run to her. Run to her, to help her.
But he knew he hadn't. He hadn't, because he was still in the clearing tearing Bellatrix into fucking pieces. Regulus was already crawling, reaching Kaylens and shooting off another spell at the attackers. Avery and the female Carrow had taken off after Tonks, himself standing up over Lestrange's body….
Harry had to go. He had to leave. He had to get back to Tonks before he actually disappeared and she noticed. He had to get back before Voldemort arrived. Pain daggered through him as he tried to move, his toes squelching in his blood soaked-sock as he crept backwards on his ass on the ground, hearing Regulus shouting at his other self, telling him that he was better than this…
He wasn't. Harry knew damn well that he wasn't.
He knew it because he'd do it again.
If it meant saving Kaylens, Tonks, Hermione, Ron….he'd tear Bellatrix to pieces a thousand times and never look back.
The earlier version of himself ran off after Tonks, the clearing suddenly eerily empty. Black had grabbed at Kaylens for only a second, before making a distressed sound and rolling over. The wizard began spraying water straight up into the trees, one having caught fire nearby, the noise alone loud enough to let Harry move.
That had been a bad idea.
Lancing, stabbing pain flew through his leg. As Harry crept backwards into the underbrush, barely able to move and sure as hell unable to stand, he swore to hell that he nearly blacked out.
The angered sound that resonated within his head woke him the hell up.
As the world spun he dryly realized that Fawkes was pissed. Well hell…bond mates getting injured…who knew? Harry watched as a flurry of feathers swept through the smoke like an avenging bird of lore, the phoenix landing on him, talons clenching with possessive strength.
Fawkes had lost a few feathers doing Merlin knew what. Harry choked on a pained laugh. "Molting early?" he gasped.
Fawkes shot him a look that could only be described as 'fuck off' and used his beak to smack the piece of wooden shrapnel sticking out of his lower leg pointedly, Harry nearly screamed from the pain alone.
Fawkes didn't seem to care. His bastard familiar just wanted it removed and lacked the opposable thumbs to do it with.
Harry collapsed backwards into the bush, thorns tearing at his neck and shoulders, the thing somewhatconcealing him as he grabbed the foot long splinter, held his breath, then yanked it the hell out.
Blood sprayed, hitting Fawkes-
Harry bit down on his tongue hard and tried not to scream.
Fawkes slammed his head down onto the wound, letting tears drip directly into the gaping hole, the sudden tingling, the near-instant healing as he drew ragged gasp after gasp reminding him that the bird was damn useful.
Maybe he'd hold off on that whole 'plucking him to create an extra special feather pillow for Hermione's birthday present' threat after all.
Tears rained down from Fawkes' eyes like a sieve, Harry's skin healing…
Unicorn blood.
The thought hit him like hope.
Kaylens had unicorn blood. Between the two…\ between the stall he'd cast upon her and between the unicorn blood that had once been injected unwillingly into her veins, it had to be enough to save her. It had to.
Amazing how he could only think of her, even as the flesh of his calf sizzled back into one solid piece.
Moody had been right.
She was a distraction.
Harry sure as hell didn't care.
Right now he didn't know if she'd live. He didn't know if she'd be fine. He just knew that he'd have never forgiven himself if he hadn't tried.
He'd followed Hermione's rules of time travel. There'd be no time paradox.
With one last fleeting look at her, only her motionless legs visible from his new position, Harry roughly clambered to his feet and made his way around the periphery, reaching into his pocket and wearily dropping what looked like tiny stones onto the ground as he went.
Finding and attacking Umbridge hadn't been the only thing he'd done over the past three days.
After all, he couldn't forget about Tom.
Slowly, with a hateful ball of ice in his chest, he began to clear his mind, making his way deeper into the forest.
Fawkes let out a trill and did the same.
Harry just hoped the phoenix could find what they were looking for.
ECOTS
April 22nd, 1997 – 11:46 p.m.
It was wet.
Kally's hair was wet.
Pain erupted before she'd even moved, a whimper falling from between her lips. The world spun, though she hadn't moved; her head pounded. Kally blinked, a hazy image appearing in front of her blurry eyes. The distorted brown blur slowly, slowly came into slight focus…
They also crinkled.
A confused, distant part of her mind that remembered how to name things recognized them: Leaves.
Once more she let out a quiet groan, blinking watery eyes that wet something under her face.
Dirt.
Twigs.
She blinked several more times.
As if to spite her they remained blurry.
Then they all crunched as she tried to turn her face, a twig catching against her cheek. It was painful.
She moved anyway. Dirt had been smashed against, up her nose. It could have suffocated her, had her lips not remained parted. It hadn't, but just barely.
It was almost like she'd been slammed face first into the ground with force.
"Kalliandra?"
Kally tried to respond, but could only cough.
"Bleeding hell…" someone – Regulus? – said.
She could only choke on clumps of earth, sucking in breath after breath as she tried to desperately figure out why her head hurt so badly. Her fingertips sunk into the dirt, clawing it as another round of pain seized her. She spasmed.
A hand seized her shoulder, flipping her over, a slight whine escaping her.
"I thought you were dead, girl!" Regulus hissed. He made an incredibly pained sound of his own, but she felt – more than saw – him move. A second later she heard him muttering beneath his breath, casting spells, a strange light glowing behind her eyelids as if the night was lighting up….
Things were in a fog.
Kally whimpered. She squinted, trying to look at him. He was blurry but…Regulus was laying on the ground too, his arm moving over her body, up and down quickly. Blue mist was pouring out of his wand as he waved it over her, a dim pat of her realizing that couldn't be good.
She could hear a strange buzzing, like a high-pitched whine. Overhead she could see blurred colors, reds and oranges flickering, the forest crackling.
Only then did she realize that she could smell smoke.
Harry.
What happened hit her like a battering ram. Kally let out a cry, trying to sit up-
A hand slammed against her shoulder and shoved her remorselessly down. "Impossible girl, how hard is it for you to follow the impossibly dull directive to stay still?" Regulus made an angered sound, caustically biting, "Given the sounds you're making I'd think you'd not want to move."
Kally blinked at his blurry figure. "Ha-rry," she managed, wincing. "He was-"
"-here," Regulus bit, finishing for her. "Yes, I'm aware. Daft man cannot avoid trouble. It's like he's perpetually attracted to insurmountable messes, and I believe that daft cousin of mine was with him."
Kally choked on a pained laugh, then choked down what suspiciously tasted like blood, her eyes clearing slightly. They'd been watering, wet streaks down her cheeks, mixing with that warm, wet liquid.
Her hand rose, fingers grazing it…
They came back red-silver.
She stared. She stared not understanding as her head continued to swim. She felt like everything was distant, far off, in a fog.
The strength went out of her. Kally's eyes fell shut, her hand slipping away from her brow, falling to the ground. Her breathing became swift, shallow. She was having trouble…
With a pissed off hiss Regulus cast a frantic spell and something hit her head. It stung. It was like being stung by a bee, Kally whimpering-
In multiple places across her head her skin began to tingle, everything momentarily blurring behind her eyelids-
Then abruptly, suddenly, her head felt fine. The fog lifted, and Kally blinked.
Her left ear was still buzzing, a high-pitched squeal. Things hurt, but she could see.
She found herself laying on the edge of the ditch at an awkward angle, alongside Regulus. Casper was staring at her, as if he'd seen a ghost. He looked beyond startled, his face contorted in pain.
It took her a second to realize why, her fingers brushing the superficial wound on her head, finding it healed.
"Unicorn blood," she whispered weakly, her eyes travelling down…
Regulus' lower left leg was in shambles. It looked like a nundu had bit down on it and shaken him violently from side-to-side in an attempt to batter him to death. A makeshift splint had been conjured, transfigured out of two pieces of wood, but that did little to hide the incredibly bloodied mess and tears on his pants. "Regulus, your leg!"
"Will be fine," he interjected flatly, "once I've had some Skele-grow." His dark eyes narrowed. "You, however…" his gaze raked coldly across her, another diagnostic spell thrown at her torso and making her shiver. Even that simple act hurt, Kally wincing-
"I have no idea how you are alive," he stated flatly. "That killing curse might not have hit you directly, but the detonation of the ground centimeters from you ought to have been enough."
Kally's breath caught, pain now a small concern. "But I'm-"
"Bleeding internally," he hissed, "from at least three different places. Slowly." His dark gaze slithered over her, her heart racing as they drew towards her face, silvery blood streaked across it. "I harbor a suspicion that it may have been worse and is already healing…"
Kally was pretty positive she'd have to send Angelina a thank you note, Death Eater spy or not.
Regulus muttered and oath and shook his head. "You still should have bled out before your inter-species mixing had time to kick in, girl."
"Gee, thanks." Breathing was seriously hard, her abdomen stinging so much. Overhead, smoke rolled through the trees, the crackling of the burning forest cacophonous.
Regulus, as usual, ignored her.
He scowled. "Your right arm," he informed at a harsh clip, "is broken, as is your collarbone and two ribs. Your eardrum is perforated. You did have a concussion," he waved his wand again at her head, that bee sting hitting her again, the wizard grunting as if affirming something he'd already suspected.
Then he flicked his wand, almost carelessly, a spell winding around her midsection like a rope and snapping into place with an audible snap.
Instantly it was easier to breathe, but only just.
Still, it had hurt. Kally limply lay there, panting, muttering an asininely understated, "Ow."
Casper made a derisive sound, his eyes flickering to hers in the dark, the harsh red shadows moving across his face from the fires. "My apologies for keeping you intact," he drawled. "Now, I would suggest you move slowly. We have to move."
With that his expression contorted violently, the wizard starting to stand, summoning a stick to use as a cane as he clambered shakily to his legs. She slowly tried to follow-
In the distance something exploded.
Kally jerked around, falling back to her knees with a scream of pain as she moved too fast. In the forest, closer to the school, she could see flashes of colorful lights. It was beautiful, eerie, terrifying.
Wizards were fighting, out-of-sight, deeper in the forest.
Harry had to be one of them.
"Harry…" she gasped, trying to again stand.
"Your short term memory," Regulus hissed, "astounds me. We'll be of little help to them now, so it'd be best if we leave to avoid being extra bodi-"
She did not hear anything else he said.
Kally stared at the clearing.
The ground was charred in more places than she could count. Fires burned in the trees, in the underbrush. Entire trunks, four feet around, had been blown to nothing more than wooden shards.
