Harry once again made his way through the dark castle to the headmaster's office. Dumbledore had found something and had reached out to his magic during dinner to schedule another chat after curfew.
Harry hoped that he had found a lead on a fragment that Voldemort hadn't managed to locate yet, but he was not optimistic.
Harry ghosted through the gargoyle outside of the office, but he did stop and knock on the office door this time.
"Please come in, Harry."
Harry entered the headmaster's cluttered office, his many magical gadgets and devices puttering away softly. Harry always wondered what they all did, but never had the patience to ask. On Dumbledore's desk, a shallow basin filled with silvery white smoke cast an eerie light over the room.
"Good evening, Albus."
"To you as well. I trust that the school year has treated you well so far?"
"Aside from the brief encounter with my evil twin, yes. Also, Snape is definitely trying to out Lupin as a werewolf."
"Indeed he is; very perceptive of you."
"Wait, what?"
Dumbledore chuckled. "I'm sure that you have heard rumors of the curse that impacts the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. In this case, the rumors are more correct than they know. Tom Riddle once applied for the position and I, of course, turned him down. In retaliation, he cursed the position using some unique and very slippery magic that I have, as of yet, been unable to dispel. The curse subtly influences events and people's actions to result in the professor's downfall. I have not yet found a way to circumvent it completely. Simply setting up one-year contracts does not satisfy its need to damage its targets. The best that I have been able to do is engineer events that have suitable but acceptable consequences for the professors and warn them ahead of time."
That certainly wasn't what Harry had been expecting. "So, you, Snape, and Lupin are planning to let his status leak on purpose?"
"Yes. Severus will teach about werewolves at all year levels. The rumors will lend credibility to the final reveal. Near the end of the year, Severus will announce Lupin's status out of 'concern' for his students' wellbeing. This will cement his position with several of the more affluent families in Slytherin, as well as provide an excellent reason for Lupin to join Voldemort's werewolf pack as a spy if and when he restarts his war. In theory, it should also be a sufficient blow to Lupin's reputation that it will satisfy the curse."
Huh. Maybe Harry should give the old man more credit.
"Well, that was enlightening. What other interesting and convoluted reveals do you have for me tonight, Albus?"
"Nothing good, I'm afraid. Please come take a bath in this Pensieve with me, Harry."
"I hate to ruin the moment, but I just don't think that we'll both fit."
"Looks can be deceiving."
…
"Shit."
"Indeed. Hepzibah Smith was found dead shortly thereafter, poisoned by her house elf."
"A likely story."
"The house elf in question was found innocent, but only because the ministry honestly believed that it was an accident. Luckily, I was able to locate her."
"So, Voldemort definitely has the locket and the cup. Fantastic."
"Yes. I do not know if it is possible to turn a fragment of divinity into a Horcrux, but unless it still allows for mastery, I doubt that even Voldemort would pass up the opportunity for more power in exchange for a meaningful soul container."
Harry shook his head. "No, he would master and consume them. I have a feeling that he has the Diadem too. It would explain his mental prowess and madness, the locket explains his drive for ascension and conquest, and the cup explains his ability to continue existing with his body and soul so incredibly fractured and twisted. He must be the master of four fragments of divinity."
"I hope that you are incorrect, but I agree. I will continue to search for the Diadem, however in vain it may be. I will also continue my search for potential horcruxes as I work my way through Voldemort's history."
"And I'll continue to terrify the general student population with my mysterious powers."
…
Harry, Luna, and Neville stood in their clearing and listened to Hermione intently as she lectured.
"The only magic that I could find that seems to consistently work against Dementors is called the Patronus Charm. All sources are adamant that Dementors cannot be killed, but they can be repelled by a sufficiently strong shield of positive emotions combined with pure Light magic. The Patronus can take on the appearance of a shield or as a corporeal animal unique to the caster. A critical component of the spell is a strong feeling of happiness, usually triggered by immersing yourself in the happiest memory you can think of."
