o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o
Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.
Notes: This chapter is mythology-heavy, so there are tons of pins up on my Pinterest (same user name) for this chapter.
o─-─-─-─-─ 15. IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA ─-─-─-─-─o
Harry wandered the tortuous tangle of basement tunnels in pitch darkness, one hand on the wall to keep himself from stumbling. He was circling the locus of cold detected by his coral focus, where he would find his uncle. From time to time, he wondered how he would ever find his way out of the warren of tunnels, but the mission drew him on. Rabastan was here, somewhere, and Harry would find him, dead or alive.
The passages grew narrower and the ceilings dropped as he descended into the earth. There were souls somewhere in the maze of tunnels, too far away to identify. Finally, at the end of a passage that Harry had to stoop to traverse, he caught a flicker of red-orange torch-light that accompanied three swirling souls. There were voices, too, but Harry could not make them out until he reached the end of the corridor, which required him to crawl on his hands and knees. He was not prepared for the sight that awaited him.
Harry was looking out from a crack in the wall of a large natural cavern, not unlike the one that the charnel cliff caves connected to. The ceiling and other walls were lost in darkness. The object of his search was strapped to a metal table with leather restraints binding his ankles, wrists, waist, and forehead to the table. His long auburn hair had been crudely hacked off, exposing a face that might have been a skull but for the wild eyes that rolled in deep, bruised sockets. His soul appeared more ragged than ever. A grey-bearded guard stirred a pewter cauldron nearby, and every so often Rabastan looked at him and sobbed quietly.
Harry padded to Rab on tiptoes and touched his shoulder lightly—the Death Eater screamed bloody murder, then hacked convulsively, spattering Harry with a fine spray of blood. Harry nearly leapt out of his skin, but the guard ignored them.
Something clattered behind Harry, and he and the grey-bearded guard both whirled.
"Oh, it's you," the greybeard guard muttered.
"Were you expecting someone else?" the Wizenwarden, Oakes, replied dryly. His reedy voice, thin face, and closely-set eyes mirrored the thinness of his soul. There were flaps of skin below his chin, as though he had once been much larger, and the way they wobbled when he spoke reminded Harry of a rooster.
"Potter's been asking after Lestrange," the Wizenwarden reported. "I trust you and your Order will take care of it?" He emphasized the word 'Order' oddly.
The greybeard shrugged. "If necessary. I have the potion ready."
"Took you long enough. Will it work? I can't wait another month."
"I told you it was a long shot. It'll open him up, but as to what comes out…who knows?"
The Warden huffed. "I've had about enough of waiting on his scrawny arse. If this doesn't work, that's it. Game over." He leaned casually on the metal table and looked down at Rabastan. "Hello, Lestrange, you lovely shit-sack, you. How are you this fine day?"
Rabastan spit blood into the Warden's face and for half a second the torches flared and Harry could feel the Death Eater's raw, powerful magic hammering against the bars of its cage. Then came a shouted expletive, a snarled curse, and the rattle and drum of bony limbs on metal as Rabastan convulsed with pain. The Warden held him under the curse for a full minute, and when he released Rab, a trickle of blood dripped from the corner of the prisoner's mouth, and his defiant magic had gone back into hiding.
"Now, now, none of that," the Warden cooed. Rabastan moaned, and the Warden stroked his cheek in a parody of kindness. "There, there, we'll be done with you soon. Just a little longer now."
Harry could have incapacitated the two guards without delay, set Rabastan free, and smuggled him out somehow, but he stayed his hand. There was something strange going on here, and Harry's instincts told him to wait and find out what it was. He felt a twinge of guilt at letting his uncle continue to suffer, but the contest between his curiosity and his compassion was no contest at all, really; he sat back and watched the show.
"Here it is," the greybeard said, funnelling a draught of runny mauve potion into a flask.
"Open wide," the Warden instructed Rab, with a flick of his wand that forced the man's jaws wide open and straining. The Warden poured the potion down Rab's throat, and Rab was forced to either swallow it or inhale it. He swallowed.
After a moment in which both guards waited impatiently, Rab's eyes fell half-shut, and his body went limp.
"How do you feel, Lestrange?"
Rabastan's wild, bloodshot eyes widened, and, in a voice made hoarse by all his screaming, he rattled off, "Shitty, hellish, awful, dreadful, manky, rotten, horrible, frightful."
