Hi everyone! This is the third part of four and the next one, the last chapter (if you include the epilogue), will/should be out on Monday! I hope you'll all have a week-end in the meanwhile ;)
Special thanks to my guest reviewers to whom I can't reply directly : SharonT, Cherrie-san and Charlie0925 :)
Disclaimer : I don't own Harry Potter.
Warning: Blood and gore.
Chapter 52 : 3rd of April 1998, Victory Day, Part three
The cell door opened with a gloomy creak and Bellatrix and I hurried in clumsily as we struggled to move under the Cloak.
Draco quickly got to his feet and looked ready to defend his life against his cell's invisible intruders. I pulled the Cloak off to reassure him and took off my backpack to store it back in temporarily.
Draco's eyes widened at our sudden apparition, but he did relax his stance slightly.
He still looked suspicious, however. It dawned on me that perhaps he thought we were not really who we appeared to be. I wondered silently what sort of tricks our enemies had played against him to make him suspect Polyjuiced imposters and my heart filled with anger at the thought. How long had they had Draco? Why didn't anybody tell me about it before I left for the Ministry? Didn't they know?
I thought how calm Narcissa was when I left and decided that she could not have known. His capture must have been recent, then.
"Draco! Your mother is giving birth right now!" I blurted out when I realised that he probably didn't get the message if he had been taken prisoner here.
Draco did not react outwardly to the news. He looked at me and said, dead-panned:
"You have just found out that I am a prisoner in the Ministry's cells and thought the first thing I had to know is that Narcissa Malfoy is out there, in the most comfortable bed can afford, surrounded by doctors anxious to help the birth process be as swift and painless as possible? Am I supposed to be reassured of your identity by this display of obtuseness?"
I shifted in place, stung. What the hell? I really thought that Draco would have liked to know the news. What did it matter where we found him? The same people who had taken Bellatrix, for one reason or another, had obviously captured him. Now that the news of his mother was out, we could focus on how to get out of here as quickly as possible, no? It wasn't obtuse or insensitive of me to say that. Bellatrix had looked as if she could not wait a moment more in her cell when her sister was out there giving birth. But then again, Bellatrix was a bit crazy too...But wasn't it a bit strange that Draco had referred to his mother as "Narcissa Malfoy"? And Draco usually did not insult me like that...
"You are not my Drakey-poo!" shrieked Bellatrix after a few seconds, startling me from my observations.
Thank god for the silencing spells on the doors, I thought as I glanced nervously through its opening at the empty corridor behind us.
Bellatrix looked ready to pounce on the other, so I placed a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. Just because he might not be Draco did not mean he necessarily was an enemy. He had been captured and put in a cell, after all.
"No, I am not Draco, Bellatrix, nor did I pretend to be," said the imposter in a calming voice, his empty hands spread before him. His eyes drifted to the blood at the side of my head and to the rapidly swelling cheekbone where Crouch had backhanded me.
I held in a sigh and took a moment to check if my temple was still bleeding. My fingers touched the sticky wound and found mostly caked blood. It must look worse than it felt. Head wounds always bled a lot. Too bad I was so horrible at wandless Healing charms that I'd probably end up pealing the skin off my face rather than healing it.
"Who are you, then? And why are you Polyjuiced as Draco?" I asked.
"It's dangerous to make assumptions, Potter. What makes you so sure it's Polyjuice?" challenged the imposter.
I lifted an unimpressed eyebrow in his direction.
"I am not absolutely certain, no. But the only known British Metamorphagus is currently pregnant, so she cannot morph into a boy without hurting her baby. You have the sneer and the insults down, though, if you want to pretend that you are her," I said with a bit of humour.
Bellatrix, who apparently could not stand to be ignored for so long, cut our discussion short.
"Who are you then, boy?" she asked.
"I might not be a boy at all," he replied smartly.
I sighed exasperatedly. He liked our ignorance a bit too much for my tastes.
"Well, since you're not Draco, we have no reason to stay here and listen to your cryptic statements, then. We have no time to waste. Don't you agree, Bellatrix?" I asked, already turning to head back out of the cell. The other boy stopped us before we had the chance to make a step in that direction, however.
"Ok, ok! I was roped into this Polujuice plan by Draco and look where that got me. The least you could have done is let me have my fun a bit longer to compensate for the rough handling," grumbled the impostor reluctantly.
Who said I lived half a year with a Dark Lord without learning manipulation techniques? I thought smugly as I turned back to him.
"Nice to meet you, Blaise," I guessed. His eyes widened in surprise before his look turned contemplative. What? Did he really think the Dark Lord would have kept me so long at his side if I were completely stupid?
"Zabini, you little rat!" shouted Bellatrix. "How dare you impersonate my dear nephew?"
It was Blaise's turn to sigh.
