Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter either. It belongs to its creator J.K. Rowling and probably Warner Bros. too. I'm not too sure about that. This piece of literature is simply the work of a humble fan. I also credit Jim Butcher for various themes, subjects, or references that I may use.
Author Notes: This is a Harry Potter crossover with the Dresden Files the book series. All my knowledge of the Dresden Files comes from the books. I've never seen the TV series. For the timeline that will be stated later. Thanks to the folks at DLP for help with editing.
Awaken Sleeper.
Chapter Twenty Three: What is Dead May Never Die
by: Water Mage
There was going to be a reckoning. It was in the chill of the air and in the earth. He could feel it in his very bones. Harry could count on one hand the number of times where he felt the turbulent emotions of anxiousness and dread catch strongly hold of him in this manner. When he fought Slytherin's Basilisk, Voldemort's resurrection to corporeal form (hell, all of their encounters really), Dumbledore and the Dark Lord's duel in the Ministry of Magic, Mab and Titania going head up and nearly unmaking him from existence—and now.
Harry had seen into the fires of Margaret Dresden's soul. He knew who she was and what she was capable of. She had a temper on her and carried the power to back it up. If there was a ranking for wizards she would be in the top twenty in terms of sheer strength. Margaret was fire and ice and passion and her cunning was exemplified in her magical skill. Her potential for darkness was deep. She knew it and her enemies knew it. The White Council considered her dangerous. They were right to. Fear her because those witnessing were about to understand why.
Her opponent merely smiled at her cockily. Leanansidhe wasn't someone who intimidated easily. She was Veritas Glacio, the Cold Truth, and Harry's political counterpart of the Unseelie fae. She was judge, jury, and executioner and answered only to the Winter Queen. Lea was second to no one but Queen Mab in terms of power. When you were number two to a being that could easily take on the entire Senior Council of the White Council by themselves, well, she was someone not to underestimate. All eyes were watching Lea very closely these days. It was no secret that she was seeking ways of growing stronger.
"You seem upset, old friend," Lea remarked casually.
Margaret narrowed her eyes. "Probably has something to do with being stuck in a kennel for almost thirty years."
"Were you not well provided for?" She smiled, revealing fanged teeth. "Did you really think a little thing like death would keep you from our bargain?"
"I remember our contract," said Margaret. "I remember everything. I know the measures you took to keep me alive. Doesn't mean you still didn't screw me over by keeping me locked up all this time. Hear me Leanansidhe of the Winter Court, I owe you pain."
Lea didn't look impressed. "If it's a fight you seek I am happy to oblige. What does your darling son say?" She tapped a finger against her chin and then a slow smirk tugged at her lips. "Ah yes, come get you some."
A hellhound darted forward from Lea's heels in a blur of dark fur. It leapt into the air with its massive jaws opened wide to tear off the wizard's face. Margaret didn't move. She just sneered in contempt, lifted her hand, snapped her fingers, and the beast let out a short, chocking cry before exploding in a shower of gore.
Margaret stared stonily at her adversary through the raining black blood. "I'm disappointed, Lea. It's been awhile but you have to remember you'll need more than a demonic dog to take me down."
Lea made a tsking sound, shaking her head. "That's why I left my beloved pets behind."
The blood on the ground moved, churning and bubbling, and smoothly rose into the air. The blood molded into a humanoid figure and before their eyes became a creature of darkness. Its body was heavily muscled and black like ink, covered in ragged bits of cloth, and a knife was plunged to the hilt right into its heart. Blood dripped from the wound, but it didn't seem to care two shits about taking it out. Instead of a face, a smooth, bone white beak jutted out from its featureless head. It seemed to be separated into four quarters by a horizontal and a vertical crease. At Margaret's sharp intake the thing's beak split apart into four directions, a row of tiny, needle-like teeth on each section. A long, distended purple tongue came out and it let out a horrid noise that sounded like cawing.
"The Killing Crows," murmured Aurora.
Harry turned to her but she was watching the other beasts warily as they all simultaneously began to shift and grow into the same dark creature from whatever bloody nightmare they sprung from. A hand grasped his own and Aurora's slender fingers entwined with his.
These are creatures of Before, servants of Winter as Rawhead and Bloody Bones was to Summer, said a voice right in his ear, scratch that into his mind—except it was Aurora's and with a start Harry realized she was manipulating the bond in some manner to project her thoughts right through his Occlumency barriers.
She must need skin contact to initiate such a connection, he reasoned. Such a measure was comforting but not by much.
A murder of crows you humans have a term. It originates from these creatures, Mother Winter's royal assassins. Her personal shook troopers. Think kenku, but ten times more dangerous, said Aurora in a calm voice, briskly listing off the facts. I imagine Margaret Dresden and Leanansidhe will battle and these four will attack us. They might not have our raw power but they're formidable warriors. They were created to dispose of powerful foes such as ourselves. Let's strike first together to set the battle on our terms. This will also allow us to gauge their strength. They never tire so let's make this quick, and do prevent yourself from laying waste to the island. The spirit will become ever so cranky. Whatever you do, this is very important, do not ever cross their shadows.
Aurora's hand left his just as the final Crow finished its transformation. The entire conversation had been an inaudible stream that lasted half a second—the speed of thought. In the next moment Aurora vanished in a whirl of leaves and Harry disapparated with a loud crack.