The Warden laughed. "Now. Tell us again why you deserve a posh new cell."
Harry frowned.
Rabastan moaned. "I don't. I don't deserve anything nice or posh or cushy or lux or anything at all. I deserve to be dropped in a pit in the ground and forgotten."
The Warden snorted. "Where exactly do you think you are?"
Rab looked around curiously. "Underground? Beneath the earth? Somewhere subterranean, most definitely. I suspect it is somewhere beneath Azkaban, but I can't be certain. It could be Hades. Tartarus. There's a distinct possibility."
"All right, then, Lestrange, why don't you tell us what you wanted us to know, back when you asked about a new cell."
"Why? Because I can't," Rab moaned, "I made a Vow. It's right here, on the tip of my tongue"—he wiggled his tongue in the air—"but I can't."
Harry's stomach sank. Rab's last words to him now held a dark import: "I'm your uncle. Keep favouring him and I'll start to think you don't care for me." The man was no fool. He must have realized that Harry had helped Sirius escape, and, in a fit of jealous rage, tried to betray the boy.
Harry clenched his jaw. Rage bubbled up within him at the thought that Rab had wanted to sell his nephew's secrets for a cushier cell. The next moment, however, Harry's heart softened, and his fists unclenched. Rab didn't deserve this torture. Still, Harry was just mad enough to continue watching without interfering, even now that he knew what was going on.
"What can you tell us, then?" the Warden asked impatiently. The greybeard grimaced as though this were a blunder, which it was proved the next moment when Rab began to spew his guts.
"Oh, all kinds of things," the prisoner babbled, "I can tell you where I was born—London—and where I went to Primary—the Clacoquin Conservatoire for Boys of Good Breeding. I can tell you I was the best flautist in my year, and that I got to play the solo at the recital, but Rogerick booed me, and I tripped over my music stand and broke my nose. I can tell you I never played the flute again after that—not because I couldn't, but because my mother was rubbish at healing, and my nose made a funny kind of honk whenever I tried to play after that. I can tell you"—he was cut off by the Warden's bellow.
"Enough! What can you tell us about unusual things going on here at Azkaban?"
"Oh, loads," Rab jabbered. "I can tell you that the dementors have been talking, and I don't mean to each other. I can tell you the front door isn't the only way out of here. I can tell you that not all of the skeletons around here are who you think they are."
Harry swallowed a lump of fear burrowing up his throat. Nothing Rab had mentioned could exactly be considered a secret of his, but they were awfully close. He would have to tighten the terms of the Vows he got in future, that was certain.
"We know all of that already," the Warden sighed. "What can you tell us about the prison that we don't know?"
Rab made a high hysterical sound. Harry wasn't sure if it was a laugh or a sob. "Lots. There's a great big crack on the ceiling of my cell and when it rains the water…"
Rab nattered on in that fashion, while the Warden sighed and slung himself into a nearby chair. "You have a go," he told the greybeard, who nodded curtly and leaned over Rabastan. The man produced a piece of parchment from within his robe, and began to systematically snap out questions.
"Does Adcock speak to the dementors?"
"I don't know. Mayb—"
"Does Alderwood speak to the dementors?"
"I don't kno—"
"Does Bloodworth speak to the dementors?"
"I don—"
If Harry hadn't just taken a calming potion, he might have downed another. He could see where this was going. He had never told Rab his real name, but if the man was sharp enough to realize that Harry had helped Sirius escape, he might be sharp enough to guess the truth. Two other prisoners had found Harry out, after all.
The questioning continued in this fashion until they arrived at the P's.
"Does Potter speak to the dementors?"
Rabastan opened his mouth to speak, and abruptly lost consciousness. The two guards exchanged a significant look.
"There you have it," the greybeard concluded with a tiny, measured smile that was no more than a spasm of his lips. "All that remains is to clear away the rubbish."
"Leave Potter to me," the Warden replied with a greasy smile. "It would be my pleasure."
"No," the greybeard replied sharply. "Potter is ours. You are to observe only—for now."
"You promised"—the Warden began, but the greybeard cut him off. Harry wondered at the strange authority the man seemed to have over the Warden. His uniform indicated that he was only a wizenguard, but he was obviously more.
"I promised nothing. However, for your assistance, you may take Lestrange to your…meeting."
