Snape's words went to Harry's core. "You found me and begged for my help. This is it. Accept it."
It was true. He had hunted Snape down, drew him out of hiding, and now his help meant giving Lucius a part to play in his love for his daughter. He felt like shit for not knowing how to rise above his hatred for Lucius, but there they were. The cavern was lit up and functioning all around them. They had only to glance down over the water to see the queen making her way towards them, smiling. A host of guards trailed her, as she walked in front of them for once. Her star radiated more brightly than Harry had seen before.
"Get your child," Snape rushed under his breath. "We're down to seconds."
Harry saw that the queen was near and began to run to stand under the growth, ready to retrieve Iece. The queen had only to take one step off of the rising pillar, but the cavern shook, immediately followed by a blast of rock wall. The Backaal traitors had found them again. Snape and Harry both deduced what had happened in a split second. With the full power of the cave system amped up and running, their wards against detection were reduced to petty barricades. The other side had technology and wizards, and must've been waiting for a weakness in their defenses. Harry had forgotten, this is why it was so important that he get Iece into his arms after the system was up. He'd screwed up. Both he and Snape fired blocking spells in the direction of the blast, not waiting for the smoke to clear. Their goal was to seal the explosion like before, but an onslaught of force hit back at them.
The queen's foot never landed on her last step. The blast threw her body into the watery chasm below. Harry's instincts were to try to save her, but Snape caught him. "No!" He didn't just catch him, once he had Harry, he threw him back in the direction of Iece. "We've lingered too long. If we don't leave now, we won't leave at all."
Harry accepted this, but felt he needed the queen's magic to release Iece. Now that the system was in full circulation, those growths were charged and sealed. He'd gotten out of the one assigned to him easily enough, but the cavern's air had grown thick with racing currents of magic and whatever power source this place generated for the Backaals. It had taken on a life of its own. And now that Harry had to doge some sort of acoustic weapons, it would be tricky to get to Iece.
Above them, Lucius took in all the chaos around him. A small crowd of strange tribal-looking people had been approaching across a great lake, just walking on rising supports, led by a bald blue woman. His reasoning could not accept that a light actually existed inside her head, so it appeared to him that she wore a crown. The explosion happened and all of her people disappeared into the water. From his height, he could see their bodies in the backlit pool of green phosphorescence. Others of their kind, from the far side, were racing into the water to save them. Harry and Snape were arguing. And new people poured into the opening created by the blast. The growth encasing Lucius shook as if an earthquake were knocking the entire rock shelf about.
The invaders wore some sort of black plates over their clothes, covering their chests, legs, and head in particular. They had triangular shaped instruments strapped to their writs, with pointed ends aimed in front of them. Lucius could tell that wizards were among them. He didn't know what those weapons were, but he knew spells being hurled when he saw them. He itched to use his magic and free himself, but Snape's bondage remained upon him. Harry had only removed what he knew to be hiding Lucius's face, he hadn't removed the other restrictions that kept Lucius from attempting to retaliate, screwed up as his magic was. Lucius pressed against the far side of the growth, trying to avoid being caught in the crossfire taking place below.
Harry and Snape had no choice but to defend themselves, joining in the violent blasts of deadly intent aimed at them. Harry now had to proceed with caution, dodging the strange weapons aimed at them. When earth and stone gouged itself out of surfaces right beside him, bursting into sprays of destructive shrapnel, he understood that the triangular things were like some sort of frequency weapons. The more rock and dirt rained around him, hitting him, the more he detected that the only audible sounds the weapons made, were a whooshing hiss, but only on the back end of being fired, right before something exploded. He tried to shield himself, but his efforts met with frustrating failure, like yanking cover over his head only to have it yanked off. Other magic worked against him. Sure, he must've been spotted. Those rebels must have orders to keep him from any chance at retaliation, or even using his magic at all, such was the bombardment of attacks.
He heard Snape yell, "There's too many. Their acoustic weapons are designed specifically to harm the queen. They have wizards for us. You'll have to rip her out of there."
He meant Iece. They were now yelling to hear each other.
