Chapter 33

Hi everyone! Wow I am so extremely sorry it's been so long since I updated. Literally 8 months like that's so bad I'm so sorry. I haven't abandoned this story I promise, even if I can only update once a year for the next 20 years. The end is near, but life has been insane. I graduated high school (yay!) and I spent the summer in Europe which was super awesome. Honestly if any of you ever get the chance to travel to Switzerland, please do! It's honestly the most beautiful country. I also moved 1,800 miles away for college which has been a little hard but I'm adjusting. I hope you all understand why I haven't been focused on this story and forgive me for not updating for such a long time! Also I'm sorry I know this chapter is kinda short, but trust me shits about to go down.

Also P.S. to the few complaints I've been getting about pairings in this story, I'm not changing anything, just going with cannon. Sorry if you don't like the pairings JK chose (Hermione and Ron is kinda a mess) but that's what I'm doing in this story so sorry.

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A frustrated scream echoed through the walls of an isolated cabin deep in the forest. A loud crash quickly followed; the windows surrounding the east wall shattered, blown out by a rush of furious power. Voldemort stood panting in his library, glaring at the two figures sat before him. The male lacky quaked in fear as he felt the power of his master's wrath yet the woman sat pondering, completely ignoring the dark lord before her.

"Why am I unable to access the boys mind?" Voldemort snarled, mostly to himself. He looked at the woman, her brow furrowed and eyes slightly unfocused.

"Morgana!" he snapped, drawing her out of her thoughts. The other man's head snapped to the side to look at the woman with pity and fear as if he was already visiting her grave.

"Just who is this boy?" she asked calmly, looking out of the shattered windows, "before you ask, I cannot explain why no magic seems to affect him." The look on her face was one of deep frustration. Morgana was used to being the one with power, the one who controlled others fear.

But now...

This child's power was making her doubt even her own abilities, had a millennium of rest dampened her magic? She knew that as soon as she was not useful to the crazed man before her she would be disposed of and if she did not have the power to defend herself there was nothing she could do about it. The fact that this boy's mind seemed to be completely guarded against even her was worrying to say the least. A thousand years ago she was one of the greatest manipulators of the mind to have ever walked the earth, but now it seemed a simple boy was able to block her.

Voldemort began to pace around the room, hands clasped behind his back. Seeing his chance, the wizard beside Morgana fled from the room leaving just the two behind.

"This doesn't make any sense...The Potters were normal wizards, not especially powerful" he was muttering to himself, brow furrowed.

Morgana shivered as a cold draft from the shattered windows bit through her thin robes, sucking the warmth from the library. She studied the open holes in the wall with a cautious curiosity. The man was powerful, no doubt. If her mind spell of the old religion had failed with three very powerful wizards casting it, there must have been something very special about this Harry Potter.

"Could HE be blocking it?" Voldemort spat at her, his frustration growing every minute.

"Merlin? No. The only way to even try to block a mind spell is through the wizard it is being cast on, and from what I understand we are trying to cast it on a child." Morgana huffed, crossing her arms.

"That child seems to be just as powerful as we are...maybe even more so at this point" Voldemort stated, wringing his hands behind his back, "with every attempt we only got farther away from penetrating his mind. I have no idea what changed in the last six months. He was never reported to be an especially powerful wizard and if it wasn't for that scar on his forehead I doubt Harry Potter would ever have been a distinguished wizard at all."

"I am a creature of the old religion" Morgana stated, drawing herself up with pride, "my magic is more pure than any you or that child can cast with modern methods. I should have no problem entering the boy's mind alone as my magic could easily rip yours to shreds, yet alone I cannot even locate the boy's mind. There is something going on here that goes deeper than your modern magic, possibly deeper than the old religion."

"Possibly..." Voldemort muttered under his breath, expression changing from frustrated to curious.

"Possibly what?" Morgana pushed, raising an eyebrow.

"Something I tried months ago...before you appeared" he pondered, rubbing his chin, "but it failed. If I had succeeded the boy would have been long dead."

"And you think whatever you did may have made the boy...more powerful?" Morgana scoffed, "if it was meant to kill him how could it have failed to the point that it did the opposite?"

"Are you questioning my competence?" Voldemort snarled, his voice dangerously quiet. A cold aura seemed to settle around the room further drawing out any warmth that remained. Morgana shivered again, but her expression remained steely.

"Of course not, but I fail to see the connection between an agent of death and the boy's ever growing strength" Morgana replied icily, meeting the snake-like man's eyes.

"Severus mentioned Potter had a few magical outbursts following his release from the hospital ward. Possibly..." he trailed off, scratching his chin in deep thought.

"What did you do to him?" Morgana asked, almost morbidly curious as the man before her only grew more and more vague.

"It was a virus of sorts, not one that normally appears in nature, one manufactured by the dark arts" he replied, and Morgana felt her patients wearing thin as she was met with another nonspecific response.

"And what did this virus do?" she tried again, crossing her arms. Voldemort paused for a moment, giving Morgana a strange look.

"Well, it was meant to eat away at the boy's magical core, a wizard's life source. I wonder if its failure altered the very makeup of the boy's magic, causing this rapid growth in power" he finally replied, turning away from her.

Morgana felt like someone had dumped a gallon of frozen water on her head, he had tried to take away the boy's magic?

She looked at the man before her, as if seeing him for the very first time. If this man was willing to destroy another's magic she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to be on his side, even if he was opposing Merlin. She has always considered herself an avenger, someone who would take action against all those who had wronged magic and those who practiced it. Yet here she was, standing before a man who was willing to defile something so sacred.

