The Trio Who Returned
Chapter 13
by Technomad
The long night wore on. The three friends said nothing; there was little to say. Once they had checked that the books in the vault were safe to handle, they each took a book and sat back, quietly reading by wandlight.
Harry basked in the companionship and camaraderie they shared. For most of his first eleven years on earth, he had been alone, even in a crowd. The Dursleys had seen to that, very effectively. With one part of his mind, he contemplated paying all three of his horrible relatives a visit one dark night. He pictured them, gliding on in, battening on the Dursleys' blood until they were sated. Uncle Vernon and Dudley in particular, he thought, would be rich, juicy and full of the red juice of life!
Sternly, he told himself that what he was thinking about was wrong. So far, he and his friends had subsisted on the blood of evildoers, Death Eaters and others who preyed upon the defenseless. But what would they do if there were no more such people?
The more he puzzled over it, the more he worried. He was well on the way to ending Voldemort forever, but what would be the point of victory if he became as bad as, or worse than, Voldemort?
Hermione, clever Hermione, noticed his agitation. "Is something wrong, Harry?"
"Yeah, Hermione, I'm worried. We've been totally focussed on defeating Voldemort. We're well on the way to victory, too. But what do we do after that?" He took off his glasses, cleaning them with a hanky he took from his pocket. Ever since his resurrection, his vision had been perfect, but his glasses were a link to his lost humanity. He would have really hated to lose them.
Hermione gave him a rather evil smile. "We go on. And on. And on. We now have eternity to play with, in a way that Voldemort and his Death Munchers never thought of."
"But what if we run out of evil people to prey on? We could be worse than the Death Eaters, in the long run!"
Hermione patted his head, her smile mocking in the dim wandlight. "Oh, Harry, Harry, you're such a naif sometimes! If there's one thing we'll never run short of, it's deserving targets!" She leaned back sensuously, stretching like a cat. When Harry had been human, he'd have found the sight very interesting, but it just meant that Hermione was getting comfortable.
Staring up into the darkness of the vault, Hermione purred: "We could kill every night from now till the crack of doom, and we'd still have a target-rich environment!" She licked her lips, her fangs showing white, as she contemplated such a lovely thought. "Do you think the Death Eaters came out of nowhere, that Voldemort created them, ex nihilo?"
"No, but…"
"Evil wizards and witches will always exist, my friend. And as for Muggle criminals, every one of those we kill means that many fewer break-ins, armed robberies, hold-ups, rapes and murders down the line! If anything, the Muggle authorities should give us medals!"
Ron looked up from the book he'd found, a compendium of great wizard chess games. "But what if our red thirst takes us over?" He shook his head. "I'm full for right now, but I don't like to think of how I'll feel when night falls again!"
"Lucky thing that the people who are to take us out of here know the danger, and will be well out of the way when night falls!" Hermione glanced at her watch; it had a glow-in-the-dark dial. "And, on that note, dawn is coming apace. Time for all good little nosferatu to put their books down and toddle off to their coffins!"
That statement produced a laugh, just as she had intended. Harry and Ron both made rather rude gestures at Hermione as they headed for their boxes, gestures that she cheerfully returned.
OOO
The day wore on, and when they awoke again, they found that Andromeda had, indeed, come through with her part of the plan. They awoke to find themselves in the basement of her house. As they unlatched the boxes they had been in and got out, they found that their hostess was, indeed, a gracious hostess.
Glaring angrily, but tied up and gagged securely, were several unmistakable thugs. "Look! Brekkers!" carolled Hermione. Harry and Ron both smiled. The thugs' eyes went wide with terror as the trio approached, their fangs showing and their eyes glowing red with bloodlust.
When they had finished, making sure that the thugs would not, themselves, rise as vampires, Harry wondered aloud: "What to do with the bodies?"
Hermione shook her head sadly. "And you a wizard! Have you forgotten Transfiguration? Or what Barty Crouch did with his father's body?" She waved her wand and muttered a spell, and the three hoodlums were transformed into sacks of rubbish. She grinned wickedly. "It does seem appropriate, doesn't it, now?"