Two solid sunshine yellow beams suddenly carved the earth apart beneath the feet of the Crows, as Aurora appeared on the group's left flank, and then lanced into the ribs of a creature too unconcerned to dodge. The knife speared through its chest gave off a dark light, and incredibly enough, the beam didn't outright incinerate it into ash. It only seared the creature's torso into a bloody mess. Aurora's eyes narrowed into burning green slits. Its painful holler was full of promise.
The Crows streaked to Aurora's position and claws snapped past her defenses to rip her to shreds. Her body literally exploded into a cacophony of doves that flocked into the clear sky as the illusion destabilized. If they hadn't seen the doves' flight trajectory they might have missed Harry falling from the sun like a comet.
His wand was pointed below him, tip glowing searingly bright, and it was pushing a barrier of some sort of strange energy around the soles of his boots. Well to the Crows it was strange, to Harry; he was buffering his body with a solid mass of energy with high kinetic force. Behold, Harry Potter, Boy Who Lived, human missile. This was either his dumbest idea or— Harry closed his eyes and impacted into the ground.
The detonation shook the earth and the release of kinetic energy crushed every bone of the nearest two Crows' bodies. The large chunk of energy dumped into the remaining two, blowing them back and into the ground, their bodies disappearing within the resultant cloud of debris. It dissipated to reveal Harry kneeling on the ground encased under a shimmering blue dome. Ripples of energy from the fall and the backwash of energy from the attack roiled across its surface until expending itself entirely on the wizard's impenetrable defense.
Harry stood up in the substantial crater he created. He looked around at his fallen foes. He loved a quick fight, but with the way Aurora hyped them up he figured—His eyes widened as they all flipped to their feet impossibly fast. He could hear bones snap into place and together they cawed, beaks opening and closing like flower petals.
Well, bugger it all.
He scrambled out of the crater as the cawing changed pitch, sounding more like a call of attack. Of course it was. Their hands blurred and hundreds and hundreds of daggers thudded into the earth where he'd been. Merlin almighty. Where did all those comefrom? The daggers took on a bright glow like an enchantment and the crater began to fill with sizzling, sulfur smelling acid.
One of the massive creatures appeared in Harry's path when he climbed out. Aurora was there first. The Crow's beak opened wide and when it spoke it was from two slits running down its tongue, moving like mouths. Its fists clenched. "Summerrr."
Its growly bass evoked memories of monsters under the bed, whispers in your closet, creaking in your house; it was fear given voice. Aurora was not moved. The creature was on her with overwhelming force. Even with her Sidhe speed, the thing was faster and stronger, but Aurora wasn't a fighter. She knew a few forms, but that was standard training for Ladies of the Sidhe Courts. The thing could keep its assassin arts. Aurora was the youngest Queen of Summer. In her hands was the power to bring the dawn and carve out empires.
Light flared from her skin like a flash bomb and temporarily blinded the creature, and using its own attacking momentum against it she unleashed a brutal combination into the thing's cranium and flipped it into the ground with a dropped shoulder. She followed the Crow down with blazing light gathering in her open palm. Aurora slammed the small ball of condensed plasma directly into its torso. Not just that it melted clean through its midsection, but the remaining potential pumped into the ground and left the singed Crow laying in a ring of glowing orange earth.
"I'm impressed," Harry muttered as she rose up to stand beside him. He watched the other Crows at wand point.
Aurora frowned at the rapidly healing hole in the downed Crow's torso. "This will become irritating."
Across the clearing and some distance away the Leanansidhe and the resurrected wizard faced each other. Friends or something like it, as much as their two people could be called, they once were. Now there was almost thirty years of what could have been and what should be hanging between them. Words would come later. Now was the time for revenge. Never anger a wizard, the saying goes. This was why.
Margaret swept her black staff hard to the left and a rippling crescent burst outward, forcing Lea into a complex aerial evasion. The shadowy pulse continued on and stuck the line of trees and turned them to dust. It happened scarily fast. The entire treeline was bleached of color, like a photo negative of itself, and they were simply gone. Just like that, dust to dust.
Lea landed in a crouch and her extravagant dress shimmered and evaporated, new threads weaving around her body to replace the gown. The snow white leotard fully exposed her shapely legs and its long sleeves were tucked into a pair of red gauntlets with white boots that stopped at her ankle.
The Sidhe smiled nastily at the staff in Margaret's grip. "Does Daddy know you're playing with his toy?"
"Does Mommy know you're dressed like the slut at the prom?"
Lea winked. Then it was on.
Margaret was forced to roll out of the way of the multi headed blast. She barely saw the fae's hands move to cast it. The arcs of green magic took independent paths in every direction but were all targeted at the exact same point. There was no way she could dodge or intercept them all. The independent lines of energy converged suddenly, and Margaret thumped her staff against the ground, murmured a word, and a circle opened into the air directly in the bolts path. The gate of the Nevernever swallowed the deadly attack and closed at her command.
Margaret thrust her hand into the air with her pinkie and index finger extended, the rest curled into her palm. Lea's entire body froze in high altitude as gravity turned against her. Blue fire curled around her fists and golden eyes promised pain as they bored into the wizard ensnaring her.
"I know your moves, Lea," Margaret said, stoned faced. "Stop testing me. Let's. Go."