"Drakey-poo wanted to go to the Death Eater ceremony. I wanted to investigate what Weasley was planning. We switched places. Turns out that Weasley was in league with a French lass and that they wanted to capture Draco, probably for a ransom. And, given Potter's presence here and the fact that they didn't interrogate me, my guess is that they wanted to lure him to the Ministry by using me as bait. It seems like it worked if you are here, Potter," he exposed.
I opened my mouth to correct his assumptions, but he continued.
"Now, what I wonder is what you, Bellatrix, are doing here. Surely, you didn't form a rescue team with Potter, no?" asked Blaise.
Bellatrix did not look impressed by Blaise's power of deduction either.
"No, I did not, Zabini. Nor did Potter, as far as I know. I was attacked at my residence and an object of great value was stolen from me. Given the limited amount of people who had Floo permission to my manor, I would guess the traitor to be either slimy Snape or barmy Barty. I am inclined to say the first."
"It's Crouch," I interjected, looking back at the empty corridor and trying to ignore the look Bellatrix and Blaise exchanged after I spoke and the renewed scrutiny of my injuries. How much time did we have before someone came and discovered the bodies?
"So," I started again, turning back to them. "Let's get out of here."
.
We put in common our weapons. Or rather, I shared the limited content of my old backpack and Blaise had been the only one able to push a spark out of the practice wand without panting in exhaustion afterwards. He was given the wand, after I had grudgingly admitted that it was the best strategy since, of us three, Blaise was also the one with the less ability in wandless magic. When Bellatrix was asked of her proficiency in the technique, she said that she had perfected the art of making her enemies' head blow up on their shoulders, but not much more than that. She had been given the knife. I had parted with it reluctantly, conscious that I had essentially handed my weapons to two persons I neither liked nor trusted but feeling like I didn't have much of a choice on the matter. At least I still had my Invisibility Cloak.
We exited the cell in silence. We had agreed that I would go first to check if the coast was clear and that they would look out for a hand appearing from time to time to signal them to join him. The fact that I was the one to suggest the strategy did not make me feel better about it. My apprehension only grew once in the corridor, even if it was still quiet. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I felt more worried because it was too quiet. Carefully, we made our way upstairs. The keys we got from Doug worked to unlock the door to the rest of the Auror Department. Once I made sure that nobody was looking at the door, I slipped through the small opening we made and stepped in the corridor with the holding cells. The outraged shouts of the prisoners reassured me somewhat. It had been too quiet downstairs. At least now, if my shoes creaked or something of the kind, the enemy would not hear me so easily. The corridor was large enough for me to walk straight in the middle without worrying too much about a prisoner accidentally brushing against me if they stretched their arms out of their cell.
The layout of the Department was such that, if a prisoner wanted to escape, they would have to pass through the large room full of cubicles in which the Aurors were working. When I had arrived, about an hour before, that room had been packed. Now that I thought about it, there had been way too many people for emergency response teams on a holiday. It wasn't as if Marvolo would really declare war on France today and launch an attack on the same day, right?
I resisted the urge to palm my forehead because it was so completely his style of plans. I wasn't really sure of what to think in the current situation though. Had those people been Aurors, or people disguised as Aurors? And if they had been real, what did it mean that they were onto Crouch's scheme and they let him go through with it?
That's when a little voice in my head pointed out that Crouch did say that the Dark Lord probably knew I was at the Ministry and hadn't come to put an end to Crouch's sinister plans. But what would Marvolo gain by setting me up like that?
I shook my head to get rid of the thoughts. I didn't want to think of what this could mean. Besides, it wasn't as if I needed Marvolo to come and save me. After all, here I was, escaping and all, and without his help...apart from if you counted his Death Eaters as help from him-which might explain what two of them were doing in prison-but I could probably have escaped without them anyway...
I forced myself to focus again but I already felt simultaneously tired and full of nervous energy.
At the end of the corridor, I peeked out at the room with the cubicles. Yep, still crawling with Aurors or wannabes. I realised that, had I been trying to escape alone, I could just have walked out of the Department with no one the wiser. As it was, I didn't think I could live with myself if I left Blaise and Bellatrix on their own and just took off. Plus, I wanted my knife back and I probably wouldn't get it if I left them to fend for themselves. But that was just a secondary concern, dammit, because I wasn't the sort of person who abandons his allies to save himself. It was apparently even my 'fate' to sacrifice myself for everybody else, if one believed the Prophecy.
Dammit, Harry. Focus! I thought, shaking my head clear again. I returned to the corridor with the rows of detention cells. There were only two Aurors patrolling the corridor and I put myself in a corner to think for a moment.
"Let us out, you traitors!" shouted one detainee.
"You will pay for what you have done!" said another.
"Damn Frogs! The Dark Lord was right!" cursed a third.
The last comment caught my attention. These people supported the Dark Lord?
