A Story of Hallows and Horcruxes
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury, Scholastic, and Raincoats Books, and Warner Brothers Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. I do not own Harry Potter or anything related to Harry Potter.
Chapter 4
The Hogwarts Marathon
Harry flew swiftly towards the Forbidden Forest. The old and battered Shooting Star was hardly a match for his previous powerful Firebolt but it sufficed at the moment. Every so often he would glance back to see if he'd any pursuers, both in the sky and on the ground. So far he had been left alone.
Harry was quite sure that the ruckus caused by the duel between him and Carrow in the Hogwarts Infirmary hadn't gone unnoticed. Even if the inhabitants of Hogwarts had missed the explosions of the duel, they were sure to have heard Carrow's announcement of his presence. He just hoped that the Death Eaters were slow on the uptake and hopefully, he'd have already left Hogwarts by the time they could get their act together.
No sooner had he thought that when a ripple of power passed over him. Harry frantically looked over his shoulder to locate his attacker but came up with nothing.
Have a bad feeling about this.
He lowered his head and hunched his shoulders to cut the air resistance and urged the old broomstick to go faster.
Yet, something was different, the air felt heavier, more viscous and thicker than before. And suddenly without any warning his broom started vibrating. Harry grasped the handle tightly and fought to bring the broomstick under control, but to no avail. On the contrary, the broom started shaking even more with erratic jerks.
Harry could do nothing but hold on to the broomstick for dear life as it started flinging around madly. And then as soon as it had started it came to a rest. He sighed in relief, believing that he'd managed to best whatever jinx that was affecting the broomstick.
His relief vanished promptly as soon as he realised that not only had the jinx stopped affecting the Shooting Star, the broomstick too had stooped working. It was only the momentum that was dragging it through the air.
His heart stopped and his eyes widened in pure fright as the Shooting Star nosed down towards earth. He was more than a hundred feet above the ground and couldn't possibly survive that kind of fall.
Desperation filled him as he rapidly evaluated his options. Memories passed through his mind as fast as he was falling. He thought of Apparition, but that wasn't possible within the castle wards, portkey perhaps, but he disregarded that too; he didn't know how to create one. He thought of Dumbledore stopping his fall once during his earlier years at Hogwarts in a Quidditch match, but once again he came up empty. He didn't how to cast that spell. All the time the ground was rushing up to meet him.
And just as a collision seemed inevitable, Harry acted on pure instinct. He discarded the broomstick, falling freely to the ground. A few seconds before he would be lying flat against the earth, he whipped out his wand and cast the most powerful Cushioning Charm he'd ever cast, on the ground.
Harry hit the earth face first. The force of collision and the effect of the Cushioning Charm bounced him back into the air. There was a large thump as Harry hit the ground the second time around.
He didn't know how long he lay on the ground; it might have been a few minutes or a few hours.
Harry pushed against the ground, gritting his teeth against the pain that it caused and heaved himself around.
There was a deep ringing in his ears and the ground seemed to shake every few moments and the air was filled with dust particles.
His entire body was numb, and unless Harry moved, in which case a world of pain would assault his senses, he couldn't feel a damn thing. He knew the pain would come but for the moment he was glad of the small respite.
The ground shook once again as if a small quake had disturbed it. Harry heaved his head up to look for the cause. The world swam in front of him and he'd to close his eyes and shook his head slightly to clear the cobwebs.
Harry opened his eyes just in time to see a blur of something impact against the ground a few feet away from his body. A violent tremor shook the earth and the air was filled with yellowish dust. He coughed as he breathed in the particles. When the air cleared, he found a large crater, a foot deep and nearly three feet wide had formed in the earth.
Harry squinted his eyes against the glare of the sun on his face and searched for the perpetrators. His eyes soon sought them out. Three Death Eaters were running towards him from the entrance of Great Hall of Hogwarts. Two of them had gained quite a distance on him, while the third was lagging behind.
Harry watched in strange fascination as the third man stopped and pulled back his wand arm and then suddenly swiped it high towards the sky. There was a small flash as a bolt of magic leapt from his wand and went soaring through the air. Harry curiously traced its progression, as it raced towards the skies. At the height of its ascension, there was another flash and then it started rapidly descending towards him. His eyes widened in realisation and he frantically scrambled back to avoid the spell.