The wizard dropped to a knee, slammed her hand into the ground, and Lea fell like a meteorite. Her body cratered into the earth with enough force to kill a normal human on impact. Margaret took a step back as Lea's flesh took on a pale blue tone and literally fell apart with a splash transforming into a rapidly expanding pool of water. It covered a third of the clearing and Margaret took several more steps back to dry land.
All her senses screamed danger and Margaret swept her staff up as an impossibly gigantic shark, like something from a fairytale burst upwards from the pool in a spray. Its monstrous jaws clamped down on her and swallowed her whole. It descended back into the ethereal depths and all was silent.
It didn't stay that way. The water began bubbling only to quickly turn into a swirling maelstrom. Pale lightning danced within the currents. It was as beautiful as it was deadly. The ground rumbled and the pool exploded in a huge spray as the earth cracked. Violet light was visible through the cracks as heavy chunks of earth began to jut up six feet high. The water drained through the fissures revealing Margaret standing on one of the upright spires as the tremors came to an end. Her clothes were in tatters and she was holding a hand to her ribs as she took quick shallow breaths.
Where there had once been flat ground there was now a craggy mess of rocks. The landscape had turned into a hard to navigate terrain. Margaret looked around the bumpy, jagged ground with a keen eye. She could work with this.
Two bolts of hyper dense water fell on her position. Margaret jumped down into the pit of rocks as the bolts detonated on impact to freeze the spire completely. Lea was relentless. Her laughter echoed in the pit as she darted between the stones launching attacks with lightning speed. Margaret ducked under lances of energy, blocked jets of fire with a translucent shield, and evaded chains of solidified black ice. The Sidhe moved so quickly that Margaret couldn't retaliate without missing her by a mile. It was textbook guerilla warfare.
Margaret had been in a transmogrified state for too long and the truth is she was rusty. She might have been out of the game for this long, but her father's Blackstaff made a brilliant crutch. It was bathed in blood and its magic was blackest beyond pitch. It was made of power and it was alive. Her father would soon notice the artifact missing. The summoning she used was essentially a pickpocketing spell. She throttled a rueful grin.
Everyone always did call her a bad girl.
She gathered her magic together and channeled the electromagnetic forces of the ground and the currents of the air simultaneously and she gave a mental heave. The magnetic field she was manipulating generated an antigravity effect lifting the sheet of rock she stood upon into the air. She willed the air currents to gain altitude. Then it was payback time.
It was Lea's turn to come under bombardment as the wizard used the superior vantage point to deal destruction. Chained lightning unleashed itself into the pit in a storm of devastation. Margaret lifted the Blackstaff and the lightning converged, evaporating the rock Lea ducked under and barely singed her hair in the release.
The Sidhe lifted her hand when the attack refocused and redoubled. The supernatural lightning struck a gleaming silver knife and was redirected harmlessly into the ground. The Leanansidhe kissed the blade before hurling it upward at her attacker.
Midflight it became a hundred needle thin, purple bolts. They ablated off the energy barrier Margaret called up like bullets; however the shield wasn't a complete sphere and it couldn't stand against the vaporous cloud forming under her feet. Her eyes widened as ice crawled up her ankles and she muttered a curse. Margaret barely jumped off her floating rock in time as the cloud solidified, pulsed, and the newly frozen ice cube was torn asunder. She landed on the ground in a roll and with a snarl glared up into the sky, murmuring a word.
The frozen debris didn't fall to earth. It was still under the control of Margaret's anti gravity field. She quickly caught the stones while charging them with energy and sent them flying toward the Sidhe like cannonballs. Her opponent nimbly dodged the exploding rocks with inhuman grace. Lea brought her hands together in a clap and the ghostly image of a massive white direwolf appeared. Its mouth opened and it swallowed the remainder of the incoming volley without fanfare and then from its opened jaws roared a torrent of blue flame.
Margaret curled her fingers and super compressed hard water streaked out to meet the elemental fire. The attacks collided with a hisscreating a cloud of superheated steam that covered the battlefield in a thick cloud of mist, rendering everything in a haze. Margaret blew out a long breath and the wind kicked up in a strong gale to rapidly clear the smoke.
A flash of golden eyes was all saw she before a hand wrapped around her throat on a run. The momentum carried them back into a rock spire and Margaret hit so hard, white spots flared in her vision as her back felt like it was crushed on impact. Lea's fingers dug in and she lifted the struggling and wheezing wizard up until her toes scraped the ground.
"Mmm this reminds me of that last time I had your husband like this," Lea murmured, leaning in so closely their lips were scant centimeters apart. "You were quite the pair. Too bad he got involved with you. How does that saying go, fuck with Lefay and die today."
There was a bright white flash between them and laser-hardened light photons burst forth like a beam that passed right through Lea's right bicep like warm butter. She stumbled back with a cry to clutch at the bloody wound even as Margaret stumbled a safe distance away to recover.
Margaret rubbed at her throat and it felt like sandpaper when she tried to swallow. Anything more than a raised voice was going to hurt like a bitch. Even then it was going to be hard to vocalize spells, if words were all she needed—it wasn't. As long as there was a will, there was a way.
Lea was upon her just as Margaret jabbed two fingers into the dirt and the already scarred earth split into a wide trench as she flooded the minor fractures in the soil with a spike of magical force, rupturing their bonds with violent force. The Sidhe weaved in between the plums of fire belching from the crag and transmogrified the stone spires and debris rushing at her at high speeds into terrifying orbs of deep crimson. The heat seeking napalm numbered a dozen and simultaneously accelerated toward Margaret.