Two bodies lay, mutilated and bloodied amidst the chaos.
A burning leaf fell, floating down, its hot, orange embers casting off smaller, burning pieces into the grass.
Her breath caught, her chest shaking as she stared.
Bellatrix Lestrange was decapitated.
That was not what had her attention.
It was the fact that her severed hand was crawling across the ground, still moving.
With a gasp Kally staggered towards it, weakly grasping at her wand, finding it miraculously unbroken. It seemed funny, how scared she'd been of the thing. Now she was in too much pain to care.
Every step across the uneven terrain sent agonizing shots rocketing through her, but she stumbled towards it anyway.
Behind her Regulus made an unidentifiable sound. "Kalliandra stay away from-"
She ignored him, stumbling to a stop right in front of the hand. The pale, bloodless skin was covered in thick blood, the sticky fluid still drying, black clots at the edges where the Death Eater's veins and arteries had once been.
The long, red fingernails were curling into the ground, pulling itself along….
Kally's golden eyes shifted, dazedly, towards the body. It lay at the edge of the clearing, one of the legs already on fire. The head's lifeless eyes stared glossily towards the full moon, glazed over. The body itself lay there, dead, missing a foot…
A slight crinkle of leaves diverted her attention back to the hand. It was moving again, crawling towards her.
Kally weakly lifted her heel, gasping for breath as she summoned everything she had to just remain upright…
Then she stomped on it.
That had been a mistake.
The fingers seized her with malevolent intent.
Kally's magic instantly lashed out, feeling it for what it was.
It was unnatural.
It was alive.
With a horrid, horrible realization she knew exactly what it was.
Her wand hung limply at her side, the horcrux's fingers twitching beneath her boot. Her eyes closed, breathing harsh breaths of smoke filled air. Her insides hurt. Her stomach churned with nausea. Every breath was shallow, her broken ribs preventing her from breathing deep, the air simply not enough. Even though they were closed she saw black spots in front of her vision, everything swaying.
Fires crackled, logs popping as the heat grew too intense for the wood to take. The buzzing continued in her ear, getting worse.
The crunching of leaves told her Regulus had staggered up alongside her.
Her lips parted, a horrified whisper breathed into the night.
"It's a horcrux."
Then the popping of apparition arose around them, Kally's eyes snapping open in time to lock onto four dark robes, their backs to her.
ECOTS
April 22nd, 1997 – 11:55 p.m.
Alecto Carrow struggled the instant she saw him.
Given the expression surely on Harry's face, he couldn't blame her. There was nothing good in his gaze, at least not for this red-headed bitch. Hell, her red hair he took personal offense to. Somehow it seemed like that should be a Weasley and only a Weasley trait.
And Alecto Carrow sure as hell wasn't a Weasley.
Harry tossed down the last of the improvised 'rocks' and considered his newest problem. The tell-tale pops of apparition were in the clearing now, the Death Eaters arriving. It was only a matter of seconds before they did a human revealing spell, and as soon as they did...
They'd find Carrow.
Well, the still living one, anyway.
And he sure as hell couldn't leave Carrow free to be found. Her wand might be snapped in half, but the last thing they needed was another Death Eater roaming the forest.
The other issue was that Tonks had been right; the decapitation hex was loud. Death Eaters would surely hear it. That left him with a dilemma.
Fortunately he had a way around that.
Harry slowly approached, somewhat amused by the look on her face. To be fair, she had just watched him get bodily hauled away by Tonks after all, and this version of himself was much more clean.
A pity, that. He'd rather enjoyed the shock effect he'd had, when she'd realized he'd been covered in her brother's blood.
He crouched, and she struggled more. He didn't care. Instead Harry stabbed his wand at the besieged bitch branded with the Dark Mark, the end of the Holly Wood pressed painfully to her temple, and whispered a well, well-meaned word: "Obliviate."
Her head snapped back against the bark with a dull thud.
The scent of acrid smoke filled his nostrils, some whiffs painful, pungent, whilst others were almost pleasant. He had half a damn mind to wonder if fairy mushrooms, when burnt, could create any of those psychedelic sensory reactions that Dudley talked about experimenting with at parties. None of that mattered right now.
What did was that Carrow was looking at him groggily, blinking at the burning forest, as if dumbfounded by her current position in life.
Harry's teeth locked in a firm grimace, his wand re-aiming, whispering the word yet again.
Then again.
And again.
Harry wasn't skilled with charms in the same way Hermione was. So like with Umbridge, that many memory wiping charms ought to be irreversible.
It was better than she'd deserved. She deserved death, but he wouldn't be the one to expose Tonks' position. He also wouldn't be the one that left Carrow laying around while still capable of telling her cowled comrades exactly who was in the Forbidden Forest that night.
Pomfrey had asked him to stay human.
He'd give her this life; that was it.
That was when Harry heard him. "Harrrry Potter…"
Harry was pretty freaking positive that Voldemort was his least favorite person in the world after Snape. Hell, if he ever got some free time he'd sit down and make a nice, long list of all the things he hated about the bastard, starting with the fact that he insisted on drawing out his words like a fucking serpent.
Number two on that list would be how unappreciative he was of the lightning bolt scar gift Voldemort had given him. Seriously, it was a piss poor Halloween present.
Harry groaned aloud, that same scar suddenly burning. Flames flickered along the ground, and for a second all Harry could do was try not to scream. His scar, his head...sheer, unadulterated pain was bouncing around in his skull as if Hagrid had first shrunk and then set Grawp loose within it with a hammer.
At some point he'd collapsed, the bushes and thorny bramble concealing him. Underneath a particularly twiggy one he could just make out parts of the clearing, and dark robes swishing around bare, gray-colored feet.
Harry clutched his scar and wondered if Voldemort would bleed the same way Bellatrix had when he cut those same feet off.
"Harrrrrry Potteeeerrrr…ssssuch mannerssss," Voldemort hissed from within the clearing. "Didn't that old fool teach you that it is wisssse to come when called by your bettersss?" The smoke shifted, and Harry could see the slits where Riddle's nose ought to be stretched skyward, as if sniffing, smelling him or Tonks and the other him out….
ECOTS
April 22nd, 1997 – 11:58 p.m.
Tonks cursed Harry Potter's name.
She cursed it and began a mental list of all the creative ways in which she was going to hex him to within an inch of his life if he survived this.
Starting with his manhood. Might as well hit him where it'd hurt.
How in the hell had he just disappeared!?
Voldemort, clearly, had somehow noticed. He'd stopped sniffing, a look of pure, raw fury on his stretched-out face.
"WHERE ISSSSS HE!? FIND HIM! Humana reveleo!"
Tonks watched with baited breath as the spell flitted through the flames towards her, it pausing for only a second before moving on. The anti-human-revealing charm had worked – it'd actually worked! She silently thanked the Unspeakable that had come up with it at the Ministry.
The spell slid towards where they'd left Alecto Carrow tied up, Tonks realizing too late that they hadn't done the charm on their captive. They'd be by here any second! The Auror mentally cussed and ducked around a bush, feeling at the ground to make sure she wasn't about to trip over a disillusioned Harry.
He wasn't there.
Little bastard.
"You heard him!" Avery snarled, Tonks peering through the trees and smoke and shadows, catching a glimpse of the unmasked wizard, his arm appearing held together by nothing more than magical bandages and spell-o-tape. Well, at least Harry's cutting curse had done some damage.
It'd also left Avery pissed. "Get in there and FIND them!"
With a flick of Voldemort's fingertips the flames parted, driven back towards her hiding place, the heat growing intense. Tonks barely had time to dodge a particularly angry looking tendril and to dive into a suspicious looking shrub when the crunching of boots swept past, a masked man shouting, finding where they'd left Carrow tied up.
"Fuck," Tonks swore quietly, getting a mouthful of tiny leaves. "Fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck!" Great. Now she sounded like Mad Eye after a few rounds.
Not far off the bushes rustled, a low growling heard…
ECOTS
April 22nd, 1997 – 11:59 p.m.
They were trapped.
Only seconds had passed since the Death Eaters' arrivals. Somehow their backs were still to her and Regulus. They hadn't seen them yet, despite where she and Regulus stood in the absolute center of the clearing. It was almost unreal.
Voldemort was screaming for Harry, blinded by rage, Kally's breath catching, eyes searching in a panic along the forest's edge…
She caught sight of movement within a bush, as if someone who was particularly clumsy had fallen and gotten tangled up within it. Tonks.
Kally only saw her because she'd known to look for her.
Harry had to be with her.
Kally felt like her heart could stop. Her eyes locked onto the frenzy of Death Eater activity on the far side of the clearing. There were four of them, Voldemort included. One masked man plunged into the forest, and over the crackling of burning wood she could hear snarling, shouting, hear his search. The one called Voldemort's complete and utter fury radiated out as he paced, fingering a long, pale-looking wand that looked rather like her own, whilst the other two cast human revealing spells into the forest with vigor.
Avery was snarling, "Come out, come out, wherever you are…"
Kally and Regulus stood in the center of the clearing, Bellatrix's hand struggling underfoot, with nowhere to run.
There simply wasn't time.
It was only from sheer, dumb luck that they hadn't been seen yet.
Yet, the second they moved they'd be seen or heard. They were simply too out in the opening to not be.
A cold, horrible realization swelled in her gut: there'd be no escaping for her and Regulus.
There might be for Tonks and Harry.
Kally's golden eyes caught onto Black's, and the pained-looking man let out a long suffering sigh, acknowledging what they both already knew.
They were screwed.
ECOTS
April 22nd, 1997 – 11:59 p.m.
Tonks was fairly certain that she was going to die, and all she could think about was the fact that she hadn't been laid in months.
Really, Remus was an absolute animal in bed; who could blame her?
Tonks forced herself to hold very, very still in the shrubs. The flames hadn't engulfed her hiding place yet, but smoke was sure as hell wafting around her and making breathing something of a sport. It wouldn't be long until she caught fire. If she didn't move soon, she'd burn to death.
Granted if she moved, the werewolf, Death Eaters and ole smelly-vort would certainly see her, and then she'd experience a whole different type of unpleasant death.
Right about then was when Tonks caught sight of something that had her flat out choke.
Kalliandra was standing up, on her own two feet, in the center of the clearing, about thirty paces away from the Death Eaters and smelly-vort. Reggie was right alongside her, barely supported by a cane, and both had frozen, like deer in headlights.
