Mwahahaha! You all have been fooled! My real April Fool's prank was saying that I would wait a week to post more chapters; I'm actually already on to chapter 3 in part 3 and I don't want to make you guys wait for more (nor do I want to sit on these when I can give them to y'all). So enjoy chapter 17, and I'll get 18 up for you guys in a few days!
The sight before Dumbledore, Harry and Edward was strange and frightening: they were at the edge of a huge black lake so big that you couldn't see the other side; the cave was so high that you couldn't make out the ceiling either. A greenish glow, as if emanating from behind a thick fog, shone in the middle of the lake and was reflected on the lake's perfectly still waters. Although all three wizards had lit their wands and despite that coppery glow, darkness reigned supreme here, as if it were magical, preventing any glow from spreading and lighting up. In a way, it was as if the magic amplified the shadows.
"Let us continue onwards, but take care not to touch the water."
He began to walk along the lake, the two boys at his heels. Only the echo of their footsteps echoed in the thick silence of the cave, a silence so oppressive and agonizing that Edward couldn't help but hum to try to cover this silence so deep but sadly, even the lullaby he was singing was made sinister by the atmosphere that reigned in this place and he stopped almost immediately. Suddenly Harry asked the question, Voldemort had been able to use the most complicated spells, but he had thought to protect the Horcrux against the simplest spells like the Summoning Charm? After all, Edward had taught her that sometimes the most complicated problems have a very simple solution. When he expressed this idea, Dumbledore seemed to take it seriously and asked him to try.
"Accio Horcrux!"
With a loud popping sound, a massive, pale shape loomed out of the black water five or six meters away from them but before they could make out what it was, the form had plunged back in with a splash that threw wide, deep ripples across the shimmering surface of the lake, ripples that supernaturally quickly vanished. Harry and Edward had backed up against the cavern wall, the latter muttering:
"Now we know for sure that there's something weird in this lake!"
"What was that thing…?" Harry whispered.
"Something unfriendly if you want my opinion. And I don't recommend taking a dip to find out… I'm pretty sure it wasn't alone."
"Professor? Think the Horcrux might be in the lake?"
"Only if we are very unlucky. No, I think it must be in the middle." Dumbledore replied.
"Indeed… Voldemort even gave us the grace of giving us a beacon…" Edward quipped, pointing his arm towards the green glow.
At that moment, Dumbledore stopped so abruptly that Harry felt himself sliding towards the lake but Edward and Dumbledore held him tight to keep him from falling.
"What did I just say about not taking a dip in the lake?" Ed joked as Harry wondered where his friend found the strength to joke in such an environment… Meanwhile, thanks to his magical vision, he saw intertwined magical bonds that seemed to form a chain of magic. Dumbledore put his hand on it then patted his hand with his wand and a large copper chain appeared in the Headmaster's hand who magically pulled the chain which towed a tiny ghostly looking ship intended only for one person.
"How come the creatures in the water didn't attack us when we found the boat?" Edward asked.
"Probably because Voldemort thought he alone could find it. But he took this risk, believing that the obstacles that would follow would be enough to annihilate his enemies. We will see if he was right."
"It doesn't seem like it was meant for two people, let alone three." Harry observed. "How are we going to do this?"
"Voldemort surely won't have cared about weight but rather how much magical power may flow through his lake. I believe this boat was bewitched so that only one wizard at a time could board it."
"But then?"
"I do not think young wizards count in the eyes of Voldemort. Voldemort's mistake because middle age becomes careless and foolish when he underestimates youth. Edward, go up first and then Harry will join you."
But no sooner had Edward taken his place in the boat than it began to slowly but surely move away from the edge before Harry could even get on it. The teen let out a soft cry before calming down and taking a deep breath as Dumbledore exclaimed:
"It seems, Edward, that I have underestimated the strength of your magical power! When you have arrived at the center of the lake, wait for us and above all do not touch anything!"
Edward remained motionless the entire crossing, his gaze fixed over the rowboat, staring at the morbid sight in front of him: dozens, perhaps hundreds of corpses lay below him in this sinister lake. He didn't want to think about the number of deaths Voldemort must have caused to fill this body of water with bodies. Finally, he reached the edge of the island and he hastened to disembark then he watched the boat go back on its own towards the shore and he stayed there not touching anything like Dumbledore had told him.
