War, Part Two
A/N: Disclaimer's in the first chapter. LOTS of action in this, folks. Many apologies on the lateness of the update, but RL decided to hate me, and no sooner had I begun to regain my muse after the death of my cat but I was in hospital for emergency abdominal surgery.
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April 15, 1996, Ministry for Magic
While the attack on Hogwarts was beginning, Voldemort and a good-sized chunk of his adult Death Eaters were gathering in a knot, preparing to apparate to the Ministry.
Voldemort chose well for the group that was going to attack the Ministry, for the most part. Nagini, a devastating combatant in her own right (as well as holding a horcrux, something that no one knew) was draped over his shoulders for the apparation. The only truly questionable member of the group was Pettigrew, but Voldemort wanted that cowardly backstabber under his personal surveillance, so would contend with his incompetence on this all-important mission.
"Kill any mudblood you find." Voldemort ordered, though there was little need to actually say it with this group. "Maim the others to your heart's content, but attempt to keep deaths to a minimum amongst those of pure blood."
He glared at the lot of them, the unstated threat of mass amounts of pain (and possibly their own deaths) hanging in the air as incentive to obey his commands. They all bowed and scraped before him, assuring him of their compliance with his orders. Voldemort largely ignored it as he apparated out of there, expecting them to follow him, or else. Of course, they did.
Unfortunately for any of Voldemort's plans, Amelia Bones had tightened security around the Ministry to a fare-thee-well. It could not, however, be as tightly secured as Hogwarts, since people were always coming and going. Voldemort and his Death Eaters took advantage of one of the weak points in the defenses ... the floo network.
Complete pandemonium broke out when fifteen Death Eaters, Nagini, and worse (at least where most folks were concerned) Voldemort himself flooed into the Atrium of the Ministry. Voldemort had timed their arrival for the time of day when the Atrium was at its busiest ... the scarce night shift leaving the building while the far more populous morning shift was arriving. People began to scream and run even before spells started flying, trying to find places to hide. But scattered here and there amongst the crowd were people who were made of sterner stuff. By no means were all of these people Gryffindors, either. As spells started raining down, they attempted to shield themselves and those around them, and fight back, not that it did much good in most cases. Fully half the impromptu defenders were cut down in the first two minutes.
But they were not the only ones in the Atrium who came to the defense of the general populace. Amelia, forseeing an attempt to raid the Ministry, had stationed Aurors in the Atrium, and these men and women were far more well-trained than the impromptu defenders. Their only problem lay in the fact that they were none of them vicious, cold-blooded killers. They stuck to ... gentler ... spells than the ones the Death Eaters were using, which put them at a bit of a disadvantage. Too, there was the psychological impact of Voldemort's presence. He refrained from casting any spells, merely meandering along behind his followers as they cut a swath through the crowds, but his presence was enough to make even the bravest of the people present watery in the knees. It didn't help that he had sent Nagini into the masses with a quiet, almost happy-sounding "Nagini ... kill." Nagini was, of course, only too happy to obey that command, and began to cut her own swath through the defenders with her venomous bite.
Within about two minutes, the defenders had been herded towards the elevators as the Death Eaters made their way in that direction, intending to conquer the other levels. It was at this point, however, that the Death Eaters and Voldemort got an unpleasant and unwelcome surprise.
The moment the alarm announcing Voldemort's arrival had gone off, all the elevators had gone to other floors, and Aurors, Hit Wizards, DMLE agents and Unspeakables had all piled into them, led by Amelia Bones herself. The elevators all arrived back at the Atrium at the same time ... allowing the nearly fifty-strong fighting force to pour into the Atrium at once.
At the same time, heavy-duty spell-proofed gates slammed down over the fireplaces, cutting off the Death Eaters' only means of escape and trapping them rather effectively in the Atrium. Amelia had known that doing something like that was a massive gamble, but she'd been determined to not let a single one of the bastards sneak out so that they had to be hunted down later. She'd only been able to hope that the resultant, inevitable loss of innocent lives would be counted as worth it.
Temporarily unable to reach their desired goal of the elevators, the Death Eaters fell back in the face of the oncoming swarm of defenders. Before too long, the fighting had broken into small pockets of one or two Death Eaters fighting off three or four defenders.