"But if we tear into it, won't that be like destroying it? Will it stop working?" Harry asked.
"It doesn't matter. It's not going to work anyway if these people are dead. Just get her and I'll signal the CIUM."
They should already be here, Harry thought, fighting this. Don't they have the resources? "Can't they come fight?"
Snape appeared to be in pain, and spoke with effort. "They can, but all they know is to trigger the apparation sequences to get you as far away from here as possible. If I signal them without her in your arms, you'll be separated from her and this will be for nothing."
Snape was in the same boat as Harry. Somewhere in the blinding dust and debris, a number of savage wizards were keeping them so covered up in deadly hexes, they had to meet the attacks head on and could not spare a second to create an array of protection. Snape made a valiant effort at swirling a suppression vortex around his body to buffer any violence against him, but wandfire caught his side, knifing through him and bending him over. He had no time to recover before others took the opportunity to finish him with an excess of killing spells that could've ripped him apart had Harry not thrown his hand out, demanding nothing touch him. It wasn't a shield he could've sustained, it only endured for the seconds he needed it, but was effective in throwing the attacks back at their attackers. Screams were heard, but Harry was completely blind to who they belonged to. He wanted to check on Snape, but couldn't risk it.
If he couldn't think of a way to keep a solid shield going, he wasn't going to make it. There were too many stepping out of the black dust coating the air. Their plan must've been to keep him overwhelmed, no matter their losses, until they killed him and the queen. Bracing himself to take a hit and survive it, he worked up the nerve to shape his magic into a literal wall that he planned on throwing up in front of the blast zone. It sounded cartoonish, but it was just him, the Elder Wand, and his imagination grasping at a solution to surviving. Hadn't all the other crazy stuff worked? If he was really powerful, now was the time to put it to the test. His daughter wasn't going to die because he was too realistic to attempt the impossible.
Just as he was about to try, he saw a group of Backaals pulling the queen's body up over the ledge of their platform. Her frail limbs struggled to gain purchase and hold herself up. Her head bobbed and her legs wobbled as they supported her. She was drenched and her dress clung to her like vacuum sealed skin. But when her feet were flat on the ground, she seemed to absorb the energy around her and stood on her own. Her head lifted as she found her balance. Her guards surrounded her and their discs seemed effective in keeping the acoustic violence just out of reach from her, but not foolproof.
They stayed close to her and her chest swelled as she took deep breaths. Her appearance stole the attackers' attention and their efforts lifted from bombarding Harry and Snape to bombarding her. Like Harry, they must've sensed that her survival meant their plans had taken an unexpected turn. Her light was bright and strong, and surely must've been concerning for them. The energetic system and magic was still up and running, so Harry too paused for a second to see what she would do.
Inside the formation of her guards, she appeared unconcerned for the war going on around her. She raised her arm. The light in her head radiated exponentially as she swept her open palm across the direction from which the intruders were entering. A massive vacuum force pulled everything from that dimensional rupture into the cavern. Bodies and boulders alike went flying. Entire rock ledges split apart. Catacomb formations deep inside the recessed areas of bedrock came barreling, amputating natural support columns that had been formed, either over millions of years, or by the queen's own power. Either way, she was willing to destroy what she could rebuild as long as her power remained.
Everything sucked into an invisible current that smashed it all at the top of the cave system. Screams could be heard as bodies were ripped from their places and tossed together over the water. Umpfs! sounded sickeningly as air was knocked out of those intruders, in brutal collisions that not only left them lifeless but smashed them into broken pulps.
Harry saw flopping limbs twist at impossible angles. His own arm hurt terribly but he couldn't take his eyes off of what was happening over the water. Those bodies were so caught up, they couldn't even fall into the water. Instead, they merged at the center of all the velocity and ground against one another like fish stuck in a maelstrom. The vacuum squeezed them together so hard, clothes and flesh sheered from their bones until the center looked like a massive clot of blood. Not even the blood fell into the water. That pressurized center kept everything airborne, circulating and impacting upon itself until heated light emitted from its core. Those bodies simply burned up.
