A/N: I know, I know, Harry is an idiot. He's fifteen, remember? and he's only got 25 days to figure out this independence thing. But before he can do that, there's a clash of ideologies ahead.
Chapter 8 - Thunder Strikes
Oh, Merlin, did Harry's scar hurt now. Rookwood continued to keep him hanging upside down as he brought him closer and closer to a clearing in the forest. Harry absolutely could not try to see his surroundings and hold onto his sanity, so he closed his eyes and tried and tried to get to his calm place.
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Severus glanced through the wide doorway of the Great Hall into the school's entrance and saw the curious site of Minister Fudge and Percival Weasley being greeted by Minerva.
This can't possibly bode well. They'd not revealed the state of Lucius' injuries to the Ministry of Magic. Lucius had sent an owl this morning begging off of a meeting with the Minister, due to a "family emergency." Perhaps they're here to install Lucius as a new form of Inquisitor? More likely this has to do with the Boy Wonder. Severus couldn't help but bet on it.
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"Harry? Oh, Harry?" Voldemort cooed at his victim, but the boy was pretending to be unconscious. "Set him down, Rookwood," he directed the Death Eater. "Well done, you can take your place in the circle."
"Yes, my Lord," Rookwood bowed and retreated twenty paces to join Belatrix, Rodolphus, and Rabastan Lestrange in the elite circle of the Dark Lord's financiers. The four of them watched their leader with rapt attention. Beyond them, was a line of at least ten other Death Eaters.
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A stag Patronus had entered the Great Hall and came to stand in front of Severus. Alarm bells blared inwardly as he struggled to cipher what he should infer from its appearance.
"That's Potter's Patronus," Lee Jordan announced to the group of seventh years studying at the long table under Professor Snape's supervision.
"Yes, it is," Severus said as he strode briskly toward the exit. "You will all continue to attend to your studies. Mr. Robyns, you are in charge." He had faith in the Head Boy's ability to prevent this group from getting unruly.
Once he was out of their line of sight, he cast his own doe patronus, sending her to Lupin, Lucius, and Albus, knowing that the latter would alert the Order. Minerva was tied up with Fudge, and it could not be a good idea to draw him into any potential problems with the Boy Wonder. Potter's stag was waiting for him, so he started to run, out the front door and across the grounds. The stag took the lead and off they went, looking for that godforsaken wretch of a brat who could not keep himself out of trouble should the world depend upon it.
And his Dark Mark began to burn after a dozen steps.
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Harry was on the ground, still in the full body bind, but it had long since occurred to him that he could end it. Should I? But then I'd give away my new abilities. He waded through his thoughts, forcing the panic away and running through all of the spells he knew. Voldemort seemed to think he'd fainted and was circling around him, or so Harry surmised, by the sound of what could only be the giant snake slithering around her master's feet.
The boy is not sleeping, master.
Bloody snake, Harry griped inwardly, trying desperately to keep his wits about him. He'd been able to bring the tingling up in his hands in spite of the pain, so he tried to be ready. For what, he had no idea.
"I know, Nagini, he's a little fool, but we'll let him play his games," the Dark Lord spoke to his familiar in Parseltongue.
A full minute passed. Harry kept his eyes closed.
"Rennervate," Voldemort incanted impatiently.
Harry's eyes flew open, as if he'd been kicked in the head. He knew the evil bastard would be entering his mind soon, and that would spell real trouble for Snape and Malfoy, once he saw that they'd helped him, not to mention his petition- STOP! Don't think of it!
He was doomed.
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"Severus?" Remus Lupin was zooming toward him on a broom just as Severus reached the bottom of the trail to Hagrid's hut.
"Potter said he was meeting someone for lunch. I can only assume that it was supposed to be Hagrid, since the stag has led us here," Severus said.
"But Hagrid's still off in Romania," Remus said with a tone of dread. He noticed Severus was clutching his arm.
"I literally just told that little idiot about the wards and how they ended-" he caught himself. Potter had no doubt listened to him raptly, and yet foul play had obviously ensued even still. "I'm quite fearful the Dark Lord has him." He looked over at the werewolf. "We need to plan our moves. There will be an ensemble of sycophants to make things even more troubling. We will be outnumbered."
They both turned to find Lucius flying his son's broom toward them at quite a clip. When he was closer they could see most of his injuries had been healed but he still looked very pale. "I'm alright," he said defensively. "I can't let Harry face him alone." He looked at Severus meaningfully. "I assume you are being summoned as well?"
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"Up! Harry!" Voldemort ordered jovially. He flicked his wand and Harry was magically hoisted to his feet by the back of his trouser waistband. "Let's finish that duel we started last summer, shall we?"
