It's here, finally, thanks to Issy. Lots of thanks to Issy. We're even now, even though she adamantly declares that I owe her one. I know, I said I thought I might get a chapter up every week from now on, but it's not exactly looking that way, is it?
Disclaimer: it's not mine. It's really not mine this time.
Anyway, I present to you: Chapter twenty-four of the Lord of Darkness!
Chapter 24
Crucio
They stood at the entrance to the colossal tomb. The enormous stone had been rolled aside. In front of them stood a gaping hole, inviting them to step in and meet their doom. Harry took a deep breath and plunged inside.
His world immediately tipped upside down. He felt as though he had been thrown thousands of miles. He heard Malfoy gasp behind him. When Harry opened his eyes, he could see nothing.
Harry blinked, then blinked again. The dark around him was so impenetrable and absolute he could almost breathe it in like smoke. Next to him, Malfoy shuddered slightly as the damp air tickled his skin.
Harry drew out his wand and whispered "Lumos." A narrow beam of light stretched from his wand, then was swallowed by the darkness ahead. He looked around. They were in a long tunnel that extended for an eternity of shadow in either direction. The walls were damp with moss, and he could hear water dripping softly somewhere far off.
"Where are we?" He asked Malfoy, his voice echoing off the walls, no matter how hard he tried to whisper.
"The London subway," Malfoy replied, glancing around and lighting the end of his own wand. Harry saw him involuntarily rub his forearm where, under his robes, the dark mark was emblazoned scarlet. "An old tunnel, of course, no longer in use. The Death Eaters have been using it as a hideaway for years."
"The… the subway?" Harry asked disbelievingly. "We were just in Egypt!"
"It was a portal of some sort. I don't know why it would take us here, though."
"Seems rather discouraging," Harry said softly. "We fly all the way to Egypt only to be transported back to England in the blink of an eye.
He looked down, and found that he was standing on long metal tracks that stretched before and behind him. He looked up again, and realized Malfoy had begun to trot down the tunnel ahead of him. Not wanting to be left alone, Harry dashed after him.
"If Snape isn't here," Malfoy stated matter-of-factly. "I don't know where he would be. Unless he's on assignment," the last word was mocking, like an insult. "So…what's your plan?"
"Uh," every shadow was making Harry jump, and his palms were beginning to sweat. He had always thought that facing Snape would be a moment of great triumph for him, and he would emerge victorious, a score settled with the man who had shamed him and his father and killed Dumbledore. But now that the moment had come, he was sweating cold. What if he wasn't strong enough? "We find Snape, subdue him, and extract the counter curse from him. We don't really know enough about anything to do anything else."
Malfoy raised his eyebrows skeptically but said nothing.
They walked in silence for a few more minutes, listening to the drip of water and the beating of their own hearts.
The dark was so impenetrable and so absolute that their wands were soon useless, and the lights at the tip flickered and died.
"Dark magic," Malfoy whispered, tightening his hold on his wand. "The place is full of it."
Harry reached out and ran his hand along the mossy wall, feeling his way blindly through the gloom.
On they stumbled. The only way they knew they hadn't lost each other was by the sound of the other's breathing and pounding heart.
The texture of the wall below Harry's fingers suddenly changed from mossy growth to wet, slippery stone. Behind him, Harry heard Malfoy suck in his breath.
"What's wrong?" Harry asked. But then he felt it too.
Without warning, the air was suddenly ignited by a flash of orange light. Harry hit the ground, panic swelling in his chest.
"Well, well, well…what have we here? A little fool who thinks he's good enough to play the game." Another spell flew past Harry, this one silver white. For a moment, the tunnel around them blazed with light, and Harry saw that the wall beside him was splattered with fresh blood, smeared into the shape of the dark mark. "You're on enemy ground, Potter. And you're not going to walk out alive this time."
"Bellatrix." Harry's fingers clenched around his wand as hatred pooled in his chest. The memory of Sirius' body, falling in a slow, graceful arc, flashed through his mind. He turned around, pointing his wand blindly in the darkness and screamed. "Sectumsempra!"
