Ch 16 Capturing the Island
As they went through the Floo network and then the Closet network in North America Cleo said to Al, "I have some of my childhood memories back, but also the last couple of days of great-grandmother's memories and some other memories and arcane knowledge. When we get to the island you need to levitate me, and as long as I am speaking or commanding by my presence you need to keep me levitated." She touched her new wand to Al's, then gave him a long passionate kiss, walking through the closet network all the while.
"Dad gave me a version of the Auror wallet," Albus replied. "It has my broom, shrunk, in it, and we can ride the broom."
Teddy and Dan VanLente were walking along side Al and Cleo, and right behind were Cleo's parents.
Within half an hour they were in the south of Florida. Cleo showed Al and a large contingent of Aurors where the island was, and said that a soon as she Apparated there she was going to take down the wards and they could come, and they all ought to come and to follow Teddy's and Al and Dan VanLentes' directions.
Teddy added, pointing to Cleo's parents, "Ann and Orwant Smith are also on our side. Listen to them as well."
Cleo said to the leaders, "You will see what I do and you will know what you need to do." Five hundred Aurors had been summoned from Asia, and Harry and Al had half of them sent to Florida. A few more had come after the All Auror alert, and instead of 1,000 total Aurors there were close to 2,000, a significant portion of all the Aurors in the world.
They Apparated to one intermediate island. Al and Cleo and Teddy looked at the map. Teddy pointed out where they maintained the wards surrounding the island. "Usually there are one or two witches or wizards there," Teddy explained. "I have heard of four when Jezebel Nukpana was very worried, but never any more. Look. There are a dozen people in the area tending the wards."
"I can still get there, and take down the wards," Cleo insisted.
"I can take out the twelve, although it's not going to be pretty," Al jumped in with. "As soon as the wards are down I will send a Patronus."
"We are coming with you," Cleo's father added.
"I'm going to fly up with Cleo, and she will Apparate us to the same height above the people maintaining the wards," Albus told the group.
"The wards will not keep out the holder of the Wand of Circe," Cleo added.
"I'll stay here with the map until I know the wards are down and others are on the island, then come to you two," Teddy noted.
Al took out his broom and enlarged it. Cleo sat in front, and Albus, on a raised seat so he could see, sat in back. Al took the broom up about twenty-five feet.
Cleo Apparated to the island, right to the place where the wards were maintained, the wards recognized her. As the current owner of the Island she could Apparate right through the wards. As soon as she was there, she began to take down the wards. Al meanwhile was doing something to the six witches and six wizards that were in the immediate area. Very quickly all of them were writhing on the ground in pain.
Cleo yelled, "Expecto Patronum," and her huge lioness appeared. "Tell Teddy and Al and Dan VanLente that the wards are down."
Albus told the witches and wizards lying on the ground in pain, "I have broken all your legs and arms. If you do not move, they are simple breaks and you should be able to be healed without much pain. If you try to move you will have intense pain, and it may last several hours until the medical staff can get to you. I also have all your wands."
"Hold on," Cleo told Al. He grabbed onto her again and she Apparated to the stage of a large auditorium. "Levitate me about twenty-five feet (8 meters) right here," Cleo told Al.
Al flew up to where Cleo wanted to appear. As soon as she was elevated, she put her wand to her throat to magnify her voice proclaimed, "SonorusMaximus" and then, "The wand of Circe has a new owner. Come and surrender your wands to the rightful owner of the island and your new queen. Do it now; the longer you wait the harder it will be on you. Do no torture or killing until I know who and why. The wand of Circe has a new owner. Surrender. Come here and pledge your allegiance to the new ruler of the island!"
While Cleo was making her announcement, almost one-thousand of the Aurors appeared on the island.
At that moment, a huge number of Dementors started to circle Cleo. Al and Cleo immediately produced their lion and lioness Patronus, and Al asked for help from the Aurors who were appearing around them. A number of Aurors rushed in, team after team producing Patronus for as long as they could. It was a good thing that new Aurors continued to make their way to the island, because before they were through over one-hundred Aurors contributed to the group of Patronus that were fighting with Cleo and Al against the Dementors.
About one-hundred witches and wizards came to the amphitheater with their wands raised. "Find anyone else," Cleo told Dan and the other Aurors. As soon as the other Aurors arrived, you could tell that some of the witches and wizards were not going to obey Cleo, but were going to fight. Dan and Teddy took charge, and while Cleo and Al were fighting the Dementors and Cleo was calling the residents of the islands, both at the same time, other Aurors were disarming willing witches and wizards.