"And nobody will notice three more sacks of refuse. Good work, Miss Granger!" Andromeda Tonks had carefully not come near them until their red thirst had been assuaged; she had been warned explicitly about the danger involved in that.
"We can smell blood," Harry had explained, as his friends nodded. "Normally, it's no big deal. No more than it would be for you, walking along a street, to smell good things cooking in a restaurant or someone's home. But if we haven't fed in a while, the red thirst gets stronger and stronger."
"We've never gone without for long enough to lose control," Ron had said, his expression grim. "I don't know what would happen if we were starved for any length of time, but I think that what would happen to any warm-blooded creature that came across us would not be pretty."
"Not at all," Hermione agreed. "We've strength far in excess of any normal human, wizard or Muggle. Right now, I could go up against the meanest bruisers in the Eastern Hemisphere barehanded, and leave them broken, bleeding wrecks. That is part of why we're dangerous to have around."
Having fed, though, all three vampires were perfectly capable of behaving in a civilized way. "Madame Tonks! Good to see you!" Stepping forward, heedless of the blood on their shirts and dribbling down the sides of their mouths, they shook hands with their hostess.
"Good to see you, too, dears," Madame Tonks said. "And, if I may suggest…bathing might be a good idea? And new clothes?" She tactfully indicated the clothes the trio were wearing, which were stained, smelly and now had blood on them.
Reminded, the trio looked themselves and each other over. "You have a good point, Madame Tonks." Harry admitted ruefully. "Before we do, though, we have this to put some place safe." He held up the cup, wrapped in leather bindings. "This, Madame Tonks, is a part of Voldemort's soul!"
Madame Tonks' eyes went wide. "Merlin! To think that something that evil could be in my house! As soon as you're bathed and changed, I want that horrible thing out of here! Merlin only knows what it could do!"
"We'll just do that, ma'am. We're sorry to have to bring it here, but we do operate under restrictions that others don't face." With that, Harry, Ron and Hermione trooped up to the bathroom. After they were all showered, they found fresh clothes in their sizes waiting for them in one of the bedrooms. Unselfconsciously, they dressed; they'd all crowded into the shower together to save on time. London summer nights were short, and they had a great deal to do.
Back at Grimmauld Place, they found Voldemort asleep in his restraints. "Wakey, wakey, Tom!" Hermione said cheerfully, reaching out and pinching him hard. "Guess what we got, you disgusting waste of perfectly good oxygen and blood?" Mockingly, she held out the Hufflepuff Cup in her gloved hand.
Despite all he had been through, Voldemort knew what his horcruxes were. He moaned, struggling against his shackles, trying to reach the Cup. "Naughty, naughty, little Dork Lard!" Hermione gloated, putting the Cup into a lead-lined box with special runes on all six of its surfaces. "Mustn't touchies things that belongs to other people!"
A cup on a shelf nearby shattered, and Kreacher Apparated in. "Mighty mistress," he implored, bowing himself nearly double, "please do not be agitating the evil wizard! He doesn't remember how to do magic, but he can still do accidental magic!"
"Like we all do when we're children," Ron put in. "Best keep him sedated. Kreacher, do you know where the Calming Potions are?"
"Oh, yes, mighty master! Kreacher and Dobby have been keeping the evil wizard under control, but sometimes it is not easy! Calming Potions should be just the thing!" Soon the elves appeared, one carrying a big bottle of commercially-made Calming Potion and the other a long tube.
"What's the tube for?" asked Harry.
Dobby's grin was as evil as any of theirs. "If Bad Wizard doesn't take his potion," he explained, "Kreacher and I will force-feed him! Through his nose!"
"Or administer it anally. That works. Had to do it for one of my old masters who outlived his mind," Kreacher added.
As the elves got to work, Harry murmured: "It's a shame that we can't take pictures! Imagine how few people would fear this worthless wretch if they saw him having nutrition forced down his throat!"
Hermione smiled. "As it happens, there is a camera upstairs! Now, Kreacher and Dobby, just be patient for a few minutes!" She darted upstairs, and came back down with a camera of the sort that Colin Creevey had once used. and Harry and Ron both grinned triumphantly.
