TRIGGER WARNINGS: This chapter and the next several are the climax of Yr. 6. There are mentions of sexual assault (by the bad guys), and a fair bit of violence and gore. If that's fine with you, read on. If not, well... maybe skip what parts bother you.

As a reminder, you can find MORE of this on my SubStar (dot adult slash KajaWilder), it's posted up past chapter 50 there... And if you guys haven't seen an update in at least a week, please let me know! I have a busy life, and I get distracted and forget things. This story(as well as ZpoW and PTaL) are supposed to be updated WEEKLY!

And if you're just interested in discussing things with other readers, of course, you can go to my DISCORD here: h- t_ t_ p-s -: -/ -/ -discord . g-g / N9yDA8t6Cw (taking out hyphens, underscores, and spaces of course).

Chap. 78: The Calm Before

Harry woke up to pleasure, but it was not the kind he was so used to. There was no pretty girl sucking his cock, or outright riding him.

He was surrounded by bodies, warm and soft and comforting. Some were moving, some were still, but none were overtly moving against him in a sexual way. But still he was flush with contentment, joy, happiness.

It seemed... both a stark contrast, and vaguely inappropriate to feel so nice given how he distinctly remembered going to sleep: near tears, fraught with worry for Dumbledore, for their mutual futures.

Yet Harry could not find himself minding. He had been emotionally torn and ravaged by the events of the day prior. His calm while watching the Gaunt Hovel burn was, oddly enough, about the only part of the day he had enjoyed. There was just so much weighing on his mind.

His growing, and strange, relationships with all of his friends and lovers. Iris, the part of him that seemed to want to claw herself out all the time these days. Lilith, urging him to normalize ever-greater and more common debauchery (which, Harry quietly admitted to himself, he didn't mind so much). The Horcruxes, and how they might find and destroy the rest of the devilish things. The egg, whatever it was, that seemed so beautiful and full of radiance, yet was found in the darkest place Harry could ever remember seeing.

Dumbledore.

He had been so strong, so powerful. It left Harry in awe just watching him fight briefly with Voldemort at the Department of Mysteries the previous year. Watching him the day before had been mesmerizing, and it had opened Harry's mind to the possibilities of his own kind's magic in ways neither Hermione nor Lilith or any of their professors had yet managed to do. Now he lay, possibly dying, definitely maimed and mutilated, in the Hospital Wing.

None of which had anything to do, really, with his current state of contentment and joy. Well, his friends did, but they were the only thing.

He had been so upset the previous day, but his friends had been there for him. Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Lilith, Pansy, Daphne, Tracey, Hannah, Lavender, of course, but also Parvati and Padma, Astoria, Katie, Luna... They surrounded him now, just as they had the previous night.

He had fallen asleep on the couch in the common area of his quarters literally swathed in the tender, caring arms of a dozen lovers. Now he woke to even more, though most weren't touching him directly.

In addition to all those previously named, Susan Bones, Flora and Hestia Carrow, Su Li from Ravenclaw, and Fay Dunbar from Hermione's dorm had joined in somehow while he had slept like the dead.

Unusually, everyone was clothed and nothing indecent was going on, except for Ron sleepily, or perhaps he was actually still asleep, adjusting himself in his trousers.

Harry barely knew some of these people. Some were lovers, others only just becoming friends, and some he had known for what felt like his whole life. Certainly his real life, the one that had begun when he had learned he was a Wizard. It seemed a great hole had opened in him, the bastion of safety and strength that Dumbledore represented was caved in, revealing a dark, weak, and crumbling pit.

Of course, he knew the Headmaster was still alive. With the senses granted to him by his powerful bond with Lilith, Harry could sense the old man with barely more effort than he could his closest friends. He was hanging in there, struggling to survive, and the bright, shining, Phoenix-flame core of his soul shimmered below and to the southeast, where the Hospital Wing lay.

But that flame was a candle compared to the inferno it had been twenty-four hours earlier. That was why the bastion Dumbledore represented had collapsed: he was barely hanging on. Everyone, Harry included, knew that Hogwarts was only safe from Voldemort because the Dark Lord feared Albus Dumbledore's wisdom, knowledge, and might.

With the Headmaster so weakened... how long would it take him to strike?