He needn't have worried though as the spell hit the ground, rocking it and missed him by quite a margin.
Without wasting another moment, Harry turned around and started crawling towards the Forbidden Forest. He noticed that he'd actually crashed quite near the very edges of the trees of the forest, just a few yards off the banks of the Black Lake.
He pulled himself up to his feet and started limping towards the lining of the forest, dragging his broken leg behind him.
Another one of the strange spells flew over his head and impacted against Dumbledore's tomb that was located only a few meters left of Harry, near the lake. The curse completely decimated the marble encased tomb and flung Dlumbledore's body out in the open. Harry glanced back over his shoulders and glared furiously at the Death Eaters at the sacrilege, yet there was nothing that he could do at the moment to avenge the desecration.
Harry gritted his teeth angrily and even more forcefully started hobbling towards the forest. He stepped over something slippery and almost lost his balance. Looking down, he saw a small cylindrical piece of twig on which he'd stepped over. Only when did he pick it up, did Harry realise that the slender knotted piece of wood was Dumbledore's wand. He had seen him wield it many a times in the past, seen him do extraordinary and powerful magic with it.
Harry hesitated for a few moments before stuffing it in his pocket. It was better that he took it than leave it behind to become some glorious trophy of a murdering Death Eater.
A curse flew over his head and ruffled his hair with the force of its speed, missing his head by a few inches and passed into the canopy of trees ahead. A glance over his shoulder told Harry that the two Death Eaters had very nearly caught up with him. He didn't waste any further time and started dragging himself towards the shade of the trees of the forest, all the time ducking under any curses that came his way.
The canopy of the large trees provided a shade from the bright sun's rays.
Harry kept on moving as fast as he could, which wasn't really all that fast. He knew that the Death Eaters were catching up on him.
Twigs snapped beneath his feet and leaves crunched as Harry ran pell-mell through the forest, hobbling his injured leg.
He bent his torso to duck under a particularly low branch, when it was blown to smithereens by one of the Death Eater's spells. Harry glanced back and saw to his horror that two of the Death Eaters had almost caught up with him. With a sudden burst speed, he ran deeper into the jungle – every step felt as if his injured right leg was being stabbed upon by hot, jagged knifes – zigzagging through the trees to avoid their curses. Trees and shrubs kept up blowing by his side as Harry kept on running despite the intense burning pain it was causing his battered and grievously wounded body.
He hadn't gotten far enough though, when Harry felt a tickle of something hit him in the thighs; the very next moment his ankles snapped together as if someone had forcefully grabbed them in an iron grip. His eyes widened in horror, as he recognised the effects of a Trip Jinx, even as his momentum sent him flying through the air. Harry crashed into the ground with his right shoulder, skidding through the dirt some distance before he came to a halt.
He immediately twisted his body around, to see the two Death Eaters stop a few feet away from him. Harry recognised Yaxley, current Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. The other he knew from the night of Dumbledore's murder, Amycus Carrow, Alecto's brother, the woman he'd killed in the Infirmary earlier.
Acting instinctively, Harry lifted his wand and sent a translucent jet of light towards Yaxley, who simply tilted his head and the spell hit one of the overhanging branches of the numerous trees.
A flash of bright red light momentarily lit the area and Harry found himself devoid of his wand.
"You're going to pay for you what you did at the Ministry, Potter," Yaxley snarled at Harry, as he pointed his wand towards him, his blunt features twisted in visible rage.
"You can't kill him." Interfered Amycus, and grabbed Yaxley's wand arm. "Remember, he belongs to the Dark Lord."
A violent shove by Yaxley pushed Amycus away as the former snatched away his arm from his companion's grasp and snapped, "I don't intend to kill him. The Dark Lord will have him alive, but first ..." He whirled around to face Harry, lying prone on the ground.
He snarled at Harry and spitted, "You'll beg for death before I'm done with you, Potter. You shouldn't have dared to cross me."