Voldemort let out another angered hiss. "Harry Potter, come out….come out and I will spare your meddling Auror friend."
It took Tonks a second to realize that he was talking about her. Avery had obviously blabbed about their duel when he'd escaped. But Voldemort hadn't seen Kalliandra and Regulus yet. None of the Death Eaters had, and at the end of the day Tonks was an Auror and an Order member. She had to protect them.
Shifting her wand she prepared to cast a spell, to create a distraction to allow the two to run before they were seen, even if it meant exposing her own position-
The Auror didn't get the chance.
"Harry's not here right now," Kalliandra weakly cut in, her voice raw with smoke, "but I hear there's a two-for-one special on accromantula bites just a bit North that you might be interested in?"
Tonks gaped, Kalliandra's eyes locking onto hers through the forest, somehow seeing her despite the chameleon charm, looking stricken.
Kally had seen her, because the Reach had been looking for her. Somehow the girl had known what to look for.
Hell, Tonks was almost impressed.
Apparently Harry's girl was not only alive, but she'd realized that Tonks was about to either be found, or be burnt alive.
How in the hell was the girl even alive?!
Tonks mentally cursed Harry and all of his friends' hero complexes. Why in the hell couldn't the cursedly quintessential Gryffindor have dated a Ravenclaw? Ravenclaws were much more logical! They didn't go around doing asinine things like attracting the attention of raving Dark Lords in a hex-happy mood!
Tonks made a flabbergasted, disillusioned gesture at the girl as if to say 'what the bleeding hell?' to no avail. Kally's golden eyes snapped back towards Voldemort, the Reach holding her ground as two Death Eaters and their master spun to see who had talked.
Even over the crackling and pops of fire, Tonks was able to hear Regulus swear.
"Idiot girl."
The growling behind Tonks rose in agreement, leaving Tonks no choice but to spin, wand aimed, silver hex prepared on her lips.
The wolf gave her no choice.
Unfortunately she missed with her first shot.
ECOTS
April 22nd, 1997 – 11:59 p.m.
Harry's hand clenched against his scar with a pained groan. His skull swam just being near Riddle, the horcrux in him automatically reaching the hell out to touch its master, betraying him…
"Harry's not here right now…"
Harry's head shot up so fast his neck cracked. Laying there, disillusioned in the underbrush, his forest colored gaze locked onto the last thing, onto someone he'd thought he might never see again.
Kally stood there, golden hair matted with silver-red blood, every centimeter of her face and arms smeared with dirt. Regulus Black stood on one leg, right next to her, using an improvised stick to stay upright as he cursed.
Voldemort, Avery and the male Lestrange were all turning around, slowly.
The Dark Lord was eying her with undisguised interest.
Kally didn't move. She shakily hovered, glorious hazel eyes fixed defiantly upon Tom Riddle's snake-like face.
Harry's breath caught. His heart clenched.
It felt like he'd gone into cardiac arrest all over again.
Then his Occlumency shields snapped into place, instantly.
"Kally," he whispered, an urge to throttle her rising violently up, "shut up."
She didn't. Instead she made it worse.
"I think," she offered hoarsely, "he went that way." Tilting her head towards the complete opposite side of the clearing from where he actually was, she raggedly pressed, "Bet if you hurry you could catch him. Wizard's quite annoying though, so you might have to fight the accromantulas for him. Seem to recall they have first dibs."
Harry almost choked on a laugh at her gall.
Black heaved a weary sigh.
From the bushes far, far off to his left Harry heard a disillusioned Tonks groan. Only then did Harry realize that Kally had clearly seen Tonks, and was obviously attempting to keep the Death Eaters away from her.
Voldemort's tongue flicked out, forked like the venomous serpent he was, his toxic eyes rapt with attention. "Why Avery…." he praised, "it appears you brought me a presssent…"
Harry's eyes hardened. The way Voldemort looked at her sent something dangerous stirring inside.
One-by-one he reinforced his Occlumency shields. Voldemort had stopped searching for him as soon as his other self had disappeared. The snake had felt it, felt his absence, and had not thought to look for a second Harry.
Harry was glad for it.
The third Death Eater drug a struggling, screaming Alecto Carrow past him and towards the clearing. Harry paused, frowning. Something was familiar about that Death Eater. They had a distinctive way they walked.
Harry grit his teeth and waited for them to pass.
Smoke coiled around his disillusioned body, then Harry quietly moved.
ECOTS
April 23rd, 1997 – 12:00 a.m.
Mere seconds passed.
A Death Eater emerged from the forest, dragging a red-head in dark robes. He spared her only a glance, before throwing the woman down at Voldemort's feet. "Something's vrong with her," the masked male stated in a heavily accented voice, interrupting. "She doesn't know vho she is. Doesn't even know she's a vitch."
As if to confirm the statement, the witch whimpered pathetically.
The Death Eater that had thrown her to the ground stared down in disgust.
Smoke rolled overhead. The forest glowed orange. Voldemort's slitted eyes shifted from red to ice blue as he ignored his followers and the red head, instead staring directly towards her.
Kally shuddered beneath his penetrating gaze, wanting to step back, but unable.
"My Lord?"
That snake-faced bastard, the one who had tried to kill Harry more times than she even wanted to know about, spared the broken and whimpering woman at his feet barely a glance. "She has been oblivated," he said coldly, stepping over her. "She is of no longer of ussse. Kill her."
Alecto Carrow let out a shriek, grabbing at the robes of the Death Eater nearest, tugging upon them and desperately screaming, "Please! Please! No! No I'll be good! I'll be good!"
The full grown woman lay in the dirt, clawing at black robes, begging for her life. She sounded like a child.
Kally sucked in her breath as she realized the woman probably was. If she'd had a lifetime of bad decisions erased from her mind, she certainly was. Death Eaters didn't magically just appear one day as adults. It started in school, if seeing what was happening to Dean was anything to judge by.
The Death Eater kicked Carrow's hands off him, the woman shrieking in pain and shirking away, curling in on herself.
The wizard's lips simply curled, as if torn between hesitation and disdain.
Inevitably he decided upon the latter.
The bulky wizard slashed his wand at the ground, not even looking at the woman. A vicious red light flung from the wooden weapon's tip, like a whip, and it sliced the woman's throat wide open.
Alecto Carrow's terrified cry cut off with a liquefied splash. The flesh had peeled back exposing twitching arteries and blood vessels, stringy tendrils of muscle and meat, the dark red blood pouring out. A strange, yellow-like, cottage cheese substance spilled out, like padding between her outer skin and muscle.
Kally realized with stomach twisting nausea that it was what excess fat looked like.
The witch jerked, falling with a dull thud. Her body spasmed, gurgling, blood-slickened fingers clutching at her own throat…
Quickly those desperate fingertips, sinking into her own neck, loosened, falling slack. The woman's previously mad-looking gaze shifted, turning glossy, staring at her killer's blood-stained boot, as if too weak to look anywhere else.
She continued to twitch, making gurgling, gasping sounds for at least a minute.
Voldemort did not pay her any notice. Instead his eyes slowly slid down Kalliandra's form, Kally nearly shuddering until his eyes landed upon her foot, where the hand of Bellatrix Lestrange lay crushed beneath it, the fingers still twitching, struggling to move. It was like trying to stomp on a particularly large spider that just refused to die.
The most vile, evil of all wizards actually smiled. "You are,"he praised acidly, "clever."
Then Voldemort's icy eyes followed the bloodied, blackened-goo trail upon the ground, a trail that the dismembered hand had left in its wake, to the sliced up remains of Bellatrix Lestrange's body. What was left of her lay on the clearing's periphery, half concealed by shadows and forest overgrowth, one of the legs actually already on fire, the raunchy stench of hair on her head burning.
There was not a trace of emotion upon Voldemort's face.
"Bellatrixxxx," he said simply, "how…dissssapointing."
Avery stood there, a crazed look in his eyes. A ragged bandage hung tattered and torn from his arm, the thing soaked in a brownish-red substance that was clearly drying blood. He looked like he'd seen better days, Harry and Tonks clearly having done a number on him.
And Avery, unlike Voldemort, didn't look sad at all to see Lestrange dead.
In fact, he looked gleeful.
The accented, masked Death Eater with them saw Bellatrix and audibly gagged, stepping backwards, recoiling in slight revulsion, whilst the other…
The other yanked his mask off, it falling between his fingers. He stared. He stared as if in shock."Bella…"
Kally didn't recognize him. She didn't recognize him at all.
The wizard's head darted from the body of Bellatrix Black to her, then back.
Then his face contorted into pure fury. A raw, primal scream sounded. "SHE KILLED HER! I'LL KILL HER! THAT FUCKING MUDBLOO-"
The dark haired wizard lunged towards her, wand out-
Her breath caught. Regulus cursed, moving as if to block her.
Voldemort beat them to it.
The Dark Lord flicked his wand carelessly, it knocking the enraged wizard back against Avery. Avery caught him, then shoved him off in disgust.
"Such manerssss. Is that any way to greet our guesssts?"Voldemort chastised. Another flick of his wand sent the infuriated one freezing in place, heaving angered breaths, a look of such raw, twisted malice aimed at her that Kally felt completely and undeniably afraid of what he would do to her if he was released.
The pale-faced serpent had barely spared his servant a glance.
"I highly doubt one ssssuch as her could have done this to Bellatrix," Voldemort said calmly. "Those marksss were made by a wand, and this one lackssss a certain…talent."
Kally hissed, eyes narrowing onto the snake's, whilst Avery scoffed – loudly. "Don't," he drawled, "underestimate her. That fucking bitch would do it with a knife."
"No," she snapped without thinking, "I'd rather tie her up and leave her for the wolves. Less mess. Think she would have liked a costume?" They had left Avery dressed in drag after all.
Nevermind how weak her voice sounded or the black spots before her eyes. She met Avery's hateful gaze and tried to hold it.
Avery snarled.
Voldemort threw his head back and laughed. It was a cold, hollow sound.
She hadn't expected her murder to go down like this. It was far, far too calm. The forest crackled violently around them, a flick of Voldemort's wand dispelling the smoke skyward and out of the clearing. The forest was filled with it. It was so thick she could no longer see into it, and she felt sick thinking that Harry and Tonks were somewhere within it.
She hoped they had run.
Somehow she knew better.
