As a reminder, you can find MORE of this on my SubStar (dot adult slash KajaWilder), it's posted up past chapter 110 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).

NOTE: Yes, this chapter's a bit shorter than most (just 3.5k words). Sorry, it's the only decent place I had to break it up. Does a decent job representing the staccato, fast pace of a climactic battle though, I think. ;)

Chap. 81: Shelter (in the Knight)

From the snow flurries that shouldn't be there in the first week of May, to the hair waving from that Ravenclaw girl's shoulders as she turned and ran from the monsters, to Sirius' wand which once had been so very fast to Harry, everything, everything Harry could see was just happening so slowly. His own feet felt like they were mired in treacle as they pounded down the hallway toward his Godfather blasting through the air, the students, and the spellfire they narrowly avoided. Harry's wand was moving too, coming up to cast something, anything, but he was just... too...

Slow.

All his years of practice, of fighting to survive first Vernon, then Dudley and his friends, and every year so far at Hogwarts, had honed his reflexes to be the equal of any in the Castle. They all seemed to be worth nothing. His wand would just not move fast enough, though his mind raced at ten thousand kilometers an hour. He actually felt a bit like he imagined Hermione did most of the time, his brain far outstripping his body's ability to act, as it calculated trajectories and speeds, angles of attack and approach, how to dodge this spell, when he would need to cast a Protego shield to deflect that orange curse, and guard Lilith from being struck.

Nott's hulking body, whatever he had transformed into, blocked much of the wide, well-used corridor, so Harry could not effectively see or protect the nine students on that side. Most were fleeing, though, and both the beast and vampire were looking between he and Sirius rather than the innocent bystanders. That was good, wasn't it?

They would probably be safe.

Still in slow motion, Sirius' most recent cast, a beam of incandescent yellow, lanced against the gray, scaly shoulder of Nott's right arm. What happened was anything but what Harry expected. Rather than injure, or make Nott flinch, or recoil, or do much of anything, the light simply blasted apart into a dazzling array of sparkling colors that dimmed as they exploded outward, leaving not so much as a mark. Nott didn't even seem to register that he had been struck. It was in that moment that Harry realized why Sirius, who was quite a competent duelist as far as he knew, had been helpless.

None of the spells he had cast had missed Nott, but none of them did any good, either. It was as if he were totally immune to spells, for every color of light Harry had seen his Godfather send the monster's way had rebounded, reflected, or refracted into glistening light... with no effect.

"Harry, no, get out of here!" Sirius shouted as he sent a quick glance their way while he struggled at a snail's pace to his feet. Somehow, the words seemed to come as quickly as Harry's mind was moving, but his body was just not.

The Vampiress moved next, her white- and yellow-crusted mouth opening wide into another cruel, long-fanged snarl as she threw herself forward toward Harry. Like a torpedo or a missile, she propelled herself over sixty or more feet through the air in a single bound, with long, bloody nails outstretched toward his throat.

He was too slow, too late, too...

"Impedimenta!"

The word had sprung from his throat on instinct alone, somehow. Harry, his mind still in overdrive, had a moment to admire the attractive figure of the vicious, bloody killer before she bounced backward down the hall away from him. As she sailed through the air, he was reminded that she was not all that attractive from the rib-cage down, where her abdomen was abnormally stretched and wide, and her pelvis warped and shaped, while her cunt was, even now, wide enough to accommodate a small child's whole body much less a baby's.

A quick glance, for Harry's eyes alone seemed to move at the proper speed, told him Nott's humongous, misshapen dick was covered in old blood and semen too. He had been using her for pleasure, then, after his body had killed and then ruined Vicky.

He fought the urge to vomit at the imagery of the poor girl, one of Ginny's dorm-mates, a sweet enough young lady and pretty cute, literally ripped apart by that thing, far larger than Harry would ever try to use on a woman.

The Vampiress landed on her feet somehow, twisting her body in mid-air to skid against the flagstones of the hall. She lunged again, and Harry recast the spell, but her attack had not come straight for him, and it missed entirely. She was so fast! To the right, around his barrier, the woman glanced against a suit of armor, toppling it to the ground as she kicked off it with one leg, and the other, almost clawed like a harpy's, shoved away from the window-frame nearby.