At first, Voldemort continued to refrain from engaging in the battle, but soon enough he had no choice but to do something, as Amelia and two Unspeakables converged on him and started throwing pretty much every spell they knew at him to little to no effect. Voldemort laughed mockingly at them as he batted their spells aside.
"You dare to defy me? To stand against me? You are fools. Children. Your deaths shall be all the swifter and more painful, so that all may learn from your ... impudence ... that Lord Voldemort is not to be trifled with." And then, almost lazily, he began to rain spells down on the triad.
But these three were made of sterner stuff than most. Amelia had not gotten to be head of the DMLE because of her good looks, after all, and no one got to be an Unspeakable without learning a frightening amount of magic. Alone, each of them would have fallen under Voldemort's attack, but together, they managed to fight Voldemort to a draw for nearly ten minutes.
During that ten minutes, six of the fifteen Death Eaters managed to win free of their attackers and reach the elevators, heading to the other floors to try to complete their assignments for their Lord. The Atrium was becoming quieter and quieter as bodies, both dead and wounded, began to pile up. Faced with the most brutal of Voldemort's followers, only the strongest of the defenders were managing to survive.
The good news was that most of the non-fighters had managed to find cubbyholes to hide in shortly after the elevators delivered Amelia and company, so civilian casualties had been kept fairly low. Also, not all of the Death Eaters managed to survive their duels. Five of them lay dead, sprawled on the floor of the Atrium in various grotesque poses and pools of blood.
The bad news was that despite that, the defenders were losing. The remaining four Death Eaters slowly overwhelmed them and reached the elevators and the other floors, free to continue their missions. Of course, Pettigrew, being the coward that he was, had simply shifted to rat form and waited out the worst of the fighting before making his way to the elevators. Then, Voldemort finally succeeded in landing a telling blow to Amelia and the Unspeakables, killing one of the Unspeakables and throwing the other Unspeakable and Amelia halfway across the Atrium, where both landed with bone-shattering impacts. With no one else in the mood to try to cross wands with him, Voldemort strolled to the elevators, and made his way to the Department of Mysteries.
It was at this point that Harry and company arrived in an alley above the Ministry. They quickly made their way to the only still-working access into the Ministry ... the visitor's entrance. Seven kids should not have been able to fit in the thing, but they managed it, and were soon descending into the Ministry. They did not, however, wait for the booth to land on the floor. The booth was too big and noticeable a target to allow that, so as soon as they could, they forced the door open and one by one leapt down to the floor.
What they found was a charnel house. The Atrium had more or less been blasted to bits. Glass and bits of masonry littered the floor, and the air was thick with stone dust, the coppery smell of large amounts of spilled blood, and the reek of voided (or ripped-apart) bowels and bladders. Bodies, both dead and in varying stages of 'still alive' were scattered everywhere. Other than a few dead bodies, there was no sign of any Death Eaters. Some few of the non-fighters that had hidden themselves in whatever corners they could find had begun to creep out of hiding, many attempting to aid the injured defenders as best they could.
For half a minute, the New Marauders stood there staring in horrified dismay. The damage at Hogwarts had been nowhere near this bad. Then again, they had, for the most part, been up against the children of Death Eaters and magical creatures. A grim-faced Harry was the first to regain his equilibrium.
"C'mon guys, we've got to get a move on. They've made it to the other floors. We're going to have to split up."
Ron and Hermione immediately frowned. "I don't like that idea, mate." Ron objected.
"Neither do I, Harry. It's too dangerous." Hermione agreed.
Harry eyed them. "I need you guys to find Nagini, remember?" He prodded.
"She'll be with him." Ron pointed out.
"I don't think so." Harry said. "He doesn't know we've offed all his horcruxes, remember? He still thinks he's got most of them, minus the diary." And possibly the diadem and cup, but Harry hadn't gone looking to see if Voldemort had found out about those two being destroyed. "So he's not overly fussed about protecting her. Besides, with the Horcrux in her, she'd have to be hit with something that can kill a horcrux before she went down."