After a while Harry arrived alone in the boat, looking a little shaken from the trip. It proved that the intensive training Edward had put him through had paid off if Voldemort's boat considered him a sufficiently powerful wizard. Ed was sure Dumbledore shouldn't have expected his young protege to leave as soon as he stepped into the boat and he couldn't suppress a smile. He helped his friend to disembark, being careful that neither of them touched the surface of the water. Harry looked elsewhere, not without reason:
"Corpses, there are corpses in this lake." He whispered as if he was afraid they would hear him.
"Yeah. One of those must be the thing that popped out of the water earlier. An inferius. What a real shitshow. And the problem is that I am not yet able to make flames underwater because of the lack of oxygen... But maybe if we decomposed the water into hydrogen and oxygen, it would all burn more easily…" Mustang had probably had the right idea by facing the Homunculi that way…
"How can you think of chemistry while we're hunting Horcruxes in this spooky place?!" Harry exclaimed.
"It's my way of keeping my cool. If I thought about those corpses, I wouldn't be able to continue." Edward whispered, exhausted, his eyes haunted by visions of another world where zombies were about to kill him, tear him to pieces with their bare hands to take over his soul… No. He shouldn't be thinking about that either.
"What will you do if they… when they wake up?" Harry asked, now certain that at one point or another these abominations would wake up and it wouldn't be nice to see.
"I will burn them. Here's hoping what worked once will work the second time," Edward whispered determinedly and cryptically.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"There's Dumbledore." Edward said, pointing his finger at the Headmaster who was arriving in the boat.
"I hope you weren't too scared of corpses or the dark," Dumbledore said with a reassuring smile. "I have always believed that Voldemort, secretly, was afraid of them, which is why he uses them as a means to terrify his enemies. Of course, the wise man knows that it is the unknown that frightens us when we contemplate death or darkness, nothing else."
"You'll tell me that when these corpses rise up…" Edward muttered.
"In the meantime, let's take a look at this little island."
The latter was no larger than Dumbledore's desk, a flat, dark stone surface upon which stood, resting on a stone pedestal, a basin of rock from which emanated the greenish color that illuminated the cave. Edward leaned over to examine the basin and winced at not recognizing the potion in it. Harry asked what it was and Dumbledore, after confessing his ignorance and concern, tried to touch the liquid to no avail. No one could touch it because there seemed to be an invisible barrier, solid and immaterial at the same time, two centimeters from the surface.
For quite a while, Dumbledore tried to make the liquid disappear, fragment it, drain it, siphon it, transfigure it, bewitch it, or change its nature. All in vain. Edward in turn threw himself into battle, attacking the container rather than the contents. For a brief moment, the basin shattered before the pieces came together again, but the liquid and the Horcrux stayed in it.
In the end, Dumbledore deduced that it should be drunk and immediately Harry protested that the liquid could kill him, but Dumbledore corrected him by asserting that the potion would probably have the effect of not immediately killing the person who reached the island as Voldemort would probably want to keep whoever was able to penetrate his defenses alive
to find out how and why this person had found out what was hiding in this basin.
The purpose of the potion was therefore to prevent him from seizing the Horcrux either by paralyzing him or by making him forget the reason why he had come here, either by causing excruciating pain or at least by rendering him incapable of acting in one way or another.
So Harry and Edward's goal would be to force him to drink, even pouring the potion against his will. The two paled in concert when they understood what Dumbledore expected of them. They were going to have to make him drink a potion that was undoubtedly a poison and they would be the instrument. Harry tried to negotiate while Edward murmured a few strong swear words but Dumbledore remained steadfast in his position. Eventually, the two boys had to agree and Dumbledore started drinking the liquid in the crystal cup he had conjured.
He managed to drink three full cups of this strange potion before it started to take effect. Professor Dumbledore seemed like he was in a waking nightmare, not knowing where he was and moaning like a child calling for his mother. Edward made him drink the potion anyway, with a look of disgust on his face and Harry realized that in reality Ed deeply despised the idea of participating in Dumbledore's ordeal.
