Chapter 36 - The Final Showdown
Lucius was transported to the landing on the second floor that overlooked the Grand Entrance. There was enough of a curve in the upper half of the stairwell to block him from the view of those down below. He decided this was his best spot to prepare his offense, and quickly instructed Aflie to bring Tonks and Dawlish to join him before returning to the Manor.
A heavy weight that felt like dread, but was actually due to the proximity of the Dark Lord, came up through his veins and he was momentarily paralyzed with fear. He thought of Draco, and of Harry, and the fear turned into tempered rage.
Severus spotted Lucius and, still disillusioned, flew over to hide from view, while the two of them waited with the newly arrived aurors for the best moment to counter the return of the Dark Lord. For Severus, the top priority was Harry.
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Remus appeared in an open space behind the teacher's table with a soft pop. "I need Ronald Weasley, now!" he whispered harshly to McGonagall, who nodded and quickly cast her cat Patronus to get the youngest male Weasley's attention. When Ron looked their way, Remus signaled for him to rush over. A moment, and another pop later, the two Gryffindors disappeared from sight with the help of Fawkes.
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The granite sides fell outward, and the lid of the stone box vaporized as the familiar, tall and slender figure of the darkest wizard of the modern age rose to his full height with a triumphant smile. He spread his arms wide, as if in greeting, while he scanned those gathered to welcome him, settling on the criminally stained trio, who'd already knelt in sycophantic adoration, and were already muttering requests for forgiveness for their appearance.
"Why are you orange, Bellatrix?" Voldemort demanded.
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There was a significant degree of shrill screaming from the entire student body, who were essentially pinned to the benches in the Great Hall, half eaten meals on plates in front of them long forgotten, and for some, likely to soon induce heaving responses within digestive tracts that were more sensitive to trauma. Through the enormous and stately arching frame of the double doors leading into the Grand Entrance, the students were unable to unsee what was unfolding in real time, right before their eyes.
Lord Voldemort had been resurrected.
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Harry was still suspended in the air. He was hanging in a way that he remembered doing as a smaller boy, while swinging on a muggle swing set. He was suspended with his head hanging upside down, and his body prone, as if he was dangling from a swing, trying to see the world in reverse.
He'd had a moment of relief when the diadem, along with Dolores Umbridge, had succumbed to the Fiendfyre, but the raging agony came right back when bloody Nagini showed up. He tried to take stock of his resources. He was weak, so likely his wandless options were limited. Definitely no flying…. But he still had his wand grasped in his right hand. So, there was that. If he'd had the mobility to snicker when he heard Tom ask Bella why she bore the stain, he would have done so. He tried to stay in that frame of mind. Clear of the fear.
Soles and palms, Harry.
"Ah, and here's our young menace, the lad called Harry Potter," Voldemort announced, moving closer to Harry.
The uber-explosion of intensifying pain in Harry's scar blocked out the pathetic, worshipful laughter of all of the Dark Lord's minions who had gathered here today to watch The Chosen One die.
"I seem to have misplaced my wand…." Voldemort reflected. "Where is it, Harry?"
Bellatrix must have reduced the intensity of the fugue spell that she'd casted on Harry because he was suddenly able to respond to the reptilian-faced evil wizard. "Snapped."
"SNAPPED? You snapped Lord Voldemort's wand?" Voldemort demanded in a barely controlled rage.
"Yup." Harry went ahead and reverted to his flippant, devil-may-care tone, knowing he wasn't fooling anyone, but also knowing he was scoring a solid point against his vile captor.
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The audience in the Great Hall waited with their hearts in their throats.
The snake called Nagini slithered and circled around the feet and legs of her dear Lord.
The four wizards on the side of the Light hovered about halfway down the stairs, crouched so that they were not in sight, but still not seeing a means by which to rescue Harry. If the snake sensed their presence, they were doomed.
The silence was long.
"My Lord," Bellatrix rasped from where she'd sidled up to a closer spot of worship. She extended her hand, offering the Dark Lord a wand. "From a former servant of yours."
Voldemort took the wand and considered it. "From Wormtail?"
"Yes."
"Expelliarmus," the Dark Lord said quietly, pointing the wand at Harry, and laughing in delight when Harry's wand sailed right to him. He handed Wormtail's wand back to Bellatrix. "Harry's wand is the better match for me, isn't it Harry? Being that our wands are brothers?"
He took a few steps into the center of the vast room, and smoothed a hand over his flat, reptilian face, pausing for dramatic effect, and sucked air in through the slits that defined his nose. He stared at Harry for a moment then raised Harry's wand and cast a dramatic,
"AVVAAADAAAA KADDAVVRAA!"