And he wasn't about to tell them that he'd made a ... side trip ... when he'd shifted to hawk form and taken off. He'd grabbed his cloak, and then gone to McGonagall's office where the diary, locket, and ring had been being kept after they'd been de-horcruxed (was that even a word?). Harry didn't know what, if anything, having the Ressurection Stone along for the ride would do, but at the absolute least, he could taunt Voldemort into doing something rash by dangling the thing in front of his nose.
The others weren't any too happy, but eventually agreed to split up. Neville headed for the second level and the DMLE offices. Ron headed for the fourth level and the Magical Creatures offices. The twins headed for the fifth level and Magical Cooperation, while Hermione and Ginny headed for the sixth level and Magical Transportation. Harry, after a moment's hesitation to poke Voldemort's brain and see where he was at, headed first for the courtroom level, then down the stairs to the Department of Mysteries.
Neville
Neville quickly discovered that the second level was all but deserted, since the vast majority of the DMLE workers had gone down to the Atrium to try to deal with the Death Eaters and Voldemort. Only a half-dozen or so people had been left on the second level, most of them secretaries and the like, untrained for combat. Easy prey for the likes of Bellatrix Lestrange and Nagini.
Fortune shone on Neville in that Bellatrix was so enraptured with and distracted by her torture of her most recent victim that she didn't notice Neville's entrance into the room. Even better, her gleeful cackling and taunting of her victim covered what little noise Neville made. Nagini had curled up near Bellatrix, as the few remaining survivors had wisely hidden themselves in places Nagini could not reach.
Neville had just one chance to do serious damage to Bellatrix before she could retaliate. If he managed to keep his head down and keep her from realizing someone else was there. He crept as close as he dared get ... and let fly with a silent Reducto.
The first Bellatrix knew of her danger was when the spell lit the room. Unable to stop the Crucio she was tormenting her victim with and cast a shield spell fast enough, she tried to lunge out of the way, but there simply wasn't time enough to get entirely clear. The Reducto reduced most of her right leg to mincemeat and splinters. She screamed in agony as she got thrown halfway across the large room, knocking down quite a few cubicle walls as she went.
Still, despite being gravely wounded, she was not out of the fight. She managed to pull herself out of the wreckage and seal off the stump of her leg, stopping the bleeding. Leaning heavily on whatever happened to be handiest, she managed to get herself upright, and, spotting Neville (who'd been looking for another shot at her among the wreckage), began to cackle gleefully.
"So the bitty baby learned how to bite, did he? Come to join your mummy and daddy, have you?" She taunted. "I'll enjoy listening to you scream." She flung a silent Crucio at Neville.
Neville, however, was no dunce, and hit the floor the moment Bellatrix' wand started moving. The spell zinged over his head, missing him by inches. Of course, at that point, Neville discovered he had another problem. Namely a twenty-foot long venomous python named Nagini, who was bearing down on him, mouth gaping wide.
Forced to choose between facing Bellatrix's wand or Nagini's teeth, Neville chose the former, aiming a silent Reducto at Nagini to drive her back (since it wouldn't be enough to kill her even if it connected) and then scrambling to his feet and firing off as many spells as he could think of as fast as he could think them at Bellatrix.
Unfortunately, while Bellatrix's ability to dodge had been shot to hell, her ability to shield had not, and Neville's assault never reached its target. Bellatrix gave Neville a creepy little smile and then launched her own attack. Neville found himself in the fight of his life ... for his life. Scrambling around, ducking and dodging behind every bit of furniture he could find (and using the odd bit of furniture to fend off Nagini), he shot spells at Bellatrix whenever he got the chance.
And the longer the fight lasted, the more chances he got. Suffering from massive blood loss and shock, Bellatrix's energy and ability to concentrate were fading fast, and so was her rate of fire with spells. At the same time, she was finding it harder and harder to shield herself from Neville's attacks until finally, Neville managed to get three or four heavy-duty spells off at once, and they proved to be too much for Bellatrix, and she collapsed to the ground, bleeding heavily from Neville's last spell, never to rise again.
Neville didn't have any time to celebrate the death of the woman responsible for his parents' condition, however. Nagini made sure of that, lunging and striking at him. Neville scrambled away, mentally going over his options and swiftly realizing he ... really only had one option.
