Call Me Home

Chapter Eleven

Guardian

(*)(*)(*)

Bellatrix smirked at the horde of Cultists and Shadows amassed before her, her shadowed silhouette brimming with blood and darkness. She had feasted well, gorging herself on the flesh of innocents as she prepared for this day and now, at long last, she was ready.

Today would mark the dawning of a new era and the twilight of another.

She would have preferred to have more time to prepare but events had transpired that had led to her declaration of war. Katherine Avery had been rescued and there was no telling what she would now be spilling to the Ministry and the Outcasts. Bella was no fool; Scorpius, Draco and Hugo Malfoy, James Potter, The Mudblood, Cassiopeia Potter, they all were powerful individuals who could pose a serious thorn in her sides.

But her plans had been meticulously laid out and they were ready, their dark design to cloud the world in blood and fire would soon come to fruition. The Doors of Death would soon come crashing down and the Legion of Shadows would pour out across the world. The Lord of Shadows would rise again and at long last, the hated concepts of life and love and joy would cease to exist.

Around her stood a team of twelve, Shadows and Cultists, the breaths of the humans misting from the cold brought by her Dementor allies. They had joined her quickly when she had offered them so much more scope for their talents. It was tedious work, after all, to guard a prison and feast on despair in those with one foot already in the grave.

Her task would be the most crucial but at the end of the day, she knew that she would succeed. The Dark Lord had trusted her, had loved her, she was his most faithful servant. The Lord of Shadows had been the same, though he had loved his porcelain bride more than he had relied on her. The thought nagged at her incessantly. She was the Dark Lady; it was her rightful place to lie beside the Lords of Darkness and Shadow as their true mistress.

But now it was her turn to pull the strings and rise. Her lust for the seed of her Lords was still there but buried deep beneath her hatred for the world. Besides, she would soon have her Lord as her puppet if she played her cards right.

She grinned, a maniacal laugh piercing the air as she raised her arms and cause the room to fall silent. They gazed at her expectantly, her dark army.

"Go now," she cackled, her voice so malign and cold that cracks appeared across the length of the walls, "And begin the Age of Shadows."

(*)(*)(*)

Xavier's face creased in a soft smile as he felt his wife squeeze his hand. Though still weak from her captivity, the healers of St. Mungo's had made startling progress in healing her physical ailments. Most recently, they had managed to restore her dentures using a variation of Skele-Grow, and though her sparkling white teeth were a superficial thing, his heart still skipped a beat whenever she smiled at him.

Her mouth had been a raw ruin before the healing, every kiss had been torture on her swollen gums and her few remaining teeth. Now, thanks to the tireless work of Interim Head Healer, Francesca Malfoy, vestiges of her spunky beauty were beginning to surface from beneath her emaciated exterior.

Physically, Katherine was doing fine. Mentally, she was a wreck. Every night, she woke screaming in and needed to be heavily sedated with sleeping potions. His wife had always been a strong, brave person but now she shrank away from anyone who wasn't him. Her parents, Daphne and Theo, had been hysterical when they had discovered the truth of who their daughter was, more so when she began shrieking in fear at the sight of them.

She even cringed whenever Matthew or Riley hugged her or tried to hold her hand. There and then, Xavier had made a vow; the Cultists would pay dearly for hurting Kat almost to the point of no return.

A loud crash caused him to cock his head towards the door, curiosity building as a sound reminiscent of thunder began filtering up from the lower floors. The entire floor shook for a moment and Xavier raised a finger to his lip when his sons started in panic. Riley, ever the more timid of the pair, opened his mouth to scream but was silenced by his brother clapping a trembling hand over his mouth. Xavier barely had time to shoot his eldest a grateful look before the cacophony of sounds was replaced with a deafening silence. Eyebrows narrowed in consternation, he drew his wand as the muffled cries of duelling began to ebb into the quiet.

"What's going on, dad?" whispered Matthew, wincing slightly as Riley bit his palm.