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The world seemed to slow into a snail's pace, and things that happened simultaneously in that moment fractured off into their own separate events. Harry's awareness captured each of them.
A loud chorus cried, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The snake reared up as if to get a better view of Harry's demise.
Harry watched Voldemort watch the magic he'd just casted through Harry's wand, confident that he was in complete power, once again.
Harry saw Lucius grab Severus to stop him from lunging into the scene, pulling him back out of sight on the stairwell. Harry would never forget the look of stark devastation on Severus' face.
Harry heard more cries of terror and heartbreak from his schoolmates, who were being traumatized and terrorized in real time.
He watched the green magic sail directly at him, while he hung, helplessly suspended, in midair.
He felt the magic hit. He heard an odd crackling sound and a sharp, blinding pain. He succumbed to the loss of consciousness. All went dark.
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Remus and Ron stood in front of the tap in the second floor girls lavatory, the one that bore the symbol of Salazar Slytherin.
"Try, Ron!" Remus urged.
"Sssyy- sthhheth- hhssh- theth," Ron said unevenly, attempting to imitate the way he remembered Harry speaking in Parseltongue in second year. "Blimey, it's harder to say, now that I haven't practiced!" He was nervous and acutely feeling the very real fact that his friend's life, and the lives of countless others depended on him opening this door.
"Try one more time," Remus pushed. "I can have Fawkes take me down there, but I fear the Fiendfyre could overtake us both before we can get out."
Ron nodded and took a deep calming breath. "Sssyysthyyhhhethhhsshtheth," he said.
That did it. The Chamber opened just as it had done in second year. Ron had flashbacks to the simpler time, when it was only a rogue, idiot professor causing the problems in their lives at Hogwarts.
"Ferox ignis!" Remus yelled as he flung his wand arm in a downward motion, directing the violent ERUPTION of intense orange flames down into the chute. "Ferox ignis!" He yelled, repeating the casting. He did it a third time.
A brilliant, yellow-orange pulse of feverishly hot light exploded downward, and was starting to reverberate back up toward them as Ron yelled, "Sssyysthyyhhhethhhsshtheth!" And the chamber was sealed once again.
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Many of the students were not able to see, or were not understanding what was in play. But the rest of them saw the spell hit Harry, and they saw Harry slump even more limply than he'd been a moment prior.
"HARRY!" They yelled collectively in breaking voices, the screams torn from their throats as tears clouded their view.
Many covered their eyes, but a few stared in abject horror, watching Lord Voldemort start to grin in triumph…..
…..but then the vile wizard hunched forward slightly with a grunt…. as if he'd been kicked in the solar plexus. "Ohhh…." he muttered in confusion, and what sounded an awful lot like fear….
"My Lord?" Ever attentive, Bellatrix saw that her master was in distress.
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Reality was returning, along with Harry's state of consciousness.
Shouldn't I be dead?
No, Harry, once again you have defied death, and now you're hovering in the air like an old balloon from a birthday party. Harry opened his eyes. The pain in his scar was much less intense now. In fact, there was no scar pain at all. But he did have a pretty awful headache. I took a killing curse to the head, I guess a headache is to be expected…. He tried to squirm his limbs and found that he could, but with little strength.
He blinked. What's going on? He narrowed his eyes as he studied his inverted view of the room. The LeStranges were spread out, giving their newly returned Dark Lord some space. There were about fifteen other wizards present, mostly Death Eaters, but Harry could make out a few other familiar faces in the crowd, namely Cornelius Fudge and a witch he remembered among the ones of the Wizengamot from last summer's hearing over the Dementor incident. They had all crowded together at the foot of the stairs, as if none were certain of the role he or she should play.
Meanwhile, Tom Riddle was standing oddly, his hands on his head, his body jerking and swaying, as if he was suffering from body blows only he could see and feel, and was emitting sounds of pain and grief. He was definitely not at his best just now…..
The snake was darting around, threatening to attack anyone who approached her master. Even orange Bella couldn't get up close.
Harry blinked again. Can I get myself out of this binding spell with a Finite? He focused on his palms and soles, and the magic quickly tingled through, so he directed it upon himself until he felt the spell release, which played out with him being turned upright and bodily lowered to the floor. He stretched out his right arm, and silently demanded, Accio wand. His wand zipped over, stripped from Voldemort's distracted hand, as the dark wizard was reaching for Nagini.
They're going to share their power!
"Pulsas!" Harry yelled, managing to get a decent thrust of magic into his spell.
From his vantage point, it looked as though Voldemort had been kicked in the side, causing him to grunt an, "Uhhn!" and take an unbalanced step away from his snake familiar.