That core, reminiscent of a nuclear flash, didn't even release ashes from the instant carnage and cremation. Everything simply dissolved in the lit core. It flashed for an instant, burning white-hot, then was gone.
Harry saw this as he kept to the ground and dodged the force that continued to suck in their attackers. It was aimed at a level far above the queen's head and controlled so that only those in it's path were affected. But it brought so much deadly material sweeping down into the cavern, that jagged compartments and ledges, flew at him and Snape. Many pieces of the cavern walls were bigger than his whole body and he rolled, curling to escape being crushed. He lost track of Snape but saw that the translucent growth that still housed Iece and the blue child, was struck. Pieces of embedded stone fell to the ground, impaling the area. The structure shifted, loosened.
No sooner did Harry realize that it had been compromised and was going to fall, did he see a flash of blue-white starlight engulf the growth and set it aright against the rock. Now, it clearly looked like an amorphous, crystal egg as it leaned into the crevice left behind. Behind him, he saw that this was the queen's doing. Her survival and her retaliation was proof that Snape's plan had worked. She seemed not to weigh the consequences of what she was going to lose if the system was destroyed, and secured the growth until it seated and stabilized.
Above, the dimensional rupture remained open. And while that vacuum effect had greatly reduced the firearms and magic working against them, even stopped it for a minute, those rebel Backaals started to emerge in a second wave. They were not as numerous or as robust as before, but they were still deadly and Harry stayed low to try to get to Iece.
Something was wrong. He couldn't make his right arm bend the way he wanted and he couldn't move his fingers. He hadn't been worried about injuries and he was too desperate to worry now, knowing that he had the ability to heal his body if he could just survive. But he was forced to acknowledge that the loss of his arm usage, was extremely important. That's when he saw the blood and realized that he'd been hit in all the action, and hadn't noticed that his arm was twice it's normal size below the elbow, and parts of it was split open. He didn't understand. He had to keep moving. He assumed that something had hit him during all the blasts, but the way his injuries looked and felt, his radius and ulna seemed crushed. The pain should've crippled him, but he quickly looked away, not giving into it.
He kicked along the ground, finally able to take a second to use enough magic to shield the children as well as the growths. He was still laying on his side and saw Lucius's pod tilting from the blast. The entire system was broken and went several lumens darker. Inside. Lucius's eyes were wild and crazed. He stared at the vaporous core left spinning above the water. His compartment swayed and Harry saw his body jump from the fear of falling. Their eyes locked and Harry recoiled against any concern for him.
Where was Snape? He still needed Snape to trigger the escape. Or would it be best to apparate with Iece now that it appeared most of the invaders were killed? He searched frantically through the dust choking him. There were shouts and commands in the distance. Reinforcements were quickly filling in.
"Snape!" he called out.
"Here," Snape answered. Harry spotted him slicing down two wizards who had backed him into a corner. The younger, more agile men moved like lightning, teaming up against him. They sent hex after deadly hex ahead of them. What Snape couldn't block, he dodged. What he couldn't dodge, he rerouted back at them. Instinctively, Harry sent a stupefying curse their way. It caught one, leaving Snape to deal with the remaining wizard on fairer terms. In two seconds, the wizard had been lifted by an unnatural wind, borne of Snape's wand, and tossed over the ledge. Snape was able to toss others who began coming at him out of the thickened, dark atmosphere. As he fought, he made his way closer to Harry.
In that instance, another resurgence of weapon fire tore throughout the cavern. Some nameless weapon shot a pulse out of the dimensional rift that flung the queen's guards backwards, scattering some over the edge of the platform. Her body stumbled back and the sound that cracked like a wet ball and socket, was her spine bent at an impossible angle as her legs kept standing. Her body broke at the waist, but remained intact as she screamed. Harry immediately concluded that he had to save Snape first, without realizing that the queen didn't need his help.
Her scream was agonizing and filled with bitter defeat, but she remained standing and pulled herself from annihilation as she straightened her torso. Her lower half collapsed, but she stayed upright on her knees and flared the star in her head. It's light climbed the distance between her and Harry, surpassing his expectations and falling again on the growth with the children inside.