In one smooth wave of her staff the napalm was intercepted by a gigantic slab of rock that grew from the ground like a tree. The resulting explosion sent anything not rooted into the earth flying back as the area was bathed in an intense wave front of compressed air. Even the melee that had gone ignored by the two of them were forced improvise countermeasures before they found themselves outright flattened.
The smoke didn't clear before Lea was on the move raining lethal fire into the smoky pit of death. Golden eyes gleamed almost gleefully as lances of cold blue sliced through the arid smoke. The lances carved up the ground as she dragged the beams wide, focus clear in her eyes.
The black smoke gave a sudden pulsation and its billowy form smoothed into a roughly human shape giant of a creature that was over thirty meters tall with jade eyes filled with life and hatred and darkness. It took up just about all the space in the clearing that was a little over sixty meters in circumference.
Jade light crackled around her fingers and Lea grinned at the sight. "I was there when you refined this spell." She sighed wistfully, "Memories."
"And you'll be here when I kick your ass with it," Margaret said in a rasp, throat killing her with each spoken word.
"That's it," Lea murmured. "Make me beg for it."
The smoke given form was an avatar for Margaret and when she swung her first, the giant's arm followed her movements. Lea leapt over the appendage and it slammed into the ground with a quake they felt in the soles of their feet. The resulting crater was nothing to sneeze at.
If Lea was worried she didn't show it. The giant went into attack mode as it copied its mistress' moves with devastating effect, and it was visibly noted that its strength was far proportionally greater than that of Margaret's due to its size. It dealt out colossal amounts of damage to the landscape as the Sidhe evaded the blows, but all that was needed was one good strike. One mistake would turn her into paste, which Margaret was counting on.
"Are you trying to miss me on purpose?" Lea asked with a laugh, as she neatly jumped away from the foot that demolished the spot she just stood in.
Margaret gritted her teeth. "Stay still and you'll get my answer."
She kicked out with her foot for emphasis and the avatar responded in kind. The giant's left leg flashed out and Leanansidhe evaded the kick with ease doing a neat little cartwheel out of the attack zone, simply showing off at this point. Her initial dodge left her body turned at an angle where she didn't see the second leg of the double round house kick sweep in until it was too late.
Lea had less than two seconds from seeing her death accelerate forward to hastily improvise a defense. The violent shield flared blindingly bright taking a brunt of the attack, but it didn't stop the remainder of the force from lashing into her and sending her careening back into the forest hard, a muffled explosion sounded in distance.
Margaret took stock of the destroyed landscape that looked like the battle zone it had turned into. Off in the distance she could hear the sounds of the melee going on between her saviors and the Killing Crows. Lea's hand must have indeed grown strong for her to lease Mother Winter's unstoppable weapons.
Growling came from the forest and the avatar reflected its mistress' defensive stance as flame-red hair was seen first coming from the dark woods. Lea emerged with enough cuts and scraps to ensure she was a bleeding mess. Her golden eyes were narrowed into two glowing slits.
"I do believe the gloves are coming off," said Lea, blood trickled down her mouth. "I am quite through indulging you."
At her side was that knife from earlier. Her clawed hand was wrapped around its dark handle and there was something dangerous about it now. It was terrible and old, something more awful than Margaret could name, and it was ruin made into a blade. That knife couldn't be what she thought it was. There was no—
The air above the avatar wavered and Lea came out from under a veil four meters above the giant's right shoulder. Margaret moved to counter but the Sidhe already held the knife in its downward stroke. Realistically, she knew there was no way that an athame could ever do any damage however negligible to her avatar. Yet if her hunch was correct this knife was an artifact of significant power.
Lea was proving Margaret's theory correct as she fell into the giant with the force of altitude, piercing the knife through the avatar's right shoulder, down through its chest, straight through the torso and clearing the body at its left hip. Lea impacted the ground lightly on the balls of her feet in a slight crouch with the knife held out before her.
Blue electricity danced within the gash bisecting the giant almost clean in two. It stumbled forward a bit independently of its mistress' movement and then fell straight back, hitting the ground with enough force to carve a deep trench in its wake as it skidded backward over a dozen meters.
Lea let out a feral snarl and launched a ruby red bolt at the downed giant. It struck him at the speed of light and the release of magical energy lit the sky, vaporizing the fallen giant outright in a wash of brilliant red light.
"Madea's bodkin," Margaret murmured, naming the deceptively small knife for what it truly was. She then surveyed the remains of her avatar with a dispassionate stare.
"Recognize the power in my hands," said Lea, her voice calm as she stared into Margaret's eyes. "Tremble before the path of destruction I now walk."
That knife was making her reassess her strategy. Margaret hadn't counted on Lea holding an artifact so powerful on her person. It wasn't so much what the knife was. Like the Swords of the Cross, the knife was connected to something powerful. She frowned. Well it was either go big or get her ass handed to her.
"I didn't want to have to resort to these spells, since my body is still recovering," said Margaret quietly. Resolve was clear in her voice, her expression solemn.