And all hell broke loose.
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Remus popped onto the second floor landing at the top of the stairs with Fawkes on his shoulder. Fawkes popped away an instant later. Wand battle erupted as Remus jogged down the stairs to join Tonks, Lucius, and John Dawlish in an offensive push down into the crowd below them.
A dark robed figure soared through the air, landing in front of Harry. It was Severus.
"Shield yourself! Do not engage them!" Severus commanded. "Protect yourself, Harry. They are desperate now." Severus said fiercely, holding eye contact to see for himself that Harry was comprehending. Harry nodded and Severus took flight again.
"We need more help!" Harry declared fearfully to no one in particular. He glanced toward the arched doorway into the Great Hall and could see the powerful pearlescent magical barrier was back in place to prevent passage through. He hoped it would hold long enough for them to get the upper hand on this side of it. But it meant that the professors on the other side of it were of no help to them out here.
It was the six of them against nearly twenty sycophants and Lord Voldemort himself. Flashes and ZIPS of crackling magical energy rented the air. Yelps of pain, bursts from translucent shielding, and loudly bellowed incantations agitated the chaos to heights that manifested into a physical awareness of the energy field. The magic was ferocious and it was palpable.
We're so outnumbered! Harry looked frantically around to see where he could make a difference, and defaulted to what he knew he could do best: his wandless Protego shield with his left hand, while he used his wand to set out to give every single one of the assailants a set of clown feet.
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Severus stayed as close to Harry as he could, but he and Lucius were the hated targets of numerous of his former Death Eater brethren, and it was all he could do to block and counter the vicious spells flying at him from all angles. "Sorbere!…Sorbere!…Sorbere!…Pulsas!" There, that last magical shove had caught orange Rodolphus square in the face, sending him headfirst, and backwards into a group of four other Death Eaters who were currently attacking Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks.
He scanned the room for opportunity to subdue another foe, and only just managed another "Sorbere!" in time to swallow a slicing hex sent his way from Antonin Dolohov. His angry sneer and forward jab of his wand was his only response with another hefty Pulsas hex. Dolohov flew back against the stairs, right at John Dawlish's feet.
There should be more assistance from the Ministry of Magic by now, or the Order, Severus thought as he scanned again for a target. He found one.
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The giant snake slithered around and around her master.
They spoke to each other in Parseltongue, as the wandless and depleted Dark Lord surveyed the room, in search of Bellatrix. He needed Wormtail's wand to compensate for the devastating loss of power. My treasures have been destroyed he raged inwardly. Nagini had felt it too. She was all that was left of Lord Voldemort's immortality. When he finally spotted Madam LeStrange, in all of her orange glory, she was battling with the cowardly Lucius Malfoy. The Dark Lord's revenge on Lucius will be quite thorough, he narrated inwardly. He held up his hand. Accio wand!
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Lucius whipped his wand arm across his chest, silently casting a bone crunching hex at Madam LeStrange. He had little faith that it would land, as she was an exceptionally talented duelist, but keeping her engaged like this prevented her from harming any of the others. He watched as Bellatrix did indeed block the spell, deflecting it recklessly in her fury, and sending it right at Cornelius Fudge.
The former Minister of Magic went down and stayed down, but Bellatrix could care less. She just knew that it was Lucius' fault that she'd lost the special cup she'd been keeping safe for her Dark Lord. And she was just as happy to blame him for the bullet wound she'd sustained, and for this bloody awful ORANGE STAIN! "Avada kedavra!" she screeched as she casted the killing curse at Lucius, who had read her intent a split second earlier and dove to the side. "Dammit!" She stomped her foot in frustration and felt an odd, awkward heaviness as she raised it, and a heard loud FLAP as it slapped back down to the floor. What the-? Why were her feet as big as a clown's?
From the floor, where he'd slid bodily after diving to safety, Lucius had the bird's eye view of another wizard currently burdened with clown feet, which were also stuck to the floor: Pius Thicknesse. Lucius jumped to his own feet and joined Severus in applying the lashing hex to the exposed back side of Thicknesse's form, the shocking pain of which was interfering with his ability to focus enough to release himself from Harry's spells. Lucius and Severus each sought to duplicate the misery Pius had inflicted on Harry, so the oily-voiced wizard ended up with eight vicious ribbon like slashes across his back and buttocks. And just like Harry, his clothing was destroyed, giving the audience a full view of the long overdue consequences for his attack on Harry.
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Six members of the Order of the Pheonix, including Arthur, Bill, Fred, and George Weasley, an enraged Mad-Eye Moody, and a fiercely focused Kingsley Shacklebolt, pressed into the chamber, arriving on foot through the front of the school. Now the numbers were finally in the favor of those representing the Light.