Closing her eyes she silently prayed. She didn't know to what or whom, but she prayed they were okay.
"Black!"
Kally's eye snapped open. Avery was staring at Regulus as if just having noticed him. He seemed unsurprised to see him standing there, in the flesh. He merely seemed annoyed.
Besides her Regulus cursed her name beneath his breath. "You just had to get their attention," he drawled quietly, for only her to hear.
"I was open," she whispered tiredly, "to suggestions."
"That pink haired wonder-brat owes me a 1949 vintage of Domaine Leroy Richebourg Grand Cru," Regulus muttered under his breath so only she could hear.
Kally might have wondered what type of liquor that was, but it felt like her legs were about to give out. She wanted to creep backwards, slowly. She wanted to flee, run, only knew she was physically unable to at that moment.
And Black had stayed with her.
He'd stayed with her to buy Tonks and Harry a chance.
The injured Potions' Master snarled, leaning heavily on his makeshift cane, the gnarled branch the only thing propping him up as he fixed Avery with a dark, dark stare.
They were exposed in the middle of the clearing. There was no hiding. There was no running. Regulus stood his ground besides her, wand clenched in hand, staring coldly back at those he'd once called friends whilst clearly fantasizing about drinking.
Kally only realized this as she felt Bellatrix's fingers trying to claw their way out from beneath her foot. The people they now faced down had once been Regulus' friends. People he'd fought with. They'd thought he was dead.
Finally, slowly, Voldemort's eyes swiveled away from Bellatrix's body, landing on Regulus. His ice-blue gaze shifted back to red, flickering with recognition, a cold, cruel smile twisting his unnatural features.
"Ahhh Regulussss. How kind of you to finally join us." The wizard's slitted eyes moved in a way wholly unnatural for a human. It looked like a lid had swiftly covered those horrible eyes from the bottom up, in a reverse blink.
Regulus, however, did not blink.
Voldemort stared back with a twisted smile.
A long dead tree finally burned all the way through, the trunk snapping, falling within the forest. Ash and sparks scattered into the air, smoke swirling amidst them. Kally choked on it, barely able to breath in the acrid tasting air, and still…
No one spoke.
Regulus was the first to break the silence.
"I can't help but notice," he drawled, "that you don't seem surprised to see me."
"You'll address him as MY LORD," Avery boomed.
Regulus barely batted an eye. "He has not been my lord," he drawled, "for some time."
"I'll cut out your tongue for that discretion-" Avery threatened-
A spine-chilling laugh escaped Voldemort, the Dark Lord amused. "Now, now, Avery. Regulusss is entitled to his opinion. However foolisssh it may be." Slowly he turned to his followers, hand sweeping to free the infuriated man who wanted her dead. "Rodolphus," Voldemort questioned, "do you remember what I promisssed, if I were ever to find the traitor?"
The one called Rodolphus' mouth twisted into a sneer, nodding fixedly in response. Kally did not miss the way his eyes lingered upon Bellatrix's body, looking ready to kill. "You'd kill him swiftly," he growled. "You stated they would see green before even realized they'd been discovered, my Lord."
The Dark Lord smiled. "Yesss, but I lied."Voldemort turned back towards Regulus, smiling that horrible smile. "I am afraid, dear Regulus, that it will not be as quick as advertissssed."
Regulus just twisted an unaffected smirk across his face. "Eager for some quality time?" he questioned, casually tossing out, "See Dolph, knew you'd all miss me." Unbeknownst to Kally, Harry was listening, the casual arrogance of Regulus' words whilst in danger so eerily reminiscent of Sirius that they nearly buckled him.
But Kally didn't know this, and neither did Regulus.
Black sneered. "How'd you know I wasn't dead?" he demanded.
Voldemort moved, sweeping like fog across the earth. "Severusss, unlike you, has been loyal." The response was simple, easy. "So kind of him to let us know when you chossse to wander away from the cassstle."
Kally's heart skipped.
Snape had given Regulus up.
He'd told Voldemort when he'd be in the forest!
Besides her Regulus betrayed nothing. "Ah, him."
"Yes,"Voldemort agreed, eyes sliding towards her. "Though I was not expecting a bonus creature for the taking."
Kalliandra stumbled a step backwards without thinking, freeing Bellatrix's hand, Voldemort's expression turning bright at the sight of it. "Sssseee Rodolphus? Ssssuch dramatics, whilssst your wife lives on." A flick of his wand and the hand launched off the ground, summoned in between his long fingers.
Voldemort lured at the hand as if it were a prized diamond, stroking a long, pale finger lovingly across the graying skin…
Then he tossed the severed hand to Rodolphus, the repulsed, furious man fumbling and nearly dropping it in his shock.
Only then did Kally realize that there had been a wedding ring on the severed hand.
It matched the one on Rodolphus'.
Kally shuddered, nausea rising up as she tried to not look at the remains of the body. It was like a wild animal had savaged it.
A chill swept up her spine, hair rising along the back of her neck. Her hazel eyes darted up-
Red ones were staring into them, curious. As they stared into hers they shifted, slowly changing back to that unbelievably icy blue…
Frankly Kally preferred green.
Voldemort took a step towards her, as if uncertain what to do with her. Seeing this, Regulus stepped protectively forward, wand raised-
"Crucio!"
The unforgivable dropped Regulus to the ground, the wizard's screams so loud that the buzzing within Kalliandra's perforated ear reached new levels. Regulus screamed as the curse was held, Voldemort never taking his eyes from hers.
The familiarity within his eyes terrified her.
"You look," he said as if in awe, "so very much alike her."
Kally breathed, whilst Regulus screamed. Smoke coiled around them like black fog, her lungs not working. Some had escaped Voldemort's spell. "Like who?"
Voldemort's head tilted, the gesture almost akin to a curious dog. His bare feet shuffled him several steps closer, until he stood directly in front of her, so close she could practically feel him.
Her heart fluttered.
The only person that had ever been this close to her, looking at her like that, was Harry.
Yet something familiar was in his eyes, something so alike Harry's…
She trembled.
It frightened her.
Regulus continued to scream soul wrenching cries, the blazing light of the cruciatus sending terrible, deadly shadows dancing across the clearing.
Voldemort did not seem to notice.
A long, skeletal finger slowly extended, brushing softly beneath her chin-
Her breath caught, Voldemort gently forcing her face up. A breeze gusted forth from the trees, carrying a thick wave of flaming heat. The heat sent her hair whirling around her face and Voldemort's robes billowing around them, brushing against her jeans. The way he looked at her…
She stared into those icy eyes and felt her heart stutter sickeningly. Nausea churned in her stomach, Kally tasting bile on her tongue as he caressed her cheek like a lover would. The feel, the fact that only Harry had ever touched her like that…
"A Reach…child…do you know how rare you are?"
Around them the fires burned, Voldemort…oblivious. Kally shivered despite the oppressing heat and black spots began to dance before her eyes, the blood loss and pain threatening to take her.
Kally summoned all the strength she had left just to remain standing. She swayed, unable to do anything, her wand hanging limply at her side. Her fingers loosened, growing weak…
The entire time Voldemort kept his pale wand on Regulus, the Cruciatus persisting. Regulus' body convulsed, twisting into unnatural configurations that were bound to snap the spine, the wizard being tortured to within an inch of his life.
Kally wanted to scream for Voldemort to stop, to leave him alone, but from experience she knew that would only prolong it.
Begging only made creatures like him happy.
She'd seen it when they'd attacked her family.
Kally tried to stay conscious, trying desperately to keep track of where Rodolphus Lestrange was, where he had put the severed hand, out of the corners of her black-speckled eyes.
If she were going to die, she wasn't going alone. She needed that hand. It was a horcrux. Somehow, she needed to get it. A despaired part of her wondered where Harry was, where Tonks was. They had really left them…
Hadn't that been what she'd wanted?
Kally was starting to have trouble breathing. Every breath sent her broken ribs screaming, the Reach unable to draw air in deeply.
Her vision suddenly faded, legs weakening….
"Viressss vitae."
The hissing was within her mind, within her ears. A hand upon her face-
Kally gasped, oxygen flooding her. Her vision cleared, the nightmarish scene remaining. The only difference was that Voldemort's pale wand, one that looked so much like hers – made of yew – had turned upon her. It was no longer pointing at Regulus, no longer delivering a curse of pure pain.
Her acerbic mentor lay on the ground, every muscle in Regulus' body still twitching despite the curse being lifted.
In the background Avery chuckled, before casting the cruciatus himself.
Once more Regulus' screams flooded her ears.
"What…what did you do to me?" she breathed tremulously. Voldemort had done something to her. Something to keep her awake, when her entire body wanted nothing more than to collapse, to lay down and die, to bleed out. She was trembling beyond her control, holding so, so still.
"Saved you from sssucombing to your injuriesss," he cooed. "My child…you are on the verge of collapssse."His skeletal fingers traced her jawline, sliding up along her face, caressing her cheek.
She silently wept. Please Harry, Tonks she quietly urged, eyes closing, run.
She dared not give them away.
"Look at me my child,"Voldemort simpered.
She did not.
Something hit her.
Instant calm flooded her mind. Her eyelashes fluttered open without her permission. She felt lazy, drugged. Languidly she looked up into his unfeeling eyes. A voice in her head, a strange voice, was telling her it was okay… she could trust him. He could heal her, he could help her.
Kally wanted to open her mouth and tell him everything. She wanted to tell him where Tonks was, where she thought Harry was. She wanted to tell him everything about the Order of the Phoenix, about who and what she was.
She tried to fight it; she really did.
She failed.
"I'm a Reach," she confessed breathlessly.
Voldemort's lips turned. "Yesss, you are," he affirmed. "Now tell me….where are the others hiding?" He paused, his chin suddenly lifting, nostrils flaring. "I could feel him near…now…I do not…"
Inside her mind she screamed. She wanted to tell him. What harm could it do? Harry wouldn't mind. But…
She couldn't.
A voice that sounded eerily like Harry's was urging her to be strong. .
Her lips opened, about to confess, only a solitary syllable came out instead.
"No."
Something flashed in Voldemort's eyes.
Then he let out the coldest laugh she'd ever heard, his emaciated fingertips tracing the slopes of her cheeks. "Ohhh, you shall make an exccccellent pet. The imperioussss is not fought by the weak."
And then, as if it had never happened, that calm, relaxed, peaceful sensation evaporated.