Not long, Harry was sure, he still had enough spies in the castle for the rumor mill to let him know by day's end, if not earlier. After that, it was just a matter of time. Some esoteric guess on planetary alignments, or the thirty-third day from Dumbledore's fall, or some such on top of more practical, mundane preparations like mustering forces, perhaps would dictate when.

Or as soon as possible. Maybe he would come himself, with all of his currently mustered forces behind him. Harry snorted quietly into the warm room and murmured, "Or in front of him, anyway. Coward."

Several bodies shifted, but no one woke as he said it. Harry wasn't surprised. He had crashed fairly early, but distant, fleeting memories indicated they had surrounded him for a good portion of the night, up late talking.

Explaining to the newcomers what had happened, how, and why. At least, what they could.

Everyone knew Harry had a Succubus now, since the attack on King's Cross as the Yule break started, but now the people in the room also knew that Lyra Sendai was the same being.

He was alright with that. No one left, or protested. They had seen her fight on their behalf, after all, putting herself at risk and, essentially, single-handedly neutralizing a dragon to keep them safe.

Instead, they had thanked her, pulling the apparent half-Asian girl into one hug after another, until even she was blushing with embarrassment.

They supported him.

They cared.

It was that care and affection that filled the room, and gave Harry the pleasure he had not known he was truly missing for so long. Friendship, yes of course he knew what that was like now. Family too, or at least he was learning.

But he had not, until this moment, understood the depth and breadth the affection, care, and support his circle of friends had for him stretched to. They truly cared for him as much, and possibly even more, than he cared for them. It was...

Inspiring.

Humbling.

Even with the pit of shadow, and pain, and darkness, where Dumbledore's unassailable strength had once been, yawning wide in his mind's eye, there was just so much positive support surrounding it that Harry could not feel more than a tiny smidgen of those more negative feelings.

A flicker of consciousness brushed across his, and quietly, Lilith's voice entered his mind again, "That's what I've been surrounding the fragments in your scar with, more or less, Master. At least it's a close analog."

Harry considered it for a moment, imagining not just the love of friends, of family, and of lovers too, surrounding the hatred, loathing, and fear that was Voldemort's soul fragments, but passion too, burning hot and bright, the other emotions made manifest by it.

He imagined Voldemort's soul recoiling in pain, withering, flinching away, only to draw closer to another side. Always, endlessly trapped without escape. It made him smile, almost cruelly, though it was intended to be with amusement.
Yes, it was a fitting punishment.

Harry had learned so, so much about himself in the last year. About magic. About his connection with Voldemort. It was almost comically easy for him to reach into the magic that surrounded his scar, and slip through. The wall of vibrant, violet-pink energy he envisioned as Lilith's magic was like vapor, and he moved through it with no more difficulty than he would the morning fog.

The tiny fragments of black, viscous goo that were the remains of the fragment of Voldemort's soul did, indeed, seem to writhe in agony from what little his senses could show him. It was the same technique, in fact, that Lilith had taught Harry in the aftermath of the battle at King's Cross.

His friends were out there, dozens of them, many quite close. His own soul was here too, deep inside, filling his mortal body. Lilith's tether was as large as any, though it was of a different color than any of his friends or lovers'.

The tether to Voldemort from his soul fragments was still there, though it was tenuous and wavered constantly as the pieces of him that still survived, somehow (Harry could not exactly call it living) in his scar suffered.

Was this what it was like when Harry received dreams from Voldemort? How the wizard had contacted Harry, tormented him with dreams of the Department of Mysteries, of the Hall of Prophecy, where Harry had then been trapped and bound?

Harry didn't know, and didn't really care, either, if Voldemort could trace the connection as easily. But that was fine, he would get nowhere, not with Lilith blocking the way. However Harry himself could send his senses along the tenuous line, as though he were electricity moving along a wire. His consciousness, part of it anyway, zoomed outward over miles and miles. There were only the barest of hints of terrain, and the sky and land were not something he could sense at all like this. Instead, he saw population centers, occasional lines of souls moving about at rapid paces, though nowhere near as quickly as he was, along one highway or another, cities full of souls, and even those of animals.

He zoomed past one last city, out into fields and farmlands. Harry could find no way to track geography, but the moment he felt it, he knew where his consciousness was.

Wiltshire.

Outside it, at least.

Draco Malfoy's family home, still the residence of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy.

And, currently, that of Tom Marvolo Riddle.