Cleo suspended in the air she looked like a powerful goddess coming to claim her kingdom. There were about one hundred of the two hundred adult witches and wizards that were on the island present in the amphitheater, and Dan's group of Aurors collected about seventy wands. It was obvious that some of the people before Cleo were not going to give up their wands easily. Over two hundred of the thousand Aurors were around Al and Cleo. The group that was not producing Patronus was going through the crowd one person at a time taking the witches and wizards that were there away. As they were doing this, more Aurors came, so before they were done almost one thousand seven hundred Aurors were on island or guarding people who had been quickly taken off the island. As they did some of the other witches and wizards who had obeyed Cleo's summons began to clump together at one end of the crowd. Cleo looked at Al and in Elfish said, "stun them on three," and Cleo and Al's wands were pointed at the clump of about thirty and a fierce stunning spell went out from the wands. This was the opening that the other wizards needed, and about fifty of them went into the temporarily stunned crowd disarming them and securing them. In the end, two of that crowd tried to duel and both were quickly subdued.
Just as that was ending Teddy came bringing a pretty young woman and four children. Cleo and Al were still on the broom, and were still fighting the Dementors, but Teddy told the woman, pointing to Albus, "Stay close to Al."
"I need the knife of sacrifice," Cleo insisted, as Al flew down and they stepped off the broom. They were still fighting the Dementors as she said this.
Teddy replied, "I know where it is kept. I will go and get it." A short while later he was back, cautiously levitating an evil looking glass knife in front of him, being careful not to touch it.
"It needs to be destroyed," Cleo proclaimed. She said a spell to destroy the knife, but it did not work and everyone could feel an evil presence. The Dementors became frantic, and everybody thought that Dementors were coming from all over as soon as the knife was threatened. Teddy was one of the Aurors trying to have his Patronus keep the Dementors away, and he thought he could see a being not a Dementor come accompanying a group of Dementors. Cleo and Al together then tried to destroy the knife, but the evil presence only became stronger.
Then the evil presence that had taken great-grandmother was there in full force, so powerful that everyone there closed their eyes and tried to close their mind to the presence. Only Al and Cleo had their eyes open.
The presence proclaimed, "You cannot destroy that knife. It is thousands of years old. The Aztecs killed thousands, tens of thousands, with that knife. It has been used for human sacrifice for centuries, and it will not be destroyed."
At this moment all the Patronuses that had been protecting them were destroyed, and the Dementors began to descend on the crowd. There was what appeared to be an Ancient Magi coming with them.
"The Lord of the Dementors comes to help his Master," the figure that had once been a man moaned. "You are confronting powers far beyond your puny powers to confront."
Al then turned the Resurrection Ring three times and pled, "I call on all the powers of good to help us."
Cleo said in a frightened voice, "God help us, please!"
The Lord of the Dementors disappeared.
The evil presence shrank back, and three figures appeared, a man that looked like Harry, a beautiful red-headed woman with Al's green eyes, and a woman standing on the moon, surrounded by stars.
The woman had black hair, dark complexion, and dark brown eyes. She wore a Turquoise Mantel, a color that Cleo knew was reserved for the great god Omecihuatl of the Inca Indians. Great grandmother sacrificed her victims to this god of the Aztec's. The great god was a mother-father god, and this woman was representing herself as, if not the chief god, at least more powerful than the Evil Presence. She had the most compassionate face that Cleo had ever seen, and in the background you could see stars and angels around her, both symbols reminding her of the pagan rituals from great-grandmother's memories.
The woman walked over to the presence, who had become a serpent, and she stepped on its head. At this the presence disappeared.
"Who are you?" Cleo asked. "Are you Omecihuatl?"
The severe look from the lady was all Cleo needed to know that calling her Omecihuatl was blasphemy.
"Are you the loving mother Tonantzin, the snake goddess?" Cleo asked.
"I am not the snake goddess," the woman replied, more gently now. "I banished the snake. I am not a goddess, but AM called 'the mother of God.' I am a loving mother."
"Are you the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus?" Al wondered.
"Yes, Albus Severus Potter," the woman confirmed. Then turning to Cleo she added, "I am Our Lady of Guadalupe."
"Great Grandmother hated Guadalupe," Cleo gasped.
"Yes, she was a worshipper of the old gods, and of human sacrifice," Mary replied.
"How can you be a mother and be a virgin?" asked Cleo.
"You have heard the bible stories?" Mary asked.
"They never made much sense to me. So you were not married when you had Jesus?"
"I was married to Joseph when I had Jesus, but I was pregnant before we married."
"Oh, like me. And you only had one child?" asked Cleo.
"I had to raise nine older step-children," Mary replied.
"And you're a virgin? You didn't have sex? That's the best part of marriage," Cleo wondered.
"After you have been married a few years you will find that as good as sex is there are more important things in a marriage, like friendship and sharing your lives," Mary countered. "Besides, when you marry a much older man with some of the medical problems that old men get not having sex is not as hard as you might think."