Sure enough, the pictures of the Dark Lord being force-fed through his nose were one of the biggest hits that the Quibbler had ever had. Harry had vetoed giving them to the Prophet, so they had been given instead to Andromeda Tonks with instructions to mail them to the Quibbler. "Luna will be so pleased," murmured Hermione.
The next night, the three friends Apparated to Hogsmeade, with a rune-inscribed box. Once they sent word up to the castle of why they were there, they were soon met by Professors McGonagall and Snape.
Both teachers stared at the box in wonder. "So small, to contain so much evil," Snape murmured, stroking his left forearm as though it pained him.
"We were hoping that you…both of you…could cast Fiendfyre to destroy these things," Hermione said. "I was reading about Horcruxes, and Fiendfyre is one way to be sure they're destroyed, once and for all. But we don't know how to cast or control Fiendfyre."
"So you came to us. A wise choice, Miss Granger," Professor McGonagall murmured, not taking her eyes off the box. "Fiendfyre is particularly difficult to deal with. Only a truly talented wizard or witch can reliably handle it, and if it's out of control it can cause all sorts of damage."
They took the box out into a nearby meadow that had once been the Quidditch pitch, before the current one had been constructed. There were bricks and stones from the old stands still around, and Harry rapidly constructed a crude approximation of a firepit. Once he was done, he took the box, opened it, and shook the Horcruxes out, careful to not touch them. The vampires and their friends looked at the pile of innocuous-looking objects for a second, before McGonagall cast the charm and flame erupted from the tip of her wand.
The Fiendfyre was like no other fire that Harry or his friends had ever seen. They stepped back fearfully as it coalesced into a living creature, obviously struggling to escape their improvised firepit. McGonagall raised her wand, controlling it, but clearly with some difficulty. Sweat beaded on her brow despite the coolth of the night.
As the Horcruxes were consumed, Harry could hear voices keening from the fire, screaming in agony. The thought of Voldemort's spirit writhing in torment was pleasant, and he smiled broadly. Hermione was also clearly pleased, and Ron was grinning like the Devil's own jack o'lantern.
Finally, it was over, and McGonagall managed to extinguish the Fiendfyre. "Whew! Thank Merlin that's over with!" she muttered. "I don't know if I could do that again for a while. Not at my age…"
"You are like fine wine, Professor. Wine improves with age," Harry said. She gave him a smile.
"You flatter me, Mr. Potter. But now that these things are gone, does that mean that the Dark Lord is mortal?"
"Oooh yes," Harry said, his eyes flashing red at the thought. "We need to get back to London. It's time for fun!" As they Apparated back to Grimmauld Place, Harry saw McGonagall and Snape exchanging worried glances. He wondered if they were worried about the same thought that had occurred to him in the vault. What do we do if there's no more evil people to fight? He shuddered at the thought of preying on folk who had done nothing wrong.
Once they were back, they went down into the cellar, and found Voldemort hanging there, insensible, with the two elves on guard. Harry pointed his wand. "Ennervate!" Voldemort looked up blearily. "Guess what? All your Horcruxes are history. And soon, you will be, too!"
Kreacher and Dobby jumped up and down with joy. "Oh, happy day, mighty masters and mistress! We elves is so happy that you let us watch!"
Harry hadn't really thought about them, but he had no objection. "Ready, Ron, Hermione?" He looked at his friends, and smiled at how they quivered with eagerness. Their fangs were fully extended, their fingers had extruded long claws, and they barely looked human.
With snarls of rage, Harry, Ron and Hermione lit into the helpless Voldemort, tearing him limb from limb, an inch at a time. They made sure to make it last, saving his head and torso for the end. When they were done, they stood back, panting. "Will you dispose of this rubbish for us, Kreacher, Dobby?" Harry asked politely. Wide-eyed at the ferocity of their masters and mistress, the two elves leapt to obey.
"I don't know about you two, but I'm past knackered, and dawn's well on the way," Harry commented, heading toward his coffin as the other two followed.
As he pulled down the lid, the last thing he heard was Hermione's voice saying "They'll call this the Night of a Thousand Screams, when they come to write the history texts one day."
END