She could not imagine a worse fate then what he had tried to do to that boy.

And the removal of the boy's magic would have no doubt killed him. From what she understood the boy in question was only a child. She understood opposing any on Merlin's side, but she wasn't sure if she understood why that opposition ment killing a child. Yet the wizard before her, who was no doubt extremely powerful, seemed to fear that child, fear him for more reasons than his ever growing magical power.

Suddenly she was pulled out of her thoughts when she realized the man before her was studying her with a thoughtful expression.

"What?" she asked, her tone a bit more clipped then she would have liked.

"Morgana how far do the depths of your roots in the old religion go?" He asked, a cunning smile pulling at his pale lips.

"I'm not sure what you mean" she replied.

"If needed, could you...look...into the soul of another magical being...into their very being?" he continued.

"I don't think I'm following."

"If you were given physical access to the boy, would you be able to look and see his magic?" he finally clarified, a smug smile strug across his face.

Morgana's eyes widened slightly, "In theory, I guess so. But it's never something I've attempted before."

"So you're saying it's possible."

"It...it's possible" she replied, feeling more uncomfortable with this request by the second. Peering into his mind was one thing, but to look into his very core? She wasn't sure if anyone deserved to be violated like that.

But then she remembered the look on her brothers' and sisters' faces as they were slaughtered by Uther and Arthur alike. As Merlin fought and defeated her time and time again, blocking her of raising magic to it's true throne. And she set her jaw, looking Voldemort in the eyes.

"If you give me access to the boy, I can examine his magic. I can tell you what went wrong and I can tell you how to stop it" Her face remained expressionless and her eyes glassy and cold.

Voldemort's face broke into a triumphant smile, "excellent. You'll have to access him in the castle, there's no way to remove him from it without our enemies growing suspicious."

"I can go at night, while him and the rest are asleep. Your barriers are only meant to stop new magic, not the old religion so entering the castle should be easy" she replied with a curt nod.

"Should being the operative word" Voldemort frowned, turning to look out the frosty window.

"I'll make the trip in three days" Morgana declared, turning to leave the library.

"And be careful Morgana, I do not know if that virus is infectious" Voldemort added as she walked away, waving his hand casually.

Morgana's stride faltered for a moment before she walked out of the room, hands shaking slightly. It felt as if alarm bells were ringing inside her skull and a rock had been dropped in her stomach. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she took a deep breath and shoved her guilt and doubt to the back of her mind. The boy couldn't be her first concern, Merlin was. Voldemort had told her that this 'Hogwarts' the students learned in was in fact Arthur's castle. Though Camelot itself was gone, apparently replaced by a forest, the castle remained. Of course all that was left of her first home was that godforsaken castle.

She closed the door to her room behind her as she started to pace from one side to the other. Something was eating at her, but she couldn't necessarily place what it was. Spotting the unopened bottle of firewhiskey one of the Dark Lord's minions had given her she decided to pour a glass.

Taking a sip she shuddered slightly, it was almost...spicy and burned her throat unlike the mead and wine they had served at royal feasts. But she decided she liked the burn, taking one sip after another until the glass was drained.

Pouring herself another drink, she sat by the window and stared at the barren, frozen wasteland that sprawled out before her. The combined warmth of the whiskey and her own self doubts caused her mind to wander, landing on one of her oldest memories.

She had just lost her father, and she was watching snow cover the castle grounds from her window. A knock sounded at the door and as she turned, her new brother strode into her room as if it was his own.

"What do you want Arthur" she grumbled, much preferring to grieve alone.

"C'mon Morgana father said we could go play in the snow" Arthur replied, the spark of childhood innocence shining in his eyes.

Morgana rolled her eyes and was about to tell her new brother to leave her alone when she glanced back out towards the blanketed grounds. The snow did look really soft.

She shrugged, "fine" and grabbed an overcoat as she followed Arthur out. When the two of them made it to the courtyard she found that Leon was already there, waiting for them.

"What took you so long?" he asked Arthur, sticking his tongue out at the young prince.

Arthur grabbed a handful of snow from the ground and threw it at his friend in retaliation.

"Hey!" yelled Leon, throwing snow in return.

Morgana felt herself giggling as she ran across the courtyard, turning to chuck some snow at her new brother's head.

"Morgana!" Arthur yelled indignantly, "you're supposed to be on my side!"

Morgana and Leon shared a look before both throwing snow towards the prince, "think again Arthur!"

The three of them ran around the courtyard for nearly three hours, laughing until their sides hurt. Once their snowball fight had ceased and the snow in the courtyard had been rendered a muddy mess the three children made their way back inside, dripping onto the cold castle floors.

"Same time tomorrow?" Leon asked with rosy cheeks before running off to find his father.

"We should go get changed before father finds us" Arthur grinned, "I don't think he'll appreciate all this mud on the castle floors."

Morgana smiled back at Arthur, "good idea."

Morgana sighed as she finished her drink. There were so many good memories; but there were so many awful ones too.

Placing the glass down next to the bottle of firewhisky once more, she turned towards the desk in the room.

It was time to start planning her mission.

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Not the longest chapter in the world, but I thought the ending was sweet. Again, I'm so sorry for being away for so long and hopefully I'll have the next chapter out soon. Please leave me a review to let me know how you like my story or if you have any ideas to improve it! Thank you all so much for reading.