The voice within her mind was gone, and the searing pain in her chest, in her abdomen returned in a torrent.
She gasped, taking a step back-
A flick of Voldemort's fingers sent her entire form stilling, unable to move. So she didn't. "I am not," she hissed, "weak."
Once more he tilted his head, curiously. "No."He took a shuffling step closer…
She positively shook, but it wasn't from fear. It was disgust. "Get away from me."
Voldemort merely smiled, his hand suddenly grabbing her abdomen, fingers digging into her stomach so hard the pain was blinding.
Kally screamed.
In the Forbidden Forest there was a sudden scuffle, Avery dropping the cruciatus on Regulus, he and Rodolophus' heads whipping towards the noise. The masked Death Eater appeared to be frowning.
Harry.
Voldemort hissed, "Find them!"but did not move. The Death Eaters scattered into the smoke and flames, whilst Voldemort's nails dug into her abdomen, fingernails drawing blood through her shirt as a solitary word in Latin was spoken, a flash of light-
The pain lessened slightly, Kally nearly falling back-
His wand prevented that, leaving her upright and gasping. "What-what did you-"
"Gave you more time. It will not do to have my petsss expire. Especcccially ones ssso much alike her…"
She wet her lips. "Who?"
Something within his eyes flashed, almost amused, and then…
"Hazel."
Her heart skipped, racing. She didn't know who Voldemort was talking about, butKally already hated that name. She truly did.
"I'm not," she choked, "her."
From the way he was looking at her, she realized he didn't necessarily care. "Come with me," he instead implored, "and you will not have to die. The thingssss I can show you…"
Voldemort's long, pointed nail caressed her chin, Kally shuddering. His finger paused, a shrewd look crossing his face as he smiled sinisterly, leaning close, speaking so, so close to her ear. His breath grazed her earlobe…"Do you know how rare you are? Do you know…what I would do to protect you? She could have had a place amongsssst us too. She chosssse poorly. But you…you could be one of my favoritesss…"
Kally stared into Voldemort's slitted eyes in pure, raw terror. She sucked in a breath, blinking smoke and tears from her eyes, not wanting to know what he meant. A flash of Fred's humor came inexplicably to mind, her chest tightening…
"Sorry," she weakly managed, "not into bestiality."
Confusion flashed within the Dark Lord's eyes, so Kally recklessly clarified it for him. "You look," she breathed faintly, "like a snake."
The slap leveled her, Kally striking the ground. She didn't remember crying out, but she heard it.
Wandlessly Voldemort yanked her back upright, Kally hanging in front of Voldemort, suspended by invisible hands. Blood dripped in her eyes, pain in everything. Her abdomen felt warm, like something had welled within it…
Voldemort's eyes had once again grown red, fury flashing…
"That one's prone to mouthing off, my Lord," Avery called from the Forest, lips curled back in a sneer as he hunted for Tonks and Harry. "Once you're done I'd be happy to take care of-"
"SSSILENCE!"
Avery resumed his search, "Humana reveleo!" shouted, followed by a loud cuss. "I curse that countercharm, Lestrange!"
Lestrange snarled in response.
Voldemort ignored them both, his attention firmly fixated upon her.
Kally's toes barely scraped the dirt as the Dark Lord kept her suspended, staring at her predatorily.
"You are not her," he hissed, as if reminding himself. "But you could be. You could avoid her misssstakes."He leaned in once more, the pale yew of his wand reaching out to caress her side. Kally wanted to claw off her own skin. "I can make you."
He paused, looking thoughtful.
"I killed her, you know," he revealed, as if sharing a secret. "It saddened me, but…sssshe could not see the bigger picture…refusssed to use her power for what it was meant for. T he power to kill, to take a life…" He looked at her as if he suddenly saw something. "You've felt it. The intoxxxxication. The thrill….with me…with ussss….you would embrace it."
She coughed, blood on her lips. "That's a hard," she whispered raggedly, "pass."
His eyes flashed. "You think thessse people will embrace you? They will not! They recognize nothing of true uniqueness. They fail to recognize the importance of blood-"
"Clearly," she croaked, "you forget…" her eyes lifted. "I'm worse than a mudblood."
"Your blood is unique."
Harry'd been right; Voldemort was delusional, inconsistent in his views on blood status. The cold was returning. The world was burning around her, the air superheated, yet she was cold.
She ought to have been worried.
She couldn't find it in herself to care.
"Still," she breathed, "a hard pass." She felt so, so weak.
Voldemort noticed. He lifted his finger, crooking it, helping her to wandlessly stand more upright. For the longest time he eyed her curiously, and then…
"The Ministry, Dumbledore's foolssss…they will sssee you dead," he promised.
Her heart was fluttering in a terrible, sickened kind of way. "Probably," she murmured agreement.
Voldemort hissed. "I have waysss to force you to ssssee thingsss my way…"
Everything hurt so, so badly, yet Kally let out a tiny laugh. "My boyfriend," she promised on a barely there breath, face tilting up to look Voldemort in the eyes, "is going to kill you."
She didn't remember hitting the ground.
She didn't remember the curse striking.
She just remembered screaming.
Kally screamed louder and harder than she had in her entire life. A thousand white hot knives cut into her skin, slicing her over and over, only to somehow heal and slice again. The pain never relented. It never let up.
Kally screamed.
Blinding light filled her vision. It was bright, hot white. Fire and laughter, agony so acute she could not breathe, yet the curse would not let her pass out, would not let her curl up and die.
It lifted like a burning blanket that had been doused with water.
Kally gasped, convulsing, crying as she found herself face down, hands clawing the ground, fingertips so deeply embedded in the dirt that two of her nails had been torn off. The coppery taste of blood was upon her tongue, Kally sucking in small, ragged breaths, panting as a knife slowly twisted within her stomach. She was bleeding internally. She could feel it. She shouldn't be able to, but swore she could.
Weakly she tried to look up, lifting her pale face from the dirt, seeing Regulus sprawled out, immobile, near enough to touch. Overhead the boughs of ancient trees blazed in a burning orange inferno, lighting up the night with sickly red shadows.
Voldemort stood above her, running his fingers along his long, whitish wand.
Kally's head spun, it harder and harder to breathe. This was it. She was going to die. The last thing she would ever see would be this pale, slit-nosed creature staring down with his red eyes, the forest burning behind him, smoke coiling upwards into the night sky.
Her traitorous body spasmed with pain, vision swimming with black.
"Perhapsss," Voldemort hissed, "another lesssssson is required?"
Deep in the Forbidden Forest long eyelashes fluttered over irises of impossible, near unnatural gold. Kally's eyes looked out across the trampled grass of the clearing, locking onto a blurred, human-sized mirage emerging from the flames.
It stepped out into the clearing, ten meters behind Voldemort's back.
It moved with purpose.
It had no intention of stopping.
Slowly, slowly that form began slowly flickering into something more solid.
The first thing Kalliandra recognized was their eyes.
Forest green eyes.
Even this far away they shone like the sodding moon on a clear night.
Those eyes held onto hers with a fierceness that should have sent Voldemort running. Kally's lip bled freely, her form shaking in a weak laugh.
Black spots danced in her vision, her head screaming, but she had enough strength left to see Voldemort crouching before her, the long end of his wand touching beneath her chin, forcing her to look back up to regard him.
He was distracted.
Behind him a wand appeared in the figure's hand.
He moved silently.
Quietly Kally laughed.
"You like," Voldemort hissed in cruel question, "the cruciatus?"
"No," she hoarsely choked, the mirage moving. "It's just…my boyfriend…" managing a breath, "now he's really," coughing, "going to kill you."
Voldemort's eyes flashed. "Pray tell child. Who isss that?"
The mirage moved closer.
Something warm that was not internal bleeding swelled within her as she looked into Voldemort's acid eyes and spat, "Harry."
The monster's eyes flashed with recognition. "Potter," he spat. His eyes turned, if possible, redder. "And what makes you think that a pathetic child would ever challenge me?"
"Because," she rasped secretively, "he's right behind you."
Around them the world burned.
Voldemort snarled with pure, undiluted fury.
Across the clearing Kally offered a weak, apologetic smile. It was for him, and only him. Then she closed her eyes, the tip of Voldemort's wand dropping from her chin as he spun around to attack-
Dirt from his bare feet kicked up into her face.
Across the ground Kally's fingers wrapped loosely around her own wand, the tip beginning to glow the instant her fingers touched upon it.
Golden light crawled across the pale wood…
Then Kally let loose with everything she had.
ECOTS
April 23rd, 1997 – 12:08 a.m.
Harry knew what she was going to do before she did it.
His gaze locked onto the pale, bruised and battered witch that lay before Riddle. Her blood-matted hair hung limply around her dirt-smeared face, clothes torn and covered in soot, a purple-silver bruise already covering her entire left side. She lay there without a trace of glamour. In fact, she was the very antithesis of it, looking like something Buckbeak had thrown up, the witch feeble as fuck.
She was the most beautiful creation he'd ever seen.
And he knew there was nothing he could do to stop her.
The disillusion spell melted off him, Moody's lesson about not being disillusioned in a wand fight unless your comrades knew exactly where you were having sunk the hell in. Tonks was out there, and the last thing he needed was her hexing his head off accidentally.
Because hell, the woman was accident prone.
Besides, the swirling smoke would have given him away anyway. He would have appeared as a clear specter amidst the smoke, and really, he couldn't have that.
Staring into Kalliandra's eyes whilst Voldemort's Death Eaters searched the surrounding forest, having watched her do the asininely stupid thing of 'standing up to Riddle,' he seized onto a singular thought: he was going to fucking marry that girl.
With a flick of his wand a stag burst forth, Harry snapping, "Tonks, Moody, stay away from the edge of the clearing. It's about to light up like it's Guy-Friggin'-Fawkes."
Prongs bowed and ran, the patronus message barreling into the flames encircling their fight, just as Voldemort bellowed furiously, rising and turning, wand flying forth-
Kaylens had been quicker.
Her spell hit him in the back, and Harry watched as Voldemort's knees buckled.
Riddle's wrathful hiss practically exploded, the green killing curse predictably flying out at Harry's head.
Thing was, Harry had been expecting it.
And he too had been quicker than Riddle.
Harry lunged to the side, "Accio arbor!" snapped, a dead and flaming tree flying out from the forest and absorbing the impact. It exploded, wooden splinters flung like shrapnel, Harry ducking beneath the deadly onslaught but pressing forth.