The Aurors laughed at the comments and taunted back:
"And what exactly you are thinking of doing to us? Glaring at us until death? By zis time, your precious Lord is probably dead already! Oh? What is it? You do not believe me? Well, well, we will just 'ave to wait for ze the news, zen, ok? Then we will see who will laugh."
A twinge of panic at the words made my stomach curl. Surely, I would know if something had happened to the Dark Lord, right?
I lifted a hand and rubbed my scar distractedly. I would have felt it if he had been killed, of course. I had felt it when his Horcruxes had been destroyed, after all... Or maybe I only felt the Horcruxes because I was one myself and wouldn't feel anything if Marvolo was hurt? I shook my head resolutely. All the more reasons to get the hell out of this place quickly. Marvolo might need me.
This time, I nodded resolutely, my determination anew.
.
A minute later found me stalking closer to the two Auror guards. My index and middle fingers were pointing forward and stuck together. I had focused my Magic as well as I could and it was now coursing between my two hands as if they were charged with Muggle electricity. It was a small wonder that nobody was shouting at the display, or maybe the Cloak was better at hiding magical energy than I thought.
I shrugged mentally and launched my attack. I stuck my fingers at the base of the Aurors' spine and force my Magic into it. The two guards stiffened in shock and their bodies convulsed. When one opened his mouth, I was sure that he would shout out and ruin my plan, but he only let out a strangled gasp before he collapsed in my arms next to his colleague. Catching on, the captives looked on in silence as I dragged the bodies to the door going downstairs. I knocked on it twice as we had agreed on and the door opened quickly to Blaise waiting for me. He took one of the Aurors off me and dumped him carelessly on the stairs heading down. I sat the other at the top of the stairs next to him.
"Where's Bellatrix?" I asked apprehensively.
"She went to check the other cells for weapons and I think she found Crouch in one of them. Since it was the only other cell occupied apart from ours, we kind of guessed it had been yours," said the other boy scrutinising me suddenly, his eyes taking in the details of my injuries again.
I barely managed to hold back my shivers of disgust. I didn't want to revisit what could have happened in that cell, not for a while at least. I cleared my throat awkwardly.
"Was he dead, then? Crouch, I mean," I specified when Blaise didn't say anything.
"No, he wasn't," he answered. I wanted to gouge his eyes out. I hated to have to pull details out of someone's mouth and Crouch's continued existence was putting on edge. Thankfully, Blaise had mercy for me.
"Bella went to finish him off," he said nonchalantly.
"Why didn't she just leave him there? I'm pretty sure the Dark Lord would have liked to kill him personally, or at least interrogate him. He was pretty high-up in the Inner circle after all," I commented, brows furrowed.
Blaise looked surprised at my comment but looked away. He said in a low voice:
"Bella hates traitors. Crouch caught her by surprise at her manor and she doesn't take that sort of humiliation well..."he trailed off for a moment before adding: "If it makes you feel better, we were all fooled by his game."
I cut him short with a snort. Game, indeed. Apprehension coiled in my stomach like a snake.
"I couldn't care less if Bellatrix wants to make the bastard suffer before he dies, but she's jeopardising my escape plan," I pointed out.
"Calm down, itsy bitsy Potty," I heard Bellatrix say before she appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Her hair was dishevelled; her clothing in disarray; her eyes were shining with a cruel glint and the blood on her forearms was so thick it looked like she was wearing evening gloves. I resisted the urge to go check if the fucker was dead. Since she didn't look hurt, I left it at that. She came up to us and asked me what I intended to do.
I had planned to make the detained people escape to cause a distraction and head out of the department in the ensuing commotion.
Bellatrix looked disappointed that I did not want to go on a killing spree and Blaise just shook his head.
"The prisoners are probably the reduced Ministry staff. Basically just anyone who were working today. Not all of them can fight, especially without wands. If we free them, they'll be slaughtered," he pointed out.
" I would appreciate a good slaughter, but I'd rather not get chastised by the Dark Lord because I got some of his precious magical children killed like that," Bellatrix added, her voice taking on a childish tone towards the end.
I paled at the idea of condemning these people to a horrible fate just because I wanted to escape. I really needed to think these things through better.
"Okay, okay. I've got another plan. We let them escape, but I create a distraction and I draw the French and the Rebels out. The ones that remain will be taken care of easily by the two of you and the others that can fight. There must be wands somewhere in the Department. I can't believe that they'd all only have Muggle weapons. Something isn't right here," I pointed out.
"Maybe it's a Squib conspiracy," suggested Blaise.
Bellatrix and I looked at each other and then at him in silence.
"Okay, I get it, it's probably not a Squib conspiracy, but I do think you are right and that there is something suspicious here. Did you interrogate Crouch before you killed him?" asked Blaise nonchalantly.
Bellatrix pouted childishly.
"I wanted to, but he screamed so prettily..."