Every wizard had an affinity for a particular branch of magic. Some even found a particular element to harness easier than others. Margaret had always been a woman of freedom, going wherever the mood struck and fancying the broken roads. The wind fit her temperament in every sense. It was wild, free and everywhere. Wizards were long lived and Margaret spent almost a century mastering the element. Her aeromancy was the most advanced of the White Council before her untimely departure. The things she could do with the air made Wardens wary; the Severing Wind they called her behind her back.
Margaret's gritted her teeth as her hair blew upward in a fierce gust of air. Visible currents of wind blew around her legs and built up until it covered her body in a controlled cyclone. Yellow currents of energy crackled around her body as the wind built up so much power that it turned Margaret into a living turbine. She lifted her hand flat revealing the harnessed currents of vacuum energy.
The sudden influx of power needed an outlet or it would cook her inside out. The only reason why she hadn't instantly fainted from the stress was the Blackstaff. The whirling vacuum blade flew from her hand, and for a moment it seemed like maybe it harmlessly dissipated but the sound of falling trees echoed far into the distance for miles like an omen. Dark eyes stared coldly at her opponent across the field.
"You've left me no choice. Watch me closely because here I come."
The battlefield turned into ground zero.
A little less than a quarter of a mile away another fight was unfolding. The Killing Crows lived up to their reputation as unstoppable juggernauts. Husband and wife unleashed magical devastation into the ranks of elite warriors. The Crows dodged lances of plasma and bolts of magical force with their overwhelming edge in speed. Their high speed onslaught was an aggressive Sidhe art known as Volnus de Diluculum and their healing wasn't instantaneous, but it was pretty damn close.
Harry was a long ranged fighter. Magic was his specialty and he liked to keep it that way. Martial arts were for people who had the skill to back it up. So when he found himself hard pressed against two crows a solid defense of ducking and dodging was all he could manage while he scrambled for attack room.
"You bastards are fast," Harry huffed out, blocking a kick snapped at his head.
The deflection cost Harry his bearings and he was caught off guard when his next dodge brought his foot down on the crow's shadow and the world tilted.
Harry found himself on his knees in a dark forest that felt every bit as real as the day in his memory. Sirius lay near lifeless next to him on the rocky earth. It was impossible but his eyes didn't deceive him. Harry was back in the Forbidden Forest the night the Dementors came for Sirius in his third year. He would never forget any of it.
It was cold, so very cold as the wardens of Azkaban made their presence known. They glided down from the night sky in their tattered rags like wraiths of lore. Their skeletal hands were all extended out and fingers reaching toward him, reaching for his soul.
His wand wasn't anywhere and they were coming. Merlin almighty, where was it? Fear gripped his heart and held it tight until he was shaking. Only the tremors were from the chill in the air when the Dementors exerted their power as they loomed closer. Darkness hovered just behind his eyelids as his vision grew murky, all the while he heard a shrill voice laughing and his Mum screaming in his head, Not Harry! Please…
Harry could feel something in him pull loose, weakening. Liquid pain boiled in his insides as it became hard to breathe. Deep magic, he was going to die here in this impossible nightmare. The Dementors of Azkaban were going to Kiss him and eat his soul, like every Trelawney prediction made real.
"You don't look too good," said a soft voice with a hint of humor.
To Harry's left was a pretty young girl in a Hogwarts uniform. She was about twelve and her straw colored hair was in pigtails. She kneeled next to Harry where he collapsed on the ground, smoothed out the wrinkles in her pleated skirt and regarded him with twinkling blue-green eyes.
"Who are—" he struggled to say.
"This is the part where you say Expecto Patronum."
She looked completely unbothered by the frightening monsters or by the struggling breaths Harry took as his face rapidly lost color. His fingers reached outward scraping the dirt under his nails, feeling the ground for his wand.
The girl giggled and folded his fingers around the familiar handle of the white oak and faerie hair wand. "Now I love a bad boy, but you're kind of a troublemaker. Get it together, yeah?"
Warmth spread through Harry's fingertips. Harry barely noted she was clapping her hands gleefully and beaming. Renewed vigor gave him the strength to raise his wand and shout with everything that he was, "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
The entire world was bathed in brilliant blue-white.
Sunlight shined everywhere replacing that awful night. Harry was back on the island, thank Merlin. What in the bloody bleeding hell was that? Some type of psychic hallucination or sense memory assault, maybe. He realized he was holding the White Wand and he definitely hadn't been earlier.
Stars exploded across Harry's vision as he took a savage kick to the chin. His vision was blurry as he rolled out on instinct alone, finding his attacker still on him. He brought his wand up to point blank range and battered the crow's torso with a trio crystal blue bolts. The thing's beak split open in a soundless cry taking Harry's next spell straight to the cranium in a spectacular flash. It crashed face first to the earth and Harry moved in for a crippling blow when another crow plowed into him like a freight train.
Harry slammed into the ground in a tumbling roll feeling his entire world flare with excruciating pain. The crow fell from the sky wielding a dark claymore that seemed to waver in and out of existence. The sword came down through Harry's stomach with enough violence to embed the ethereal blade into the earth that half of it was buried into the ground where it stayed. Harry's body wavered momentarily in density before detonating violently. Magical power roared around the crow and the blast bathed the ground in cerulean fire.
The real Harry clutched at his bruised ribs from a safe distance away. "Merlin preserve us," he muttered, as the thing walked from the flames with smoke wafting from its smoldering body and a subtle limp. "Give me a break. Bloody super fae."