The Warden glared mutinously, but eventually he acquiesced. With a flick of his wand, the Warden stunned Rabastan, and, with a twirl, he released the straps binding the prisoner down.
"Care to join the festivities?" the Warden inquired with poisonous tact as he levitated the Death Eater's body toward a tunnel.
The greybeard shot the Warden a wry look. "The Order overlooks your quaint traditions for now, but you will be brought to heel in due time."
By this point, Harry was sick of watching this tawdry drama play out, but there was more to be known. Who was the greybeard? What was this Order? What was this meeting? Harry decided to continue watching and waiting, for the moment. He followed closely at the Warden's heels. So it was that the queer procession wound its way through the dark maze of tunnels, the way illuminated only by dim wizard-light that wrought sinister shadows upon walls that had never known the light of day.
─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─
Harry padded softly behind the Warden and the floating, unconscious Death Eater. The tunnel burrowed ever deeper into the earth, and the sound of the waves crashing against the stone around them grew ever louder and more ominous as they walked. The terrible force of the surging sea made the corridor shudder, and the rocks groaned like a chorus of inferi. Even Harry, who normally felt at ease in the dark and the cold, was unnerved.
When they had passed below the level of the sea, Harry could sense the colossal pressure of the ocean all around them, like a storm brewing, and he had an odd sense that his body was becoming lighter and looser as the air grew colder. Even his magic seemed to flow more freely. The constant strain of bending light around his body to make himself invisible eased. Though in a way this feeling was reassuring, it also made him uneasy, as it spoke of ambient magic unseen and unknown.
The Warden, Oakes, seemed to be experiencing the opposite effect. He visibly struggled to continue levitating Rabastan, and the Death Eater's hands and feet, which were dangling bonelessly, began to drag on the stone floor. Harry was still caught between fury and pity for his uncle. On the one hand, Rab had tried to betray Harry's secrets to gain a better cell, but, on the other hand, he had been maltreated for years and outright tortured of late.
Ahead, Harry began to pick up a hushed murmuring, of the waves, he thought. As they drew closer to a gathering of souls, however, he realized that the murmuring was human voices. Ahead, a large circular stone blocked the end of the corridor. The Warden transfigured his clothing into a dark plum-coloured robe with a forceful flick of his wand, then tapped a rapid and complicated sequence of signs on the stone. The great rock rolled into the wall of the passage with a grating rumble, and the Warden, Rabastan, and Harry descended a flight of steps and emerged on what had to be the lowest level of Azkaban.
The room was one great, low-roofed cavern, illuminated by floating wizard-lights, studded with ancient, dripping stalagmites and stalactites. The perimeters were lined with thousands upon thousands of bones, stacked neatly into walls. The sight was macabre, even to Harry, who had seen more than his share of death. This was not what his eyes were most drawn to, however.
Ahead of them, in the centre, orbs of violet wizard-light clustered about a great and fearful statue of a creature who was a beautiful winged woman from the waist up and a scaly, coiled nightmare from the waist down. Harry halted by the entrance and simply stared at the bizarre tableau.
Before the statue, dozens of people in dark purple robes were kneeling and chanting in an unintelligible cacophony, while above their heads hundreds of dementors seethed in a churning frenzy that resembled a school of spectral fish. There were no patronuses present, Harry realized with a shock, yet none of the humans—wizenguards, they must be—seemed bothered by the dementors. This revelation was both disturbing and intriguing. If either group decided to go against him, Harry would have difficulty removing Rabastan. Perhaps he had made a mistake in waiting so long to rescue his uncle. Yet Harry only stood, watching and listening. His thirst to know more had overwhelmed his better judgement.
As the Warden stepped forward, the crowd of kneelers parted, and at his signal their chanting began anew, in unison.
Obsecro te Mater Tenebrarum Echidna, Monstrorum Regina, plenissime irae, Gaia et Tartarus filia, mater horribilissima, mater viperae, morte regum, iusti ruinas, morborum omnium qui tibi displicent: fons aquae foetidus, fons et sordes putrescet, fons et corruptionis infirmitas…¹
Harry's Latin was good, and he translated the words easily, though he didn't understand all of the references.
