Chapter 18: Adiemus

Light exploded into Lucius's line of sight. The Horcrux blasted up above the caldron, and began spinning rapidly in midair. Everything else in the room was cast into darkness as great beams of multicolored light shot out from the horcrux in all directions.

'Souls!' Lucius thought with a start. Those multicolored lights were souls casting away from the horcrux at a rapid speed. 'No, not souls… sections of souls!'

It seemed that Voldemort had taken a piece of every person he had murdered before making the horcrux, and had sealed the small piece with the section of his soul in order to help anchor his own more securely to the horcrux.

'How horrible! ... And how beautiful those souls are,' Lucius vaguely thought.

Dazzled, Lucius watched as the souls of Voldemort's victims gathered into a mass and began pulling at a dark stain in the middle of the light. The dark stain twisted in their grasp, and Lucius realized that the stain was not a stain at all, but the only evil soul in the horcrux…Voldemort's soul fragment. The bright souls pulled with ferocity and in the next moment they had pulled the soul out and cast it into the potion, where it shrieked for a split second before ceasing to exist.

The remaining souls then danced or floated away from the now empty horcrux. They passed through the walls, the ceiling, and through the windows. One soul that Lucius was sure he recognized as Serius Black's only sibling took hold of the horcrux and smashed it in his unearthly grip with a gleeful grin, before winking directly at Lucius and zooming after a pretty muggle dancer that happened to be leaping out of the window with perfect form.

As the room returned to the natural color of a parlor, with the midday sun streaming through the windows and the candles a glowing brightly to light the darker corners, remembered terror filled Lucius. There had been an explosion before that! He realized with growing panic that he was no longer sitting in the chair near the center couch, but up against the north wall of the room, a wall that had formerly been far behind him. He had been blasted out of his chair and into the wall within seconds.

'Harry! Severus!' Lucius thought as he jumped up from the floor, wincing at the soreness in his back from the terrible impact he must have had with the wall. 'Draco and the Grangers!'

He scanned the room from left to right, starting with the couch near the window. Something was stirring under the center window, and Lucius realized with great relief that the mass was his son and Hermione. Draco was draped over the witch, looking as if he had moved in front of her during the seconds before the explosion as a precautionary measure.

"Draco, Hermione." Lucius called softly. The two turned to him with confusion and obvious relief in their eyes.

"Are you okay?" Lucius could hear Draco whispering to Hermione. At her nod, Draco turned back to his father.

"We're fine. Are you okay?"

"I hope so." He would not know until he saw his mates. At that thought he swept the room at a faster rate, moving towards the caldron and wrecked furniture as he did so. He remembered that his mates had been right next to the caldron, but he refused to accept that they could be anything but alive. Mr. and Mrs. Granger were already standing back up and dusting each other off, sharing a brief and private conversation of mutual concern for each other before turning to their child and Draco, nodding to Lucius as their gazes swept past him.

The door that had been behind Severus and Harry was blasted off its hinges, falling flat into the hallway where Lucius could see a mess for shredded robes trailing over the flattened door's surface and out of the room.

"Severus!!" Lucius cried, flying to the door and looking frantically out into the hallway, "HARRY!"

Across the hallway lay a mass of limbs and fabric. Lucius gave a cry as he dashed across the hall to what he knew to be his mates, dropping to his knees beside them. He called their names again beseechingly, tears already streaming down his face as he made a frantic effort to find their faces in the mass.

The lump groaned in two different pitches, and hands reached up to Lucius, who gave a cry of unbelieving joy and grabbed a hold. The two mates on the ground slowly separated, with Lucius constantly fussing them to 'lie still!', and sat up to inquire as to what exactly had taken place.

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I'm BAAAACK! Sorry it toook me soooo rediculously long to post this chapter... and that it's so short. I've been really, really busy, and for the last semester I've been out of the country! I kicked myself over and over for not transferring this chapter to this computer before I left...and I'm really sorry about that! Hope you all enjoyed it! Don't forget to review. I'll have the next chapter up within the next month. I promise!