A ray of incendiary plasma ripped downrage and a crow blurred from Aurora's targeting path; a gleam of suspicion appeared in the Summer Lady's eyes. She evaded another crow coming in on her left flank avoiding the initial heave of talons. The first crow dropped in on her right with its claws flashing in, but she was inside the attack, stopping the downward stroke and retaliating with a burning uppercut that caught the crow directly under its chin. The creature was set on fire as it sailed back in the air.
The remaining crow renewed its onslaught before its brethren even dropped to the ground. Aurora retreated from the shadow blade intending to bury itself in her sternum. Her leg flashed out and the crow weaved the blow effortlessly with its greater speed. Its evasion created an opening that she exploited, willing into existence her own blade of summerlight into her hand. She lunged in and the shadow blade met her glowing short sword. Sparks cascaded off the deflection and Aurora pressed her attack, calling forth her own power reserves to enhance her speed just to keep up with its flowing combinations.
The power Aurora called forth radiated around her in a glowing halo. Her sword shone like a star in the morning and it seemed to carve through the crow's weapon, siphoning through its shadow and forcing the creature to shift into a stance that favored defense. Aurora ducked inside its guard and launched a burning pulse of silver, blasting a hole clean through the crow's chest.
Harry apparated next to her as their foes again regenerated before their eyes. "I'm getting pretty tired of this crap."
The knife they've been stabbed with has traces of Mother Winter's power, Aurora's voice spoke into his mind once more after taking his hand. The further I come in contact with them the more certain I am. It's the reason they can so easily stand against my power. As Mother Winter is the Queen of Time and Destruction, I suspect it's the reason they can reverse damage done to them. Ruin is her dominion. I also think the knives compress time around their person, subjectively slowing the outside world as their own speed increases exponentially.
Aurora was projecting into Harry's head at the speed of thought but the Crows were regenerating just as fast. A dark blur swooped in for a precision strike administered by one of those shadow blades and the married couple moved instinctively, throwing themselves out of the attack zone.
The Summer Lady stared at the handful of dandelion white hair floating to the ground. She touched a hand to the side of her head where the lock of hair had been shorn off in her hasty evasion.
The Seelie were known as the shining fae. Their kind revered beauty. The Sidhe even more so and some would call them vain. Harry saw the darkening of Aurora's eyes and the line that appeared in her jaw; they were absolutely right.
"Do whatever it takes to obliterate them. Don't worry about damaging this island anymore," said Aurora, her voice made the air suddenly hot, almost suffocating. A burning gold aura began to creep along her body. "Take them down hard. If this island's guardian does not like our tactics, drop him."
Aurora lifted her hand revealing the power boiling within her grasp like molten starlight. With a gesture it burned down the ten meter range at roughly the speed of light. The crows disappeared out of range and the attack continued into the forest where it detonated violently in a monster ball of hot-white fire, gnawing its way into the sky and the tidal wave of fire washed into the forest setting it ablaze. Aurora blurred behind the crows and released the bulk of her attack held back strictly for this feint.
Silver detonations roared within the ranks of the formidable quartet, turning the closest two near the blasts into fine mist and outright maiming the others that sacrificed their brethren to death allowing them precious time to fall back.
Thick gray clouds rolled up in the once clear sky bringing with it the cold winds of the north. Rain fell from the clouds in a sudden downpour drowning the fires burning in the woods. Lightning flashed within the clouds and it all was too sudden to be anything natural occurring.
"Can't let the wife do all the heavy lifting," said Harry, coming out from a Disillusionment Charm to the left flank of the injured crows.
Thunder cracked loudly enough to shake the air and a black lightning bolt suddenly pierced the sky. The maimed and regenerating Crows saw the bolt coming a mile away and the devastating lightning poured into the empty earth where they once stood. The 361 gigawatts burst was forced into the soil and Harry grinned darkly dropping to a knee to plunge his wand into the ground, bonding magic and electricity along the imperceptible fractures in the Earth.
"Boom," Harry muttered under his breath.
The ground shattered beneath their feet belching an angry geyser of lava. There was no escape from ground zero and molten rock ripped through the assassins of Winter, vaporizing them outright. The liquid death flowed into the forest completely incinerating trees. Harry ended the spell before it killed them all and the magma super cooled into hardened rock, inert.
Harry wiped the mix of sweat and blood from his face. His entire body ached and his ribs felt bruised but no bones were protruding from his skin, so that was a plus. He rolled his ankle and winced, definitely a fracture or sprain. He was already muttering healing spells on his person when Aurora joined him.
"Bugger that being considerate of the island nonsense. We should've taken them out ages ago," said Harry with a grimace, as the hairline fractures in his shin painfully knitted together.
They were surrounded by devastation. Most of the trees were little more than cinders, some were flattened and the entire landscape was riddled with trenches, smoking scorch marks and numerous craters. It was like a snapshot of a warzone.
Aurora's eyes snapped up and peered through the rain. There was something coming. "Maybe the island's spirit disagrees with the property damage."
Faecraft and wizardry warred across the land, burned the air apart, and the laws of order was unmade by the powers of mortal magic and arcane. The elements were turned into weapons of mass destruction. The wind became crescent blades of devastating energy, the Earth was a writhing abomination launching crystalline ice shards that flash froze anything on contact, and gravity was completely undone in certain spots where pure magical might collided.