I rolled my eyes silently. So, my partners for this little venture included a paranoid conspiracy theorist guy and a sick masochist with the mentality of a little girl. Great. Not that I didn't know that about Bellatrix before today...
"Alright, alright. Objections to my plan?" I cut in shortly.
They both shook their heads negatively.
"Bellatrix, did you find other usable weapons in your search?" I asked, hoping that she had found the hidden compartments and would not mention anything about the peculiar 'tools' there had been in my cell about which I desperately did not want to think.
Bellatrix stayed silent for a moment, looking at me with impassively before she answered:
"I found another knife or two. You can take yours back if you want."
I nodded in assent and got my beloved knife back, relieved that she hadn't mentioned anything else to Blaise.
"Okay, so, I was thinking that I could..." I started to explain my new strategy in more details.
.
Five minutes later found Bellatrix and Blaise opening the cells that held the captive Ministry personnel while I headed out in the danger zone. Obviously, the wannabe Aurors didn't think that anything was amiss, because they were all lounging around, waiting for new orders. That suited me just fine.
I searched the room and found the ones that looked like they were in charge. They were standing at a table toward the back of the room, under a big crystal chandelier. Perfect, I thought as I crept closer under my Cloak.
Their conversation reached my ears as I was preparing to gather my Magic. I was not talented in wandless Magic, to be honest, but making some glass blow to attract their attention should not give me too much trouble.
"...any minute now." finished the first.
A second sighed and said:
"It's too bad I was on the plan A team. I wish I'd been there to see him get blown up. I would have taken a picture for my mantelpiece. Something to keep me warm and fuzzy inside in my old days, you know?"
The first chuckled at that.
"Speaking of the bastard meeting his end, I think I should go check on the guys we sent to finish off the boy," said a third, brows furrowed in worry.
"You think Crouch was a bother?" asked one of the few women around the table. She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't remember anything about her, except that she was one of Moody's contacts from outside the Camp when I was there.
"I don't know," he answered. "I just don't like delays. The attack at the parade is scheduled in half-an-hour. I want our part done before that. It's bad enough that the snake team still hasn't managed to lure it out of the wards yet, I don't want to add to it..."
Suddenly, the beautiful crystal chandelier above their heads exploded and a rain of cutting shards impaled the people that were standing beneath it.
I swore under my breath and moved quickly out of the way before someone bumped onto me and revealed my location. I hadn't planned on the damn thing to explode like it did. I just wanted to make it shatter to put them on edge and to continue taunting them until I could lead them out of the room, but my emotions got the better of me. I wince at the gruesome product of my inability to control my wandless magic correctly and moved toward the front of the room, incapacitating a few of them with my 'homemade Taser technique' on the way out in the confusion of the chandelier explosion.
Once I was at the front, I began taking out as much as I could before they caught on. Sadly, I pulled a Bellatrix on one of them and made his head explode instead of electrifying him and making him lose consciousness. That got their attention alright. And made me feel sick to my stomach.
Seeing all the faces looking in my direction, I very theatrically blew the doors of the Department open and ran out as fast as I could. I was pretty sure most of them would follow me out after the damage I had done. I turned the corner and headed out of the Aurors's office and into the entry hall. Sadly for me, I had very little possibilities then. On every floor of the Ministry, there were emergency Floos (which were probably blocked now), lifts (which was probably the best way to get caught) and a hidden door for an emergency staircase (where they probably thought I would go).
I blasted the door for the emergency staircase open, pushed the button to call the lifts and pushed myself in a corner next to the door to the Department. Knowing that the hall would get crowded in just a few moments, I tried to recall what Marvolo had taught me in our flying lesson. I had never managed to master the skill perfectly, but lifting up in the air was not so difficult once you knew the feeling you sought for. I began to rise not a moment too early and thanked whoever had designed the Ministry to have high ceilings because the Auror impersonators who followed me out were now firing all over the entry hall. Why they were using Muggle guns was still very much a mystery to me, since a simple Homenum revelio would have done the trick to locate me despite my Cloak.
Seeing some bullets flying closer to where I was floating and threatening the concentration I needed to hold the spell in place, I tried to create handles with runes like I had done in a shower a few months back in a very different context. When I pressed my hand against the stone ceiling, however, nothing happened. I tried again, unnerved by my failure, but I didn't feel even a spark of Magic reacting to the runes I had traced.
So, here I was, sweating profusely and praying that the inch I had just lost in the air would be the last one and that I wouldn't get chipped off by the volley of bullets sweeping the area. Magic must have heard my pleas because a moment later, I heard one of them ask the others to stop firing while he was listening to something. I breathed out slowly and tried to think of bunnies running on clouds, sunshine and treacle tarts to stay at the same height while I looked down on the enemy gathered below me.