Illuminated, Harry saw that both girls still had closed eyes, but when hit with the blast of that light, the blue child's eyes opened. Her mother plucked the growth from its seated position and lowered it to the ground with attacks coming from all around her. Harry saw that her body had suffered under the assault and appeared to shrivel before his eyes. Then he realized it was the acoustic weapons. Their effect ate away at her ability to stay calibrated to her natural frequencies and those weak places appeared on her body like wounds. Her side, with her dress exposing it, was already ate away at, like a cancer mangling of her blue skin. Both arms were ruin by the effect yet she held them out in a wide embrace and shouted to Harry, "Get her! Take her!"
Now that the growth sat safely on the ground, Harry ran back to it. He had to tear is way inside and as he reached for Iece, the other child watched him take her. The queen was still yelling, "Take her," with her dying breath and Harry new he couldn't leave her daughter stuck in this thing. He didn't really know whether the blue child was stuck or had a chance at all, he didn't have time, he simply pulled her out along with Iece. His shattered arm was useless, so he made do with the strength of one arm and shoulder. Once out, he couldn't rouse Iece and he didn't try that hard. The queen sank with her head hitting the ground hard and lifeless. The star was completely dark inside her head.
Harry willed himself to hug Iece close and try not to think about anything but letting Snape see him. All Snape had to see, was that Iece was in his arms. They would be apparated instantly. But the ground shook worse than ever before and everything began to slant as the substructure lost all integrity and the cavern seemed to tilt, bringing massive explosions with it. Harry could no longer see Snape as fresh dust blinded him and he only just made out that the blue child was up and dashing by him. He couldn't get to his feet quite as fast. The foundation beneath them was dissolving and turning and he couldn't figure out why his legs wouldn't support him. He called for Snape again, and went deaf when the mineral dense slabs around him began splitting.
Snape's voice sounded far away. "Harry…"
Snape's arm was a silhouette against debris floating in the dimmed light. Harry pushed himself up and stumbled across the buckled obstacles in his way. Stray wandfire streaked past his head and he had to drop to the ground again. But he was close enough to make out Snape. His former teacher lay against rubble. Dirt caked his hair and mixed into blood oozing down over his face. Harry couldn't see what was wrong with him, but his injuries must've been so severe that it was a struggle to yell out. His eyes shifted across his field of vision until he and Harry were staring at each other. Instantly, Harry knew two facts that Snape placed into his mind. He was not going to make it. And he only had enough breath left in him to send Harry off in the manner they had discussed.
Harry refused to accept this. He raised his hand as if he held the Elder Wand and insisted on knowing Snape's injuries to try to heal them with magic. Snape deflected Harry's intention and the trajectory of magic hit the growth that Lucius was still stuck in. Pieces flew, dislodging the thing and it came crashing down. The crash was muted by all the destruction around it and Lucius's face twisted in the impact. Parts of the stone shattered like glass. His body was thrown across the slab and he rolled, hair tumbling, close to Harry and Snape. This seemed to play right into Snape's intentions. He pointed his wand and Lucius, who tried to set up, thrust forward like a ragdoll and flew into the dirt where he and Harry sat, as if shoved there.
With gritted teeth, Snape took hold of Lucius. Blood splattered Lucius's face as he said with monumental effort, "Don't think of leaving. Die here, you miserable scourge!"
His voice sounded as though he were shivering. "Leave, and you put your own daughter at risk. Stay, and you take her place. Get him out of here. He can't use his magic. If he does, the wrong people can follow him. Cast a beacon charm to the Minister's office."
He stopped short, bearing down against pain that shortened his breath and left him panting. "They're waiting for my signal. They'll… " He choked on his own blood and couldn't get the rest out as his entire body hitched through spasm.
"Just tell me what to do," Harry insisted. "I'm not leaving you here. I can apparate both of you."
He meant Snape and Iece, but Snape's fist, still holding Lucius's pajama collar, shook him. "Get him out of here. I can't…"
Lucius was inarticulate in shock. He didn't know where to begin and had lost his ability to determine how to respond to the chaos around him.