Her trajectory shifted, and Harry twisted his own body to try and dodge as she reached for him with blinding speed again. Too slow, far too slow.

Nott was lifting a huge, meaty paw to smash it down onto Sirius, who was wide-eyed, his wand flashing at breakneck speed but just too slow, too useless against Nott's hide, which seemed to glitter in the unseasonable, unnatural snow, unable to help himself, unable to protect himself.

Just as Harry was unable to protect him.

Orange-violet light streaked from out of his field of vision and across Harry's right eye in a wide, fast arc. It seemed to take about ten seconds to resolve itself into a rope of fire, which seemed to grow from Lilith's right hand as her own clawed feet dug into the flagstones for purchase, and she hauled on it with all her might.

The whip of flame, which had wrapped itself around the Vampiress' left arm just below the elbow, went taut, and her body spun mid-air again. One foot he ducked as she sailed past and over him, but the other kicked Harry in the forehead, sending him reeling.

He staggered backward three steps, off-balance and with his head swimming before he recovered and could see straight again. That blow had, though glancing and impromptu, been harder than even Dudley's powerful punch on the night the Dementors attacked them in Little Whinging.

Lilith had decimated five Death Eaters in moments during the battle at the end of the previous year. Hestia and Flora Carrow's aunt and uncle (Or was it mother and father? Their relationship was a bit unclear to Harry) among them, along with some of the more vicious Death Eaters. True, she had taken them by surprise, attacked invisibly with both magic and the physical attacks her mutable form made possible, but he had seen her move so fast, so fluidly, that Harry had internally compared her speed to Dumbledore's when he had been dueling Voldemort's spirit what he had later learned was only a few scant minutes later.

She had seemed... well, not invincible, not really, but well beyond any of what Harry would call a 'normal' threat.

It seemed that Lilith's earlier statement of not being a good combatant or front-line fighter had been proven false, then. Now, he knew she was very right. While Lilith had followed him into battle as fearlessly as any of his closest friends would, Harry knew in just a glance that, this time, she was outclassed. Lilith was fast, inhumanly strong, and had superior reach because of her whip and the Veela-like ability to throw fireballs from her hands.

The vampire was completely outclassing her, though. Every swipe of the Succubus' claws met air, even a surprise kick with her long, digitigrade leg. Aside from the flaming lash that was still wrapped several times around the slate-skinned woman's slender arm, nothing else seemed to touch her. On the other hand, the vampire's long nails were already bloody with the crimson that seemed to shimmer in the light of the spells that flew around the area, most Sirius' as they bounced off Nott's hide. Lilith sported many long gashes, most in triplicate or lines of four, and the two tugged each other back and forth with the whip, their bodies moving in a blur of motion that seemed, again, completely dominated by the Dark creature rather than Harry's lover.

It wasn't that Lilith was not strong, she was not being yanked off her feet and helpless, but every time the two pulled in opposite directions, she lost the orange-lit tug-of-war, and had to take a step closer, or in whatever direction the Vampiress pulled her.

That was almost always toward the woman's long, bloody fangs, and Lilith had to twist awkwardly at the last moment to spare herself at least a painful bite, and perhaps worse. Stories of people being incapacitated from the first touch of vampire fangs against their flesh were not uncommon, so even if most were anecdotal, according to Harry's not-inconsiderable expertise in the Dark Arts, it was not a risk he thought she wanted to take, and he didn't blame her.

Harry wanted to help, but he could not get a clear shot. His wand hand was moving too slowly, reacting too late. By the time he had a good aim, Lilith was where his wand should be, directly in the line of fire more often than not.

He could not help her, not yet. Once there was a more clear victor, or at least when he could see a better opportunity, perhaps.

Harry's racing mind knew he was suffering from decision paralysis, the bane of most people in a crisis situation. It was not something he was familiar with personally, however, as he had always been someone to act first, and think later. He was more mature, now, more prone to thinking... Was this the cost?

