XXIII. The Master of Death
Harry
I was quietly released from my cell and Siobhan O'Reilly and the other Aurors took me back to the Auror Office.
"What is he doing here?" said one of the Aurors, who I recognised as Albion Stark.
"He told us that Rookwood wasn't at The Holt, Albion," said O'Reilly.
"What game are you playing at, Potter?" Stark asked me suspiciously.
"No game," I replied. "If I wanted to escape, do you really think I couldn't?"
"We need to inform the Minister's Office," Stark said.
"No," I replied. "We can't."
"Why not?"
"I don't know how high this goes," I said. "But I believe there's a double agent here. Someone in the Ministry is working with Rookwood. If they have access to the Minister, then he's in danger."
I paused.
"And I can't rule out that Kingsley could be under the Imperius Curse."
Stark thought for a moment, and then nodded.
"Fine," he said. "We do it your way – for now."
I gave him a surprised look.
"You lead us to Rookwood. We'll take it from there."
"No," I disagreed, "You said we'd do this my way."
"You're surrounded by Aurors and you don't have the Elder Wand. I could put you right back in that cell, Potter."
"Enough," O'Reilly interjected. "We should do it his way, Albion."
Stark raised an eyebrow.
"I don't trust him. I don't trust the Department of Mysteries. But somehow he knew Rookwood wasn't at The Holt," she explained, then looked at me. "That gets you some credit, Potter."
Stark sighed. "How would you go about this, then, Potter?"
"We need to find Rookwood and the double agent," I replied.
"That much is obvious," the Auror said with a smirk.
"Where are the Aurors that thought they'd taken Rookwood to The Holt?" I asked.
"They're–"
A pealing alarm suddenly blared throughout the Auror Office, interrupting Stark. The Aurors immediately leapt into action.
"What's–" I began.
"A safehouse has been compromised, Potter," O'Reilly said. "Stay here."
She was already flinging Floo powder into a nearby fireplace. Around her, other Aurors were activating Portkeys. I had to admit, it was impressive to watch.
And then, they disappeared, leaving me with a couple of trainees.
"Can you do something for me?" I asked.
The Auror trainee gave me a look of slight terror. "Ah, sure."
"Get me Neville Longbottom."
About fifteen minutes later, O'Reilly re-emerged from the fireplace.
"Come with me, Potter."
"What's the story?" I asked.
"I think you need to see this for yourself."
We went through the Floo line, and arrived in the MLE safehouse. I stepped out of the fireplace to see a couple of Aurors attending to two prone figures lying on the floor. Both looked so young.
"We've lost two trainees," O'Reilly said sadly. "And a Hitwitch."
I nodded grimly.
"Some of the Holyhead players were brought here earlier." O'Reilly said.
A sudden chill went down my spine.
"Ginny Weasley?" I asked.
O'Reilly paused as Stark and another Auror, John Proudfoot, joined us.
"She's been taken," Stark confirmed. "We'll have to inform the Deputy Minister."
I set my face in an emotionless mask. There would be time for anger later. If I wanted to find her, to save her, I needed my mind clear.
I made my way upstairs and took a look at the room that Ginny had stayed in for the few hours before she had been captured. There were no signs of a struggle.
"She was likely Stunned in her sleep," O'Reilly said, and I nodded. There was no way Ginny would've given in without a fight if she was awake.
"Potter, have you seen this?" Proudfoot said, sticking his head around the door. I followed him around the corner, where a message was written on the hallway wall in blood.
I OPEN AT THE CLOSE
I froze, shocked. Only a handful of people in the world knew about the Golden Snitch and its significance.
Then, I realised. This was their endgame.
"I know where they are," I said grimly. The Aurors looked at me in shock as I made my way out of the hallway.
"Where, Potter?" Stark asked, as I took the stairs two at a time.
"Scotland."
Only a couple of lights shone from the castle when we arrived at Hogwarts: me, Neville, and a group of Aurors. Stark had made me promise that if Rookwood was here, he was to be captured alive. I thought of X and Y and decided that some promises were meant to be broken.
"Good luck, Harry," whispered Neville, clasping my shoulder.
"And to you too," I replied. "Remember the signal."
"I will."
"Potter," O'Reilly said. I met her gaze, and she tapped two fingers to her forehead – the Auror's salute. I returned the gesture and she nodded. No words were needed.
Again, I walked into the Forbidden Forest, following the path that was scarred into my memory. I would remember every step for as long as I lived.
My mind reeled as I went over the events of the last few hours in my mind. For the first time I realised how exhausted I actually was. From the battle with the Inferi, to the Death Eaters in the Stadium, the fight had sapped my strength. Yet once again I was walking into a war.
I needed a desk job.
The clearing was approaching. I could sense the sudden absence of nature in this small patch of earth, totally devoid of the light.