"What is all this? Why are these people trying to kill you?" As it was, the entire platform holding them was listing and all of them felt they were minutes from death. No one would be winning this war.
Harry ignored Lucius and shook the hopelessness off. He raised his imaginary wand to see Snape's injuries. Iece lay in the crook of his arm as he did so. Destruction and wandfire surrounded them and Harry caught a glimpse of the blue child kneeling alongside the lump of clothing that had to be her mother. He hated leaving things like this and felt a stab of pain as he tried to focus on Snape. Their unstable ground warned him to apparate on his own. Take the risk. But he couldn't leave Snape like this. Not without trying.
Just then, the little girl climbed to her feet and the star in her small head was shining. Really shining, and getting brighter. If Harry hadn't known better, he would've said that she leaned over her mother and took something from her.
Like the queen before her, she raised her hand at the dimensional rift where traitorous Backaals were still coming. Instead of a murderous vacuum, an unnerving tremor began to vibrate every molecule inside and out of Harry's body. He instantly feared for his and Iece's safety, knowing that he shouldn't be feeling something intended for her enemies.
That feeling permeated every boulder, every surface, every tissue. It shook the world from the inside, as if destabilizing the very subatomic particles that they were all made of. Intruders screamed and fell to the ground. The dimensional rift, a portal they had forced from their stronghold, crackled as the shelf it was supported by, crumbled and disintegrated. That rift was localized within the physics of the rock and dirt and so collapsed on itself, taking hundreds of their fighting members with it into the watery abyss below.
Harry expected to die because he was in too much shock to look away as hundreds kilometers of earth disappeared, no longer supported by the temple. All of them should've been choking on fumes and dust, but child pushed this back as well. Her star maintained a light that let them see the emptiness ahead of them and confirm that the rift had been abolished. Not only abolished, but if she was strong enough to cause it all to go away, then she was strong enough to keep it away. That's what Harry got from her meaning as she looked at him. Her arm was still raised as she seemed to be reinforcing the area.
The ground beneath them continued to tilt and the child addressed Harry. "Leave. I am strong now, but I can't hold this temple up for very long. It's going and it has to be destroyed anyway. You and your friend will be blessed by my people and carry our greatest protection with you wherever you go. Go now."
Her voice was soft, her tones familiar, but all coming from this new little person whom he had never spoken to before. She spoke as if she knew him.
"I'm sorry I couldn't save your mother," he sputtered, not really clear about why he was still wasting time or even if she was capable of understanding the way he meant it.
Snape's boot kicked at him. "Go!"
Harry leaned over him. "I have to get you out of here." His wandless hand was poised to scan and heal even as Iece lay wedged against him. His other arm hung uselessly. He made up his mind to apparate the three of them, a disastrous idea in his condition, but the fastest.
The blue child hurried him. "Some of us were never destined to survive this upheaval. I am sorry for the sorrow you are suffering on my behalf."
Harry was so confused. She sounded like the queen, like she was eons old, but retained the aloof subtlety of a child. She spoke evenly. Adult words came a from little girl's lips. "Don't worry, Harry Potter. They will think they have killed me. I live in this one now. This new body. I see only now that that was the problem all along. I cannot split myself in half and live as two. I cannot give birth. There cannot be two queens. While my light is full, my child's light must dim. While I am conscious, my child must sleep. I can only come forth as myself. Now go, you have helped me and my people. I must destroy this temple and build a new one elsewhere. None can follow. I will resurrect my people there. You have but a few seconds to leave."
As she spoke, Harry made the mistake of falling into a hypnotic stupor. Iece slipped from his hold and all urgency came to a stand still. Around him, blue fire seeped through crevices and rose like ethereal flooding waters. He stared into the child's star and understood that he was looking at the new queen, which was the old queen. She warned him in a telepathic voice, Don't look at the light.