The man had a hand to his ear and it looked as if he had an earphone and was listening to a report. Since when did Muggle tech work so well in the Ministry anyway? Someone must have tweaked them to work in a Magic-filled environment. Or maybe the Ministry wards hadn't been repaired correctly after the attack around Yule...
"Yes. Yes. Are you sure? But, previous reports indicated that...Maybe one is an impersonator? Yes. Well, sir, even Plan A would be dif...Yes, sir. No, sir. We think he escaped, sir," said the man in his radio. At the last sentence, he visibly drew back from the earpiece and I faintly heard someone shouting.
"Yes, sir, we will be on the lookout for invisibility. But how can he keep it on, if the wards just went up? A Cloak? We will take that in account, sir. Maybe sweep the area. We might have caught him with our bullets already. One can hope, sir. Yes, sir. I will keep you informed when we catch him," concluded the man, before hanging up. He made a gesture to a few others, and they started to walk around the room, checking on the grounds if I was not lying dead somewhere and opening the doors to the elevators to see if I hadn't managed to get in there.
The man talked again, but this time quite lowly. I strained my hearing and reached toward him like Marvolo had taught me. Sure enough, I could hear him marginally better.
"Okay, so, apparently, the Dark Lord has managed to duplicate himself somehow and we don't know who has the right one, so we are doing both plans at the same time," he started before pausing to let his accomplices digest the news. I was grateful for the break because it was a lot to wrap my head around. Marvolo had come for me? The thought made me feel all fuzzy inside, despite a part of myself screaming that I was doing well enough on my own and another shouting that he had taken his bloody time. I cursed silently when I felt myself lower of an inch again. Damn concentration problem.
"Where iz ze target?" asked a French guy.
"We don't know. Apparently, he can not only duplicate himself, but he also hid his signature really well, and now that the wards are up, we can't get a read on the energies in the building."
Someone let out a deep breath.
"Muggle mode or not, I really don't want to bump into him around a corner..." started another.
The one in charge interrupted him.
"That's why we have the guns. He won't have Magic. It will be a piece of cake. Come on, now, the chase has begun. We have one invisible target and another potentially still dangerous. We have to make sure they don't team up or they might have a chance to..." he began, but I couldn't hear the rest because I felt my control slip up and fell on the ground.
Thankfully, given my dwindling hold on my concentration, I had lowered quite a bit before and therefore did not drop from too high. I landed on my feet with no one the wiser and quickly moved in the direction of the elevators. The people who had searched them had left the doors open and I took advantage of that to slip past them and take refuge next to the control panel. It wasn't the best idea in the world for me to choose to get stuck in a small room with only one exit, but they would have known if I had opened the door to the staircase, so I did not have much choice left.
A peculiar tingling in my scar reminded me of the Dark Lord's presence somewhere in the Ministry and I reached out, expanding my senses to see if I could feel him somewhere. I got the sense that he was below me somewhere and guessed he had arrived by the Atrium. Knowing the open space in the Atrium and how suspicious it would look if the doors of one of the elevators suddenly opened without anybody exiting, I thought it would be a better idea to go one level above or under and then reach it from there. Plus, the core of wards was somehow under the Atrium and I wondered if I could find out how they had managed their "Muggle mode" as they called it. At the moment, I could only do exclusively wandless spells. Or how did Marvolo put it again? Only 'Inner magic' spells worked. Well, working was an optimistic description of my flying ability at the moment, but at least, I got some sort of response. I tried to produce the same sparks in my hands I had used earlier to tase the wannabe Aurors, but nothing happened. As it was, I doubted that I could do anything else of the sort and I wanted to know why. It was quite clear to me, however, that the enemy had planned for it to happen because they all had Muggle weapons on themselves.
I snorted to myself. Of course, they would not dare to face the Dark Lord when he could kill them all with a flick of his wand or a twist of his hand. It would have been the best way for them to get all killed pointlessly.
I was brought out of my thoughts when suddenly a group of five enemies entered the lift with me. I plastered myself in a corner and swore in my head at how much my inability to focus was costing me. The lifts were spacious, but not enough for five people to be bumped around on the way down without noticing a sixth hiding in their midst. However, I didn't plan to allow them a chance to uncover my presence to the rest of their friends. I pressed quickly the bottom "Level nine", partly because it was in the right direction and partly because it would be the longest ride possible before the elevator stopped.