I beseech thee Dark Mother Echidna², Queen of Monsters most full of wrath, the daughter of Gaia and Tartarus³, mother most dreadful, mother of vipers, death of kings, ruin of the righteous, disease upon all who displease thee: font of fetid waters, font of rot and filth, font of corruption and sickness…
What sort of hellish ceremony is this? Harry wondered. Given the wizenguards' proclivities, however, he supposed he should not be so surprised that they chose a dark and demonic goddess to worship.
The crowd of kneelers continued their chant as the Warden carried Rab's limp body forward and placed it on an altar at the foot of the statue. Harry's jaw tightened. He knew what the three acolytes of Freya did at their altar—blood sacrifices and sexual rites. Harry circled the crowd of purple robed guards to stand a few feet from Rabastan's head. At the first sign of blood, he was prepared to throw his shield of invisibility over his uncle and make for the stairs. The thought of being pursued by a bloodthirsty mob of fully-trained wizards, however, was daunting.
The Warden turned and raised both hands for silence. "Wands," he called a voice that echoed eerily in the vast chamber.
There was a rustle of robes as dozens of wands were produced and aimed at the statue of Echidna. Harry and the Warden both ducked so as not to be in the line of spells.
"Cast when ready."
A bolt of brilliant purple light shot wordlessly from every wand and connected to the statue. Harry watched in bemused silence for several minutes until a miracle began to take shape. At first, he thought he was imagining the wisps of light, but as the seconds ticked by and the glowing threads began to coalesce and pulse with life, he knew that what he perceived was real.
A soul was forming inside the statue.
There was a hollow boom, a violent blast of force, and the congregation was flattened. Even the dementors were crushed, immobile, to the ceiling. Harry found himself pressed to the rough stone floor and struggled to lift his head. It felt as though gravity had tripled.
There was a stabbing pain in the back of his head where it had struck the ground, and he heard himself groaning distantly. For a moment, he fumbled his magic and became partially visible, but within seconds, he firmed his shield of invisibility. His magic was still flowing more freely than he had ever felt it. When he finally lifted his head and was able to focus his eyes, which did not want to heed him, he could not fathom what he beheld.
The statue blazed with soul-light as fiercely as the noon-day sun. The wispy strands of soul that had just barely formed were now a solid, compact mass that radiated light so intense that Harry felt sure his eyes would have been damaged had they been the organs by which he perceived souls. This soul was so much greater than anything he had ever seen that he felt himself an insect by comparison. They were, all of them, ants before a giantess.
Then the statue began, piece by piece, to come to life.
With a sticky squelching sound, the wings twitched sluggishly, then flared wide and beat—once, twice—showering the congregation with a foul-smelling black liquid. Rather than feathers, they were covered with tendrils of what looked like reddish-black rotting kelp. The statue's hair, too, was composed of this repulsive material, which began to writhe and twist with a mind of its own.
Underneath the hair, however, the face of the statue was so lovely as to catch Harry's breath. Smooth, high-boned cheeks flushed with the rosy bloom of health, and exquisitely shaped black eyes seemed to glitter with the light of reflected stars. The lips could have been a cherry, so red and ripe were they. The chest was bare, proudly displaying two perfectly formed breasts, which lifted slightly with breath. Two velvet-soft nipples hardened as Harry watched, and the living statue trailed her fingers across them languorously, then down her smooth belly to her sex. That was where her beauty ended, for the hair of her nether regions was as putrid and foul as the rotting slime covering her wings and head.
Below her hips, however, the true horror started. There, the skin of the statue ran to black scales, and each leg became the tail of a massive snake, so that she had no proper legs at all. Each snake tail was two metres or more long, and they coiled beneath her to hold her aloft.
The picture she formed was, in all, grotesque, yet her soul burned like the sun, and Harry could not help but be awed by the power of that glow. This—this—thing—it was a goddess! It had to be. With that thought, Harry felt his understanding of the world tilting precariously.
One snake-leg uncoiled, then the other, and the living statue slithered forward in a parody of walking, down a shallow set of steps cut into her plinth. As she moved, Harry experienced a moment of vertigo, and thought that he had double vision, but he quickly realized that there actually were two figures. The stone statue had not truly come to life; it stood as cold and lifeless as ever on its base, and only some magical artifice made him think that it lived and breathed. It was the impossibly large soul that moved forward, clothed in a powerful illusion that took the shape of the demon-angel-goddess with her wings and scales.