Edward could clearly see the effects of the potion he was giving the old Headmaster to drink and part of him couldn't help but wonder what the potion was doing. Either way, she was causing Dumbledore to mourn and regret acts he knew nothing about. Edward remembered the fateful day he had endured the old wizard's ordeal with the ancient scales. That day he had said: "I do not know how to tell you how much I wish, Professor Dumbledore, that one day you can feel the extent of such suffering or that you could not succeed and that you would suffer the consequences!" Obviously, that day had arrived and Dumbledore seemed to bitterly regret the mistakes of his past.
Meanwhile, Harry, not wanting his friend to be the only one who bore the burden and responsibility for Dumbledore's condition, made Dumbledore drink his sixth cup of the potion, tears in his eyes. The old man seemed to see things that only he could see and these things seemed to torture him. Dumbledore was wrong: Voldemort had found something much more powerful than physical wounds to hurt his neighbor. He had used the remorse that normal people have experienced in their life to torture them.
One after another, Harry and Edward made Dumbledore dying of anguish and pain drink the abominable liquid: Harry had tears in his eyes and was seized with uncontrollable tremors and Edward was so pale he looked like one of those corpses underwater. He was whispering through his teeth "Truth forgive me..." as he forced the Headmaster to swallow the atrocious potion.
Finally, the basin was emptied, revealing a gold locket at the bottom of the basin but neither Harry nor Edward cared yet. They were more concerned with the condition of Dumbledore, who had fallen face down on the ground in a groan of agony. All of the healing spells cast by Edward and Harry were in vain. When Dumbledore begged for water, Harry immediately tried the Aguamenti spell but no sooner did the water appear in the crystal cup than it disappeared, no doubt due to some curse from Voldemort. So, without thinking any further, Harry ran to the black lake and managed to fill the cup with water he brought to Dumbledore and tried to make him drink. But at that moment, a horrified cry of alarm rang out and Harry felt an icy, pale, slimy hand cling to him to drag him towards the lake before he could even get Dumbledore to drink the water.
Harry looked up and saw dead heads and hands emerging from the water and starting to pull themselves up onto the rock where he and Dumbledore were standing. The corpses stared at them with empty eyes, seeming irresistibly drawn to them. Edward tried to hold onto the rock as hands grabbed his legs and tried to drag him down. The blond raised his wand and a gigantic whip of fire arose to strike anyone who tried to touch him, momentarily protecting him and Dumbledore from the threat of the Inferi. Edward shouted:
"Fiat Lux!"
And for a moment the cave was lit as if it was in broad daylight, on a beautiful sunny day. Unfortunately, this spell had no effect on the Inferi who continued to advance. Harry felt hopeless: they were surrounded by moving corpses and Dumbledore still hadn't had his water. He heard Edward yell at him:
"Go get some water, I'll cover you!"
A small circle of fire soon surrounded Harry and Harry hastened to begin the operation of fetching water for Dumbledore again. The flames, sometimes poorly controlled, scorched his eyebrows but nevertheless thanks to them, he reached the edge and he was able to draw water with the help of the cup. Then he and the ring of fire rushed to Dumbledore's side and he was finally able to get him to drink some water. By the time he was done he heard a howl, a loud splashing sound and the fire circle disappeared. Harry then realized what Edward had done: he had focused solely on his own and Dumbledore's safety in order to control his burning spell until the last moment. In the end, it had been fatal for him as the Inferi had grabbed him and dragged him to the bottom of the lake in order to drown him to become one of the dead guardians of Voldemort's shattered soul.
"EDWARD!" Harry yelled, casting a huge Inciendio that swept away a dozen Inferis at once. Mad with rage, he cast four or five to keep the corpses at bay and tried to peer into the water but to no avail: Edward had disappeared below the surface. At the same time, Dumbledore blinked and stood up slowly and carefully. Harry rushed over to him:
"Professor, Edward! The Inferis, they took him underwater! We must save him!"
Dumbledore's eyes, already clouded in pain, tinted with infinite sadness and his shoulders seemed to droop even more with regret as he said:
"In that case, Harry, I'm afraid there is nothing more we can do…"
At the same time, in the water, Edward was struggling like a maniac, trying to free his arms to resort to transmutation. Wrestling in the water was definitely not his specialty and above all, he was supplanted by numbers. For a moment, he thought he was going to die in those dark waters without ever seeing Alphonse or Winry again, or his friends in this world. This thought gave him courage and finally, after a considerable effort, he managed to join his hands twice while formulating in his head a chemical formula already used by Mustang: he decomposed the water into hydrogen and oxygen and set fire to it. The other transmutation was to place an envelope of nitrogen around him so that he would not be charred by his own manipulation.