Seconds later, a great gout of flame shaped like a dragon roared out of Neville's wand. Nagini, her body at full extension as she lunged at Neville, caught the blast full in the face. For a half a second or two, it seemed as though nothing would happen, and then abruptly Nagini burnt to ash, a high-pitched scream marking the destruction of whatever had been used as a horcrux and jammed into her.
It took Neville the better part of a minute to wrestle the Fiendfyre back under control and stop the spell. Once he had, he collapsed down onto the ground, gasping for breath as his body trembled. After a minute or two, he tried to get to his feet only to discover his body was having none of that, as injuries he hadn't even realized he'd gotten in the mad scramble against Bellatrix and Nagini finally started to report in now that he wasn't swimming in adrenaline.
He did a swift inventory and was relieved to discover that while he was covered nearly head to toe in bruises, cuts, scrapes, and the odd gouge or two, he was in one piece and, as best he could tell, not suffering from any Dark curses. After another minute or so of rest, he forced himself to his feet, grumbling at how shaky he felt, not realizing he was suffering from magical exhaustion on top of everything else, thanks to the Fiendfyre spell. Taking a deep breath, he summoned enough energy for one last spell ... a patronus ... and sent it to find Harry. There was no verbal message, but there didn't need to be one. Harry would understand what it meant. Then he slowly made his way to the elevator and headed back to the Atrium. He would be no help to the others in the shape he was in, but he might just be able to do something to help the Atrium survivors.
Ron
The fourth level was a bit more populated than the second level, as Ron quickly discovered ... not that the folks on this floor were any better at combat or self-defense than the ones left behind on the second level. He had only to follow the screams to quickly discover where the Death Eaters were at on this level.
He almost tripped over a knot of bodies as he rounded a corner. There were two or three Ministry employees, and, just visible under them, the black cloak of a Death Eater. From the look of things, the poor idiot Ministry folks had decided to rush the Death Eater. They'd paid for the idea dearly. Grimacing, Ron bent to make sure the Death Eater was truly down and out, then continued on towards the screaming.
He found a rather horrible sight when he rounded the final corner. Pettigrew, easily recognizable after that night in the Shrieking Shack, pressed against a wall and watching avidly as a Death Eater Ron didn't recognize by sight tortured some poor woman with Crucio. Ron snarled and lashed out with a Reducto. Unfortunately, he was not quite as lucky as Neville had been. Bellatrix had only had a snake as companion, and as altered as Nagini may have been, she didn't comprehend anything about magic other than 'green light from Master might mean dinnertime for me.'. Pettigrew, for all his sniveling cowardice, was still human, and fully comprehended the consequences that a wand pointed at someone usually meant.
"Rab ... " That was as far as Peter needed to get before the other Death Eater turned his head enough to see Ron and the spell. Unlike Bellatrix, who had tried to lunge to one side and therefore still had part of her body in the path of the spell when it arrived, Rabastan Lestrange flung himself forward, the same direction as the spell was going, and collapsed on top of his erstwhile victim. The spell missed his head by less than an inch, rattling his brains and giving him quite a headache. He rolled off the woman he'd been torturing and came up spitting spells, forcing Ron to defend himself.
But here, Ron was lucky. While Rabastan was definitely dangerous, he did not have his sister-in-law's deranged, obsessive vindictiveness, nor her comprehensive knowledge of Dark Arts spells and dueling expertise. Better, Peter, true to his nature, was staying out of the fight for the moment, possibly waiting to see who would prevail. Or perhaps there was some twisted shred of attachment somewhere in there making him reluctant to attack, given that Peter had been around the youngest two Weasley children all their lives, and had only missed a few years of Fred, George, and Percy's lives.
Whichever cause it was that was staying Peter's hand, it was helping Ron immensely. He could concentrate wholly on the fight with Rabastan, though he was smart enough to glance in Peter's direction from time to time as he fought, to ensure that Peter was both staying put and not looking like he wanted to join in the fun. Ron wasn't willing, however, to let the situation remain the way it was, and when, after a couple minutes, he managed to knock Rabastan on his butt temporarily, he immediately turned and aimed a triad of spells at Pettigrew ... Petrificus Totalis, Incarcerous, and Stupefy. Peter, dolt that he was, got caught by all three, and hit the floor, wrapped from nose to toes in ropes, unconscious.