The doors closed and the elevator dropped quickly. I took out my knife and steeled myself. My heart raced. I remembered my knife lessons with Sirius. I aimed for the jugular and killed the first enemy instantly but his blood sprayed widely around the compartment. It had been exactly when a big lurch shook the elevator so the others didn't notice immediately, despite the obvious result. By the time they realised what was happening, another one had lost his life. The two at the opposite side of the elevator started shooting at the one closest to me, no doubt thinking that he was a traitor. He was killed soon enough, but the bullets rebounded in the small compartment and killed another one. I took down the last with my knife before I realised that a bullet had lodged itself in my left knee where my Cloak had slipped off slightly. I swore lowly at the pain and bent down to cut a part of someone's cloak off to make myself a makeshift tourniquet. The floor was covered with a thick layer of blood and I nearly slipped on it. I tried not to look too closely at the bodies piled up around me. I thought I would feel disgusted at myself for attacking them, remorseful at the very least, but at the moment I just felt angry at the situation. After all, it wasn't as if I had asked to be put in this situation. They were the ones who captured me and tried to kill me and left me with Crouch when they knew that he had planned to...
I shook my head again to make myself focus. The extreme stress I felt was not helping my focus, but with whatever they had done to block access to most of my magic, I also felt somewhat sluggish and tired. When I saw that we nearly were at level 9, I quickly bent down again to gather one big gun that I guessed was a rifle and a handgun from the floor. I was not really comfortable using them, but I knew the basics of how to make them work and I didn't think I could take down rapidly large groups with just my knife and reduced mobility. My knee protested at my movements just in cue. Level nine was the Department of Mysteries. Maybe I would manage to find something for my leg there. Unspeakables were bound to get hurt in their dangerous experiments, after all, weren't they?
The doors opened with a joyful ding. A ripple of red invaded the floor in front of the elevators. I limped my way out of the butchery and left sticky footprints on the ground. A jolt and an uneasy feeling in my scar told me that Marvolo was pretty close and in a dangerous situation. I clenched my jaw in determination and half-jogged, half-limped down the torch-lit corridor to a black door.
I threw it open and found a circular room with a dozen doors without handles. Feeling the urgency in my scar, I still got in and tried to remember what I knew of the Department of Mysteries, but it did not amount to much.
The room spun, surprising me out my thoughts. I jarred my left knee painfully when I stumbled to find my balance again. When it stopped, I used the feeling I got from my scar to choose a door to my left. I choose the rifle I had pilfered from my friends in the elevator and pushed the door open.
My first impression of the room was that every inch of the walls was covered in different types of clock and an annoyingly loud ticking sound came from them.
My second impression was that nobody had the right to look so glorious while chopping heads off with a sword.
My third impression was that, although someone could be incredibly skilful with a blade and inhumanly fast and powerful, ultimately, he would be bested by a large group of enemies with guns if he did not have Magic to protect himself. As it was, it was a miracle that he had not been injured or killed already.
With trembling fingers, I undid the safety lock on my gun and aimed in the direction of the enemies.
I pressed on the trigger. Nothing happened. I looked down at the gun in panic. There were bullets, the safety lock was off, nothing looked jammed. Why didn't it work?
I hurriedly took out the other gun I had and tried to shoot with it. Nothing happened. With a low groan of frustration, I abandoned the useless guns at the door and crept closer to the battle with my knife. The Dark Lord's strategy was to keep in the middle of the enemies, and close enough to them that they couldn't shoot without killing their allies. By the time they overcame their reluctance to kill their friends in the hopes of taking the Dark Lord down at the same time they were already dead. Or rolling on the floor, clutching their bloody stump and accidentally tripping their allies up.
There were a three of them, however, that kept a safer distance. They were the ones with automatic guns and they looked like they were considering shooting down the whole group from their vantage point. Marvolo was too far away from them to take care of them, but judging from the careful glances he threw at them, I knew that he was weary of their intentions. That was probably why some of the enemies closer to him were still standing, in fact. To offer him a human shield in case the others wanted to shoot everyone down.
I stifled my pained groan as I hurried to one of those who had an automatic gun and quickly took care of him. Attacking enemies from the back was not exactly honourable, but I really could not afford to give them a chance to spot me before I took them down. I hurried away from the body, in case someone noticed my action and decided to fire at me. They must have been too focused on Marvolo, because no one turned in the direction of their fallen comrade. All the better for me, I thought. Now, if only I could have the same luck for the two others...
The second one died much in the same way. By the time I got him, Marvolo had killed enough of the rest that only about six of them remained. That's when one of them noticed the bloody footsteps on the ground. And the two who had mysteriously died.
"The secondary target is here! He's invisible! Three, three, team A, out!" shouted the last one with an automatic gun.
The remaining six enemies split out and spread like a triangle with two at each corner. One of them was looking in, aiming for the Dark Lord and the other was turned to where my footsteps led them. In the other words, I suddenly had three guns pointing directly where I was standing, on top of the automatic. I panicked and froze. I did not know what to do. I even thought of crawling away to avoid leaving footprints before I realised that they would probably sweep the whole area with their bullets. A twinge of annoyance in my scar made me look at Marvolo. He was shooting glances at the ceiling while he manoeuvred to be out of the triangle and behind one of the groups.