I stepped through the trees and into the clearing. A sinister fog blanketed the ground and swirled around my feet.
"He's 'ere!" one of the Death Eaters exclaimed.
Immediately, wands were pointed at me from every direction.
"Do not harm him," instructed a guttural voice. "But take his wand."
Hands tore at my robes, searching for any weapons.
"He ain't got one," another reported.
"Smart…or very, very stupid," the guttural voice cut through the fog. "Bring him."
I was roughly shoved forwards, and a robed and hooded figure emerged from the dark fog.
And then my fears were confirmed. It was V.
"You," I said, my voice even.
"Me," V replied, with a look of satisfaction crossing her features.
"How did you know about the Snitch?" I asked.
"I know all about the Hallows, Harry."
Her expression grew bitter.
"In the Department of Mysteries, it was my business to know things," she said. "But I was a double agent from the very beginning."
She spoke with the same guttural tone I had heard earlier.
"I couldn't believe it when I was read in to Operation Wrath of Merlin," she continued. "There you were. Ripe for the slaughter. The orphanage was my idea, of course. I knew you wouldn't be able to resist vengeance. I manipulated the intelligence so you would seek out the Death Eaters."
"I wanted to see what you could do, and you didn't disappoint," she went on. "But after you'd killed thirty-four Death Eaters, I needed some reinforcements. So I helped Creedy break Augustus out. The two of them had worked on a weapon to end magic for the Dark Lord – long before it became the Ministry-sanctioned Nostradamus Light. I was able to give them enough information to fill in the missing pieces. Creedy successfully created a replica, even if the effect wasn't permanent."
"I did not foresee you escaping the Pit," she continued. "When you did, surely, I thought, you would not prevail against the Inferi. Yet again I was proven wrong."
"You are truly unique," V said. "Truly the Dark Lord's equal. But it cannot help you now. You have lost this war."
V waved her hand, and the fog swept away to reveal a figure lying prone on the cold ground. It was Ginny.
A baleful red orb hovered above her comatose form. Bathed in the red light, she somehow still looked deathly pale.
"We have made some modifications," V said, the smirk returning to her face. "This Light is going to kill her. Very slowly, and very surely, she is going to die as the magic is leeched from her."
"You are not so blinded by your rage that you cannot feel," V said, her eyes gleaming. "Much of you reminds me of X and Y, but you are still your own man. I know you still love her, Harry. So knowing that you cannot save the one you love – despite all the power you possess – that is what will hurt you the most."
"This was Dumbledore's burden to bear his entire life. It is not a burden you will bear for long, but you too, will die knowing she is dead."
A score, if not more, of wands were pointed at me. No Phoenix. No Sword.
"But I am willing to offer you a chance, Harry," V said, holding out her hands. "The Resurrection Stone, in return for the life of the one you love. I know the Stone lies somewhere within the Forbidden Forest. I know that you could find it."
"You think you can bring Voldemort back," I said bitterly. "But the Stone won't work that way. Of all the Hallows, it's the most flawed."
"You're not wrong," V nodded, almost approvingly. "But there is other magic – in the darkest arts once lost to the ages – that with the help of the Stone will return the Dark Lord's power to me."
I stood there, silent. I could not make this choice. I could not empower this traitor with Tom Riddle's power.
"Do you know why we are here, Harry?" V asked, then answered her own question. "We are here because his energy still resides in this clearing. He stood, as I do now, at this very spot. I watched as he killed you. I watched as Narcissa lied to him. She will pay for that betrayal – the Dementor's Kiss, I think."
She paused, revelling in the moment.
"Here, the Dark Lord was at his strongest. Here, you died. In that moment, he was unstoppable."
And it was then I realised her mistake. I lifted my head, and spoke a single word:
"No."
She let out a short, barking laugh.
"This clearing is mine, not his," I said. "What you don't understand, what you will never understand, is that this clearing was my victory."
V narrowed her eyes, and smirked again.
"Alright, Potter, say I indulge your delusion. Tell me how."
"Because I chose to come back," I said, my voice still quiet. "I didn't have to, but I did. For every move you made, every step you've been ahead of me, this was one you didn't foresee. By choosing to reckon with me, here, you've lost."
"I don't believe you."
"The magic in this clearing," I replied simply. "You feel the stench of death. You feel it just as I do, just as any person who has killed would–"
"What's your point?" V interjected.
"It's not Tom Riddle's magic," I replied. Now it was my turn to smirk. "It's mine."
"You're lying," she spat.
"On the first anniversary of the final battle, I came here," I said. "I came back to this place. It reeked of him. You're right – his energy did linger here. But I removed it."
"This is the Dark Lord's magic!" V replied, her voice rising.