"Got you, you traitorous bastard." Ron muttered before he returned to the fight with Rabastan. "If you're lucky, the Aurors'll find you before Harry does." Not that Ron actually intended for Peter to stay as he was ... he knew the spells were a temporary capture at best, with an unknown number of Death Eaters running about. He'd have to do something far more permanent to the bastard once he'd dealt with Rabastan. Ron figured he'd force the little bastard into rat form, then lock him in an Unbreakable cage and keep him with him.
If he survived. He yelped in alarm as an Avada Kedavra came roaring at him, and flung himself behind a nearby desk, aiming a spell (he was so panicked and rushed he didn't even pay attention to what he was casting) as he landed. He scampered partway around the corner, using the heavier wall as a shield while he regained his wits and got his mind back on the fight with Rabastan and not on Peter.
He came back around the corner flinging every spell he knew, just about. He didn't care if he actually hit Rabastan, at least at first. That wasn't the point. The point was to herd the bastard into an increasingly small space where it would eventually become inevitable that the bastard got hit. And so he did. Rabastan's reign as a Death Eater ended when a large chunk of wood, stone, and plaster very nearly smeared his brains all over the floor. Getting your skull smashed in tended to ensure you didn't get up to fight another day.
Ron sagged against the wall, breathing hard. He stayed like that for a few moments before stomping over to the still-petrified Peter and glared. With quick, sharp movements he transfigured some nearby rubble into a cage, and cast spells on it to ensure that it wouldn't come apart if Peter tried to transform back to human. Then he used the spell they'd all learned when they were working on becoming animagi. Normally, it was used to force a person into their animal form if they got stuck partly-transformed, as casting the animagus-revealing spell, which forced a person out of animal form, tended to go very wrong when performed on someone partly transformed. Ron then put the still-tied up, petrified and sleeping rat into the cage with a triumphant grin.
"You know, I almost hope the Aurors let us have you. Be interesting to see what some of the others could come up with." Ron growled at the rat. Certainly, Sirius was owed some paybacks, at least. Sadly, Ron doubted that would ever happen, though ... and in a way, he was glad. As much as he'd like to see the rat pay the price personally, he knew that something like that ... well, Pettigrew wasn't worth dancing with the devil over.
The Twins
Fred and George found the fifth level about as populated as the fourth, and, to their great surprise, it was a bit more organized. A bit. Most of the survivors had ganged together and were now huddled in a corner, shielding themselves from the concentrated attacks of the two Death Eaters attempting to overwhelm them.
More than one person over the years had speculated that Fred and George were telepathic, what with the way they finished each other's sentences and seemed to know what the other was thinking without so much as exchanging glances, among other 'evidence'. The truth was ... they weren't. They were an oddity amongst twins. Many identical twins fight to have a sense of self separate from their other half, but the twins had actually gone the other way, and deliberately immersed themselves in each other, learning the others' quirks and mannerisms to the point where literally no one would be able to tell them apart, if they didn't want to be told apart. This intimate knowledge of each other was what allowed them to think, act, and react as, essentially, a single organism.
That ability was going to serve them in good stead now, as they were facing dealing with one of the few sibling teams in the Death Eaters ... the Carrows. While the Carrows were most definitely not as close as the twins were, they had something most Death Eaters didn't ... the ability to work together seamlessly as a team. This made them far more dangerous than any single other Death Eater save perhaps Bellatrix, and leagues more effective than any pair of Death Eaters asked to work together save the Lestrange brothers.
The twins got no lucky first shot that evened the odds. Alecto may have been busy trying to break down the shield the survivors were hiding behind, but Amycus had no such problem, and noticed the two redheads' arrival. A swift, wordless warning to her brother had him bringing the wall behind the survivors down on them, knocking them out at the very least as the overstressed shield gave under the weight.