"I don't know," he replied, stunning curse primed as he aimed his wand at the door, "But nothing bad is going to happen to you two." Matthew nodded, though he looked far from reassured. He wasn't still a child like his baby brother. He was almost eleven and he knew that whatever it was that was causing the din was making his father nervous. Kat stirred in her sleep, shivering lightly as the grip of Dreamless Sleep slackened.

"Stufepy!" bellowed Xavier as the door flew open, a jet of red light blasting from his wand with the force of a cannon. The stunning curse whipped through the air, crackling with power and barely missed the dishevelled strawberry blonde, who ducked at the last possible moment.

"XAVIER!" yelled Francesca in alarm and he stepped back in shock when confronted by the sight of the usually serene lady. Her hair was a mess, strands escaping her bun in a manner that absurdly brought the Potter boys to mind. Her green healers robes were soot stained and torn in a few places, the sleeves were badly singed.

"Merlin, Fran," he said in a sheepish tone, quickly becoming serious when he noted her expression, "What the hell is going on?"

"You need to get out of here," she said hurriedly, "All of you . . . We're evacuating the hospital."

"Evacuating the hospital– Cultists," his mind made the connection instantly, his free hand moving to grasp his wife's wrist instantly. Her torturers were in St. Mungo's.

"They're attacking," Francesca replied, "Our security wizards are holding them at the first floor and I sent a Patronus to Hugo but there's too many of them." Xavier could detect the traces of anger in her tone and understood. Despite not having communicated with her during the past two years of their lives, whilst he had been in hiding with his sons, he knew how protective she was of her patients. Patients who were now in grave danger, Kat included.

"There are anti-apparition wards on the building," she continued as he turned to heft Kat into his arms, "We're using the floo."

"And go where?" he asked as she got Matthew and Riley to her side, her wand outstretched in front of her as the quintet began making their way towards the Healers offices, two floors above. The sounds of duelling, coupled with screams of pain, were louder in the corridors. The acrid odour of smoke wafted past his nostrils as they passed a staircase and he grimaced at the signs that the hospital was now on fire.

"You're going to Hogwarts," she sighed, "Most of our patients need medical care and the Hospital Wing is the only place to get it." Turning, they froze at the chaos that littered the upper floors. Healers were racing down the corridors, pushing wheelchair bound patients before them in their zeal to get the sick and injured to safety. The scent of smoke was getting stronger as more of the building took flame, the floors were being littered with shards of broken potion bottles and scraps of parchment.

"And what about you?" he pointed out, not missing the self-omission in her previous statement.

"There are hundreds of patients in here, Xav," she sounded anguished, "I need to stay and help get them out." Her words were punctuated by the piercings screams that could only be invoked by a cruciatus.

"You can't stay here, Fran," Xavier protested, "You have a daughter. You can't put yourself at risk when she needs her mother."

"And you have your sons," snapped Francesca, ushering them into her once immaculate office, now a hive of frenzied activity and chaos, "Get them to safety and I'll meet you at Hogwarts as soon as I'm able."

"Francesca . . ."

"GO!"

And Xavier steadied his grip on his wife, made sure his sons had tight grips upon his waist, before stepping into the fireplace and disappearing with a murmured word and a roar of jade flames.

(*)(*)(*)

"Why can't I touch daddy?" asked Aurora innocently as she perched on her mother's knee. Cassiopeia's lip trembled as she surveyed her daughter, twin black ponytails falling to just below her shoulder blades, wide emerald eyes brimming with childish curiosity. It was all she could do to not burst into tears at the question. Aurora had only just turned nine; she was still too young to understand the finality of death and the intangibility of Shadows.

Not for the first time, Cassiopeia wondered whether keeping her husband's Shadow bound to her heart had been healthy. It was akin to a double edged sword with no hilt, she needed to hold onto it to defend herself but at the same time, she could not grasp it without being cut. Now though, she wondered if she had not irrevocably harmed her daughter by allowing her to hold on to the echo of a father who had died before she had even been born.

"Aurora," she said softly, fighting with every ounce of her concentration to keep her voice from breaking and her composure from slipping, "Daddy isn't really here . . . do you remember the day we went to visit Aunt Rose at Hogwarts?" Aurora nodded.