Pointing his wand at Harry's legs, Yaxley roared, "Secerus Vix!"
However, at the very moment the spell was about to fly out from the tip of his wand, Yaxley's hand jerked involuntarily to his left and the curse caught an unsuspecting Amycus, who screamed in pure agony as his torso was ripped open by the curse.
Yaxley could only look on in horror as his fellow Death Eater gave a bloodied shriek and toppled over.
Only then did the Head of DMLE realise that a thick tendril of leaves from a nearby tree had coiled around his forearm and had pulled his wand arm towards the direction of his companion. The spell that Harry had thrown at the Death Eater wasn't meant to hit the man instead it was to animate the tree behind him. He wasn't exceptionally talented in Transfiguration but had learned enough under Slughorn to go by, enough to even out the odds when they weren't stacked in his favour.
Instead of attempting to pull his arm free, Yaxley tried to pluck out his wand with his other free hand. He didn't get far before another tendril coiled around his other arm and stretched it to the opposite side.
Harry found Yaxley engaged at the moment to freeing himself from the tendrils of the tree that he'd enchanted in an act of pure impulse and Amycus lying prone on the ground in a pool of his own blood, trying to contain his expelled entrails from his neatly bisected belly. Harry looked around and searched for his disarmed wand and found it lying a few feet away from him inside a copse of vegetation. His nails dug into the ground as he crawled towards his fallen wand, not trusting his broken physique to be able to stand up.
Harry plucked his wand out of the shrubs, pulling a few shards of the grass between his fingers and immediately whirled around to point his wand at the two men.
His eyes widened in surprise as he found Amycus trying to target the animated tree limbs that were holding Yaxley captive with his wand. Harry didn't waste a moment and immediately bellowed, "Falx!"
A huge silvery arc of magic raced towards Carrow, cleaving the earth between Harry and the Death Eater.
Amycus didn't even get to react as the Scythe Curse hit his shoulder and kept on moving towards his neck, cleaving straight through sinew and bone, until it dissipated as it reached his jugular.
A weak gurgle sounded from Amycus' mouth as blood gushed out from between his lips. His body gave a few horrific jerks and then became unnaturally still. Harry knew at that moment that Amycus was dead.
He turned his head towards Yaxley to avoid seeing the dead body of the Death Eater that he'd killed, only to see that another, thicker tendril of a tree had snaked around Yaxley's neck and was slowly constricting his throat. Harry watched in undisguised horror, as the tendril started slowly squeezing Yaxley's throat. The captive's body jerked upwards and his feet left the stability of the earth as the tree limb coiled round his neck pulling him up in the air.
Yaxley tried frantically to free himself, but only met with failure. His body hung freely in the air held by the neck, spread-eagled with two arms pulled tight to either side of his body.
Harry could only witness, horrified, as Yaxley met his fate. The Death Eater's eyes widened comically and he started kicking his legs violently to find a hold, but it was fruitless, on the contrary, in response he was pulled another foot high in the air, as the tendril coiled itself tighter. His cheeks turned a hue of blue and pure fright was evident in his bulging eyes. His tongue lolled out as his neck lengthened, his legs kicking even more erratically. There was a sharp crack and Yaxley's neck broke. Harry knew beyond any doubt that the Death Eater was dead.
Now, I've killed two more.
Harry shook himself before any thoughts of self-deprecation could assault him; there was another Death Eater on his trail. He dug his hands into the satchel of potions tied around his waist and fished out another Invigoration Draught and quickly emptied its content into his stomach.
Harry stood up, tittering on his feet. Despite the effects of the potion he was still in too much pain and his body felt too sluggish. He however, couldn't afford the leisure of rest.
Harry whipped out the Invisibility Cloak from his pocket and wrapped it around himself, hoping that the last Death Eater would lose track of him in the thick shrubs and vegetations.
He walked even further into the forest, his breath laborious and pain racking his entire body every few seconds.
O
Harry soon came upon a small clearing, and bent over breathing heavily, unable to exert his body any further. There was a stitch in his chest. And his left arm felt as if it was on fire, the wound that Alecto had delivered was throbbing painfully. His broken and mangled leg sent sharp lances of extraneous pain to his cranium every few seconds.