He couldn't help it. He lost hope in that light. His magic sought rest in that light and he understood how she controlled those of her people who loved and served her. A part of him dissolved in that glow. Then Lucius was suddenly in his face, screaming incoherently and dragging him away from Snape. Harry lost track of what was really happening. This underground world was engulfed in unnatural blue fire that lit it up like the sky. He'd never seen anything so deadly and so beautiful. A sea of incandescent flames detached the remaining bulk of sedentary material and everything floated free form on a current of melting rock. Harry felt himself falling as the shelf gave away.
Like watching a slow motion dream, Lucius picked up Iece and thrust her into Harry's arm. He didn't give Harry a chance to drop her, helpless as he was under the queen's spell. He had taken Snape's wand and issued a sequence of commands that let the Ministry know to grab Harry from an apparation portal set up to transport him, under the control of others. It had been Snape's job to get him positioned for the triangulation of wizarding geological relocation, but in the end that fell to Lucius. The last thing Harry saw before being sucked into a system of lifting and directional magic, was a world engulfed in brilliant blue lava. Snape's body receded away from him, a mere shadow on the ground as glowing lava approached. And Lucius's pale lips stretched to extreme investment as his eyes willed Harry to go into the pull of the apparation spell. The two were swallowed by a bubbling engulfment.
Then darkness. Then speed. Something caught him.
He heard the words, "Don't move. No matter how crazy it gets, we've got you. We're gonna sling you through a series of portals. Hold your daughter tight untill you're given the clear."
The voice sounded familiar. Altered by a hollow distortion, but familiar. Before Harry could place it, he found himself bound and restricted by an invisible sensation.
"That's just to keep you safe. They'll follow you. We have to go at tremendous speeds. You'll have handlers and you'll change directions. Don't be alarmed."
Harry found his voice. "Where am I? Who are you?"
"You're in a local point of the GCG. You've used this grid to travel before. It's a Global Construction Grid. I'm Admiral Scott Bicksby."
Bicksby? Grid? He'd used something like it to visit Thella at her home. He had no time to organize his thoughts or brace himself for the abrupt tackle that threw him and Iece into the grip of motion beyond their ability to see. Harry gripped her tighter, thankful she was not awake to become frightened, and went with the forces pulling him through a teleportation infrastructure. Something lifted the seal he was in, let go, and he was caught by another phantom grip. He felt like a package being picked and sorted by mechanical robot arms, and didn't recall the GCG feeling anything like this automation. He held on and fought down the last images of Snape. He wanted to insist that it wasn't real. It was part of the escape and Snape could be teleported this way too. This felt a lot more like the muggle idea of teleportation than apparation. He couldn't be sure.
As he told himself this, head bent of Iece's tiny shoulders, he knew it was irresponsible to let himself have hope when he'd clearly seen what he'd seen.
Bicksby's voice sounded close to him, but he knew it had to be thousands of miles away. "You're almost out of the country. We have to avoid certain routes. Rest easy, your heart rate and blood pressure are a little high."
They could monitor that? Harry tried to yell, "Go back and save Snape!" It came out muffled and distorted, as if he were talking under water. "He's hurt. He wasn't moving."
I couldn't apparate him, Harry wanted to add, but Bicksby cut in, "Don't try to talk. The human body isn't made to travel at these speeds and your heart is under a lot of pressure."
"Tell me you'll save Snape. Tell me!"
There was a substantial pause before Bicksby answered him. "We're not detecting any biological signals from him. He went in armed to the teeth with monitoring and communication spells. Everything's gone dark on our end. I'm sorry."
Harry breathed in the scent of Iece's scalp as she lay against him, remembering how he begged Snape to help him cure her.
"The first line of defense is complete," Bicksby announced. "Get ready to be handed off to a series of agents who'll escort you through a decoy route across the Indian Ocean. You'll have to exit the GCG and travel by manual magic. This gets tricky. As you've seen, the people we're up against have acoustic technology that can affect ours. If they spot you, we have a team of wizards in place who's sole responsibility is to whisk you home to an underground facility without being detected."