"Well, daddy is like the Ghosts at the castle," she continued, suddenly freezing when she felt the wards around the Manor trip in half a dozen places. She was on her feet in an instant, thoughts whirring through her head as she tried to make sense of what was going on. Perhaps there was a malfunction on their security wards; surely they couldn't really have been breached in so many locations at once. Malfoy Manor was one of the most secure places in Britain, if not the Wizarding World, it would take an army to break through their defences.

"Albus," she said sharply, the comforting cold of his manifestation filling the air around her as her husband's Shadow flitted to her side, "What's happening?"

"Run . . . Cassie . . ." he murmured . . . "Attackers . . . Dark . . . Lady . . . Shadows . . . coming."

She grabbed her daughter by the wrist as soon as the words escaped his lips. Racing for the floo, she heard the tinkling of glass as the ground floor windows shattered under an onslaught of curses. To be honest, she had no idea who or what was attacking the Manor, nor did she have an inkling as to whom this 'Dark Lady' was. What had registered was that Aurora was in danger and Cassiopeia would be damned before she lost another child.

"Baby, we need to go," she scolded in a high pitched voice as she dragged Aurora into Draco's study and magically barred the door behind them. For security reason, all other fireplaces in the Manor had been locked after Katherine had returned from her mysterious assignment. The Avery brothers had been staying with Hermione and Draco seeing as their mother was in hospital and their father was at her side so the Malfoys had collectively decided to leave only one floo open in case Kat's enemies came after the boys.

"We can't leave Sparkles," whined Aurora, digging her trainers into the lush carpet to try and keep from being pulled. Cassiopeia bit back a snarl as she pointed her wand at her daughter for what she hoped with the only time in her life.

"Aurora Cassiopeia Potter! I will stun you and carry you through that floo if you do not move NOW!"

Less than a minute later, the young girl was hurtling through the roaring jade flames, vanishing as she called out her Uncle Scorpius' work address.

"What . . . doing?" Albus frowned in panic as she began locking the fireplace behind her daughter.

"I can't let them follow her, Albus," she said, her voice thick with emotion as she slashed her wand through the air one final time, "You know there are dark spells that can track her through the floo network if I don't seal it behind her."

"Cassie . . ."

"Let them come, Albus. I'm not afraid of death."

(*)(*)(*)

"I want every auror in the bloody MLE at St. Mungo's RIGHT NOW!" screamed Hugo, a grim feeling of satisfaction overtaking him as the bustling chaos of the Auror Department fell silent. Kingsley, face now heavily wrinkled yet still barrel-chested and stout as ever, returned his piercing glare before nodding. His nod was a silent signal of sorts and within the minute, the aurors were streaming from their cubicles, pulling on field equipment as they headed for the apparition point. Just as Kingsley turned to leave, Hugo yanked him hard by his sleeve so that they were nose to nose.

"Bring my wife home, Shacklebolt, or don't bother coming back at all."

There was a brief silence between the pair before Kingsley nodded once again, this time in understanding, a flash of pity in his eyes as he turned on his heel to join his subordinates.

Turning, he stalked back to his office as fast as he could without rousing suspicion. Already, the news that St. Mungo's was coming under attack by a mysterious group known as the Cult of Shadows had the entire Ministry in turmoil. At times like this it was important for the Department Heads to lead by calm example, even if they were experiencing a whirlwind within.

He cursed under his breath as he passed the Ministry Security Department, the sound of the Wizarding Wireless playing within just adding fuel to the fire.

"This is Louis Weasley-Jordon, special correspondent for the Wizarding Wireless Network and Junior Editor for Witch Weekly and I'm interrupting your regular scheduled programming to bring you breaking news. St. Mungo's Hospital has recently come under heavy attack by an enigmatic Cult. . . .

The voice of his once-supposed cousin trailed off as Hugo passed out of earshot. Bloody media, he scowled to himself as he finally reached his office. Sadly, as was always the case when things went wrong, it was already occupied.

"Scorpius dispatched the Outcasts to Hogsmeade ," said Draco without preamble, and Hugo frowned at both the words and the pained tone his father's voice was laced with, "We just received word that another group of Cultists are sacking the village."