As soon as Harry had realized this fact, however, it slipped away from him, and the stone statue disappeared. He focused, and it appeared again. The harder he tried to focus on the fact of its existence, however, the more rapidly its appearance fluctuated. He felt dizzy, as though he were under the influence of some hallucinogen. Perhaps he was.
In the meantime, he had missed the Warden climbing to his feet again. "Sit vas procedent," the man called in his reedy voice. Let a vessel come forth, Harry translated.
A dark, fluttering shape detached itself from the ceiling and swooped down like a great black bat. It was a dementor. The demon-angel-goddess stepped forward and her form was superimposed on the fluttering, black shape. Their interposed images shimmered until only the dementor's was left, along with the brilliant glow of the massive soul now inside it. The dementor raised its hands slowly, and Harry saw that those hands were no longer scarred and rotting like those of its brethren.
The dementor pushed its dark hood back, and Harry gasped. This dementor had once been Astraea Crouch. She let the loose, rippling black robe fall to the ground and stood naked before them, her life, youth, and beauty seemingly restored. Glossy blond curls adorned her head in a bob cut, and clear blue eyes surveyed the crowd of prostrated wizenguards. Her skin was smooth and unmarred from head to toe, so unlike the half-rotted monster she had been before.
It was not truly Astraea, though, and Harry would have known that even if he had not seen the giant soul thrumming just below her skin. Astraea's eyes had only ever contained grief, and madness, when they contained anything at all. She would never have looked at a crowd of worshippers with such hunger and lust, as if she wanted to eat them all alive while she mated with their corpses. Harry forced himself to focus on the reality lying below the surface of the illusion, but the magic was strong. He saw only a momentary glimmer of the cadaverous, eyeless creature that she was in truth.
The demon-angel-goddess, wearing Astraea's body, stepped to the altar before her and banished the rags from Rabastan's body with a swish of her hand. Harry's uncle had regained consciousness, and by the terror in his eyes and the tiny jerking motions of his limbs, Harry knew the man was trying and failing to get away.
"Mater, quæsumus accipere sacrificium," the Warden murmured, bowing so low that his forehead touched the ground. Mother, we beseech thee to accept the sacrifice.
Rabastan's limp white organ sprang to attention at the barest brush of the goddess' fingers, despite the terrified man's struggles, and the goddess climbed atop it with Astraea's body and sank down onto it with a sigh. Magic pulsed and the sea throbbed around them all as she undulated against him. Her slight, smooth breasts shook in time with her motions and with the magic, but if Harry concentrated, he could see the skeletal and diseased form of a dementor, its half-rotted skin sloughing off as it raked its nails over its own breasts.
An unwanted idea forced its way into Harry's mind—Lily writhing and moaning atop a putrefying monster in the Department of Mysteries. Harry covered his mouth and averted his eyes, fighting the urge to vomit. Please, gods, he thought, don't let it have been like this.
The magic swelled to a crescendo, and, against his will, Harry's eyes were drawn back to the demonic mating ritual. Astraea's form was evolving. The goddess threw her head back with pleasure, and wriggling black tendrils of hair sprouted, replacing the blond curls. At the height of her pleasure, her groans became a growl, and then a shriek. Curved black talons like those of a raptor grew from her hands.
She made a grasping motion—and began to pull out Rabastan's soul.
Harry didn't think, he simply acted. With of a burst of magic, he blasted the goddess off his uncle. She didn't go sprawling like the crone in Knockturn, however; she somersaulted in mid-air and landed on her feet, which had also grown rapacious talons. From a crouch, she regarded him with fierce, intelligent eyes. His invisibility had fallen, leaving him vulnerable to the entire lunatic mob, who remained, for the moment, frozen in confusion and shock.
Harry's heart pounded, and he felt fear creeping up his spine. What the hell was he doing? This was a goddess. Nonetheless, despite his lingering resentment for the man, Harry couldn't let his uncle be murdered before his very eyes.
"Leave him alone," Harry called, in a voice that sounded terribly uncertain.
The goddess laughed, and waved one arm carelessly at the seething cloud of dementors. From that moment, the fight was on.
Dementors dropped from the ceiling and rushed at Harry like a swarm of bats. If the purple-robed cultists had joined the attack, the dark-haired boy would certainly have been overwhelmed, but the wizards and witches seemed to remember their horror of dementors when the creatures swooped down over them, and the crowd broke up in a riotous panic.