If so, Harry had already resolved to never finish growing up. He did not want to be helpless, to be stuck considering the what-ifs, where-fores and why-fores, and the endless if, if, if, if, IF, any longer. He wanted to act, to help.

But he could not, at least not the Succubus. She was losing, but not so badly that she would not last a few moments longer, at least.

The floor beneath his feet rumbled, and a concussive wave blasted snow and masonry-dust past his left side. Harry's view snapped to the left preternaturally quickly, a jarring, shocking sensation compared to how slowly everything except for the two opposing furies who shrieked and railed at each other just feet away.

Nott had, in the span of a few moments, pulverized three large sections of the wall opposite Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, two pieces of the floor, a part of the ceiling, and one support column nearby into a fine powder with tremendously powerful blows. Sirius was now in the crater left in the floor by a powerful downward smash, rolling from just at the edge down into the center in a heap, "Sirius!" Harry cried, and suddenly time shifted.

Now, while the world still moved slowly, he blasted forward, seeming to bend time itself to his will as he was suddenly there, his wand conjuring a huge barrier of shimmering white light in a convex dome between the older man and what had once been Theodore Nott. A bellow of rage followed his arrival, and the shield rippled as a fist struck it dead-center, but it held for the moment. Harry felt his knees try to buckle as the shield pulled magical energy from his body to fuel itself, but it held, "Sirius, get up!"

His Godfather groaned, and laboriously rolled onto one knee and lifted both head and arm. Blood poured down the left side of his face, and his right cheek was already discoloring with a bruise, but he was alive, "Harry, get out of here, don't try to-"

"I know, spells don't work on him, we have to attack indirectly! Like the Troll my first year!"

He didn't know, precisely, where the plan, the idea, came from. He had faced down a dragon, and a troll, giants, and now this creature. All were largely resistant or immune to the magic of an average wizard, with the giants, for all their size, being the most vulnerable.

His own spells had severed fingers and worse, but many of the others on Platform 9 3/4 had been forced to try and target the relatively weak, defenseless eyes or mouths of the massive humanoids to have any effect at all. The Troll in their first year had been even more resistant in its own way, despite being smaller, and their First-year curriculum had been utterly useless against it. The Hungarian Horntail did have its weaknesses, including the eyes once more, but Nott's eyes...

They were just wrong. They were the same, human-like, intelligent, for all they were filled with rage and lust and nothing else. Harry knew without questioning it that if he went after Nott's eyes, they would simply close, or he would protect them with a thick, tree-like arm. A simple task, for the beast, and then Harry would have nothing except a chance to get pummeled himself by the other arm.

"Kill Harry Potter," Nott snarled, sending a hissing, steaming spittle against the shield, which in turn made a hundred smaller circles move out in rebounding waves like rain on a pond before they faded.

Well.

At least that declaration made the plan, what Nott was sent to accomplish, clear.

If he was the target, then perhaps the others would be safe.

"Sirius, get the students out of here! I'll hold him off, he wants m-"

"Not a chance!" the older wizard suddenly roared, forcing himself to his feet despite bone jutting out of one finger on his wand-hand, "You take them and go! He's after you!"

"That's why I need to be the one to stay!"

Before they could decide what to do, a shriek of pain and a cry caught both their attention, "Master!"

The whip was gone, and the Vampiress had latched on to the Succubus from behind, pinned her to the flagstone floor with both arms and legs wrapped around the larger body, one of Lilith's wings bent unnaturally to the side where she had obviously broken it. He watched the red eyes meet his for a moment as the gray-skinned woman opened her mouth in a rictus grin, "Her blood is strong," she hissed, and then bit down on Lilith's purple-hued neck.

"No!"

"Look out!"

Harry was already moving, leaving even his injured Godfather to try and protect his lover, but he had not taken even one step when he saw Nott's hand raise. Not in a fist, but pointing. One long, sharp claw shimmered with light, and Harry's world returned to slow motion as he saw it shimmer with light like a falling star.