"They'll never make it to the castle," pointed out Hermione, her eyes staring at her husband in concern as he began to take deep breaths.

"Just indigestion," muttered Draco, waving them off, "I'm not as young as I used to be." Hermione and Hugo both exchanged looks at this, he had been suffering with these pains for a while and they both were becoming extremely worried that he may be seriously ill. It was as Draco had said, he wasn't exactly young anymore and life seemed to be wearing him down.

"Unfortunately, we're still getting nothing but silence from Ghost Division," interrupted James, "The last we heard, Blaise and his inner circle were trapped in his office whilst the rest of their ranks revealed their true colours." As soon as Katherine had revealed that Ghost Division had been infiltrated and swayed against them, James had rallied The Order and prepared his agents for a bloody assault on their headquarters. Unfortunately, there had been a coup before they could act and now Blaise was a prisoner in his own building.

Of course, he could be dead. Having seen what the Cultists were capable of doing to their prisoners first hand, he would prefer that Blaise die rather than suffer. The thought filled him with dread because his nephew was still a prisoner – or possible casualty – of the Cult of Shadows.

"We're spread too thin," pointed out Hermione, "Think about it. The Ministry itself is basically defenceless with our Aurors on the field. The Outcasts are all on the frontlines as well. That leaves most of Malfoy Holdings vulnerable. If they attack anywhere else, all we have is the Order Agents and the basic security wizards."

"Then so are they," replied James, "Their numbers aren't limitless. This is a show of power. They don't have the manpower to win every one of these battles."

"They have Shadows on their sides, James," pointed out Hugo, "I'm sure you remember what Shadows are capable off."

"I know better than most the harm that Shadows can do," James felt the sparks of rage begin to build in his chest. The blatant comment had so intrinsically been aimed at his one real weakness: The guilt he felt for his brother's passing.

"But we can destroy a Shadow," he continued, forcing his anger to settle, "Goblin Made Steel is their weakness."

"Because Goblin Made Steel is just so common, isn't it?" spat Hugo, sarcasm biting through his voice.

"Hugo, there's no other wa–" he was interrupted by the door swinging open to reveal a dishevelled Lucy Scamander. She was one of the Order's best agents, the death of her sister at the hands of Sophia Williams had prompted her to take up a career in Law Enforcement and she had quickly climbed the ranks.

"James," she gasped, clutching at her chest and looking at her boss and cousin, "The Burrow is under attack . . . They're going after Aunt Ginny."

(*)(*)(*)

Albus flashed through the air like a demon, scarlet rivulets streaking from his icy claws as he ripped Cultists to ragged shreds. Blood and darkness seeped through the air, filling him with energy, as for the first time since Cassiopeia had brought him back, he feasted.

His power bubbled within him, hot and torrential, whilst he persevered to protect the woman he loved. Cassie had realised early on that her curses had no effect on Shadows and Albus had moved forward to fight them. The battles were easier than expected though, strangely enough, Albus sometimes saw a fellow Shadow sunder and perish before he even reached it.

He put it down to being drunk on his energies because there was simply no way that he and Cassiopeia had anyone else to assist them now.

Beside him, Cassiopeia slashed her wand through the air with lethal accuracy, her hexes and curses felling all who appeared before her in the doorway. Unlike the Shadows who could enter through the walls, the Cultists were forced to bottleneck themselves in the threshold. This was something that made it easy for Albus to dispatch of any Cultists that Cassie could not whilst still handling the other Shadows.

Both of them knew that there would be no path of survival. The enemy kept coming with no end in sight. They were both fighting for something worth more than their lives, or souls, in Albus' case. They were fighting for their daughter's safety.

But Albus knew that if the chance came to save Cassiopeia, he would leap at it.

He spun through the air, imagining a Shadow explode into a spiralling tower of screaming silver fire – his battle lust really was affecting his mental faculties – and closed his fist around the throat of a Cultist.

"Let him go, or the bitch dies," came a delighted cackle and Albus felt his heart, if he still had one that is, drop from his chest. Turning, he saw Cassiopeia with the savagely sharp claws of Bellatrix Lestrange pressed to her pale throat.