While Alecto was neutralizing the Ministry survivors, Amycus launched a series of spells at the twins, forcing them to shield themselves. Or, at least, that's what she'd expected them to do. But the twins, like the rest of the Marauders, had got training from Filius and Minerva. Filius had made it a point to drill his students in blocking spells with any bit of detritus to hand rather than relying on energy-draining shielding spells. Minerva had found something close to a kindred spirit in the twins' abilities with Transfiguration, though they applied that skill in highly ... unorthodox ... ways.
One twin yanked some debris into the 'fire zone', allowing it to absorb the impact of the spells. While he was thus occupied, the other twin transfigured other debris into a swarm of what looked like pixies that he then sent to bedevil both Carrows.
This started an incredibly fast-paced and close-to-equal fight. The Carrows had the edge in sheer experience and spell knowledge, but the twins had the edge in ability to work together and sheer inventiveness. Spells of every description were flying back and forth, as was debris, both in its natural state and transfigured into any number of creatures and even plants.
Gradually, slowly, the twins were pushing the Carrows back, overwhelming them. Their stronger ability to work as a pair, combined with their utterly unpredictable use of every spell in the book, up to and including Wingardium Leviosa, was throwing the Carrows into confusion. They were too used to more traditional dueling methods and a more limited, if more devastating, range of spells. No fully trained adult expected first year spells to be put to devastating use in a to-the-death duel, after all. Then again, none of them had Ron Weasley for a brother, who'd managed to KO a troll as a first year with Wingardium Leviosa, either. Eventually, the Carrows found themselves cornered and disarmed ... literally. When Alecto, despite the shock and blood loss, lunged at the twins, intending to ... well, the twins didn't wait around to find out what he'd planned. They hit him with a reducto. When Amycus, enraged at her brother's death, tried the same thing, she got the same treatment.
Dumbledore, had he been alive, would have been horrified, dismayed, and completely, totally and utterly against the fight-to-kill attitude the New Marauders had gone into this whole mess with. But then, he'dve been against adults fighting to kill, too, as evidenced by his insistence on nonlethal spells with the Order. But the New Marauders all knew that the chances were good of Death Eaters squirming their way out of trouble one way or the other if they were still alive when all was said and done. That had, after all, happened after Voldemort's first defeat. They weren't willing to take that chance this time, and if that meant maiming people for life at best and killing at worst, they'd done what they could to prepare themselves for that. This wasn't a game. This was a fight for the future of their world, and it was for keeps ... and none of them intended on losing.
Hermione and Ginny
Hermione and Ginny arrived on the sixth level only to find the half-handful of people there all already dead, all looking like they'd been tortured. They discovered Antonin Dolohov and Rodolphus Lestrange sweating and swearing over the floo network controls and spells, evidently trying to force a connection between the Ministry and Hogwarts (that had been completely shut down the minute Hogwarts had been attacked).
"Damnit, what the hell did they do? Nothing we're trying is working. The Dark Lord will not be pleased." Rodolphus snarled in aggravation. "He wants to be able to walk in there when he's done here. The Potter brat is there."
Dolohov didn't dignify Rodolphus' snarling with an answer. Hermione and Ginny stared at each other for a second, both horrified and amused. Horrified because the fight at Hogwarts was basically done, barring one or two possible troublemakers still hiding somewhere, and having Voldemort and whatever of his followers were here flooing into the middle of the school would be exceedingly bad. Amused because contrary to what Lestrange and Voldemort had assumed, Harry was not currently at Hogwarts ... a fact that Voldemort had no doubt discovered for himself by now.
Distracted as they were, Dolohov and Lestrange never knew what hit them ... literally. With their heads together and their full concentration on the floo network problem, Hermione and Ginny were able to hit them with the Petrificus-Incarcerous-Stupefy triad before they even realized they had guests. The girls then transfigured some odds and ends into a cage, and bespelled it to be completely un-escapable before they accio-d the mens' wands away from them and broke them into kindling. They then frisked both men and deprived them of everything they had in their pockets, no matter what it was, before dragging them into the cage and sealing them in.
"That was more than somewhat anti-climatic." Ginny groused as she eyeballed the two men.
"Be grateful. I am. Dolohov's supposed to be as bad as Bellatrix, and the other guy's married to her." Hermione gave a shiver, then sighed. "One of us ought to head downstairs. There's a lot of people hurt."