Harry had almost stopped listening. He wished he had when the invisible field holding him suddenly lurched and he and Iece went tumbling into stark daylight. They had been in darkness, unable to make out their surroundings. Now, sunlight hurt his eyes and surreal ocean waves chopped below as he appeared to be falling from the sky helplessly. In the next second, something anchored to the spell containing him, and pulled him into the air. Squinting from having become accustomed to the underground, he now saw three hundred and sixty degrees around himself and the day was blinding. But what was even more amazing, were the people who appeared to be towing him.
Towing wasn't the best word. He was somehow attached to two wizards on brooms. Not just any brooms and not just any wizards. They were racing brooms and these were his teammates from his Celebrity Quidditch charity team. It was Shanti Kotze, the South African speed demon and Mark Stagger, a US professional. He had made their team months ago, and had to abandon their schedule along with his Minstry tour. How could they be a part of this?
He understood within seconds. Wandfire sparked off of the capsule he was in. He could now see that it was indeed a kind of capsule, but it wasn't physical. It was an enclosure made of binding and security spells and was see-through all the way around. It must've had a ton of protections on it. Harry should've been knocked all over the place, but he was held in such a way that he and Iece remained right-side up and cushioned against all things as they sped under the influence of Shanti and Mark's magic. The two teammates waved at Harry before their expressions turned to grim seriousness and Shanti sped with him while Mark covered her with his wand. Real Ministry agents appeared, but the two left them behind at speeds that only professionals were capable of.
Just apparate me, Harry thought. What was the harm in that? Iece squirmed against him, waking up, and he prayed to get to where they were going soon.
"Why are my teammates here?"
"Those are world record-breaking athletes, voluntarily offering their services. We have no faster agents on the planet. It was Snape's idea. He knew we'd have to leave the realm of technology behind and resort to old-fashioned brooms once the Backaals sicked their wizards on us. Your friends are risking their lives to save you. They wanted to be a part of this."
A hitch in Bicksby's voice told Harry more than he wanted to know. This had to do with the trial and all the disgraceful things revealed on the stand. He'd felt stripped of all honor and this was his team letting him know that they still held him in high esteem. They were honored to be the only people in the world qualified to help him at this time. Snape had thought of everything, it seemed.
Iece pushed against him. Her weak voice said, "Daddy?"
"Shhh…" He could only use his one arm to rub her comfortingly, and that was restricted. "Hang on, sweetie. This has got to be over soon."
A blast of fire from a wizard's wand in the distance, reminded him that it still wasn't safe. Friendly faces did not mean they were out of danger and he had to take things seriously, in spite of teetering on the brink of not giving a shit. As far as he was concerned, he had his daughter. Their lives were in the hands of experts and friends, and he had no more fight in him. Leaving Snape's body behind like that, took the last of it out of him. How many times did he have to watch him die? His body succumbed to that fact and collapsed around his daughter.
As if watching from a dream, he was back in that plasma blue lava watching it encroach on Snape's body. At the same time, he saw his teammates, as well as CIUM agents on very sophisticated, motorized vehicles that might not technically be called brooms, all battling in an air assault. Shanti and Mark reached their rendezvous point and slung his see-through vehicle into an apparation. Harry appeared at the next point, caught by more familiar faces. A patchwork of green fields spread out below him. Sharp white cliffs cut into the sea to his right. It looked like he was somewhere over Scottland.
The two friends escorting him now were Quay Brant, another US champion, and Abria Stepanov, their team captain from the Republic of Russia. They shouted his name, smiling, seemingly oblivious to any danger and soared him to the next apparation point. By now, none of the CIUM agents could keep up. They were left farther behind to defend any pursuit of the rebels. Only a few aurors could stay within meters of the quidditch professionals, and not for very long. This told Harry that the cloud of danger surrounding him was clearing as his friends got him closer and closer to home.
For once, since Dumbledore's death, he put his complete trust in other people and let his heart swell in appreciation. Asking for help, receiving help, being vulnerable like this, would've been a nightmare in any other situation. But he had no strength to be proud. This wasn't the time for it. He choked back tears as Quay and Abria waved maniacally. He got the feeling they were making sure he noted who they were before handing him off to his final apparation point.