The resulting explosion almost killed him, but at least it was effective against his cadaverous opponents who were engulfed by an incandescent hell, similar to a fiery mini-cloud. He himself was still protected by the water and he barely managed to control the flames to prevent it from touching the island, which he had locked in a sort of huge Bubble-Head charm thanks to a flame repelling spell he had invented in alchemy class and which normally protected people from the harmful effects of fire.
After that, he managed- with some difficulty- to get out of the black water on which floated charred corpses. The teen slumped onto the island and took a deep breath of relief: Harry and Dumbledore looked pretty much unharmed if not slightly scorched in the heat. Both looked at him in amazement and relief as he climbed, clinging to the rocks, taking deep breaths and looking exhausted. Seeing at first glance that his gust of fire had severely damaged the boat, he had no other choice but to rely on alchemy. He turned to Dumbledore and Harry and said curtly:
"I can get us out of here as long as you don't ask any questions." Anyway, I wouldn't answer it. Is that understood?"
He trusted Harry not to break his promise with him and as for Dumbledore, Edward doubted that the latter would survive to see the sun rise with the powerful spell on his one hand and the absorption of the evil potion on the other. He must have known that because he nodded without saying a word, contenting himself with surrounding all three with a lasso of fire to protect them from the few Inferi still on the island. Edward turned to the far shore, clasped his hands in silent prayer hoping it would work, and created a walkway that joined the island to the shore, carefully dosing the amount of stone so that it wasn't too crumbly. Then the three wizards began to walk along the narrow bridge, Edward leading the way, Dumbledore in the middle, supported by Harry who also had to cast Incendios from time to time in order to ward off any Inferi who might want to try to climb up behind him.
When they finally reached the shore, Edward destroyed his handiwork and helped Harry support Professor Dumbledore to the arch which had closed again. Ed decided to use his blood from when he had been injured by Inferi and the door opened again. They had to go the other way swimming while occasionally supporting Dumbledore who could not swim as vigorously as at the start of their expedition. Finally, they were out of the cave and Edward decided to Apparate with Dumbledore while Harry returned alone. In seconds, the small group was back at Hogsmeade and Harry, on Dumbledore's orders, was about to go get Snape when Ed let out a cry of horror as he pointed at the Dark Mark that hung above the school.
Dumbledore, seeing the skull with its snake tongue, stood with Harry's help, straightened himself up and looked again like the one who could bring the situation under control. He urged Harry and Edward to cover themselves under the invisibility cloak and summon two brooms to get them to Hogwarts as quickly as possible. Edward, hidden under the cloak, soon climbed behind Harry and clung to him, closing his eyes as the three of them rushed towards the castle. They felt Dumbledore conjure the enchantments he himself had put in place to protect the castle in order to enter the grounds without slowing down too much. They landed on the Astronomy Tower above which shone the Dark Mark. Harry couldn't see any bodies yet but suddenly he heard footsteps on the steps, the sound of several people coming…
Reacting faster than lightning, Edward did what he had to do and paralyzed Harry with a silent spell at the same time the door shattered and a young voice shrilly shouted "expelliarmus" and disarmed Professor Dumbledore, who had turned as pale as the corpses they had faced earlier. Draco Malfoy had just arrived and behind him stood Death Eaters unknown to Harry.
The Ravenclaw saw Harry's helpless looks of anger at him, but he just shook his head gently under the cloak, trying to make him understand that now there was nothing he could do without endangering him. In the meantime, four Death Eaters besides Draco Malfoy had arrived at the top of the tower and mocked their former Headmaster while the latter remained dignified, even in the face of looming death.
Professor Dumbledore preferred to fix his eyes on Draco Malfoy who recounted, initially with pride but with more and more shame in his voice, how he had managed to bring in the Death Eaters as well as his various schemes to try to kill Dumbledore. The latter listened to him as a professor would listen to the summary of a brilliant dissertation by one of his students while the Death Eaters for the moment were content to chuckle a hearty laugh, some even allowing themselves to pat Draco Malfoy on the back, seeming to congratulate him.