The malevolence was tainted, twisted, filtered, and while it did sort of cause a twinge in Harry's scar even at this distance and through Lilith's wall of affection, love, and lust... it was different. Lilith had already told him and Dumbledore that she was feeding him lust and passion he was not equipped to deal with, having no concept of love.

What he felt was far more than her description had implied, though.

Voldemort was at war with himself. Some part of his body constantly ached for more passion and lust and satisfaction, while the rest recoiled in horror at the base needs that demanded, well, satisfaction. His need for conquest had turned from the world, and Harry in particular, to his own followers. He did not know whom he was satisfying those urges upon at the moment, and didn't want to, but Harry did know it was one of the Death Eaters, or at least someone he considered a servant.

But he also discovered that plans were formalized. There would be blood. Tonight, in fact. The thought of it drove Voldemort's lust even higher, and Harry grimaced at the echo of the tainted version of his own feelings. Whoever the Dark Lord was using was in for a rough time of it, not that he had that much sympathy if it was one of his loyal followers.

But that didn't mean Harry had to stand idly by, either. If there was something planned tonight, it was up to Harry to disrupt it as much as he could. It had always been up to Harry, but this time he found that he didn't mind. He eagerly relished the task of upsetting Voldemort's plans.

Again, it was shockingly easy. A single thought: Lilith, send me some of your emotions, please, I'm going to send them to someone else as a gift.

The floodgates opened, and Harry, this time, acted as little more than a conduit. Power, magical and emotional, cascaded through her own barrier like it was nothing. The magic and emotions were, after all, the same. They rushed over Voldemort's soul-fragments, and into them, where Harry went to work. Rather than allow them to be decimated, scourged and scathed away, Harry, through willpower more than anything else deliberate, sent the emotions hurtling outward, following the same track he had just gone down himself, pulling them toward where he sensed Voldemort.

Happiness, Joy, Contentment, Love, were all emotions Voldemort could not comprehend. He had no basis for them. Lust, Passion, Desire, he understood in some way, though they were twisted. It was those desires that had so distracted him, turned the Dark Lord away from his plans and dreams and ambitions for months.

For the first four, however, he had no comparison. At least, not Voldemort as he was now. Born of lust and desire yes, but also the product of a union spawned by a Love Potion where no love existed, he had no way to comprehend them. A misanthrope of the highest degree, a true malignant sociopath, Tom Marvolo Riddle simply could not process the emotions that he suddenly felt himself overwhelmed by.

They were foreign, alien, incomprehensible.

All he could truly understand in the first moments was that they were not his emotions, they were the boy's. Potter's.

Then he felt fear of Potter, for the first time since hearing the prophecy. But only for a moment, because even that most powerful of emotions, the one that in his darkest, most secret of hearts Voldemort knew was the one emotion that truly ruled him, was blasted away.

What was left in the passing of the wave of emotions was... different. Harry let himself move back up the tether, satisfied that his work was done for now.

Voldemort would recover, and likely quickly, but he would not be taking part in whatever bloodshed might happen this night. This night, his followers would be doing their work alone.

In the common area of the quarters he was assigned for the year, Harry's eyes opened, and shone pink-white for a moment before they faded to green. A satisfied, pleased smile opened with them, and he carefully went about shifting arms and legs off of himself so he could rise and shower. He had work to do this day, and not all of it involved spending time with his friends.

Voldemort had plans for the day, and even being incapacitated would not stop his followers from carrying out what they could. He would have to be ready. The school would have to be ready. On his way to the shower, Harry stopped briefly to touch the shoulder of a pretty red-haired girl he wished he had gotten to know a bit better this year, and shook her awake, "Susan. Susan, wake up. Sorry- I know you're sleepy."

"Whazsat...?"

"Susan."

"Oh. H- Harry? What're you- why am I- oh. Oh. Is it... um... do you need to...?" Susan Bones blushed as deeply red as her hair, which was darker than even Ginny's.

He only smiled kindly, "No. When you're ready for that, not me. I need a favor though, yes. Can you get in contact with your aunt's old friends in the D.M.L.E.? Tell them I have information on Voldy?"

Susan's soft eyes widened in sudden alarm and she bolted up on the couch where she lay half-sprawled over Hannah and Lavender, her legs on her best friend's lap, "Of course, Harry. What is it?"