OY. Harry stood, facing Voldemort, juggling between the raging pain in his scar, and keeping his attention on his center, while wiggling his legs to unbunch his trousers from …higher places. He looked around and saw the ogling group of Death Eaters beyond the edge of the clearing. He's planning to end me, right now. "I don't have a wand," Harry pointed out. He couldn't help but fix his eyes on the dark wizard's enormous familiar.
"So summon it, Harry, you're old enough to have that level of control over your wand by now," Voldemort told him. He had a lofty congeniality in his manner that was incredibly phony.
Harry figured he was better off letting ol' Tom think he couldn't do anything without his wand in his hand. "Can't. We had a pretty pathetic DADA teacher last term. Didn't learn a thing. Ahhhhh!"
"I grow tired of your dillydallying, Harry," Voldemort said as he angled his wand downward, holding his Cruciatus curse directed onto Harry's collapsed body. He released it and said sternly, "SUMMON YOUR WAND!"
"Accio wand!" Harry yelled, stretching out his hand to catch it as it sailed over from Rookwood's grip. He shifted to his hands and knees, waiting for the nervy, twangy agony from the curse to dissipate, only to be reminded of his scar pain again, all while struggling to stifle the terror and panic that made him want to sick up.
"Up!" Voldemort repeated the hoisting spell and dragged Harry back onto his feet. "Do you ever wonder why your scar pains you so, whenever I am near, Harry?"
"Actually I can't concentrate at the moment, thanks to you," Harry griped, buying time by pretending he wasn't shaking with horrific fear as he tugged the legs of his school trousers downward. His robes were ripped now, and the warming charm had faded, but the cold was the last thing on his mind.
"Do you know what a horcrux is, Harry?"
A what? Harry shook his head, keeping his eyes cast downward to avoid being Legilimized.
"A horcrux, Harry, is my secret treasure. It's a small part of me that I've left in various places from some of the most exhilarating moments in my life." Voldemort was circling again, around where Harry stood shaking and quivering in the center of the clearing. "Have you guessed yet, Harry? Have you guessed about your scar?"
"No," Harry said, feeling as small as he knew he sounded and looked.
"It's a piece of me, inside of you," Voldemort taunted. "I'm so grateful that you've kept it for me."
"Wha-?" What's he saying? Harry was quaking now, painful scar and nerve endings, and tingling hands completely forgotten as he absorbed this revelation. "I have to kill you, or die…" Harry reminded the dark wizard.
"It would seem so, Harry," the Dark Lord agreed. "This poses a problem for me, as long as you and I are enemies, you see? I'll kill my treasure within you, if I kill you, Harry."
"I'm not seeing us becoming mates, Tom," Harry told him. He slid his wand into his sleeve. The evil wizard was looking at his audience, with a sardonic expression, inducing their dutiful laughter at the way he dealt with his young prisoner.
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Severus, Lucius and Lupin had come upon the scene in time to hear the Dark Lord's revelations to Harry. They were out numbered by far, until the Order arrived, but could not leave the boy alone in battle.
"We must stay in flight," Severus whispered, "and attack from above until more help arrives." When Lupin narrowed his eyes in comprehension, Severus quirked an eyebrow. "Yes, Lupin, I can fly. Try not to be too distracted by your envy."
Lupin turned to Lucius. "But you require a broom?"
"I'm a high achiever, Remus, but even I have my limits," Lucius replied.
"Then I will have to kill you," Voldemort declared to Harry from within the clearing.
All three of them shared a look of alarm and launched upward and outward, into the air and into battle.
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Voldemort had made his declaration with a shrug, and began to raise his wand. The world spiraled into a blur as Harry's instincts took over, and shouts and magical confrontation erupted all around the clearing.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted, using his right hand. Quick as a blink, while he caught the Dark Lord's wand with his right hand, he threw his left one upward and cast as hard as he could, "Pituita vespertilio!" Then, still with his left hand, he cast, hard, again, "Locomotor!" and immediately following that, cast, "Bombarda!" He held his arm straight out, focusing his intention and glaring at the now violently assaulted Dark Lord, who, currently wandless, had first been overpowered by an enormous bat bogey that had sealed itself over his reptilian nose and mouth, followed by Harry's leg locker curse, which forced his legs together and set him off balance, arms flailing, only to be hit with the blasting hex and knocked a good dozen feet backward into the trunk of a tree, where he collapsed in a heap. Harry was absolutely shocked at what he'd just done.
As the noise of the violence around him began to permeate, Harry snapped Voldemort's wand. Remembering that it was the "brother" of his wand, he palmed his own and incanted, "Incendio," and set the broken pieces ablaze.
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"Shield yourself, Harry!" Lupin yelled at him, bringing him back to reality, which was currently a state of peril.
"Avada Kedavra," they all heard Albus Dumbledore cast the killing curse upon the heap that was the Dark Lord.