Harry tried Apparating only to find himself still within the Anti-Apparition wards of Hogwarts.
Suddenly, without any warning a spike of force struck his unprotected back and flung him tumultuously through the air. His flying body struck the trunk of a giant tree and fell down to the ground, unmoving.
Through the sharp haze of pain Harry raised his eyes, to see an indistinct shape of a man step out of the shade of the trees.
The other Death Eater had caught up with him. Harry didn't know how the man had found out his position despite the Invisibility Cloak.
As if reading his thoughts, the Death Eater answered, "Your blood, Potter, it leaves a trail through the undergrowth."
Harry turned his head at his words and looked at the deep cut on his arm. Indeed, the bandage wrapped around his biceps had turned a deep brown, as blood seeped out and dribbled down his arm.
The Death Eater took a few steps closer to Harry and looked at him with unadulterated rage. He pointed his wand and Harry saw the tip of it glow a bright crimson moments before the man whispered, "Crucio!"
Harry's world was rent apart by blinding pain, he felt as if his blood was being boiled and hot, scalding knives were raking his body. Every nerve end of his body was on fire. His eye-balls felt as if they were being compressed and his bones were being twisted around and broken into pieces, sharp spikes would pierce his lungs and he couldn't breathe in.
The sharp haze of pain stopped as soon as the curse stopped affecting him, leaving a tremendous pounding of dull ache in his entire body and rendering him very nearly catatonic. He opened his eyes, which felt like they were burning and looked at the Death Eater.
The heavy set man had his side to Harry and looked alert, as if searching for some danger. It was only then he noticed that the earth was shaking periodically.
Harry heard a mighty roar and something broke out of the lining of trees creating a large disturbance of the fauna.
"Hagger!" something yelled, and Harry's mind immediately conjured up images of Hagrid's half-brother, Grawp.
"You not Hagger!" Harry twisted around his body with difficulty, to indeed find himself looking at Hagrid's half-brother, Grawp. The giant squinted at his prone form and seemed to recognise him. "Harry! ... You hurt Harry!" thundered the giant, looking at the Death Eater, as Grawp noticed Harry's broken form.
Harry had never seen a giant look angry, really angry. There was something terribly inhuman about it. With a murderous look in Grawp's eyes, he charged towards the Death Eater, a mighty echoing yell resounding through the small forest clearing.
The Death Eater for his part reacted non-chalantly, he took a step back and pulled his wand arm behind him. Harry saw the man whipping his wand rapidly over the clawed palm of his other hand.
The earth shook violently as the giant ran towards the man. Grawp lifted a meaty paw to swat the Death Eater, when the man flung out both of his hands at the charging the giant. Harry saw a misty ball of magic that went swirling towards Grawp and hit him with a dull thud against his torso. The ball of magic splashed against Grawp's' chest and bodily lifted the fifteen feet tall giant and send him flying backwards.
Harry looked on incredulously at the unbelievable feat of magic; to throw a pure-blooded giant flying back with a single spell was astounding.
The ground gave a mighty shake as the heavy giant crash landed into the earth. Grawp however, didn't seem to go down so easily and was immediately back on his feet, looking at the Death Eater with an animalistic savageness in his eyes. He gave a mighty roar and grabbed a nearby tree with both of his hands. With a forceful heave, he plucked it out from the earth wielding it in the form a crude club and swiped at the Death Eater with his gigantic weapon.
The man leapt back to avoid catching the up-rooted tree with his body, and sent a dark looking curse flying towards the giant.
Harry's nose caught a whiff of a disgusting smell like the kind present in sewers as the curse traversed towards Grawp. The curse hit the tree the giant was wielding and it started rotting at an extremely accelerated pace. Within moments, the tree became a husk of melted and rotten timber.
Grawp looked at the rotten tree angrily, not understanding what had happened to it. He discarded it to aside and ran towards the Death Eater again. The man deliberately and slowly, as if he was meeting a lot of resistance dragged his wand through the air diagonally.