"There's a reason it feels that way," I replied cooly. "I was the eighth Horcrux. I was the one he never intended to create. When he killed me here, it was not me that died, but that eighth part of him. But I know Tom Riddle's power. And I will never forget what that felt like."
"Impossible!"
"Yet here I stand," I said, with a bitter laugh. "This place will do nothing for you – even with the Resurrection Stone."
V looked at me with rage in her eyes.
"For all your efforts, V, for all your scheming, for all the lives you threw away, just for this moment, you didn't account for one crucial thing."
I paused, feeling the sensation of my magical energy flowing through me.
"Death bows to no Master…but me."
I had come to the Forbidden Forest, once again, to face the evil that Voldemort had spawned. But this time, I had not come without company.
"NOW!" I yelled.
Sure, they weren't X and Y, but I had to hand it to them: the Aurors could bring in the firepower. The two closest Death Eaters to me were struck by multiple green jets of light before they could even react. And then, as cover fire rained down around him, Neville Longbottom appeared from under my Invisibility Cloak, sprinted through the clearing, and threw the Elder Wand to me. I wrapped my hand around the wand and its power joined with my own.
With two quick strikes, I blasted an oncoming Death Eater into pieces. A livid bolt of magical energy cut down another. The Aurors were entering the clearing now, engaging in pitched battle with the Death Eaters.
And then there he was.
Augustus Rookwood.
Suddenly, nothing else mattered.
Bolts of dark energy erupted around us as we duelled, both desperately trying to gain the upper hand. For every curse cast, there was an answer. I countered. He parried.
I unleashed a wave of livid fire, and he shielded himself against it with a blue aura. He unleashed a series of complicated wand strokes, launching a stream of curses. I parried, blocking several, but two caught my shoulder, leaving a deep jagged cut. I gritted my teeth, blocking out the biting pain, and returned fire with a blasting spell that had him stumbling.
He was mine.
I shot a jet of purple light that collided into his chest. He doubled over, desperately trying to shield against my next curse.
It didn't work.
With a flick of the Elder Wand, I shattered the bones in his wand arm, and it fell limply to his side as he yelled in pain. With another strike, I slashed him open from shoulder to waist and he stumbled to the ground.
Another Death Eater rushed at me in a futile effort to save Rookwood. I ducked his hex, and then blasted him across the clearing. Rookwood desperately tried to clamber away as I approached. I shot a stream of Fiendfyre into his chest, and he writhed in agony on the dead earth.
"That was for Fred."
Then, I fired a brilliant bolt of lightning from my wand, and blew a gaping hole through his head as the flames engulfed him. Augustus Rookwood was no more.
With the Elder Wand, I was once again the Master of Death.
Suddenly, an explosion rocked the clearing, and sent me tumbling to the ground. Black magic convulsed around me as I returned to my feet to face V. She had the same ferocity as X and Y, and not an ounce of restraint. A livid tongue of dark energy shot out at me, and I countered with a torrent of golden light that blasted from the Elder Wand like a shotgun.
Like my duel with Rookwood, for every curse of mine, she had an answer. She launched a flurry of purple hexes at me, and I dodged and sidestepped to avoid them. Two more curses followed. My shield held against the first, but the second curse slashed across my leg, creating a vicious wound. I yelled in pain, and threw up another shield to block V's next hex.
Blood was gushing from the wound, and then a stabbing pain blossomed in my thigh as the dark magic took hold, beginning to dissolve the flesh around the wound. I fell to my knees with another cry of agony. Black spots appeared before my eyes. If the pain continued, I was going to pass out.
I clenched my teeth together, and ignited the tip of my wand with Fiendfyre. Steadying my hand, I plunged it into my leg, cauterising the wound instantly.
"I don't suppose you'd like to try that again, Potter?" V said, watching with sadistic amusement. Her wand was still trained on me.
"Get fucked, bitch."
V launched a rushing torrent of Fiendfyre at me. I gestured with my left hand, and brought the lethal tongue of flame under control, reducing it to a mere spark, before relaunching it back at her with new livid intensity. As she struggled against the Fiendfyre, I took the opportunity to get back to my feet.
"Would you like to try that again?" I asked.
With a snarl, she dispelled the Fiendfyre and riposted with black lightning. I cast inky black lightning to meet her own. The lightning exploded in a colossal burst of dark energy.
"You can't win, Potter!" V said. "Every moment you delay, she comes closer to death!"
Her words jolted me. I took a breath, and once again felt the power of the Elder Wand connect with my own.
With another yell, I unleashed a series of lighting bolts at her. The barrage of blazing light drove V backwards. For the first time, I had the advantage. With the Elder Wand, I drew a circle of blindingly bright magical energy. Brilliant white light exploded from the glowing circle and blasted through her like a force of nature, brushing aside her shield as if it didn't exist.