Cleo had to think about this last statement. She had almost become Christian because of Albus, and because she believed in him, not because she had really understood or believed in the strange doctrines of that faith.
"So after seeing you I have to become a Christian?" asked Al.
"The devil knows and he does not believe," Mary countered. "If you are a believer, meeting me will reinforce your belief, but God does not force anyone to believe."
Al turned his attention to the man and other woman. "Are you my grandparents?" he asked.
"Yes," Lily replied. "Our love for your father and all his family, you included, lasts far beyond the grave. Christians call it the communion of saints. Just know that we are always with you. You are not to call us, but if you are confronting a beast from hell like you were today just ask for help and someone will help you."
Lily turned to Cleo and said, "Cleopatra, welcome to the Potter family. You are loved from beyond the grave."
"OH YES!" beamed the ever exuberant Cleo, and she held out her arms to hug the Potters, but a nod of Lily's head let Cleo know that they were not to be hugged.
James added, "We are very proud of both you. Tell Harry we love him."
All of a sudden, the vision was gone and time moved again. No one else had seen it, and there was no passage of time for everybody else. When they looked for the knife they found it had shattered into tiny pieces, so fine that is was finer than beach sand, powder really, and it was blowing away. Some number of the Dementors had vanished into the knife as it had shattered, screaming a deathly scream as they disappeared into the knife, and another number of them were fleeing the island. Within moments there were no Dementors left.
About ten of the Magi that had fought the Dementors had their hair turn white overnight, but other than that none of them were injured. None of the Aurors that had fought the Dementors were permanently emotionally injured, although it took most of them several days to get over the intense emotion of that part of the battle. All of this group of Aurors knew that Al and Cleo had fought against a powerful evil and had won, and all became vocal supporters of Al and Cleo.
Many of the other hundred enemy fought like banshees, and it took about four hours for all the witches and wizards to be collected and disarmed. Ten of the Aurors, including one of the Aurors from England, were killed, although none of the Aurors wearing armor were killed. Twenty of the hundred Magi on the island that did not come to the auditorium were killed. There were almost two hundred adult witches and wizards alive on the island or captured, most of them bad people but some captured or held against their will, and another hundred children or captured Muggles.
Finally, Albus and Cleo had a chance to sit down. If they thought they could rest, they were mistaken. Dan VanLente came up to Al and pled, "I know you were helpful healing Teddy. We have ten gravely wounded, curse wounds. Can you please come with me and help heal them?"
Teddy and the woman and children were with Albus and Cleopatra. He said, "I need to take these children back to England with me."
"Where are these children's parents?' Cleo asked.
It's complicated," Teddy explained. "These three are my children, and I need to bring them back and tell Victoria. The other one is a half-brother."
"How is Victoria going to handle this news?" Al wondered.
"I don't know," Teddy replied with a tremulous smile. "I may be asking if your healing can heal a marriage."
Al and Cleo went to the Magi hospital in Miami. It took about two-and-a-half hours to call help from the other side, one injured person at a time, and it was 8 o'clock English time before the three could start back to England. By 9:00 PM the four were back in England, met by Harry who said, "We have five badly injured at St. Mungo's, including Scorpius, that need your help."
It took until 10:15 PM before Al could get to Scorpius. In some way, this was going to be the hardest one. Who of Scorpius' ancestors could he call on? Who would help? Al finally turned the resurrection stone around three times and said, "Lord, help me find help for Scorpius. Help Scorpius and Rose. Help us help them. Please, Lord. We are so tired. We want to do Your will. Help."
Four individuals came striding out of the nothing towards Scorpius and Rose, Al and Cleo, and Harry. The first was a wizard who said in a booming voice, "Scorpius, you did an excellent job with my sword. You are a true Gryffindor. Our prayers and blessings are with you." It was obviously Godric Gryffindor. He was followed by a witch, Helena Ravenclaw, who said, "You would have done well in my house, Ravenclaw. Our world cannot afford to lose one as intelligent as you."
Helga Hufflepuff was next. She said, "You are going to do us all proud by bringing the houses together. You are going to be a hero to all the houses." She turned to Cleo and told her, "Any cook as good as you would have been excellent in Hufflepuff."
The last of the four ancients was Salazar Slytherin. He proclaimed, "The greatest mistake of my life was when I wanted only the pure of blood to be wizards. I have spent a thousand years slowly coming to regret the division I have caused our world. Scorpius, Rose, keep this memory, and let everyone know that I bless the marriage of the pure blooded Weasley and the most intelligent witch in the world today, Hermione Grainger-Weasley, and the marriage of Scorpius and Hermione's daughter Rose Grainger-Weasley."
Al saw his Potter grandparents comforting Rose, but the vision was soon over.
Albus and Cleo were exhausted. Ginny showed up and Harry and Ginny helped Al and Cleo back to the Potters New Burrow.
2022