Lea skidded back along the ground, arms crossed at the chest to form an X as she rode the shockwave of the horizontal tornado blasted into her. Two vacuum blades streaked into her position from both directions, shredding through the pink shield around her person. Blood gushed out as the wind cut her in several places in a merciless attack.
"I didn't know you had this in you," said Leanansidhe, bloody, cut up and covered in scraps, and smiling.
Furious air cycled around Margaret at high velocity from every vector. "This was never meant for you."
"Neither was this."
An iridescent turquoise ball freed itself from the knife's blade in the Sidhe's grip with violent force, its very launch potential blasting a trench across the crag ridden earth. Wind gathered beneath her heels and Margaret leapt clear over the ball of annihilation.
Lea met her in altitude twisting her body to deliver a punch to Margaret's face and kick in the ribs with brick-breaking force behind them. The combo drove the wizard into the ground and Lea used the kickoff to backflip through the air and land on her feet.
"Give up?" Lea asked sweetly.
Margaret looked like she had been through hell and back but she would be damned if she lost this one. She mustered a smile and that was Lea's only warning before she stormed forth. Those transparent blades of wind sliced in putting the Sidhe on full defensive as they crisscrossed the air as intersecting ropes of lethal vacuum energy.
"Ventus infernus," Margaret murmured, glaring at her opponent.
The lines of killing wind moved independently and suddenly became flaming ropes of whiplashing intent, untouched by the rain. Lea was an acrobat of aerial maneuvers as the flaming web of wind threatened to tear her to pieces and vaporize her remains.
Getting a second of breathing room, Lea sneered at her attacker. "Fire magic how charming, like mother like son."
The raindrops changed tone, almost like crystal shrieking, and water hardened into sharp icicles with dagger sharp points. Margaret already had a bulk of her power extended to her wind whips when the projectiles poured in. An improvised shield formed over her head as she ducked for cover under a slab of rock.
The fire was extinguished in the hail of winter ice and the vacuum whips fell without Margaret actively concentrating on them, it was too complex a spell.
"Well if you won't come out and play," said Lea quite cheerfully, given the situation.
She pointed the knife at Margaret's hiding place and the rain concentrated on the spot. Innumerable icicles slammed against the wizard's improvised defense and ice solidified into a thick dome at an alarming rate, trapping the woman inside. The rain stopped. It was over as soon as it began leaving the half sphere with its sharply jutting spikes and its prisoner.
Lea inspected the ice cage with an expression of supreme satisfaction. "Another decade in the kennel should straighten that attitude right out."
She touched a finger to the glass-like surface. Something made her stop and she cocked her head, listening. Lea's eyes widened and she leapt back. At the peak of her jump the crystal exploded nailing her straight on with a wave front of high pressure that sent her careening wildly away like a ragdoll.
Margaret stood in the snowfall of falling ice flakes with the Blackstaff in one hand and the other extended, visible currents of air whirling around her hand. She took deep breaths of air body still shaking from the chill of the cage.
Lea got back to her feet and sprang at Margaret with the knife. The weapon with its deceptively small blade begged for her blood. She could feel its malicious intent as she dodged the Sidhe's strikes. Margaret didn't even want to think about what the blade would do if it landed a solid cut. She had her suspicions but there was no way in Hell she was testing them out.
A meter long blade of super dense ice streaked in on her blind side. A vacuum blade knocked it off course from piercing her clean through the torso, but its molecularly sharp edge raked her right side above her hip like a buzzsaw.
"Bitch," Margaret growled, fighting the urge to drop to her knees and curl up.
The knife whipped in to carve her face up and Margaret thrust the Blackstaff forward to deflect the weapon. The blade met dark wood sparks screaming away from each weapon, accompanied by a horrible sensation of wrongness, and both fighters were blown away by the mingled energies that detonated in the air like a sonic boom.
"That was unexpected," said Lea, standing up with a new cut running down her jaw. She crossed her arms and watched Margaret recover. "Are you ready to talk now, dear? Transmogrifying you was to save your life from Raith's entropy curse and your own death curse."
Margaret leaned against the staff, glaring. "And keeping me in that cursed state for almost thirty years?"
"For your own protection," replied Leanansidhe coolly.
Margaret snarled and gestured with her hand shifting the airflow around Lea into nearly invisible coils of razor wire, shooting outward in an explosion while catching the Sidhe like an eviscerating net. The slant at which the wall of high pressured air slammed into her was just under the knees, catching her flat footed and knocking her off balance so she rode the coils into the ground at their highest strength. The serrated trap cut into the soil violently as the brunt of the attack impacted, forcing Lea into the earth with heart stopping force.
"That's for your own protection," said Margaret coldly. "Otherwise I might break your neck."
It started as a low chuckle, turned into a rolling laugh, and then blossomed into a full blown cackle that was stereotypical of a witch in every dark fairytale. Margaret's eyes widened as Lea's knife swiped through the jagged grid keeping her trapped.
"You ungrateful, hairless ape," Lea hissed, eyes glowing like liquid fire.
If the comment was any indication of her mood then the next sequence of events confirmed it. Lea lurched forward, closing the distance at high speed while charging a blue ball of super dense ice. She launched the attack at the wizard forcing her evasion left, where Lea's fist met her face making her see stars for an instant.