A wide and deep looking gash opened up on Grawp's thighs in response, and he let out a roar of pain, as he crashed into the ground with his knees, unable to keep running.
Harry in the meantime was trying to wield his wand that was still grasped within his fingers. His body however seemed unresponsive to his mental commands. The Cruciatus had very nearly robbed him of his motor ability. With a loud groan he tried to lift his hand, beads of sweat lined his brow and he managed to raise a badly shaking arm a few inches and murmured out, "Exarmo!"
The Death Eater unsuspicious of Harry's activities lent a cry of pain as his fingers broke under the effects of the spell and his wand was forcibly disarmed from him. Harry dropped the man with a Stunner before his arm fell down uselessly by his side. He closed his eyes and let his head hit the ground as he heaved in giant gulps of air and allowed himself a small reprieve.
Minutes passed as Harry lay horizontal on the ground before he was able to get a bearing of his body. With excruciating slowness, Harry got to his feet, his limbs shaking terribly and every jostle would send a ripple of pain through his body.
Harry summoned his Invisibility Cloak and the Death Eater's wand to him and checked the satchel around his waist before he limped off towards where Grawp was lying on the ground.
Grawp's thigh was bleeding profusely; a large puddle of blood had formed around Grawp's leg. The curse was very deep and had torn into the very muscles of the giant. Harry had no idea what kind of curse could penetrate so deep through a giant's spell resistant skin. He attempted an episkey, but found it unable to close the gaping wound. With no other option in sight, Harry wrapped the cut with conjured bandages to hinder the blood flow. Fishing out a Blood Replenishing Potion from his satchel, Harry emptied the solution into the giant's mouth. There wasn't anything else he could do.
He moved to the Death Eater's body and looked down at him. The man had a strong jaw-line and looked as if he had suddenly lost a great deal of weight in the past and had only recently begun to recover. A faint memory flashed in his mind.
Three men and a woman convicted of torturing an Auror couple. He had even seen the trial in Dumbledore's pensieve. Harry recognised the man: Rudolphus Lestrange, Bellatrix Lestrange's husband.
Harry wondered what the man was doing here in Hogwarts. He had never seen him on the Marauder's Map during his two week long vigil. For that matter, Harry hadn't even seen Yaxley on the Map. Regardless, Harry lifted his wand at the man, to finish him off. He didn't get to shoot a spell before he had heard some crunching of twigs behind him.
Harry immediately whirled around – ignoring a spasm of extreme pain that passed through his body, at the sudden motion – his wand at the ready with his heart beating rapidly fearing another attack. He only found a skeletal looking horse step out of the trees, a thestral. Harry heaved a sigh of relief and lowered down his wand as the thestral moved towards him.
Of course, Harry realised he was dripping blood and so was Grawp and thestral's get attracted by blood.
Harry turned back to the fallen Death Eater, but a new idea was beginning to form in his head. He looked at the thestral and his plan solidified. He hit Lestrange with a Petrificus Totalus before tying him up with an incarcerous.
"Mobilicorpus!" Cast Harry and the Death Eater was lifted a few feet off the ground. Harry limped towards the thestral and patted it gently on the back, the Death Eater's body following behind him. Harry swung his leg over the thestral and got up on the beast and magically hefted Lestrange across it.
He whispered the destination in the beast's ear and the thestral took a few steps back before cantering towards the tree lining. It looked as if the thestral was going to crash against the trees, before it spread open its wings and with two mighty flaps, the thestral was airborne with Harry on its back and the Death Eater ridding pillion.
Author's Note: All right, here you go, the next update. Hopefully, I'll be able to maintain this update speed.
For those who haven't read it yet, check out my M-rated one-shot: Tequila. I have another one-shot in the draft stage, tentatively titled A Fool's Gold, a Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy story that should come out in a month or so.
Edit: I'd mistakenly typed Avery instead of Yaxley in this chapter. I have corrected it. It was Yaxley, Head of DMLE and Amycus Carrow, who were pursuing Harry in the Forest. And later, Rudolphus Lestrange. I hope it clears up any confusion. If not, you can PM me with any questions.
Acknowledgement: Thanks to the DLP crowd for their comments.