CH20: The Hero's Curse

October 13th

7:23pm

Bones Estate, Wales

Voldemort

The Bone's family home, nestled in the picturesque Irish countryside, exuded an air of aristocratic elegance. Sprawling gardens, ornate fountains, and a vast acreage surrounded the large estate, a testament to the family's wealth and heritage. Not only did it serve as a statement for the family, it also served as one of the many safehouses for the loyalist forces boasting impressive and ancient defensive wards. Having been the home of the notoriously powerful and proud Amelia Bones, the house was the epitome of defence.

The setting sun cast long shadows over the front yard, shadows, strangely enough, that moved. Voldemort, with a cadre of twenty Death Eaters in tow, descended upon the property with malevolent intent.

'This is sizable enough,' Voldemort deduced silently as his death eaters materialised in droves outside the estate, 'yet we are once more disappointed.'

As the Death Eaters surrounded the house, Voldemort nodded for the attack to commence. As one, the death eaters walked onto the property with no issue. From his place beside a large statue of some ancient Bones patriarch, Voldemort watched Susan Bones peek out of the second story windows and run off hastily.

'Scramble little girl,' Voldemort outwardly sneered, 'it will do you no good.'

The ornate oak doors were blasted apart and figures in black robes streamed into the stately home. Voldemort followed loosely behind his troops, casting unimpressed eyes at the grand entrance way of the Bones estate. 'It all burns, opulent columns and wooden shacks, only I remain.'

The girl had thought to make a stand in the hall, but she was no match for the overwhelming numbers beset upon her. Together with her uncle, Bones had transfigured several items of furniture into dangerous muggle beasts. Upholstered lions swiped at a few of his men and a mahogany Rhino charged at some others. Magic, however, was far too superior to be bested by some fake beasts.

The hall was showered in wool and feathers as the lions were torn to ribbons by a hail of cutting curses. The rhino, magnificent as it was, couldn't withstand simultaneous blasting hexes to its face. Wood chips scattered as the beast was destroyed, leaving only two defenders against dozens.

"No surrender! For Amelia!" The uncle cried out as he wildly whipped his wand across his body, slinging curse after curse at the intruders. Susan for the most part tried to keep up with her uncle, holding her own against three opponents. The uncle's casting brought a section of the hall's roof down close to a contingent of death eaters and in the chaos, he turned to his niece. "Run Susan, I will buy you time, just go!"

'Delicious,' Voldemort thought gleefully, 'hope…'

Susan had tears in her eyes but complied with his wishes and turned to run out what looked to be a door to the back yard. Just as she reached the open door, it slammed shut in her face. Eyes wide she turned and saw him, the uncle knew too, he hadn't seen Voldemort, but he'd felt the power resonating off of him. With slow deliberate steps, Voldemort advanced on them, wand at his side, unbothered by the battle around him.

The two stood stock-still in fear, the sweat on their brow, the slight quivering throughout their body. Every ounce of terror smelt sweet to the Dark Lord who smiled in appreciation.

"Bones," Voldemort said, coming out as a whisper in everyone's ear, "sacred twenty-eight, ancient lineage." Voldemort lined up his wand with the uncle as he enunciated clearly. "Blood. Traitors." The curse struck true, a flash of green and a dropped body.

"No! Uncle! No, no, no please don't leave me there's no one left!" The girl wails served only to satisfy his bloodlust, killing someone was good but to kill someone who was loved, there was nothing sweeter. Susan Bones turned to the murderer of two of her family members and spoke with so much venom that the tears in her eyes couldn't detract from it. "Monster!"

"I am no monster, child, I simply am." Voldemort flexed his hand and Susan was thrown from her uncle's corpse into the air. Much of her bravado faded now that she was suspended and completely at Voldemort's mercy. "You are presented with a choice, as befitting your station. Tell me where the loyalist army is encamped and you may join your magical brothers and sisters."

Susan's eyes darted between the arrayed death eaters behind Voldemort. There was fear in them, but Voldemort could see something more. 'What is it that you find amusing girl?'

"He's coming for you," Bones finally said with insane glee, "Harry Potter is coming, and you will not survive him." Bones laughed right in his face as she continued. "He is changed, beholden only to his rage, of which you are at the centre."

"Where is Harry Potter?"

"Ptui," she spat at his feet. "Leave my home and be cursed."

Voldemort's face didn't even twitch as the spit glob splashed against his bony toes. Instead he met Susan Bones' defiant glare with his own blood red eyes.

'Legilimens,' he thought, and his mind was assaulted by images immediately. Potter helping her with a spell, Bones, speaking with Daphne Greengrass about using the manor as a safe house for loyalist operatives. Potter showing up at the gates of Bones manor, blood stained and angry. 'Show me the loyalist army.'

"I've never seen it!"

Voldemort's consciousness returned to the real world as the mental connection snapped. The Bones girl, still suspended, was panting and sweating heavily.