The Sidhe flowed into a combination tagging Margaret's torso with a blur of strikes that brought the wizard to her knees. Lea lifted her long leg up high into the air and dropped it down into a bone-crushing axe kick that broke Margaret's shoulder and slammed her to the ground on her face. The Blackstaff fell from her limp fingers and rolled beside her.
Lea bent and lifted Margaret's head up by her hair. The woman's eyes were unfocused as she swam lost in her world of pain. "If you were anyone else I would end you. Considering everything I won't even crush your spine for this. I will just consider us even."
The Sidhe released Margaret's hair and she fell to the ground. She shook her head at the broken wizard. Taking her on when she wasn't at her fullest potential had been a risky gamble that hadn't paid off. Lea stood and turned her back on Margaret and realized for the first time she could no longer sense the Killing Crows.
If she was watching the fallen wizard she would have seen the Blackstaff taken up by shaking fingers. A spiral of cold air snapped into place around Margaret, lifting her up in the currents until she was standing, and exploding around her in a violent gale that consumed her. Lea spun around and her shock was apparent at the sight.
"Even?" Margaret asked, looking up at her with steel in her eyes, while the high velocity winds whipped around her and shredded anything within a sixty meter circumference. "You think any of that makes us even?"
She flicked her fingers and Lea flinched as a jagged cut opened in her shoulder in a spray of blood. The wound was on the same shoulder that she broke on Margaret. She lurched forward only to be stopped cold by another nearly invisible line of energy.
"I missed my baby's first steps."
A gash opened in Lea's torso.
"His first word."
Margaret's hand swept out flat along its knife edge and the vacuum energy sliced deep into Lea's wrist. The knife fell to the ground and she clutched at the bleeding wound, staring with cold fury at her attacker. She stumbled back, but held her hand up, sighting Margaret with the incandescent blue sphere formed there.
For the first time Margaret drew on the actual power contained within the Blackstaff, calling on one its most often used spells stored in its matrix; the staff practically begged her to deal death, a siren song of bloodlust, like it hungered for the taste of carnage. All of it was there, in the palm of her hand.
"Basium de mille daemones."
Angry purple light boiled around the Blackstaff. Ribbons of darkness wrapped around its length as its true power came forth. Aurora and Harry ran to the edge of the battlefield to see Lea was suddenly bathed in a pillar of pitch black fire. Fifteen meters of necromatic energy screamed into the sky around her, robbing her of every protection charm and spell on her. Dark magic from before there was light hammered into the Sidhe and only the improvised shield kept the winter fae from vaporizing outright as the otherworldly inferno expended its fury, dying down seconds later. Margaret shook her hand out to shake off the visible blackness crawling through her veins. Magic this powerful, this dark, always had a price.
"Merlin," Harry breathed, not even noticing Aurora gasp or her taking his hand.
Standing in a glowing orange ring of glass was the Leanansidhe who was smoking and singed, her clothes little more than charred rags. Whatever shield she assembled must have bled most of the power of ethereal fire otherwise she would be a smoldering cinder. She still looked like a trauma unit victim as she fell to her knees coughing up blood.
Margaret dropped to her knees, exhausted, fighting her own body not to shut down from the pain. "Alright," she said, staring into the Sidhe's eyes. "Now we're even, bitch."
"Well played, old friend," said Lea, her face was a bloody mess and even then her smirk made her look sinfully gorgeous. "Answers are what you seek and we're on even ground again. I'll give them to you… soon. You'll see me again if you can find the way back to the frozen citadel."
The Leanansidhe sank into the ground like it was water, distorted waves rippling outward like a horse's skin. Just like that she was gone slinking off to the Nevernever. Maybe she knew a safe Way through the spirit realm from the island. That wasn't important now. Aurora and Harry were at Margaret's side even as the earth returned to solid form again. They helped her to her feet with urgent moves.
"We have to get out of here," Harry said, adjusting her so she leaned her weight on him. He met Aurora's gaze over Margaret's shoulder. "Something's coming."
Margaret found herself jerked forward when the Blackstaff was yanked out of her hand by an invisible force and it rocketed away into the air. Half dozen figures in grey cloaks poured into what had once been a nice bit of forest landscape. Harry jaw clenched as the Wardens fanned out, their dour faces impassive and all business. The center of the intimidating line parted revealing a trio of wizards that walked out to stand in front of the ranks.
The White Council was here and they brought the big guns. Members of the Senior Council, Harry realized with a start.
Harry didn't recognize the grim faced Native American man or the Asian woman with pure white and long hair. Her expression was serene, her dark eyes piercing and merciless. The shortest man was gray haired, gruff looking and was holding the Blackstaff.
"It's impolite to steal a wizard's things. Especially his staff," said the gruff looking one, sharp eyes weighing them. "Talk now or we'll start cracking heads."
Aurora was about to step forward and introduce herself and hopefully pull some strings under the Accords that governed the supernatural nations of the world. Margaret beat her to the punch. She lifted her head so her face could finally be seen clearly and the Council members froze. Their shock paled in comparison to the heartbreaking expression washing over the man whom had been speaking.
"Maggie?"
A tired smile crossed her bloodied face. "And for my next trick, kids."
She passed out.
Author's Note; I'm going to try to keep (somewhat) within canon so Margaret's resurrection makes sense without outright changing Dresden facts. The storyline though is off the rails and is pretty much an alternate reality at this point but in hopefully a good way. As for right now in the timeline its after Summer Knight and before Death Masks.