Ginny nodded. One of them would have to stay and watch the Death Eaters ... unless ... "Do you think we could squeeze them onto the elevator? I'd really rather not split up if we can avoid it."
It took a bit of finagling, but they did manage to cram the cage onto the elevator, and made their way to the Atrium to help the wounded.
Harry
It took Harry a good few minutes to figure out the security measures in the Department of Mysteries ... and another couple of minutes poking his head in various doors to finally find Voldemort, who had made his way to a room filled with orbs. By the time Harry got there, Voldemort had found what he was after ... the prophecy orb for him and Harry. He'd also listened to it.
Not that that knowledge bothered Harry overmuch. He already knew the prophecy himself, and had every intention in the world of being the sole survivor of this encounter.
"Hello, Tom. Got a lot on your mind?" The quiet greeting from Harry came at the same time as a fierce barrage of spells.
Voldemort, sadly, was no slouch, and batted the spells away and launched a volley of his own. Very shortly the Room of Prophecies was being reduced to so much sand and grit.
Neither man held back in the slightest, launching every spell they knew at each other, shielding, ducking and dodging, and eventually being forced to flee the room as the multitudes of racks began to collapse around them. They fought their way through one room after another, leaving destruction in their wake. Voldemort got more and more angry and frustrated at his inability to overpower Harry. Blast and damn, but he should have killed Draco when he had the chance!
Voldemort didn't notice in the mayhem, but the vast majority of his problems with Harry were thanks to the Elder Wand. The Wand knew full well who its master was, and while it could not stop Voldemort from using it, it could and did weaken powerful spells to the point they were laughable and force the spells to go wide of their target.
Then the two men more or less fell into a room with an odd, crumbling rock arch with a strange, fluttering veil in it. At first, neither Harry nor Voldemort paid the arch any mind ... they were far too busy trying to kill each other. But after a few moments, Harry became aware of a low, indistinct murmur of voices. Quite a few voices. His first inclination was to think that 'backup' was arriving ... and hoping it didn't find them, because none of them could do anything about Voldemort. But after a minute, he realized the murmur was coming from the arch. About a minute after that, he realized that Voldemort seemed to be hearing it too, as Voldemort kept tipping his head and glancing towards the arch.
About then, a Patronus bounded into the room. Harry recognized it instantly as Neville's, though it looked a good bit wispier than it normally did. The import of its arrival made Harry give a feral grin. Nagini was dead ... and Voldemort was out of Horcruxes.
Harry had been withholding as much of his magical strength as he had dared to during the battle, knowing he'd not do any lethal damage to Voldemort even if he went all out, at least not until Nagini had been dealt with. Now ... now was the time. Harry took a deep breath and then aimed a series of spells at Voldemort, putting as much oomph into them as he could. Voldemort, who'd been easily fending off Harry's attacks until now, attempted to fend off the spells ... only to get sent flying halfway across the room when the stronger spells overwhelmed his 'tailored to the previous strength seen' shields.
Midflight, his grip on 'his' wand weakened. The Elder Wand, sensing its chance, wrenched free of Voldemort's grip and went sailing across the room, flipping end over end just once so it was heading for Harry grip-first. Harry, who hadn't been expecting that ... after all, he'd not hit Voldemort with an Expelliarmus ... nevertheless managed to catch the Elder Wand.
For the first time since their creation, the Deathly Hallows were united.
The room shook violently, as if in the midst of an earthquake, the walls and roof cracking under the strain, raining debris down on both Voldemort and Harry. At the same time, the room was filled with a loud, booming, echoing scream of rage ... that wasn't coming from either Voldemort or Harry. As the room stilled, Harry warily poked his head up from the floor, looking around for both Voldemort and ... well, whatever the heck had caused the quake and the yelling. Up on the dais, the arch looked like it had completely escaped any damage.
And as Harry watched, the odd, fluttering curtain that hung from the arch twisted, solidified ... and began to pull away from the arch. It began to take a form that chilled Harry's bones, because as it stepped away from the arch, it looked very, very much like a dementor. A dementor on steroids, that is. Half again as tall as a normal dementor, its 'cloak' was pitch black and apparently in perfect condition. Its hands and the one foot Harry spotted peeking out from under the cloak as it stepped forward were, unlike a regular dementor, purest white and definitely didn't look to be scabby or rotting or any such thing, though they were definitely very thin, giving the appearance of being no more than bone with skin stretched tight over it.