When the haze cleared, she was struggling to stand.
"That was for X," I said. This is for Y."
I shot a bolt of vicious red lightning that engulfed her, and she fell to the ground again, writhing about as the dark magic charged through her body. With two quick stabs of my wand, I broke her wand hand and her right forearm. She gave a hoarse cry of pain, and coughed blood.
"Potter…"
Her breathing came in laboured gasps, but there was a triumphant gleam in her crazed eyes.
"Just as the Dark Lord split his soul seven ways to create his Horcuxes, he entrusted seven of his most loyal to protect his legacy. I am not the last of us...they will hide away for years. You may never find them, but from them you cannot hide."
"You don't think I can stop you?" I asked grimly. "Tell me who they are!"
I could not interrogate the dead. With Legilimency, I broke into her mind, desperately searching. Names flitted across her consciousness. Lucius Malfoy. Augustus Rookwood. Severus Snape.
"He betrayed us," V said, her voice harsh. Then, with the last of her strength, I was violently expelled from her mind. I stumbled backwards.
"You cannot save me for your torture, Potter," she replied. A thin trickle of blood ran from her nostrils, and she bared her teeth in a final gesture of defiance. "It is my will to die."
Her left arm shakily rose from her side, as if by its own volition, and her hand formed a claw surrounded by a black aura.
I realised too late.
The claw-like hand plunged through her chest and pierced her heart as she gave a final, grotesque scream.
Cutting through the chaos of the battle, a single thought suddenly resurfaced, flooding my senses.
Ginny. She was dying.
I got to my feet, gritting my teeth against the pain from my burning leg, and stumbled to where she lay. Siobhan O'Reilly and another Auror were already there.
"We can't stop it, Potter," O'Reilly said. "It's killing her."
The Nostradamus Light hovered above her body like a leech, giving off a foul, pulsating glow. Ginny's face was drawn and her eyes, eerily open, looked devoid of anything.
I had nothing. I had no one to give me an answer. I didn't know how I had overcome the effects of the Light when I was in the Pit. I couldn't save her. I recalled what Kingsley had told me about the Nostradamus Light.
It is the magic against magic itself. The perfect weapon. There is no spell, no curse, no charm that can destroy the Light.
But perhaps there was.
"Get back," I instructed the Aurors. "Cast your strongest shields."
Magical energy crackled through the air as they complied. I clenched the Elder Wand in my fist. A lesser wand would fail. But with the Elder Wand, maybe I had a chance.
A tongue of Fiendfyre sparked into life from the tip of my wand, leaping about, feeding off my doubt, my uncertainty, my fear.
X's words came to me: Control it.
"Expecto Patronum," I whispered. The flame steadied, and grew.
"Expecto Patronum!" I repeated, emboldened.
The tongue of flame brightened to an intense, blinding white light. The same power that I had felt at Holyhead flooded through me again and the pain of my wounds receded. I pointed my wand at the Nostradamus Light.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
Fiendfyre and the Patronus Charm, the dark and the light, but both unrelenting magic. Unified, I had used them to destroy the Inferi horde. Now I would try and use it to save Ginny.
My eyes closed shut as pure magical energy – bright as the midday sun – exploded through the clearing. I could not see it, but I could feel the Nostradamus Light fighting against me. It was not an evil magic, but rather a vast empty void with an insatiable hunger. My body shook as bolts of energy coalesced around me. This power I had somehow brought to being was not something I could sustain for long. The empty void grew wider, threatening to engulf me as the power of the Nostradamus Light encircled me.
And in that void, I gave a yell of defiance, and struck back at the emptiness, again and again and again. Magical energy clashed in a gargantuan struggle.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Once more, I gave cry.
The titanic energies had reached a critical point. I faced the cold void, and released the last of my control. The result was cataclysmic. Bright energy exploded in every direction as I expelled what was left of my strength. An unearthly shriek filled my senses as the void was torn apart. A shockwave of energy burst through the clearing, knocking the Aurors to their feet.
I opened my eyes. The bright light was fading away. The furious energy was gone, and the renewed power I felt gone too. The pain of battle blossomed anew, and this time, my fatigue was total. But I was victorious. The Nostradamus Light was no more.
Only pale moonlight remained.
I knelt next to Ginny, and lifted her head, brushing back the hair from her face.
"Come on," I said, my breathing laboured. "Wake up, Ginny."
Around us, the Aurors were returning to their feet. I could hear the bark of sharp orders.
"Wake up, please," I said. "Please, Ginny."
She gave a sudden gasp, and I saw the light return to her eyes. Then, my exhaustion overwhelmed me, and I fell to the ground beside her.
A/N: Please let me know what you think! Thanks to all those who reviewed.