The Dark Lord's thin lips were pulled into a displeased sneer. "You've never seen it?"

"No," the word coming out breathlessly, "for this very reason."

"Then you are of no use to me." Voldemort whipped up his wand and killed the girl with the killing curse. 'Coming for me… how wrong you are little girl.' Voldemort's mirth lived on as he addressed his men. "Burn it, leave nothing of use to them."

The death eaters cheered and set about destroying the ancestral home. Columns were toppled, walls obliterated, portraits of old Bones ancestors torn down and incinerated. As Voldemort watched the complete destruction of the estate, felt an air of ease.

'Starving, powerless to attack, I can take my time.' A loud crack echoed over the valley as a balcony crashed and fell into the ground. 'Encircle their forces and constrict the life from them until finally…' A sinister smile played at his lips as he disapparated, all was well for the Dark Lord of Britain.

October 13th

8:03pm

Diagon Alley, London

Harry

Diagon Alley, the graveyard of magical Britain as it had come to be known, was a dark and desolate place. Bodies still hung from shops, and the echoes of cruelty resonated through the narrow cobblestone streets.

Atop a tiled roof, Harry sat watching the street like a hawk under his invisibility cloak. Burdened with an unmanageable amount of grief and rage, he'd strived to find a place as dark as his thoughts to spend more time alone.

'I won't sit in a room all nice and cosy, not until this is done.' Most of all he felt shame for being so useless during the famine, now though, with spirits lifted at home, he couldn't bear to be around the people. 'They congratulate me for saving them not knowing the price it cost.' Every time he thought about that night, he grew angry. Angry with himself, for what he'd become, what he'd had to become. 'If that is the price of life then let it be paid.'

As he surveyed the desolate alley from a concealed rooftop, his senses heightened as sound drew near. Four Death Eaters, callous and indifferent, strolled down the once bustling thoroughfare, revelling in their malevolence.

"Ohaw! Look at that one's nose! He looks like a bloody penguin!" One of them japed to the amusement of his friends as he pointed at one of the hanging men. The death eater did a waddling action that had the others laughing hysterically.

Harry's fist tightened as his anger broiled to the top. Dropping from the roof between the men and wherever they were going, Harry took off the cloak and revealed himself. He didn't say a word, only stared with lethal intent.

"Potter!

"Where's Greengrass? Check, quickly!"

"She's not here," Harry said monotonously.

One Death Eater, the smartest of the bunch, dropped his wand in a futile gesture of surrender. "I'm not looking for trouble, okay? I'll gladly go as your prisoner to wherever it is tha—"

A dull ringing in Harry's ears began as his eyes unfocused. The world warped in front of him as though he were looking through the wrong prescription of glasses. A hanged man behind the group that had its back to Harry, spun around to reveal dusty blonde hair and a scarred face.

"No, no, no," Harry muttered to himself, "that's not right…"

"He's losing it man, we can take him."

Shaking his head, Harry caught something in the corner of his eye. Someone was in the window of one of the shops. A girl in a fluffy sweater, pale as if dead, with a large scar on her neck. "No!" Harry growled out, "you're dead! You're supposed to be dead!"

"I don't know I think we should run he's—" The death eater stopped as he realised Harry was staring right at them, his chest expanding and contracting rapidly as he breathed heavily.

With a swift movement, Harry banished the dropped wand through the death eater's eye and into his brain. The man was dead within an instant and all was silent for a moment after the thud of his body hitting the ground.

"Kill him!" One yelled as he cast the killing curse at Harry, "kill him or we're dead!"

Harry deftly dodged the ensuing Unforgivable Curses cast by the others, any hesitation he might have felt was locked away behind a wall of determined vengeance. The world was a blur to him, his body on autopilot as he ducked and weaved.

Closing the distance, he swatted one death eater's wand away and seized him by the throat. He turned so that the choking man was in between his comrades and Harry which stopped the hasty casting of the other two.

'Die,' Harry commanded and his magic complied. The rage that had taken over his blood conjured liquid flames that melted the man's face into a grotesque visage of horror. Burnt flesh and flaps of skin slopped to the ground as the charred corpse served as an unwitting shield against the barrage of killing curses from his companions.

Taking advantage of their terror, Harry unleashed a bombarda maxima, obliterating a nearby two-story building. Chunks of rock and brick cascaded onto the street as Harry swiftly transfigured the floor beneath another Death Eater into deadly nails. In an effort to evade the tumbling debris, the target Death Eater stepped on the nails which pieced his foot. His scream of pain was muffled by the blanket of rock that crushed his body into the cobblestone path.

The final death eaters stared at what remained of his friends, staked, cooked and crushed, he fell to his knees. "Please," he begged, "please, I never killed anyone I swear." Ugly tears painted his face as he sobbed sloppily, "I don't want to die."