"Voldemort's got plans to do something today. I don't know exactly what, but I know it's supposed to be bloody. She just needs to have as many trustworthy people at the ready as she can. Maybe a few in Hogsmeade, because I have a feeling he'll send people here, too."

"Okay," Susan agreed at once, and pushed upright, "But if he thinks we're going to just roll over for a few Death Eaters just because we're students still, that wanker has another think coming."

Harry watched, grinning widely as he watched the curvy Hufflepuff storm from the quarters, "I really need to talk to her about that contract, she's damned sexy riled up."

Then he shook his head and headed for the shower in what was now Pansy and Astoria's room. He had to meet Dumbledore as soon as possible, too. Hopefully he would be awake and able to communicate.

In a certain manor house outside Wiltshire, a certain artificially created body writhed in agony as its eyes shone with blinding, blue-white-pink light. Bellatrix Lestrange was nearby, clutching her arm as she shrieked in pain, where a similar light blasted through and out of the Dark Mark tattooed on her flesh. Semen streaked across her cheek where her lord and master had just come to a sudden and abrupt climax mid-way through her customary morning blowjob, but all she knew was agony far worse than even His Cruciatus Curse could inflict.

She had been touching him when it happened. When his magic, his soul, his very being, had recoiled from itself in dreadful pain and fear. Backlash had ripped into her, too, and the Dark Mark, a tether she alone among all his followers knew linked her soul to his, had reacted most strongly. Thankfully for one Bellatrix Lestrange, she passed out from the pain shortly after.

Voldemort, no longer human, had no such defense. Emotions that were the very anathema to his entire existence washed through him, surrounded him, infused him... and there was no escape.

It seared, it burned, and he could not pass out, could not flee, could not find the focus and will to control emotions he had never once experienced.

So he suffered, it was all he could do.

More than half a nation away from Wiltshire, twenty-seven Death Eaters (three by three by three equaling twenty-seven, and thus both a powerful magical number as well as a useful size for a raid) clutched their arms in sudden pain, wondering why their master was calling them. Only it was not, they soon realized, the same sort of pain as he would use. No, this was the pain of something many of them had felt at some point in their lives, but was mostly unrequited, if for a variety of reasons.

The lust, well... they were used to having that satisfied, especially these days. Rape had long been a tool of criminals and terrorists the world over, and the Death Eaters were hardly an exception. Their leader checked a timepiece even as some of the rest of the team sent knowing glances to each other. They had just ten minutes. Not enough time for any real fun, "Nah, keep it together, lads," Walden MacNair growled, "There'll be time enough to get yer peckers wet with the targets of this little party we're throwin'. Maybe the Dark Lord just sent us a little gift, some extra stayin' power, eh?"

There were many dark, hungry chuckles, "Why wait, though?" one asked.

MacNair grunted. That was a good question. He glanced at his watch again, "Well, I don't s'pose the Dark Lord needs it to happen at five exactly... Besides, we gotta have time to pick out our targets before the real fun starts, right? Go ahead and Apparate to your assigned spots, find your targets. Five more minutes an' we move. Go!"

He was among the first of the series of pops as twenty-seven Death Eaters, men and women both, vanished from their staging area outside of Inverness.

The Hospital Wing was nearly silent as Dumbledore stared deeply into Harry's eyes. The Headmaster's gaze was clear, though they were as watery as the younger wizard's own, "You must, Harry. It is the only way."

"But why? I don't understand."

"You will. The soul must perish, or he will never fully be gone from this world. That includes the one- the pieces within you. As long as they exist there is a danger..."

Harry swallowed, "But he's contained, that bit anyway, if we can finish the rest..."

"For now. He is contained for now. As long as your Succubus, Miss Lilith, is there to contain him. But what happens if he is 'vanquished', and her Contract is fulfilled, and she leaves? What then?"

Harry drew in a sharp breath. He had not considered that.

Part of him had been hoping that simply by destroying the Horcruxes and Voldemort's body that Lilith would be able to remain with the soul pieces trapped in his scar.

But that would, in essence, be vanquishing, defeating, the Dark Lord even without killing the last bits. He would, at least there was a possibility, still be a threat.

"Could you risk unleashing him upon the world, returning again, knowing it would put you and your friends in danger once more? I know she is precious to you. I know what she means to you and your growing family. But can you risk that? That is what I have always meant by the greater good, Harry. Sometimes the needs of the few must be sacrificed for the needs of the many. It is harsh... but it is necessary."