He made no attempt to hex back.
He stalked closer to Voldemort like a fucking suicide bomber approaching his target.
He wouldn't, couldn't risk throwing a hex and hitting Kaylens or Black. And he knew Voldemort would use either of them as a shield in an instant.
Like hell.
Voldemort's burning red eyes sizzled, flashing with pain as Kalliandra's spell slowly crushed his heart, fighting against his life force, the Dark Lord screaming, "I AM STRONGER THAN YOU!"
For the rest of his life Harry would not know which one of them he was talking to.
What he did know was that Voldemort temporarily abandoned his assault on him, whipping towards where Kally lay, struggling.
It was a mark of how badly she was hurting Riddle that he'd diverted his attention.
Voldemort's skeletal wand reared back at her head-
Harry's hand snapped, a boulder pulled from the far side of the clearing with a resounding crunch. It tore through the surrounding dirt and tree roots that had embedded it for centuries, launching out and up. It flung through the air like a fired arrow, aimed at Voldemort's skull.
Tom Riddle looked up just in time. The bastard ducked, the boulder flung past. It careened right through four trees, the trunks snapping like twigs. The cacophonous crashing was enough to wake the fucking dead.
Harry kept coming towards him like an unstoppable force, like a tsunami bound for shore, and had Voldemort been a sane man the dangerous calm in the young wizard's eyes would have terrified him.
Kally let out a cry, her wrist vibrating violently with the force of her spell as she tried to hold it to no avail. It was hurting Voldemort, weakening him, but with his horcruxes intact it wouldn't kill him.
Harry knew what she was doing.
She was buying him time.
He'd snog her for it later.
"IT'S HIM!"
The voice erupted from the forest, the idiotic freaking Death Eaters finally figuring out that their favorite psychopathic leader was under attack by the child DADA prodigy that the Daily Prophet continually assured them was 'mentally unstable.' They could be heard casting fire-repelling and water-blasting charms, fighting their way back towards the clearing.
Harry's eyes didn't leave Voldemort's. He just lifted his free hand to reveal the tiny, neon blue pebble between his fingers.
Then Harry crushed it between his thumb and forefinger. It smashed like an inconsequential flea.
The entire perimeter of the clearing they stood within lit up like it was fucking New Years at midnight, with a drunk fireworks commissioner left in charge.
Explosions detonated approximately every meter and a half. Reds, pernicious purples, neon greens, toxic yellows, painful pinks, and obnoxious oranges sprayed skyward like oversized sparklers, sizzling and catching more things on fire, before each and every single one of them exploded into a magical creature that roared.
A Death Eater – Rodolphus Lestrange – had been charging the clearing when a purple nundu emerged to life.
It blasted him straight up, his spine slamming into a low hanging branch. The bough had already been burning, the large wood weakened and breaking with a resounding snap, rather like Lestrange's back. Rodolphus' robes instantly caught fire, the Death Eater slamming back down to the ground, the tree branch hot on his heels.
It landed right on top of him, crushing what was left of his back and pinning him to where bright, fiery purple sparks continued erupting skyward. His flesh began peeling off from the third degree burns in seconds.
Harry made a mental note to thank Fred and George for the New Year's presents. Really, had he known that the galleon donation his fourth year would earn him a lifetime supply of Death Eater deterrents he'd have emptied his vault earlier.
Lestrange was screaming.
Harry did not care, and neither did Voldemort. The latter's foot had kicked out, slamming against Kalliandra's side, his girlfriend letting out a cry so loud that it cut straight through him, his heart nearly stopping in sheer fear.
The golden light attacking Voldemort flickered out.
Kally collapsed, curling in on herself with a whimper.
Harry saw fucking red.
Voldemort roared, his wand slashing at Harry with words that were sure as hell overused by him. Hell, by this point Harry could write a doctoral thesis on ole Riddle's war play book.
That was okay though. It was okay because Kally's attack had gotten Harryclose enough to do what he'd wanted to do in the first place.
Before the word 'kedavra' was even finished Harry had broken into a run.
Harry Potter threw himself at the tall, slim figure that was the most feared wizard in all of wizarding history, and tackled Voldemort around the waist.
The sheer momentum of his hit catapulted them over Kally's prone form, the two slamming onto the twig covered ground. They went skidding, sliding. Harry's fists were already pummeling Voldemort's unnatural face, his knee lashing out and bashing against the inside of Riddle's wrist.
Dark Lord or not, Harry still felt the tendons in Riddle's wrist snap, the pale-wooded wand flung free. It bounced across the ground, its uncontrolled flight ending as it smacked against the side of Regulus Black's face, rousing him.
ECOTS
April 23rd, 1997 – 12:08 a.m.
The werewolf slammed into the tree at the approximate height her head had just been.
Tonks rolled onto her back and sent a silver-particle-laced charm flying up, striking the wolf straight up the snout as it crashed down on top of her. She felt her ribs break on impact, crying out as the two hundred plus pound beast pinned her, writhing violently as the silver attacked its snout, sending it into the world's most forceful sneezing fit on record.
Tonks legs and left arm were pinned, the Auror entirely unable to move them.
She was left with little else to do but what she actually did.
She shoved her wand's end straight up the wolf's snout and snapped off another silver spell that sent the werewolf howling and rolling off her.
Unfortunately her wand got stuck in its nose, and it took her wand with it, leaving her covered in snot.
"Ew," she choked, gunk dripping down her face, "wolf buggers."
That was when a second werewolf flew past her hiding place, Mad Eye Moody literally on top of it. Tonks shouted, recoiling back as the two slid into that same friggin' tree, the bark audibly cracking. That was it. Absolutely it! The next time, she was making Harry choose the hiding place. Apparently all of hers were secretly 'danger attractors!'
Her attention was jerked to Moody as he hauled off and jabbed his peg leg into the approximate location where the werewolf's manly junk ought to be located.
One might wonder how she knew where a werewolf's – ahem – package was located.
The answer was simple really.
Remus.
She'd found rather creative ways to entertain him when he transformed with wolfsbane. It got his mind off that whole 'bloodlust' thing that horrible potion he'd been fed had given him.
The wolf howled so loudly that even Tonks winced.
Then Moody shoved his wand into the wolf's snout – the teeth were currently trying to bite him – and fired off a stunner so powerful that it sent the wolf's head snapping back. The ball of mangy fluff slumped down onto Mad Eye, Tonks gaping at the two of them.
Moody shoved the wolf off him with a loud grunt.
Tonks' response was immediate.
"Where in the bleeding HELL have you been!?"
Again Moody grunted. "Taking care of something…ugly." He yanked his peg leg out of what looked like the wolf's literal ass hole with a squelching sucking sound. Tonks threw up a little, Moody just frowning down at his replacement appendage. "Ugh. Going to have to burn that now." He kicked it out and sent a stringy brown substance flying-
Tonks might have thrown up a lot had a silver stag not erupted in her face right then. She gaped at it, hearing Harry's warning, whipping around on all fours to stare through the fire into the clearing as she realized too late that the idiot was doing something. "Mad Eye-"
Everything exploded.
Moody tackled her, covering her body with his own as a flaming pink flamingo detonated directly over them.
ECOTS
April 23rd, 1997 – 12:09 a.m.
Harry's fist reared back and punched Riddle in his fucking face. The Gryffindor was screaming, a sickly greenish-red blood splattering from what Voldemort used to call a nose, the blood fucking acid-like. It burned Harry's skin, but he didn't care. He didn't care, nor notice that it was burning holes in his skin.
He just kept hitting him, slinging the clearly tainted blood everywhere.
Something red flew out of the night.
That same something slammed against Harry's side, knocking him off of Voldemort and sending him rolling.
Harry lay flat on his back for a second, finding Fawkes above him, the phoenix crying furiously and flinging his head back and forth to liberally sprinkle tears.
It was only then that Harry realized how weak his appendages felt. The acid-blood that had been smeared across him was being rinsed away by Fawkes, his familiar snarling within his mind. 'Idiot. He's infused with basilisk venom!'
Harry had only a half second of surprise, before he'd darted up, sending an indignant Fawkes squawking into the air.
Voldemort had begun crawling towards his wand-
Regulus Black blearily looked at it, his unfocused eyes looking blurrily between the wand, Voldemort, and Harry.
Harry's wand was already aimed at Voldemort's crawling form, "REDUCTO!" shouted with not an instant to spare. It slammed into the creature, blasting him sideways, away from Regulus and Kaylens. Kally had thrown her arms over her head, face buried against the dirt as blood and broken rocks flew.
Regulus hadn't moved as quick. Some of Voldemort's blood flew into his face. The wizard instantly choked, gagging-
'Oh for fuck's sake!' Fawkes snarled, the phoenix slamming its talons on top of Regulus' shoulders and crying onto his face. The last remaining member of the House of Black attempted to pummel the bird only for Fawkes to haul off and nearly bite off his finger.
Harry couldn't be sure, but he could have sworn Fawkes looked smug.
He didn't have time to stop and check.
Harry lunged, stumbling forward in time to grab Voldemort's wand-
A spell slammed into his back. Harry didn't remember what happened next, but he remembered things flipping, spinning. He saw the fire in the forest and the dark sky overhead before slamming heavily down on his back. He lay there for a second, staring hazily at the sky, the stars appearing to dance before his eyes.
He heard a shuffling, scuttling sound.
Harry reached desperately for the wand, the heat pressing in from the forest on all sides. Voldemort's wand had been knocked out of his grasp.
Harry spotted it.
He lunged for it.
Voldemort was quicker. The dark wizard wandlessly summoned it, waving it at Harry in an 'ah, ah, ah' motion.
Harry hit the ground where the wand had just been with a resounding oomph, heaving a furious breath and shoving himself up on one hand, staring hatefully at the Dark Lord. Voldemort was standing awkwardly, blood dripping down his battered looking form, a clearly broken arm slowly snapping back into place.
The movement was unnatural, like watching a Muggle action flick in reverse.
It was exactly what had happened to Bellatrix Lestrange; the bastard was healing.
Harry cussed loud enough to earn him lifetime bans in at least five different countries.
Voldemort stood shakily, his red eyes burning like the devil himself, his newly reclaimed wand pointed at Kalliandra. Kally had realized this, but looked too weak to do a single, solitary thing to help herself. Black lay forgotten off to the side, Harry's gaze locking with his dark one, one so very much alike Sirius' for a quarter second, understanding passing between them….