When he saw Jasper Torres, his Spanish teammate, and Greg Von Greneger, the German who had at first hated him, then spent the rest of the season coming on to him, he was overwhelmed with gratefulness. The two pulled his capsule with their magic and hoisted him over skyscrapers and motorways. He only assumed that he was invisible to muggles and waited out this escort wishing that Snape could see it too. The mixture of gratefulness and grief churned like cement in his stomach and tried to hold it all in.
Greg flashed him a champion's smile outside the vehicle and blew him a kiss.
Harry chuckled at the crazy bastard, feeling his eyes burn with gratitude.
Iece was fully awake now and looking at him. Her face scrunched as if she wanted to cry and Harry realized that he didn't know when she'd last eaten. She didn't have the strength to cry. Her color was awful and rather than throw a tantrum at finding herself unable to move against him, she simply gave up and closed her eyes again.
"Hang on, baby. We're almost home."
He patted her, needing the comfort himself.
Bicksby's voice had been lost, but now it cut in again. "Get ready to decelerate. At the count of three, your vehicle will be stabilized in an underground facility."
Bicksby's count started and ended before Harry could really care. He kept his eyes on Iece's eyelids and watched her pupils rolling beneath them.
"My daughter needs a doctor," Harry blurted. In that same second, the GCG vehicle came to a stop.
"We have an emergency rescue staff standing by. Look up."
Sure enough, red lights stood out in the dark. It was two ambulances. He thought he'd been apparated into a tunnel, but the more he looked, the more he could see that it was an underground garage. Dark vehicles, decoy cars and unmarked sedans lined the cement walls. Agents stood by.
Harry felt his movement restrictions fall away. The see-through vehicle, comprised of holding spells, evaporated around him. His folded body was left sitting on the ground cradling Iece. Suddenly, agents in black were running towards them, helping him to stand, offering him things like water and protein bars. Harry swayed in their midst. This was met with alarm as one of them gently coaxed him to let go of Iece.
"We'll take care of her, sir. We can't linger here."
Harry tried to stand, but found it difficult with one arm broken and the other unwilling to let go of Iece. He couldn't give her to a stranger and they must've sensed this.
Now that the vehicle was gone, he could no longer hear Bicksby's guidance. Looking a little lost, he barely heard what the woman saying she was from the Ministry was explaining to him. There was only one person he wanted to see. He needed to see. Agents were trying to get him to wait for the stretcher being wheeled over to him and take Iece from him. Harry held onto her until he saw a uniformed rescue worker appear through the open doors of the ambulance. The blondest paramedic he'd ever seen. Draco looked convincing in the uniform and held his gaze as he walked up to Harry. Without breaking character, he leaned in and gently pulled Iece out of Harry's grip.
His glass-blue eyes reflected all that they had no time to say. Harry felt the kiss that Draco wanted to give him, as the opportunity passed them by. Instead, Draco made a point to get as close to Harry as he could without touching him, but to let him see the honesty and sincerity deep in his face.
"Thank you, Harry. Let me take her. When things are safe, you'll see us again. I'll take good care of her."
Agents were already separating them. As a security measure, there must've been a time limit for the plane and bodyguards awaiting them. Iece was too sick to withstand normal apperation, so now he understood what the extra binding and sealing spells were all about during their escape. She was being protected from stray magical influence. Snape had thought of that, Harry bet.
They pulled Draco away from him. Glancing over his shoulder like a boy caught staring, Draco quickly faced away, grim in his determination to make a new start. Harry watched them disappear into the back of the ambulance and didn't respond to the agent tugging on him to lie down on his own stretcher, until the ambulance lights were out of sight.
He trusted Draco. And now, hopefully, Draco knew that he could trust Harry, who would do anything for him and the family they'd created. He cooperated and gave in to the assistance around him.
He knew the drugs were coming and he welcomed the sedative that put him gently back in the melting cavern with Snape. If he had to say good-bye a second time, he would do so holding his teacher's hand. That dear wizard. He put himself back there, amid the destruction and that strange, alien lava that was the color of the queen's starlight. He stared into Snape's closed lids and mentally caressed his dark, smooth brow. This is how he said good-bye for the second time.