Reluctantly, despite her constant headshaking, he dropped the sleazy Cultist he had been holding.

"Hello, master," simpered Bellatrix, "Time to bring back our Lord. . . Take him."

Before he could react and realise that it wasn't Cassiopeia or Aurora that they were after, he felt lead and acid fill his non-existent veins. It was pain beyond all pain, soon followed by a suffocating redness. He fought to escape the spell, throwing everything he had into his resistance as the circle of Cultists began to draw him into a sparkling red ruby. It reminded him of the muggle fairytale with a Genie trapped inside a tiny oil lamp. Cassiopeia's screams punctuated his every struggled movement.

His last sight before disappearing into red darkness was a jet of light, not quite green and not quite red but every colour in between, strike Cassiopeia Astoria Potter over her heart, causing her to gasp and then crumple to the ground.

(*)(*)(*)

Demitria groans as the masked cultist forces her onto the raised wooden platform beside Remy, the metallic taste of blood heavy on her tongue as the surface they're placed on is levitated high up into the cavernous chamber. Her heart plummets as she realised that they both had been sentenced to die, that this was their execution and not their interrogation.

She had after all, seen this method of torture before.

Chancing a look down, her heart stills as she gazes at the sea of swords, hundreds of razor sharps tips pointed at the sky with hilts buried into the rock. Falling from this height, without magic as they had no wands and the wards prevented them from casting wandlessly, would kill them in seconds.

It was an agonisingly painful way to go, especially as the specific enchantments on the platform kept them both from falling at once. Whoever fell second would have to watch their partners die in excruciating torment. But from her six-months undercover, she knew that there was a way out of this machination.

Just one though. And it had a very high price.

"Any bright ideas?" asked Remy, scowling as Cultists and Shadows began to assemble in the roughly hewn benches to watch them die.

"I have one," she murmured, drawing in close so that she could capture his lips with her own. Slowly, she began focusing her magical energy to her heart. The wards prevented her from casting outwardly but she had found that she could still manipulate the flow of energy within her own body. Demitria knew that if she released her energy all at once in the form of a mana bomb then she would no doubt break the wards and enchantments, thus allowing apparition. And she knew of only one way to activate such a bomb when under the effect of anti-magic wards.

Remy looked at her curiously when they broke apart, his eyes searching for a hint that she was serious but she kept her face perfectly blank. Her lips trembled as somehow, she managed to pluck up the courage she had been lacking for the better part of the past decade.

"I love you, Remy Lupin," she whispered, her breath ghosting across his skin as she took a step back and fell.

"DEMITRIA!" he screamed, lunging forward and clutching at empty air as she plummets to the blade strewn ground. He stretches out his arm as he falls to his hands and knees in a pointless attempt to reach for her but it was already too late.

He saw the burning light within her chest, directly over her heart, as her magic coalesced as was focused inward into a shimmering inferno of raw energy. He screamed, again and again, as his hoarse cries tore bloody strips through his dry throat.

A trickle of blood dribbled from his open mouth as his shrieks bounced across the massive cabin, punctuated by the delighted cackling of the Cultists as Demitria smiled.

She gave to him her final smile and he gave to her his breaking heart as the tips of a dozen swords pierced her slender frame. Blood blossomed across her clothes and the shadow of the wolf flitted across his face as he howled in grief, his eyes darkening from a pale, sky blue into a burning amber.

A dry whoosh of hair fluttered through the room as her heart stilled, raising the fine hairs on the back of his neck. The room was silent, the Cultists and Shadows staring hurriedly as his tears fell like rain over her slowly burning body.

Burning?

The energy that she had forced inwards came crashing out in a single wave of unbridled fury, tearing stone, metal and even magic apart in its devastating majesty. The anti-apparition wards sunder and Remy feels a dull, nauseating feeling begin to overwhelm him as his apparition begins to take effect. Shards of twisted metal and chunks of stone are flying through the air and a massive rumbling is filling the chamber as millennia of labyrinthine caverns come caving in from the force of the explosion.