Then Harry's attention snapped back to Voldemort, the youngest Gryffindor Seeker in a century slowly rising to his feet, staring at the way Riddle's bones began to snap systematically back into place, one-by-one. Harry held up his hands submissively. "Well hell Tom," he drawled in perfect Malfoy imitation, "bringing spectators into this? That's cheating."
Voldemort's blood-covered lips curled back in a cold, unfeeling laugh. "You're a fool, Harry Potter."
The direction of the bastard's wand sent Harry's heart into a near fucking panic, but he couldn't let it show. He met Voldemort's remorseless gaze and sneered. "My apologies, didn't realize you were offering duel etiquette lessons. Guess I missed my invite."
In the Forbidden Forest a pained howl erupted.
All parties in the center of the clearing ignored it.
Tom Riddle waggled his wand in Kalliandra's direction. "Ah, ah, ah. Mannersss Missster Potter. You wouldn't want to losse your girlfriend ssso young, now would you?"
Something so raw, so primal that he scarcely saw clearly erupted within his veins. "You so much as touch her," Harry promised, "and you and I both know you're not walking out of here."
Voldemort beheld him like he were no more than an uninteresting amoeba.
Then he threw back his head and laughed. "Oh, you sssshould have joined me, Potter. You could have been great amongsssst mine."
Harry's lips curled, tone unyielding. "Geeze, does that mean my fan boy membership has been revoked? And to think, I'd just collected enough Dark Mark tokens to earn myself the decoder ring."
For a fleeting second Voldemort looked confused, then recognition from a clearly Muggle youth flickered within his gaze.
Harry nearly burst with bitter humor. "Ah, the great pureblood prince knows what I'm talking about. Tell me, ole buddy ole pal, whatever would your blind followers think if they knew how tasty you found Muggle cereal?"
Voldemort didn't bat an eye. He uttered only three syllables. "Crucio."
Kalliandra screamed.
White hot anger burned Harry's veins. "Let her go!"
Riddle met his gaze with a cool smile. "No."
Kally bucked on the ground.
Harry's breathing had become labored. "Last chance, Riddle."
Something snapped in the Dark Lord's neck, the thing that had once been a man rolling his head as if suddenly feeling comfortable. "I rather think," he taunted, "I'll take her with me. I could use a new play thing."
"My girlfriend is not going anywhere," Harry promised, magic crackling, building up like a static charge.
"Give her time, Harry Potter," Voldemort calmly taunted, not once breaking the torture curse. "In time sssshe will be mine. She'll see the benefitsss of my followersss. If not, I will ussse her up and drain her dry as a mummified ssskeleton to leave at your front door." The wizard's lips twisted. "Don't worry, I'll leave her ssspare partsss intact for you to play with."
"I'm going to fucking kill you," Harry vowed. He didn't yell it. He didn't shout it. He said it calmly, because it was a promise.
Voldemort's gaze locked onto his own. "You and I are alike, Harry Potter. Eve-"
"I'm nothing like you!"
Riddle looked furious, unaccustomed to being interrupted. "Do you think it's a coincidence you choosssse her!?" His wand jerked, sending Kally's body flipping over like a rag doll, Harry's stomach bottoming out. "Of all the witchesss in the world, Harry Potter, you chossse her becaussssse she is jussst like the one that wasss mine!"
Harry stared. Harry stared, wanting nothing more than to end this venomous snake's life there and then. Harry stared because he wanted to kill him for what he was doing to Kaylens. For the fact that he might be killing her already injured body by measures.
But he also stared because he suddenly understood what the fuck Voldemort was talking about.
"You were in love with a Reach," he said flatly, a cold, cruel coil welling within his gut.
Voldemort merely laughed. "Join me, Harry Potter. Join me and sssshe can stay yoursss." His eyes flashed. "You know what she issss. How her sort end. Early death is inevitable. They are evolutionary dead endssss, but I can sssave her."
For a brief, hateful second Harry actually listened.
Then Kally let out a pained scream, and Harry's heart about broke.
He snarled, a dozen branches immediately launching off the ground and aiming at Voldemort like ready spears. "Let her go, Riddle."
Voldemort titled his head as if observing a misbehaving puppy and ignored him. "You know why I want you to join me, Harry Potter. My interessssts ssserve you bessst. Join me, and live. Continue to ssserve that meddlessssome fool in his cassstle and you will ssssurely die. I do not want to wasssste part of mysssself in your death."
Harry did not have to ask what Voldemort was referring to.
The horcrux.
Voldemort knew he was a horcrux.
Dumbledore had thought Voldemort hadn't. He'd thought that Harry had been an accidental horcrux, so Riddle hadn't had a clue.
But he did.
Fuck.
Harry's teeth ground so hard his enamel practically wore off. "Dying's worth it if it means dragging you to the grave with me."
Voldemort looked stunned, incapable of understanding why a person would have a complete and total disregard for their own life.
He'd never loved another. Not really. There was no way he could possibly understand.
"You'll never understand why I'll always refuse your offer Riddle," he stated firmly. Harry stared at Voldemort and echoed words he'd told him nearly a year ago. "You've never known real love, or friendship, and I feel sorry for you."
Riddle snarled.
Kally screamed.
Harry's heart again nearly broke.
But it didn't happen.
Instead what he had been waiting for did.
Regulus Black, unnoticed and forgotten about in Tom Riddle's arrogance, nailed Voldemort with a cutting curse from behind.
Voldemort screamed as the blood spouted from his back, spraying in an arc that Black blocked with a simple shielding charm. The cruciatus curse dropped abruptly from Kally, the non-witch collapsing onto the ground with a pained gasp. Harry was on her in an instant, sliding to his knees in front of her body, shielding her, "EXPELLIARMUS!" thrown at the exact instant Voldemort threw, "AVADA KEDAVRA!"
The two spells collided in mid-air, the red and green lights exploding into a deep gold. The combined force of the spells sent his wand arm ricocheting, Harry having to grab a hold of his wand with both hands to hold onto it. "Fawkes!" he shouted over the cacophonous humming. "Where are-"
'They're coming!'
Harry growled, his eyes locked onto Voldemort's over the glow nearly as bright as the sun. His retina's physically hurt, the slow arc of priori incantatem starting to expand out from the narrow beam of light connecting their wands. Through it all he still heard Kaylens weakly saying his name.
"Kally," he gasped, "when they get here I need you to go. Get on him and leave."
The stubborn witch weakly muttered something that sounded distinctly similar to 'no.'
Holding onto his violently shaking wand, in a fight to the fucking death, Harry Potter let out a loud laugh. Only she would argue with him at a time like this.
Merlin he was in love with her.
"Kaylens," he choked loudly, "do me a favor!"
"Any…thing…"
"Don't change!"
Harry's hair blew wildly around his head, Kaylens' whipping so fiercely he actually heard it. The contact between his and Voldemort's wands was getting stronger, wind now generated, Harry slowly getting drug from his knees, lifted to his feet…
"Harry!"
Her unbelievably weak voice was desperate. Harry chanced a look down, seeing her barely able to lift her face from the dirt, her entire form shaking. Wetness streamed down her face, the cruciatus cruel beyond measure. Her hands dug against the ground as she tried to prop herself up. She was trying. "Bellatrix…." She breathed. "Her hand….it's a-"
Whatever it was Harry never got a chance to hear.
At that precise instant the herd of thestrals Fawkes had summoned burst out of the flames.
Closely followed by every friendly owl in the entire forest.
Silverthorne barreled past, the reptilian-like horse biting the back of Kally's shirt and all but throwing her off the ground and onto himself.
In a heartbeat she was gone.
Another one snared Regulus Black.
As Harry was yanked fully from his feet, the spell sending him and Voldemort flying up out of the clearing, Harry had only one thought: Thank you Fawkes.
'No problem fledgling.'
Harry had enough sense left in him to realize that Fawkes had just read his mind.
Well shit, this was going to make private time with Kaylens seriously awkward.
ECOTS
April 23rd, 1997 – 12:10 a.m.
Tonks' head had stuck something and struck it hard.
With a low moan she looked blearily up, head swimming, the entire night sky lit up in a frenzy of fireworks so brightly lit that it was a marvel neither of them had had their head's blown off. Through Tonks' ringing ears it dimly occurred to her that on this night she and Remus had been curled up together on top of one of Hogwarts' towers. Which meant…
"How in the bleeding hell did I not see any of this!?" she exclaimed, shoving Moody off her with a grunt. That was a bad move, because her entire head began to pound like a Muggle child's home with a newly acquired drum set.
Mad Eye groaned, his shirt distinctly singed. "Obliviated you, obviously," he groaned.
With a slow dawning horror Tonks realized that was the only answer. It had to be. Both her and Remus clearly had to of been obliviated if they didn't remember any of this. She was pretty damn certain she'd have remembered seeing a chicken-shaped firework trying to peck a squirrel shaped one.
Then the squirrel turned around and pounced on the chicken, trying to do something else altogether to it.
Tonks was deeply concerned for the Weasley twins' mental well-being.
Then again she was also concerned for her own, given she was not oogling it like some sort of peeping tom.
"Plus," Moody helpfully grunted, impervious to the squirrel-chicken-screwing overhead, "Dumbledore cast a spell that obscured the forest from the castle."
Obscuring spell? Tonks blinked, little spots dancing in front of her eyes. She tried to swat at a few like wayward pixies. "He can do that?"
Off to the side one of the werewolf's whimpered, Moody's wand lashing out and shackling it with silver chains before Tonks could so much as blink. "Albus can do whatever the hell he wants," Alastor growled, not missing a beat, "far as the castle protectors are concerned he could dress the stone guardian's in drag and have them patrol the grounds in Muggle tutus."
Now Tonks flat out gawked. "Wait, he what?"
Mad Eye let out a long suffering sigh and clambered to his feet. Literal waves of heat could be seen rising from the ground, all the dry leaves curling in on themselves and igniting. "Minerva and him cast spells to obscure the castle's view, girl! Can't have the students seeing any of this." He said it as if such insanely complicated spells were the complete and total norm for people to cast. He cast a withering look up through the trees, where a firework shaped like a falcon had perched itself and appeared to be merrily setting branches on fire with brilliant blue flames. "Remind me to tell Molly her boys have had a grand influence on Potter's tactics."