The spell flew down the tunnel and out of sight. Harry could almost hear Bellatrix smile with malice. "I want to hear your last breath, Potter. I want to hear you die, the way I heard Black—"
"Crucio!" Rage was pumping in Harry's veins. The tunnel was illuminated for an instant, and Harry caught sight of Bellatrix's pale, triumphant face.
She shrieked with laughed. "Unforgivable Curses? Oh Potter, I am impressed! Surely your little auror friend would be ashamed. But no matter. I can play your game. Crucio!"
Harry ducked. The jet of light hit the wall behind him, and stone tainted with blood showered down on his head. "I'll kill you!" Harry screamed at her.
She laughed again. "Ooohhh, Potter's out for blood tonight. Come on Potter. Show me what you've got!" He heard a swish of air as she raised her wand again. "Avada—"
"ENOUGH!" A voice bellowed through the darkness.
Every muscle in Harry's body tensed and his scar prickled in anticipation. He knew that voice. He had heard it ever day of his school life for six years. The voice he had last heard declare himself the half blood price over Dumbledore's dead body.
Snape.
Quick footsteps down the tunnel, then a sharp smack and cry from Bellatrix. "How dare you disobey me! How dare you disobey your master! The Dark Lord does not want Potter dead…yet." Another smack, and a flump as Bellatrix hit the ground. A few footsteps, then, "Potter. Why did you come?"
Harry staggered to his feet, drunken with rage. He had forgotten about Malfoy behind him. He had forgotten about Hermione, lying like dead in St. Mungo's. He had forgotten the Order of the Phoenix and everything Tonks had taught him. All he could think of was Dumbledore. "I watched it, Snape. I was there. And I watched it all happen."
"What are you talking about?"
"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about!" Harry roared. "He trusted you! And you betrayed him! You stabbed him in the back! YOU KILLED DUMBLEDORE!"
"You fool," Snape hissed back at him through the darkness. "Is this what this is all about? Revenge? Did you come here just to settle this score?"
"He trusted you!" Harry bellowed into the darkness. "Dumbledore would have wept to see where you are now!"
"Dumbledore was a weeper."
"Crucio!" The jet of red light shot into the tunnel then bounced back.
"No Unforgivable Curses for you tonight, Potter. Haven't Lupin and Tonks and Moody taught you anything? Didn't Dumbledore teach you anything?"
"They taught me that love is stronger than hate!" Harry screamed. "And I loved Dumbledore! He was like a father to me. Because I never had one!"
"Is that designed to hurt me? Is that your only weapon Potter? Every time something doesn't quite go your way, every time you're backed into a corner, you pull that on me. 'My father' this or 'my father' that…your father was a bastard."
"I'm going to kill you," Harry whispered. "And I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to kill you for Sirius and for Dumbledore and for my parents!"
"Go on!" There was a swish of robes as Snape spread his arms in mock invitation. "Go on Potter. Kill me for your mother. Poor darling Lily, the only person in the whole bloody world who was every kind to me! The only person who every cared for me! The only woman I ever loved!"
Harry staggered backward in shock, his wand clattering to the ground. "You're lying!"
"Seven years at the miserable school and only one person! I never fit in, Potter! I never had any friends! I was half blood: the other Slytherins, they never wanted me! And your father and his stupid friends couldn't look at me without sneering, when the only thing I ever wanted was to be a part of them! Be a part of something! I was an outsider! And then your sweet mud blood little mother took pity on me, and decided to try and be nice. AND I LOVED HER FOR IT! SHE MADE ME LOVER HER FOR IT!" Snape's voice was choked with confession. "I kissed her Potter! I kissed Lily Evans!"
"Shut up!" Harry was on his knees, the tidal wave of truth hitting him.
"I kissed her in our fifth year, and you know what? Your father saw it! And he hated me for it!"
"He hated you because he saw you for who you really were: a backstabbing traitor! A worm!"
"He hated me because she kissed me back! He vowed to make my life miserable because of it! And he tormented me for the rest of those seven years of Hell. And I hated your father after that moment! And I hated your mother! Because my love for her was the reason I would never be friends with the only people I looked up to in the school!"