Harry grimaced. He was in so much trouble. As if having to try to kill Voldemort wasn't bad enough, now he had to fend off the dementor from hell as well? This was just great. But a second or two later, Harry somewhat belatedly realized something. The room wasn't going cold ... and he wasn't reacting the way he normally did around a dementor.
What the hell was going on here?
Before Harry could figure out what to do, the hooded figure waved one hand lazily, and Voldemort got pulled towards it through the air, until Voldemort was a couple feet from it, his feet dangling a good six feet above the floor. Harry was hard put to keep from snickering at the expression on Voldemort's face, despite the seriousness and uncertainty of the situation he found himself in. The ... whatever it was ... briefly examined Voldemort, then tossed him aside like a piece of garbage, apparently utterly disinterested in him.
And then, apparently, it was Harry's turn to garner the thing's attention. Except in his case, he didn't get hoisted up and then thrown aside. The thing just turned its hooded head in Harry's direction and ... apparently ... stared for a minute. At which point Harry finally realized something. There had been absolutely no noise whatever since the yell. Not the sound of debris falling, not Voldemort mouthing off (which Harry was fairly sure Voldemort was incapable of NOT doing).
"I smell the blood of the Peverells in you, stripling." The raspy, growling baritone made Harry jump in startlement. Since the HELL when did Dementors talk?
There was a harsh laugh. "I am no dementor, stripling. I. Am. Death." The last three words had the ring of a royal proclamation. "Long ago, three brothers, in their arrogance, thought they could stop me. They summoned me, and through trickery, forced me to create them gifts, thinking to weaken and humble me. But I, I had the last laugh. Their gifts turned to curses in their hands, and two fell into my realm despite all they attempted to avoid it."
There was a short pause. "The third ... ahh, that one, that one was wise. He came to understand his and his brothers' folly. Long he sought to destroy the gift I had given him, thinking that in doing so, I might be appeased. But my gifts are not so easily destroyed, and he failed. Every hand that has touched them, have I struck down before their appointed time for their temerity."
Harry swallowed nervously as Death seemed to drift closer. "And yet here is an enigma. All three gifts in the hands of one, a mere stripling child who has but the vaguest idea of what he holds ... and desires not their power. One you gained by birthright, I see. One, befouled by magics meant to defy me, which has since been cleansed, and the wand, which this ... foul creature ... " It motioned towards Voldemort. "sought and sought to control, yet it answers to you."
Death began to circle Harry, who swiveled to keep it in view. "You are a most curious child. There is no thought in you of using these gifts except in the defense of others. No crowing, strutting ego proclaiming yourself greater than all others."
Harry finally found his voice. "Look ... I really don't know what the whole deal is with all of this. I'm just ... " He glanced over at Voldemort. Before he could continue, Death broke in.
"Yes, that one has done all he could to ensure he and I never meet, has he not? A more corrupt, wicked, depraved soul would be difficult to find. Yes, that one will be coming with me, this day. All his precautions against meeting me have gone. There is but the question of what shall be done with you."
Harry winced. "Ummm ... ok, these things can't be destroyed, evidently, but ... what if I give them back to you?" He offered. "I mean, you're here, after all, and you made them."
Death went still for a moment. "Indeed you are an unusual child." It growled. "But your offer pleases me. Return to me the stone and the wand. The cloak you may keep, as it belonged to the wise brother, and you have much in kinship with him. In return, I will take this creature with me ... and shall not seek you out before your time."
Harry couldn't get the resurrection stone out of his pocket fast enough before tossing both stone and wand towards Death, unwilling to get close enough for Death to grab them from him. Death snatched both items out of the air. A split second later, there was another booming, echoing roar, this time of victory, and the room shook even more violently than the first time, tossing Harry flat on his back.
By the time he managed to get back to his feet after the shaking stopped, there was no sign of Voldemort, or of Death, and the arch had regained its fluttering curtain.
Harry couldn't get out of there fast enough, bolting for the central room and the exit as fast as his legs would move.