Tonks snorted a laugh through her nose. Fred and George had definitely had an impact. Harry was-
Harry!
"SHIT!" She was on her feet and fell promptly against a tree. Weird. She did not remember her legs not working. The tree was also shockingly hot and if Tonks didn't know better, attempting to brand her right arm with some type of woodland-tree-nymph-brand.
In actuality it was just burning her.
The actual forest was burning, a wall of flame between them and the clearing. She blinked dazedly at it. "Mad Eye!" she hissed urgently, feeling extremely unsteady as the world literally spun in mocking, smoky circles around her. "Harry! Regulus! Kalliandra! They're in the clearing that's-"
She didn't even bother to finish and started trying to douse the forest to find a way through. It was taking a lot of concentration to focus and her head was really starting to throb.
She was also fairly positive that she was sliding down the tree trunk, no longer standing on her own two feet. That seemed like a bit of a trivial matter though. Besides, it was nice down here. There was less smoke.
Moody let out a no-nonsense snarl, sending silver chains cuffing the other werewolf. "What happened to Potter, where's Bellatrix, and why in Gyffindor's name are Regulus and Potter's girl out here too?" he demanded, never one to beat around the flaming bush.
"Harry went bezerk and tore auntie Bella to friggin' pieces, and dunno on the latter," she informed, spraying copious amounts of foam at an opening between two shrubs, casting the bubblehead charm on herself so she could breathe. "Honest to Merlin Mad Eye, I thought Kalliandra was dead! Then Harry ran the hell off-"
Moody snorted. "Course he would."
"Then Voldemort showed up."
Moody made a strangled sound like a half-dead cat. "WHAT!?"
"Voldemort," she said idly. "He showed up. I think he's probably dueling Harry by-"
That was all Tonks got to hear before something nailed her in the back of the head (it sounded suspiciously like one of Pomfrey's clinical diagnostic spells) Moody swearing and swearing loudly. "You're concussed, Nymphadora!"
Tonks leaned against the tree and shot him a grin, before sprayed him with foam. "Probably."
Moody snarled like a velociraptor. "When Voldemort is involved LEAD WITH THAT! Now get the hell out of here! Dumbledore and McGonagall are fighting their ways through and will meet you. Damn pink haired piles of-"
Tonks didn't fully hear all of what Mad Eye snarled, but he threw his wand out and sent a silver wolverine message flying out. She raised a hand politely, to ask a question about exactly what Dumbledore and McGonagall were fighting their way through – that seemed important – but Moody grabbed her and all but threw her towards the castle.
Tonks made it all of ten steps before she tripped over something.
Tonks fell flat on her ass, blinking at the groaning form of Rodolphus Lestrange. Tonks blinked once, twice, then called out to Moody. "Hey Mad Eye, I think Rodulph broke himself."
That was when a soot-covered Avery emerged from the flames, staring with a cold, cruel fury at her. The entire left side of his body was burnt, oozing a clear fluid that mixed with curled, blackened flaps of skin. His left arm hung limp at his side, Tonks unable to tell where his robes began and his arm flesh ended, and the wizard's entire form was shaking.
The stench was the worst part though. A sickly sweet stench attached her nose, and despite all the smoke Tonks could still somehow smell him.
Avery's lip curled back, looking from her, to Lestrange, then back.
Tonks waved her wand at him as if to say 'hi.'
Avery fixed her with a slow, cool smile, the Death Eater raising his wand and hissing, "Accio hand."
A severed hand with long fingernails shot out from Lestrange's robes, Avery fumbling for it with his good arm, pinning it between his forearm and chest. He managed to do this one handed, without letting go of his wand, but only just managed it.
Then Avery shakily leveled his wand on her with obvious intent-
Tonks was considering what he'd look like with rabbit ears when a thestral to burst out of the woods, its tail on literal fire, and slammed directly into him.
The impact sent both Avery and the hand flying, the person atop the thestral summoning the hand quickly before summoning her.
Tonks was unceremoniously yanked from the ground, slamming into her cousin, who threw himself atop her on top of the still running thestral.
As her hand pounded and swam Tonks could think of only one thing.
"Reggie, you turned a thestral into a horse."
Not far behind Moody cursed the day she was born.
ECOTS
April 23rd, 1997 – 12:11 a.m.
The owls swarmed.
Before Priori Incantatum could rip Harry and Voldemort above the boughs of the forest the owls swarmed. Fawkes led the war cry in a frenzy of red and gold, the birds attacking Voldemort from all angles, the Dark Lord screaming in raw, undiluted fury-
The spells broke apart, Voldemort's wand literally bit by a particularly brave Great Horned owl and torn from his hand.
Eight meters of empty space hung beneath Harry, and he dropped like a weighted down rock over the Marianas Trench.
With a screech Fawkes grabbed at him, the phoenix's talons cut against his arm, jerking him and slowing his fall.
A barn owl had been struck by the rebounding killing curse, falling to the clearing's ground with a thump. It's feathers ballooned out on impact, Harry slamming to the ground right alongside it, coughing raggedly as he looked into its round, unseeing eyes.
Fawkes let out another screech, it far more demanding than his typical trilling.
Harry groaned, the world swimming.
Fawkes apparently decided that his human wasn't moving quick enough. Harry could understand that, given he was in the middle of a battle for his life and all.
Fawkes bitch slapped him. Hard. He smacked a gleaming golden talon directly across Harry's left cheek, knocking the Seeker's head against the ground with a thwack and leaving a small gash in his flesh.
Harry swore, but got the point. Everything hurt, but he couldn't afford to let trivial matters like pain slow him down.
He clambered up on one knee, wand leveled at Voldemort's body. Over twenty five feet of free falling wasn't easy on the human body, and Riddle hadn't had the benefit of a Fawkes cushion to slow him down. The unnatural looking bastard lay there, one leg curled at an unnatural angle, his arm twisted behind him, his body mechanically jerking and cracking as it slowly tried to heal itself…
Blood trickled down Harry's lips, the wizard spraying it as he spat, "Reducto," calmly at the wizard who had made so, so much of his life a living hell.
The blasting curse slammed into Voldemort's lower limbs, sending them snapping, a jagged, bloodied bone sticking out of the dark wizard's lower left leg.
Harry grimaced, exhaustion crawling through him like a toxin as he slowly clambered to both feet, staggering a step closer, "Reducto," uttered again.
This time Voldemort's arm, the one that had been trying to snap back into place, snapped backwards, yanked right out of its socket.
Riddle moaned, a flick of his fingers seizing the owl that still had his wand with an invisible force.
Then it threw the Great Horned owl against a tree, every hollow bone in its body snapping, the owl falling limply to the ground and crying.
The wand rolled across the dirt-
Skeletal fingers reached for it, blindly summoning it-
Harry felt his heart leap up in his chest-
He knew what he had to do.
He also knew, in that cursed, terrible moment that it wouldn't work. Too many horcruxes, himself included, were still intact.
Suddenly he understood why Voldemort himself had not come after him directly, when they'd been on that island. He understood now why he'd only attacked his mind.
It'd been because he physically couldn't.
Thinking of all the things, all the fucking things this bastard had taken from him, all the things he might still take from him, up to and including his own life, Harry felt his chest clench. This thing…this pathetic thing on the ground had taken so much.
He'd stolen any childhood, any past that might have had something good within it.
He'd stolen the people that made things worthwhile.
And tonight the bastard's follower had tried to take away his future.
Harry leveled his wand. Standing there, in the clearing, he stared at the broken, slowly healing form of the wizard who had decided that a one year old was his fucking enemy, and a cold, cool calm overcame him.
He knew it wouldn't be enough, but he didn't care.
He knew it'd turn him into a monster, one as bad as him, yet he still didn't care.
It needed done. Voldemort was an animal that needed put down.
Harry Potter's jaw clenched, six syllables that he'd never thought he'd ever say uttered without regret.
"Avada Kedavra."
In the clearing the green light flashed.
The body of Tom Riddle was struck, his form falling instantly limp.
The forest continued to burn uncontrolled around them. Black smoke billowed up into the night sky. It was anti-climatic. It couldn't be this easy.
Harry stood there, arm shaking beyond his control, waiting for it.
He wasn't disappointed.
A sudden, low howl – more like a scream – erupted from Voldemort's body. A black specter began to form over it like mist, the gray-skinned, red-eyed body collapsing in on itself, turning to ash.
It blew in the fire's fierce heat.
Voldemort's still living specter, just like the one his own mother had created years prior when she'd taken the killing curse herself, flew into the night, and Harry made no attempt to stop it.
There wasn't time.
There was no pre-created receptacle to hold him within.
But Voldemort was weakened, which would buy him time.
Harry needed that time.
Given he couldn't outright kill him yet, this was Plan B: weaken the ever living fuck out of him, then kick him while he was down.
The Seeker wandlessly summoned Voldemort's yew weapon into his hand, fingers clenching around it reluctantly. Somehow just touching it was a taint to his skin. He thought about breaking it, for just a second, but then…
Harry stopped, holding it exhaustedly between two hands, not knowing why he stopped.
He just…did.
On the ground that Great Horned owl, the one that had disarmed Voldemort only to be murdered, cried out.
It was still alive.
He forgot about everything in that instant.
Harry, bleeding and hurting in too many places to count, staggered towards it, carefully scooping the owl up. This owl had helped him weaken the darkest wizard to have ever lived. He wasn't going to leave it.
A thestral had remained behind, the winged, reptilian horse lowering itself to the ground, and Harry Potter climbed gratefully atop it. The thestral barreled out of the clearing and into the surrounding, decimated section of forest.
He entirely missed Mad Eye Moody finally fighting his way through the flames and bursting out, his peg leg getting stuck between a rock and a log as he stared at the carnage, his gaze finally landing on a pile of ashy remains.
They blew, a haunting howl in the wind.
The Auror simply grunted. "Infernal Nymphadora," he muttered, "made me miss the fun part."
Then he looked around for Harry, seeing nothing, before disapparating with a sharp crack.
Mad Eye just missed the remaining Death Eater, battered and covered in ash and soot, that staggered out from the flames to collect the Dark Lord's ashes.
The eyes of Viktor Krum glared towards the castle, towards where Harry Potter had disappeared.
No one saw that black specter that had been Voldemort slam against the Bulgarian, the Seeker knocked to the ground, unconscious.
Moments later Viktor Krum's eyes opened, and this time…
They shone red.