"I love you, Demi," he whispered as his gut twisted in agony, a fragment of a sword piercing his abdomen in a splash of hot blood, before the suffocating sensation of apparition pulled him from the Halls of Death and Shadows.

(*)(*)(*)

Cassiopeia stirred, her fingers twitching against the frosted marble tiles as her eyelids crack open. Her breath misted from between her blue lips, tiny flakes of snow forming as the vapour met the icy air that held the Manor in a smothering embrace. She tried to rise and cursed loudly as her entire body heaved in agony, her voice cutting her hoarse throat as it spilled forth.

She had never before felt as weak and despondent as she had in that moment of her life. A part of her, the part that held her sense of Slytherin self-preservation begged for her to get up and seek out her daughter, to see if Aurora was well. But the majority of her being held her in its thrall because the one thought that echoed through her mind was:

I failed you again, Albus.

For the second time she hadn't been able to save her husband. She could still hear his high-pitched screams, like fingernails on a blackboard, as Bellatrix had ensnared him with her traps. She could still feel the spray of hot blood against her face from when he had woven around the room, claws trailing ribbons of scarlet as they shredded Cultist skin and bone.

She had failed Albus. She had failed Leo. She had failed Aurora.

Her body was numb and unresponsive and she slowly trailed her arm across the floor, stained red from frozen blood, a faint spark of warmth filling her as her fingers closed around the handle of her wand. For the first time, she wondered why it was so cold.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, a broken boy upon the forest floor, the forest that for an acre around them was now a barren wasteland. The moon shone tenderly over the two of them, lighting her hair and making her seem a goddess amongst mortals.

"Please Albus," she said, her voice thick with emotion as she knelt beside him and took him in her arms, he wrapped his own around her, not caring that the fabric of her clothing was pure torture against the shredded skin on his hands, "I can't lose you too Al."

"I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry," he cried softly into her ears, and she was crying things too, whispering things he didn't hear because he was too lost in his own exodus.

A harsh gasp escaped her lips, a strangled sob as the memory tore through her. Her tears were freezing on her cheeks as they slid unchecked and for the first time it all made sense: The biting cold, the sense of dread and hopelessness, the onslaught of her worst memories.

Dementors.

Of all the emotions that could have flooded her, she would never have expected relief to be the foremost one. Cassiopeia felt relieved that the mongrel beasts that fed on happiness and warmth were here to take from her, her life, her soul. She deserved her rest, did she not?

It may be just a decade without her husband and son but to the widowed Potter, those ten years had felt like a thousand.

But the spark within her grew as did her sense of relief, filling her with a desire to fight to save herself so that she could remain alive for her daughter. She ignored the burgeoning hope for a simple reason; you need a Patronus charm to fight Dementors.

And whilst she had a wand, Cassiopeia hadn't been able to conjure her patronus since the day her husband had died atop the Astronomy Tower of Hogwarts.

Scraggly fingers claw her cheeks as they cradled her face and she felt her very essence being sucked away into a maw of desecration. Her breath slowed as did her heart, her skin paling to blue as the cold began to creep into her veins.

Then her eyes widened as warmth flooded her form and the cloud of Dementors were sent careening backwards through the air in swirls of gossamer white light. Her heartbeat increased so very drastically as her eyes focused upon her saviour that for a brief moment, she entertained the notion that it may cease to pump blood altogether.

He was standing before her, spectral as a Shadow but as bright as an angel, sixteen and silhouetted by pure white light that burned brighter than the morning sun. His platinum hair is dishevelled and his emerald eyes burn with anger and hatred and flecks of mercurial silver.

Cassiopeia recalls the last conversation she had had with her father and stepmother and she realises what it is that has stood to defend her.

Daemon. Guardian Spirit. Son.

"Get the fuck away from my mother," snarls her guardian angel as his ethereal, otherworldly magic flares and wreathes them both in rings of silver fire. The Dementors scatter and flee, their tattered cloaks singed and burned by the intensity of the ghostly blaze.

She smiled at her son, the ghostly image of him, and then her eyes slipped shut as the world went black.

(*)(*)(*)

A/N: Thoughts?