The young man swallowed, and nodded.

It was, indeed, harsh. But he could see the reasoning. He understood, "So... the Ring, the Diary, they're destroyed."

"Which leaves the Cup of Helga Hufflepuff, the Locket of Salazar Slytherin, the Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw's, Nagini, we suspect, the shards within your scar..."

"And his body's piece," Harry finished, "Which means he's actually got eight."

"Which is not a magically powerful number, no," Dumbledore smiled wanly as he lay in the hospital bed, clearly exhausted. He still looked better than Harry had thought he would, "Though of course it does not diminish his strength, only the tenacity of each piece's hold on the world, I suspect."

Harry nodded, "Do we know, or have any ideas, where the Diadem, Cup or Locket might be?"

Dumbledore sighed, and looked down his body at the empty spot where his leg should have been, then back up at Harry, "I had hoped our next excursion would be to a certain sea cave where I think the Locket might have been kept. I don't know that I will be up for swimming, however. I may need to take you to the location when I am back on my fe- on my foot, and allow you and Lilith to do the rest. Perhaps with other friends as well, just in case."

"I see your attempts at humor haven't gained any traction in your recovery," Harry rolled his eyes, but he still smiled down at his mentor, glad that he was trying to joke still, "So the cave he mentioned taking his, whatever you want to call them, early victims, tormentors, the kids he was in the orphanage with?"

Dumbledore nodded, "The same. I found it near the end of the summer break, but only recently confirmed it was the actual cave he once tortured his fellow orphans in, yes. The echo of his magic there is... considerable. As for the Cup... I'm afraid I have no idea. I was actually hoping to pick your brain on the matter, as you know him perhaps better than I do."

Harry sat back, still unused to being in the visitor's chairs, and even more unused to being in the Hospital Wing without Madam Pomfrey hovering close. But she had listened to Dumbledore's request for some privacy while they talked, so she was busying herself in her office, "I... I don't know. There's just so many places. Places important to him... You checked the orphanage?"

"A business park, now, with no traces of the magic remaining. I do not think that is one such place."

Harry frowned thoughtfully for a few more seconds, "I wonder if I could maybe... trace them back."

"What do you mean...?"

So he explained to the Headmaster what he had found and learned that morning, about how he had followed the tether of the Horcrux to the remainder of Voldemort's soul, and sent what he hoped were most punishing feelings down the line. When he finished, Dumbledore was wheezing with laughter, one hand on his chest as he fought to suppress a cough, "That... that is most excellent, Harry. I had envisioned something similar when we discussed perhaps weaponizing your connection to both he and Lilith, but that... that is far more than I had hoped for. You continue to impress and astound me at every turn. But..."

"But?"

"I do not know," he finished after a moment's thought as he finished getting control of his breathing, "that it would be enough to find a Horcrux. You would know better than I in this case, certainly. It may well be."

"Still, we aren't hopeless, I suppose. We know his patterns, if nothing else. He trusted a very few with them, after all. Just Lucius Malfoy, and... who else would he trust?"

"While Voldemort has often displayed trust in Malfoy Senior, he has always, always, trusted Bellatrix Lestrange more than his other followers, for her devotion is the most obvious and intense."

Harry nodded, "That makes sense. Well, we know Malfoy had a Horcrux in the Diary. He may not have known what it was, but he was still trusted with one. If he trusted Bellatrix more... would she know?"

"Perhaps," Dumbledore conceded, "but he keeps her close these days. She may participate in this... trouble you mentioned, but she may not. If she is vulnerable, we can only hope the Aurors are able to capture her alive. Which seems unlikely, given her sheer ability and cunning."

Harry grimaced, "Yeah... she is pretty slippery. Still... where would she put it to hide it?"

There was something there, something niggling at the back of his brain, but Harry could not put his finger on it. Something important.

Something...

"Most secure place... Sir, the most secure places to hide something, I've always been told, were Gringott's... and Hogwarts."

Dumbledore's eyes widened along with his mouth, "I suspect Diadem is here, in the Castle, and- and- yes, that fits. Gringott's, the impressive facade, the size of it, its placement within Diagon Alley... it would be a powerful symbol of the Wizarding World to an orphan who started with nothing. A symbol of magic, of wealth, of power."

"It's there," Harry said with certainty, "Now we just have to find out how to get it."