I finally clicked to his meaning and lifted in the air for the second time today. Since the ceiling was lower here than in the entry halls, I flattened myself on it as best as I could, but my injured leg kept dipping down and it was excruciating to contract my muscles to bring it back to my side. I hadn't been on my ceiling for more than a second when the deafening roars of the guns begun. I started abruptly and scraped over a few meters forwards on the ceiling. The rough surface scratched my back painfully, but thanks to the noise of the guns, no one heard it.
I glanced down. Marvolo had taken out one of the three pairs and was working on the second one. He somehow still seemed uninjured. I wondered how had managed that. I was starting to feel pretty beaten up and did not even have to deal with a room full of enemies.
I eyed the leader of the group again. He seemed to reevaluate the danger I brought and turned his rifle abruptly toward the Dark Lord. I could not let him do that. I took out my bloody knife, gauged the distance and the angle for a second and threw it at him as hard as I could. It embedded itself on his neck up to the hilt of the blade. The guy next to him looked around in panic. I heard gunshots again, this time from the direction where Marvolo had been. He was holding the arm of the other enemy still standing. The guy was panicking and shooting convulsively with his gun. Marvolo directed the firing to the last enemy and, when the latter fell dead, pushed the last one standing away and decapitated him. The body fell to the ground with a dull thud and the head rolled off a few feet to the right. I swallowed the bile climbing up in my throat with some effort and looked away from the gory sight.
The room was suddenly silent. None of the enemies even moaned in pain. They were all dead. I let myself lower on the ground, grimacing at the blood and bodies that littered the ground everywhere. I had to be careful not to slip on the floor and that forced me to look down a lot more than I would have liked.
I released a tired sight and heft myself up painfully on one of the desks. Marvolo cleaned his sword on someone's cloak. I tore the Cloak off me, breathing in, unobstructed, the stale air. I looked down at the bloody floor again and wondered how I would feel about it all in retrospect. I did not have the excuse of a magical trance to excuse my killing this time. At the moment, though, I just felt incredibly tired.
A pair of legs moved in my line of sight. When I didn't look up, Marvolo took my chin in his hand and lifted my head to examine the damage done to my face. The movement brought back the memory of Crouch holding my chin tightly and I recoiled automatically. Instead of dropping his hand, Marvolo moved it to my cheek and touched lightly the bruise that Crouch had done when he backhanded me earlier. I wondered what else he could see on my face and lifted my eyes to his finally. His brow was frowned and his mouth tight. He looked somewhere between furious and worried.
"What happened to you?" he asked finally.
I snorted humourlessly.
"What? Because you don't know everything that happens in your Ministry? Wow, that's a first," I mocked despite myself.
"Harry," he chastised me, displeasure clear in his voice.
"Right, right. Sorry, I'll go back to just follow you around without asking questions. Who cares about what happened to me anyway, right? I passed your little test. And alone, you see," I said bitterly, gesturing at the rest of the room. "I even left the help you sent in with me back at the DMLE. Didn't need them. Aren't you proud that I managed alone? Do I get points deducted because I received a stray bullet in the elevator, or will I still get my full marks?"
I felt a bit ridiculous to accuse him of that, especially since I had seen him fight and kill all those people, but I still felt like there was something suspicious about it all.
"I have no idea what you are talking about, Harry. I would appreciate if you cease casting your ridiculous aspersions. I had nothing to do with whatever happened to you and, if anything, I should be the one to tell you off for breaking your promise to me and heading straight into a trap without telling me, just like I knew you would," commented Marvolo, annoyed.
"How the heck was I supposed to know that it was a trap? And you didn't tell me to stay away from the Ministry or I would have. If you had told me that the Rebels and the French had planned something here, which I am sure you knew, why didn't you just tell me? Why do you always have to keep me out of the loop?" I protested loudly.
"If you hadn't rushed in to save your pathetic friend like the Gryffindor you are, you would have known that I had already planned for us to come settle the situation here, but after the ceremonies with the population. There would have been no need for your heroics if you had just followed the plan," hissed the Dark Lord from his clenched teeth.
I huffed in answer and winced when Marvolo rolled my pants' leg up to look at my wound.
"For your information, I did not rush in to save a friend. I didn't even know they had Blaise...or well, who they thought was Draco, and I would certainly not have rushed in to save Bellatrix even if I knew she was kept captive here, so please lay off the Gryffindor insults. The only thing you can reproach me is having been so stressed about Narcissa's situation that I headed to the Ministry to find Lucius the second she mentioned that she thought he was there. And I guess you can also tell me off for having any sort of trust in..." my words caught in my throat and I felt my face burn in shame at the thought of Crouch.
"Who?" asked the Dark Lord in a threatening voice.
I bit my lip and closed my eyes, trying not to think about it.
"It doesn't matter," I mumbled.
"Who, Harry?" he insisted.