"Buggering hell," Moody bellowed in awe, shielding grimly as scattered remnants of lethal magic blew right at him, "they're all still standing, and they're outnumbered two-to-one! Where's the Potter boy?"
"Knowing Harry, he's doing his part," Kingsley said in his booming baritone. They spread out and began to engage in the ruckus.
There was still more work to be done, as there were only seven dark wizards completely out of commission at this point.
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Remus, Tonks, and John Dawlish had each managed to engage, and best, a Death Eater a piece, and were each now currently engaged with a second. Remus had observed a method of counter attack employed by both of the aurors, where a rotation of four disabling spells was used in two full cycles, followed by a harsh pulse of magic, that he did not recognize, but assumed was an alternative to Bombarda. It had been easy work for both Dora and John to then incapacitate and bind their captives under Ministry-sanctioned chain shackled restraints. John confined Remus' captive with the same means before turning to take on another assailant.
Remus employed a variation of the aurors' tactic on Rookwood, but refined his rotation to three spells, casting a knee-bender, a body bind, and a face punching hex, rapidly in three cycles, landing all three on his target, who wobbled and jerked and tottered, unable to defend himself. Remus concluded with his preferred blasting hex, "Bombarda!"
At the end of his incantation, as his own voice quieted, Remus noted a distinct reduction in the volume within the room. The power vacuum had shifted.
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One final POP into the quieting melee revealed Albus Dumbledore's arrival, armed with the sword of Gryffindor, just as a thoroughly pummeled Augustus Rookwood sailed high into the air and smacked hard on the far wall, falling to the floor with a decisive THUNK.
The room grew silent as the formidable elderly wizard brandished the Sword of Gryffindor.
Nagini sensed the shift in her master's awareness of this new threat, and darted away to handle the problem for him.
"Nagini-" Tom Riddle called out in alarm. "Don't leave me," he added in Parseltongue.
The room grew silent, save for the desperate, "My Lord!" from Bellatrix LeStrange, whose enormous feet were now stuck to the floor for the third time, due to Harry Potter's relentless and constant casting of that infernal spell. The snake darted and slithered so quickly it was difficult to follow her movements as she hurtled towards the Headmaster. When she was mere feet away from him, charging with the intent to bite his throat, she reared upward, her head as high as the full grown wizards around her.
"It's over, Tom," Dumbledore advised calmly as he swung the goblin-forged steel weapon upward in a diagonal slash that lopped off the head of the attacking reptile.
The power had shifted to the light, and every dark wizard, except Voldemort, was currently disabled and confined within magical restraints. There was still a low threshold of noise, but now it was mostly heavy breathing, and groans from the injured.
Harry Potter stood alone, off to the side of the arena created by this event, watching the crowd of agitated wizards shift around to stay clear of the snake's writhing carcass. And then…. an unimpeded pathway opened between Harry and Lord Voldemort. He's just standing there….
"Expelliarmus!" The Boy Who Lived yelled from across the chamber, startling many, as all eyes snapped first to Harry,
…..then back to the Dark Lord.
…..then followed the sailing wand that had once belonged to Wormtail as it flew straight to Harry,
…..then back to Tom Riddle, whose magical core was so depleted from the loss of his horcruxes and the trauma of the resurrection he'd just endured, that he was experiencing a physiological implosion.
Voldemort was literally being consumed from within. He turned hate-filled, infuriated eyes toward Harry Potter, that damned Boy Who Still Lived.
No one was quite certain what exactly it was that Tom Riddle wailed on his way out of this world. Many, including Harry and his mentors, were certain he called out, "POTTTTTEEEERRRRRRRRR!"
….and he was gone, leaving only a swirl of papery ashes in a pile where he'd only just been standing.
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The Boy Who Continued To Live stood heaving breaths in and out, in and out.
Severus Snape, once one of the most vocal critics of said boy, took only one deep inhale and exhale before he was in motion, heading directly for the hero of the moment. He felt such a deep rush of emotions that should be familiar to all - joy, relief, pride, and yes, paternal love - as he headed straight for Harry Potter, to wrap strong arms low around the boy's middle, and hoist him high, as the room broke into a ROAR of relieved cheering.
Harry smiled shakily, bracing his hands on Severus' shoulders, still in shock at what had just played out. Lucius and Remus were also there now, so Severus let Harry drop to the ground so that all the other adult wizards could ensnare him in a tight embrace. There were no dry eyes among them. There were very few dry eyes at all.
It was done. Life could resume.
A/N: I hope you dug that as much as I did. Just the Epilogue and we're done!