Yells of rage and ferocious hexes and curses rented through the air as the sycophants of the dark and the warriors of the light clashed with incredible force. Smoke spirals and zigging and zagging of magic made everything chaotic.
Harry shook himself, used his left hand again to cast the full-bodied shield he'd created in the ROR with Snape, and not a second too soon, as rips and crackles of lethal magic sailed by, clipping against the outer surface of his shield. He looked around, trying to integrate what he was witnessing. Several of the Death Eaters were flying and vaporizing, like they'd done in the Ministry. This made them much more difficult to fight with, but as Harry surveyed the scene, he recognized not only the three adults he knew his Patronus had summoned and Dumbledore, but also Arthur and Bill Weasley, Tonks, MadEye Moody, and Kingsley Shacklebolt.
Every one of them had the upper hand in their exchanges, but they were all heavily engaged.
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Remus went after Crabbe Sr. and Lucius targeted Goyle Sr. Both dark wizards were large in stature and had powerful magic, but less sophistication with their spells, and frankly, were no match for their opponents.
Lucius had watched young Harry Potter in action just now and had been stunned at the boy's acuity with his strategy. It was already a moment for the history books, but the fact that a fifteen year old boy had used schoolboy hexes and jinxes to best Lord Voldemort was fundamentally incomprehensible. With this in mind, Lucius employed a Levicorpus and a Bombarda against his opponent, first lifting Goyle into the air, then blasting him into a tree, just as the Boy Who Lived had done. He caught Harry's eye and winked as he put his wand to his neck. "A TRIBUTE TO YOU, HARRY POTTER!" he called out, his voice projection spell causing a bit of a disturbance. Lucius smiled in satisfaction as Harry gaped across the clearing at him.
Harry couldn't believe that Malfoy had just done that! He couldn't keep track of all of these shocks to his system, both physical and mental. Meanwhile, Remus was tangled in a back and forth duel with Crabbe, both of them using more lethal spells than Lucius or Harry had done.
Crabbe kept shouting, "Sectum sempra!" and slashing his arm as he casted. Harry surmised it was a slicing hex.
Remus was alternating between a blocking shield that absorbed Crabbe's magic and a punching hex that he hadn't yet landed, but was willing to pace himself and make it worth the effort. Back and forth, back and forth, deflect, absorb, deflect, absorb, and then POW! Crabbe took a magical blow to his face that was like being hit with a fist the size of Hagrid's. Down he went and stayed. "Incarcerous!" Remus incanted in disgust.
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Harry was still holding his shield. He retreated to the edge of the clearing, feeling weak and wobbly all of the sudden. He remembered the Pepper-Up in his pocket and used his right hand to pop the cork and drink it down. My scar… it hurts less. He looked over at Voldemort and saw that the darkest wizard of the age had not moved. Tom's snake familiar was winding around him, possibly finding out for herself that he was dead. Harry had an uncomfortable feeling that he may have been the one to kill Tom Riddle. But for now, it looked like Dumbledore must have finished him.
His eyes darted out into the field of battle. He saw that only one Death Eater remained in flight. He looked for the other four of the five he'd seen previously but couldn't identify them in the chaos. There were six bodies on the ground and none of them belonged to the Order. That meant that nine sycophants remained out of the original fourteen. But Harry only counted four more still fighting. One of the remaining four ducked away in a black mist and took flight at high speed, completely disappearing high into the sky. Okay, so three Death Eaters left...
But suddenly the last of the flying wizards landed in a wide-legged stance, turning his upper body and ripping his wand arm across his chest as he cast a ferocious backhanded blasting hex at Rookwood, which blew the elite circle Death Eater back against the same tree at the base of which Lord Voldemort was still puddled. Rookwood crashed into the snake, who reared up and attacked him violently. His cries of agony were horribly sickening.
Harry stumbled as he sought to put a little more distance between himself and that revolting display, and oddly, the snake seemed to pick up on something. Now she seemingly directed her attention on Harry. Oh, no no no no!
The bat-like form of the last flying Death Eater swept in behind Harry and grabbed him around the middle before propelling them both high into the air. It was Snape!
"I've got you," Severus said into Potter's hair.
Harry absolutely could not wrap his head around what was happening. He was speechless, and terrified, and exhilarated, and felt oddly safe from harm, suspended way up here with the aptly nicknamed Bat of the Dungeons. It was right about then that he realized he had a death grip on Snape's forearms, where they were currently wrapped around his ribs. He relaxed his hands and tried to control his breathing. From up here, his scar hurt much less. "What just happened?" he asked, his voice breaking, and much to his horror he began to bawl like a baby.
"I've got you," Severus said again. He felt like crying too. Voldemort is dead. His Dark Mark had ceased its raging. Thanks to Harry Potter.
A/N: This was a tad short, but I wanted to get it posted. Hope you enjoyed it. I may take a little longer for the next one. Need to let some ideas percolate!