"It doesn't matter, he's dead anyway, I can't...please don't ask me to talk about it now. The rest of enemy is already searching for us and I left an obvious trail wherever I walked so it's only a matter of time before they come in," I pleaded with him.
He still looked pissed off, but was doing a better job controlling his anger than usually those days.
"I will let it drop for the moment because we have more pressing concerns, but do not think for a second that I will forget it completely. Now, everything should be settled in the next..." he turned around, reading the time on the clocks, before he continued. "hour or so. It won't heal it completely, but try to direct some of your magic to your knee. I don't want you bleeding to death while I am killing off the rest of the nuisances," he said in a weird combination of worried concern and cold aloofness.
Although I was pants at wandless healing spells, Marvolo's panacea of "letting the magic do its work" abated the bleeding and seemed to stitch up the wound with the bullet still inside. It would not take away the pain, but at least, I would not need the tourniquet anymore and I would not bleed out. I winced at the thought of the job it would take to pull it out of there afterwards, but told myself I still had to survive the day before I had I to suffer through that. Who knew what else Moody had in store, after all?
I looked down at my knee in contemplation before looking back up at Marvolo who was now studying the bodies lying around us as if he could find answers just by looking at them. I was suddenly hit with the certainty that I would not live to see the end of the day. Realistically, they would try to kill me before Marvolo because they knew I was his Horcrux. Also, I was already injured and exhausted and he looked practically vibrant with energy. It was exaggerated to think that we would both live to see another day.
The Dark Lord had projects. He had people relying on him. I was just a kid playing an adult's game, following him around, stumbling my way through difficult situations and barely making it out of it with my sanity intact. Maybe I should just accept that I was never supposed to outlive the Dark Lord, or that it was not in my Fate to reach my eighteenth birthday.
The Prophecy had said that just one of us would die. It even said that it would be at the hands of the other. I knew that Marvolo had told me he didn't care about the Prophecy at all, but sometimes I could not help but think that part of the reason he was so set on keeping me on his side was because of the Prophecy, and not just the Horcrux situation.
What if he had designed this whole elaborate scheme to test if I was of any worth to him? If Crouch had been right, Marvolo had known that I left for the Ministry the minute I stepped out of the fireplace. If that was the case, could it be that he purposely delayed his arrival to see how I would fare in an emergency?
And if he was testing me, what did that change for the fact that I would die today? He would doubtlessly be disappointed that I failed and that he lost one of his last Horcruxes in the process. Well, I said one of his last, but he had always been incredibly vague on the amount and nature of his Horcruxes. For all I knew, Nagini was safe at the Fortress and there could be a few more out there...
A kiss broke my morbid train of thoughts. Contrarily to Crouch's aggressive and bruising one, this was nearly gentle. It was sweet and skilful and sent me reeling with contentedness. In my peculiar mood, I felt that this kiss was Marvolo's way of telling me goodbye. I thought that perhaps he could feel, like I had, that my life was coming to an end and that, consequently, he was showing me a part of himself that he usually kept close to his chest. I passed my arms around his shoulders and brought him closer to me, my hands sliding in his hair as his roamed my back and sides. He must have taken a hair regrowth potion for the ceremony that day, because they were back to the length and texture I was used to. He tightened his arms around me and I wrapped my good leg around his when he stepped closer to me.
While I was playing with his hair, my fingers met a strange chain he was wearing on his neck. I drew back and looked at him questioningly.
He pulled it out of his shirt to show me a small hourglass before he put it back in. He smirked, put a finger to lips and did a low shushing sound.
"You used a Time-turner?" I whispered incredulously and not completely without envy.
"And so would you have had you followed my plan," he pointed out with a knowing smirk.
"What happened, then? Do you know? From how many hours in the future are you? You said it would be all finished in an hour...Why didn't you turn back earlier than two hours?" I ranted with agitation. The thought of "why didn't you come back in time to stop Crouch at all" was left at the tip of my tongue, unsaid. But because Marvolo was Marvolo, he still caught it.
"I honestly thought you had left when I received Moody's ridiculous ransom letter. I would have gotten back earlier if I knew you had been caught," he said, sighing, before he began pacing agitatedly. "As for your latter question, I do not know much about what happened here based on the future I lived through. I only turned the Time-turner twice and did my best not be seen when I passed through the Ministry at that point," he answered evasively.
He was about to continue when we heard sounds from outside the door.
"Let's go," he ordered. He went to retrieve my knife and gave it back to me while I put the Cloak back on.
I wondered if I should try to steal a gun or two again, since these had definitely worked, but he told me to leave them there and pulled me to the door at the back of the room. And so began the bloodiest guided tour of my life.
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Voilà! Are you guys looking forward to the last chapter? Are you sad it will be over soon? A bit of both? Please tell me what your thoughts on this chapter (or the story) are and I might be convinced to post again on Sunday ;)