Harry hissed expletives even as he knocked the black-cloaked creatures out of the air with wild clubs of magic. He managed to erect an omnidirectional shield, but every blow to it sent a throb of pain through his head, and, worse, the dementors were sucking at his soul. They were too far away to do any real damage, but their efforts were making him dizzy and sick. Harry turned the tactic back against them, but although the souls in their bellies tore loose easily, the scraps of what had once been their human souls merely fluttered and refused to be uprooted. It was useless, and the boy quickly resorted back to his normal magic.
Harry's blunt blows hit the dementors like well-aimed bludgers, but they recovered quickly, and he scrambled to find a better tactic. The dementors' black cloaks soon proved immune to cuts and burns, but their flesh was vulnerable. Exposed hands went flying, and Harry slashed every skull he could see clean in half. Their hands they ignored, but cutting their brains in half seemed to keep the creatures down. At the direction of their leader, however, they pulled their hoods down, shielding themselves.
Harry did his damnedest to send a jet of white-hot flame up every hem and under every cowl, but it was hard to aim when the bloody things wouldn't stop zipping around him. He must have been making a dent, though, because the goddess deigned to aid her eyeless army.
"Glacies!" the goddess thundered, ice, and the air grew frigid within seconds. The flames shooting from Harry's coral-pierced hand flickered and died. Frost formed on his lips and eyelashes, but he merely brushed it off.
Dementors—fuck, how do I stop a dementor? Then it came to him. Harry struggled for a moment to remember his mother's eyes, and not imagine her pinned under a monstrous bloated corpse—and then his patronus, Pax, burst from his hand.
The argent dove circled Harry, trailing streams of silver magic. At a gesture from their leader, the dementors fell back. The goddess darted through their ranks in Astraea's naked and nimble body, and—incredibly, impossibly—snatched Pax from the air with her curved black talons. She crammed the bird against her mouth and bit off his head with savage glee. Her wickedly sharp teeth were black with rot. Harry gaped in horror.
The dementors surged forward again, and Harry, panting now, strengthened his shield, keeping them as back as he could. The boost to his magic that he experienced in the cavern was all that was keeping him in the fight, he knew, and yet it was not enough. He looked around for something, anything, and found Rab, crouched behind the statue, hiding his nakedness with a robe he had pinched from a felled dementor. The look in the man's sea-green eyes was feral. Harry took a moment to throw a warming charm at his uncle, and then re-joined the battle with new determination. He was on his own—but then, he always had been.
Harry clenched his teeth and focused as hard as he ever had on a new spell. He held his happiest memories in reserve as if he were going to summon his patronus, but instead he channelled a cutting curse through the memories, and hoped against hope that his desperate need and desire would make the spell work. It failed—once—twice—but then a silver scythe-shaped light flew from his hand and into the dementors.
"HA!" Harry shouted in triumph as the dementors in the path of the patronus-scythe were sliced in two, cloaks and all. Vicious, righteous triumph surged within him, and he used the elation to power his magic as he swiftly cut down every dementor in range. Those whose skulls he missed still twitched feebly, but they could not fly.
The goddess shrieked and waved the dementors back, but not before Harry had halved their numbers. Now, he thought, and slashed at the goddess possessing Astraea's body with a cutting curse. She deflected it with a flick of her hand, sneering. He snapped off a stalagmite and hurled it at her—she responded with a rain of splintered bones from the encircling walls. He made the ground beneath her feet erupt in a fountain of rubble, and she brought the ceiling crashing down at his head.
When he could maintain his attacks no more, Harry fell to one knee, panting hoarsely and clutching his pounding head. Something wet dripped from his nose, and he wiped away a smear of blood. His body was bruised from lunging across the rough cavern floor to avoid her attacks, and his muscles were shaking. With a mighty effort, he summoned Pax again, and kept the silver dove close. He could no longer maintain any sort of shield.
The goddess circled him lightly on bare feet, eyes sharp as an eagle's. Suddenly, red light flashed, and he threw an arm over his eyes, deflecting the spell by sheer accidental magic. She cast again, wandlessly, and again, and again, sending beams of scarlet light at him from every side as she darted about him in a frenzied dance.