However, these marks of approval seemed to torment the blond as he turned his gaze now to Dumbledore, and then to the Death Eaters as if hoping for someone to deliver him from this task he had to accomplish under Voldemort's order. Harry understood when he saw him that Malfoy did not have a killer mentality and that he was not ready to kill his Headmaster, which in the situation he was in could prove fatal for him, surrounded as he was by Voldemort's most loyal servants. Again, Harry couldn't help but feel compassion for his rival who found himself in an impossible situation.
However, the Death Eaters had interfered in the conversation, putting Draco away which allowed him to feel sorry for himself and his position. Dumbledore himself remained as calm as ever, as if chatting with ordinary former students even though you could see the disgust in his eyes as he gazed at his opponents:
"Good evening, Amycus. You came with Alecto… How charming."
"Do you think your jokes will help you on your deathbed?" The woman sneered.
"Jokes? Oh no, that is merely what we call good manners." Dumbledore replied.
"Oh yeah?: Said a massive Death Eater with messy gray hair and sideburns in a rapacious voice.
"So is that you, Fenrir?" Dumbledore asked in a tone of disgust.
"How could I miss this, Dumbledore? You know how much I love children…"
"Should I take it that you don't even wait for the full moon to attack now? It's very unusual... So you have such a taste for human flesh that it is not enough to be satisfied once a month?"
"Exactly," Greyback said proudly as Malfoy tried to back away from him, "that shocks you, doesn't it Dumbledore? Does that scare you?"
"I can't pretend that it doesn't disgust me anyway. And indeed, I am shocked that Draco brought you here, to this school where all his friends reside…"
"I wasn't the one who brought him in. I didn't know he would be here." Malfoy hissed in a trembling voice.
"I wanted so badly to come," Greyback growled obscenely, "There are so many young throats to slice... And I could take care of you for dessert, Dumbledore."
But another Death Eater stepped in and asserted that Malfoy must carry out his task as ordered by the Dark Lord. But the boy seemed even less eager to continue with his task and stood there hesitating, pointing his wand at Dumbledore with a shaking hand, but unable to utter the fatal words that would end his Headmaster's life. Among the Death Eaters, some moaned at Malfoy's slowness, going so far as to insult him; others thought that by ordering him, they could end it sooner. Fenrir, whom nothing seemed to shake his desire to kill, insisted on killing him instead of Malfoy, which caused him to be almost struck by a spell that barely missed Edward and Harry still hidden under the cloak.
Finally, someone came to interrupt the argument that threatened to break out- that person was none other than Severus Snape. The latter seemed out of breath as if he had climbed the steps leading to the tower four at a time. His dark eyes swept over the scene and for a second Harry saw the resignation. The Boy-Who-Lived then wondered if Snape was going to die because of the Unbreakable Oath since Malfoy was unable to do his assigned duty. Perhaps the task dictated by the vow was to continue Draco Malfoy's own task.
But Harry didn't want to believe it. His eyes rested on Dumbledore and the four Death Eaters and he knew deep down that the man who had been his mentor was doomed. He no longer had his wand, the potion had greatly weakened him and continued to hurt him, not to mention the dark and unhealthy magic that was now attacking Dumbledore's magical heart at full force… Fenrir Greyback seemed ready to pounce on him at any moment, baring his teeth and snapping them close to Dumbledore's body, as if he was looking forward to tearing him apart. For a moment Harry began to hope for a near painless death for the one he had always respected.
Amycus, Alecto's brother, a man with a massive figure who was pointing his wand at Dumbledore then said:
"We have a problem, Snape, the boy seems unable to finish his task…"
But someone else had said Snape's name in a pleading tone Harry had only heard in the cave. Was it an hour or two earlier? Harry couldn't believe that such a short time had passed, nor could he believe that Dumbledore was reduced to supporting himself in front of these Death Eaters.
Snape, staying silent, stepped forward and brutally pushed Malfoy away. The Death Eaters backed away without a word, everyone, even the werewolf, looking intimidated. Snape watched Dumbledore a moment and you could see the revulsion and hatred dig out the harsh lines of his face. Harry recognized his expression: it was the same as Edward's, and the same he must have worn when he had forced Dumbledore to continue drinking the potion.
Harry couldn't move but nonetheless a lonely tear fell from his eyes when he heard Dumbledore beg Snape again. The latter raised his wand and pointed it straight at the old man's heart, and said:
"Avada Kedavra."