'Neither did they.' Haunted by the memories of lost friends and the lives he had taken in the muggle compound, Harry succumbed to a torrent of violence. His fists rained down upon the pleading Death Eater, an outpouring of anguish and pent-up frustration. As his fists continued to pound the mess of blood and bone below him, the fog lifted from his mind.

He stopped his assault and processed the scene he had caused. Nothing that resembled a human lay under him anymore and so he stopped straddling the man's chest and stood up. Wordlessly, he looked at his hands and cringed.

'Broken.' Not just broken though, blood and shards of skull caked them, at some points it was hard to tell whether the bone was his or his victim's.

Leaving the gruesome aftermath behind, Harry retreated to his solitary post on the rooftop, silently awaiting the inevitable arrival of another group. The weight of his actions felt lighter on his shoulders every time, a testament to the toll that grief and revenge had taken on the once-heroic wizard.

October 14th

5:01pm

Black Chateau, Isle of Man

Daphne

"Reveal your secrets," she muttered, waving her wand over the key the minister had given her in his final moments. The key flashed a faint blue before returning to its dull bronze colour. "Surely there's more to you than this."

'Granger could've solved it dammit.' Just one more night and she would've had an auror escort courtesy of Daphne's growing concern of dissent. 'I should've acted quicker.' She ran a stressed hand through her hair, unknowingly mimicking Harry when he's stressed. 'A failure to act… when has that ever been a weakness attached to me.'

Her depressive thoughts were cut short as she heard three knocks on the bedroom door. Daphne scooped up the key by the string attached and looped it around her neck, hiding it under her shirt. Daphne opened the door and found her sinister standing before her, the first time she had seen her since their heavy talk three months ago.

"Astoria," Daphne masked the worry on her face with a polite smile, "would you like to come in?"

"Yes please."

Daphne stepped aside, allowing Astoria to walk past her and into the bedroom. Astoria casually seated herself on the bed, her eyes playfully scanning the unfamiliar room. The sight of a pair of Harry's boxers on the floor drew a sly smile from Astoria. Daphne followed her gaze, spotted the offending laundry and frowned. She waved her hand and the boxers shot away into the closet, the door shutting behind them.

Daphne turned her attention to her sister and met her cheeky expression with an 'all business' one of her own. '"What can I do for you?" She wasn't trying to be flat but her emotions were getting the better of her.

Astoria, surprised by her sister's cold demeanour, frowned. "I've been thinking about what we spoke about in our tent."

Daphne pulled the desk chair around the bed to sit opposite her sister. Astoria had Daphne's full attention as the elder Greengrass sat eerily still with an expectant expression.

"Like I said before, I love you, so do mum and dad," Astoria prefaced with a serious look, reaching out to pat Daphne's leg. "But we can't agree with what you did, even if it was for Harry. That's not to say we don't understand why you did it, just that it was wrong."

"Good, that's good." Despite her own immoral proclivities, Daphne was relieved that Astoria still could recognise right from wrong "I suppose that means you'll be adhering to mothers wishes?"

"No." Daphne looked up in surprise, her eyes wide and twinkling with hope. Astoria smiled, happy to see her sister's relief. "In fact, I think I'd like to spend more time together, to make up for lost time."

"That… that would be nice." Daphne took her sister's hand and they stood together, embracing each other. As Daphne leaned into the hug she spoke from her heart, not her head and said, "I'm proud of you."

Author's Notes

Happy holidays all! I hope everyone enjoyed their respective festivities or, if you didn't, at least enjoyed the break from work/school.

I spent my Christmas day writing and most of the days before and after that… also writing. However, that also means the next arc is done. I've got six chapters (this one included) ready to go and I'll release them over six weeks to allow me more time to write the next arc which is also 6 chapters. The entire book is slated to be posted by June 6th, 2024.

I started off this chapter with a Voldemort POV to bring us back to how his plans have been structured. He's just caused this massive famine and some of you may be wondering what it was he was doing in this time – this arc explores that.

We visit Harry in what has become a mindless quest for vengeance. You might be thinking he already achieved that in killing the traitors in chateau but, as you read, he's not entirely sane either. The episodes that he experiences in these coming chapters are unlike the bouts of violence that horcrux caused, they're more self-destructive as you'll come to know.

We're now diving deeper into Daphne's shaken faith in herself. For books one and two she was this rock of surety for Harry and the war effort but as things have begun to derail, we see her blaming that fact on herself more and more. The character breakdown cascades in the coming chapters to a boiling point which I'm keen to share.

I'm going to be rolling out some format changes to the website in the coming days to make it more compatible with other devices. Right now, the maps are difficult to read and can be larger than intended on certain screen sizes so, if you're interested, keep an eye out for that.

That's all for now, I hope this first chapter gets you all excited for what's to come.

Happy New Year!

RevanchistVII