Nott's voice was clear, and he was aiming not at Harry or Sirius, or even Lilith.,

He was aiming at the shield itself, "Finite Incantatum."

The monster had cast the spell with a clear, human-like voice despite its monstrous appearance, and without a wand. At least, not an intact one. Even now, thanks to the slowed nature of his perception of time, Harry could see fragments of it embedded in Nott's very hand.

Not that it mattered. The shield crashed down, vanishing in a moment as the invisible energy touched it. A half-heartbeat later, Harry ducked under the clawed swipe of Nott's left hand, and the wind of its passage swept his hair forward, blinding him for a moment.

That had been close, he almost-

The follow-up was blindingly fast, too fast for Harry to stop. Nott had cast, swiped, and used the momentum of his huge hand moving through the air to spin on one foot, while the other lashed out, and caught Harry directly in the midsection.

All the air left his body in a whoosh, and he felt the world spin around him at a breakneck speed once more, before his world flashed white-red-black.

Sounds.

Noises.

Pain.

Familiar.

He knew that feeling.

Concussion. He had first learned what the word meant when he was seven, after all, when even his aunt had been forced to take him to a doctor for treatment after Dudley's gang had gone a little too far and left him unable to walk straight for an hour or more.

Harry forced his eyes open still. There was... too much to do. He could not afford to be hurt, or at least to allow it to affect him. With a force of will that might have impressed even Voldemort himself, Harry rolled from his side onto his stomach and pulled one knee beneath him. His head swam, his vision shook, and nothing made sense as he blinked. Two Dumbledores, but no- there was no Dumbledore here. James? His father? No... Sirius. Sirius.

Lilith!

Nothing made sense.

He had just been kicked and sent flying. Somehow, he had cracked his head not against the floor or walls, stone and wood, but had landed against the back of one of the still-fleeing Ravenclaws. Terry Boot, one of his year-mates, struggled to his feet, too, "Harry- Harry, are you alright?"

"Run," Harry grunted, "Tell- Tell Dumbledore. Great Hall. Hel- Help!"

"I'm on it, mate," the D.A. member told him solemnly, and spared the fight one last glance before he took off even faster than before.

Thunder struck the hallway. Again, and then a third time.

A foot entered Harry's slowly-sharpening vision, and he looked up to see Nott physically towering over him. The great, frog-like and many-fanged mouth opened into a savage smile, "Die, Harry Potter," it said, and the same foot that had kicked him so viciously rose high, as if to stomp him flat.

A clawed foot, long and thin-toed like a lizard's.

A lizard.

He had the idle thought, Not a dragon foot.

Then it came down.

There was the sound of an impact, but Harry felt no pain.

At least, not beyond what he already had.

Slowly, his eyes opened.

Ron was there. Ron, and Ginny, come from the same direction Terry had just taken off in, "I got you, Harry!"

"Harry, come here, I've got some Healing spells I can try, and-" He gaped as the fiery red-head cast spells he had seen her mother use over many summers at the Burrow, just as seamless and silently, and some of his bruises faded, and cuts closed off, numbed, or stopped bleeding.

But most of his attention was not on her, for all that he loved Ginny Weasley. It was also not on Lilith, or Sirius, or the Vampiress, or even Nott.

It was on Ron.

Ron, who now stood six and a half feet tall, taller than normal by several inches. Ron, whose uniform robes were ripped and torn, shredded by a deep crimson and umber carapace that sprouted from his back, his arms, his legs, his chest, and even wreathed his head in a crown of thick, dark brown ivory.

Ron Weasley's Succubus-given power had manifested at last, and just in the nick of time, "I'll keep you two safe," he grunted, and clawed feet dug into the flagstones as he crossed two arms in front of his head.

Nott's fist crashed against them, and Ron wavered... but only for a moment.

His best mate grunted and winced, but he held firm, while Ginny did her best to get Harry back into fighting shape.

A third blow rained down, and this one shifted Ron to the right in two staggering, sideways steps, but he was still upright, and his arms straight, his brown eyes as determined, as firm as Harry had ever seen them, "I guess... I've always been a knight."