Harry's coral-pierced hand flailed franticly as he parried the spells, but his arm felt heavier each time, and several of the red beams hit him with small explosions of pain. Numbness spread from the site of each hit, and Harry knew that if he didn't fight its spread, he would lose consciousness. Terror and desperation was all that fuelled him as he fought the grey fuzz that was creeping in at the edges of his vision. He felt warmth running down his cheeks, and one of his eyes seemed to bulge as though it would pop out of its socket.
In the heat of the battle, Harry did not notice the absence of his patronus or the dementors until it was too late. Cold, slimy hands seized his legs and wrestled him to the ground, grinding his face into the rough stone. A few of the grounded creatures must have crawled back into the fight. The dementors held his coral-pierced hand in an iron grip against the floor. They could not disarm him, but they prevented him aiming at them. Harry yelled and struck out wildly with his magic, but succeeded only in punching holes into the stone.
Cruel, curved claws clicked against stone as a pair of small, white feet entered Harry's field of vision. He struggled to raise his chin enough to meet the goddess' eyes, scraping his cheek in the process. She sneered down at him, eyes glittering with hunger and amusement.
Harry took the only course left to him. He reached deep inside himself for that familiar power that had been his for as long as he could remember, and froze the dementors solid. Their bodies shattered with the crash and clink of brittle glass as he wrestled free of them, and Harry snarled in victory. The goddess howled in rage as her last allies were felled. Harry turned to the monstrous creature and gave her borrowed body the same treatment. What remained of Astraea's flesh crumbled in a tinkling shower of crystallized gore.
Yet the goddess remained.
She emerged from the dementor's body as from a cocoon, as ghastly and beautiful as before, in her winged, living statue form. Harry was too exhausted to see beyond the illusion; all he could focus on was her blazing soul. In a last, desperate effort, he shoved, not at her body this time but at that giant, shining soul. The goddess' illusionary body warped, like a ripple passing over a pond, and she staggered. Great swathes and billows of soul tore away from her and dissolved, but it was like trying to put out a forest fire by blowing on it. Blood rolled down Harry's cheeks from his eyes as he strained with every ounce of will left to him. It was working, but not quickly enough. The goddess had recovered her focus.
Harry scrambled back feebly as the now desperate goddess lunged for him. She sunk her claws into his shoulders, and though they might have been illusory, the pain was not. Harry screamed, but the sound was distant and fuzzy. The monstrous goddess breathed a fetid stench into his face as, horribly, she began to push back at his soul. Harry strained with all his might, but he could feel his own consciousness sliding away on a tide of pain. She had only a witch-sized soul left to her now, but, even so, Harry knew that he was about to die.
Then a hoarse, panicked voice screamed, "Avada Kedavra!"
The last light of the goddess' soul dissolved like a wisp of smoke, and her illusionary body with it.
Harry's soul slammed back into him, and all of his pains made themselves known again, more powerfully than before: the explosive throbbing of his head, the piercing needles of pain in his eyes and ears, the strained and battered muscles, and, worst of all, the stab wounds in his chest, which were gushing with blood, and were not at all illusory. Harry choked on coppery-tasting blood as he struggled to remain conscious, and his vision blurred as he looked up at his saviour.
It was Rab, standing over him in a black robe, with a wand clenched in a shaking fist. Harry's vision was so unfocused that the man seemed to be floating. Behind the Death Eater, crumpled on the stone floor with a shattered urn near his head, lay the Wizenwarden.
Harry vaguely comprehended what had transpired, and he tried to speak, to thank his uncle, but the world was being carried away on a cloud of grey fog. A moment later, he knew no more.
─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─
¹ I'm sure my Latin is a nightmare since I've never studied it and relied on Google Translator mostly. Please correct it if you feel the urge.
² In Greek mythology, Echidna was a dreadful drakaina, half-nymph and half-serpent, who was mother to most of the famous monsters, including Cerberus, the Sphinx, the Chimaera, etc. She resided in Tartarus, the abyss of torment beneath Hades, and was the mentor and consort to the most deadly monster of them all, Typhon. Lots more info and pics are on my Pinterest.
³ There are several versions of Echidna's parentage and most of them connect her to sea gods and goddesses. I favour the version in which she is the daughter of Gaia, the primordial Earth goddess who was first deity to emerge from Chaos, and Tartarus, the god-personification of the abyss of torment below Hades.