"LIAR! Expelli—"
"It hurts, doesn't it Potter? To know that your sainted parents are at fault!"
"YOU LYING BASTARD! Cruci—"
"Look me in the eyes, Potter," there was a flash of light, and the tunnel was suddenly dimly illuminated. There was Bellatrix, cowering on the ground, her dark hair in tangles, framing her pale cheeks, imprinted with the shape of Snape's hand. There was Malfoy, paler than normal, staring at Snape with a sort of shocked fear in his eyes. And there was the Half-Blood Prince himself, glaring at Harry, the child of his love and his hate. "Look me in the eyes, Potter, and tell me it's not true."
And every word of it was real. It was in his face.
Bellatrix suddenly staggered to her feet, wild with rage, her long finger pointing at Malfoy as she screamed, "YOU! YOU TRATIOR!"
Malfoy took a step back, drawing his wand, but Bellatrix was faster. She had already pounced.
Harry jumped to Malfoy's aide, but Snape seized him by the throat and pulled him back, knocking his wand out of his hand, wrapping one arm around Harry's throat and the other around his torso, pinning his arms to his side.
Harry had never quite seen furry like Bellatrix's, intent on killing a traitor to her blood, to her line, to her master.
Malfoy, caught off guard, struggled vainly against Bellatrix, trying to retrieve his wand from where it had tumbled from his grasp and landed few feet away.
Bellatrix raised her own wand, and shrieked a curse whose words were lost in her pitch of fury. Malfoy screamed in pain.
Harry struggled against Snape's grip, needing his wand, but to no avail.
The inner sanctum…find your inner sanctum…wandless magic…
Harry felt the familiarity of the magic beginning to pool inside of his stomach, the spreading, sweeping through his whole body. He felt his insides vibrating, and every fiber of his being began to warm, like he was stepping into an oven.
The world is yours; you have only to reach out and grasp it…
"Crucio!"
Instantly the heat in Harry's body turned to icy cold, a cold as absolute and terrifying and dark as the tunnel had been moments before. Bellatrix fell off Malfoy, screaming in agony.
"Let her go, Potter." Snape's grip tightened on Harry's neck.
But Harry couldn't let go. He felt tied, bound to the magic, like it was a part of him. He was shaking with power and fear, unable to stop.
She was convulsing, writhing in pain, her screams ringing off the walls of the tunnel, reflected and magnified one hundred times back to them, the cavern ringing with pain.
"I SAID LET HER GO!"
Bellatrix's screams were dying, and Harry's vision was beginning to dim. Malfoy was lying still, several feet from Bellatrix, the front of his robes stained with blood.
"POTTER!"
Snape flung Harry to the ground. The spell was shattered with an audible sound, like exploding glass, leaving Harry dizzy, weak, and tasting blood.
Snape put a foot on Harry's chest, pinning him to the ground, his wand pointed at Harry's throat. "Well, well Potter, I must say I am impressed. Your first Unforgivable Curse. And without a wand, too. Did you feel the exhilaration, Potter? Did you feel the joy as she suffered?"
Harry's mind was reeling with panic and he was still trapped in that terrible cold. It's over…I should never have come…I should never have brought Malfoy…now we're both going to die…I'm going to die…
But not today.
Snape raised his wand, but Harry had already grasped his own spell. "Expelliarums!"
Snape was blasted backward off his feet, his wand flying out of his hands. Harry scrabbled forward, snatching his own wand from the ground. Then he staggered to his feet, and pointed it at Snape.
He was ready to kill him, ready to end it all, when the bloodlust receded a little and a memory bit his mind. "At Pendragon Castle," his voice was shaking, but his wand was steady. "A death eater hit Hermione with a spell…"
Snape laughed coldly, a trickle off blood running down the side of his face. "So you finally remembered, Potter? Finally remembered why you came."
"What is the counter curse?" Harry growled through clenched teeth, his wand hand beginning to shake with anger and exertion.
"The healers at St. Mungo's won't find that curse in any of their books, Potter," Snape's eyes were burning with triumph. "Only one book contains the counter curse. The book you stumbled on last year in potions. Because the spell was invented by the Half-Blood Prince."