Harry was concerned. "Ah yes. Happy memories. Something that I have so many of. Let me just think… nope, mild contentment at best. Does the wonderful absence of pain and suffering count? What about… nope, again just the true joy of things not going quite as badly as they could have gone."
Hermione looked like she couldn't decide whether to laugh, cry, or glare disapprovingly.
"We'll find something for you, Harry, even if you're a terrible cynic. The incantation is Expecto Patronum, and I think that it's important to say it out loud in order to help focus the emotional component of the spell.
"Some of us still have to say all of our spells out loud, Hermione." Neville quipped from the other side of the clearing.
"Right. Of course."
…
Hermione hardened a bubble of magic around her to keep the rain off as she felt Harry's glorious spark dance and flit about high above. She didn't come to every Quidditch game but decided to come to the first game of the year against Slytherin. Even Dumbledore had made an appearance despite the poor weather. She wondered how long Harry and Oliver would allow the game to go on in this storm.
She stopped wondering when she felt the hungry Dark approach from all sides.
…
Harry was about to go ahead and find the Snitch regardless of his plan with Oliver when he felt it. A creeping wave of ravenous Dark was falling over the stadium, the crowd going quiet as they instinctively reacted. Harry could feel the Dementors pulling on the souls of the excited witches and wizards, the feeling of inescapable despair just a side effect of having one's soul twisted and tugged on by the creatures. He was about to start to descend when he realized-
They were here for him.
The Dementors surrounded him on all sides, a great multi-layered globe of black shapes hanging in the gloom. The storm continued around them, flashes of lightning illuminating the horrors as they floated in the cold rain.
Harry instinctively reached out with his magic, seeking to keep them away or prepare to destroy them. Instead, he found-
Mark Bearer. Death Walker. He of the forfeited soul.
Harry shuddered internally. It wasn't a voice so much as just a feeling as the creatures fed on his magic. He could feel the souls within them, chained and screaming in the dark. He could feel souls of mundane people and witches and wizards and…
He could feel countless souls of people who seemed a lot like him. Death Walkers. Marked souls. Fragmented sparks that spoke of Horcruxes. Souls with shining cracks like Luna's, touched by the divine. All swirling within the collective, of which each Dementor felt like less than finger, a single cell of the larger whole.
Harry paled further as he understood. Dementors obviously were not the same peaceful, accepting Dark as his cloak. They were the other side of the coin, a hungry Dark that sought to consume those who had escaped destined Death. The enforcers of entropy that would end any wayward souls still wandering this plane when the sun went out.
No one can hide forever.
But he wasn't ready to go yet.
…
Hermione tried her best. But no matter how hard she focused, the happy thoughts wouldn't come.
Harry's soul would be consumed. She would be left in a world that couldn't understand her anymore, her Death Walker's soul gone into the desperate Dark within the Dementors.
She would run alone forevermore.
"Oh dear."
Hermione jumped at the unexpected voice and looked down at Luna's mildly concerned expression next to her.
"Our Walker is wandering too far into the Dark. I suppose we should do something about that."
Hermione could only gape at her as the rain soaked them both to the bone.
Luna bounced on her toes for a moment, a look of unusual focus on her elfin face, and then with a twirl and a flourish of her wand that looked hilariously out of place amid the Dark and the storm-
"Expecto Patronum!"
Her high voice rose over the crowd and a shining silver-white sparrow exploded from the end of her wand, streaking towards Harry with determined purpose.
…
A silver flash caught his eye as a glowing white phoenix, a cat, a doe, and a tiny but brilliant little bird raced towards him from the stands far below. The hopelessness faded momentarily before the Dementors moved, closing in on him with rapid speed as he called forth the Blade of the Castle.
He had to keep the Dementors focused on him so that they did not turn on the crowd, but he also had to stay within range of the Patronuses. He flew in tight circles and loops, connecting with his trusted Nimbus and slashing wildly with the sword, great arcs of green fire lighting up the sky as he dueled with the swarm of black demons in the storm.
He could feel his magic being drained even as he fought, his power weakening and his connection to the cloak and sword starting to grow thin and tenuous. The Dementors were similar but opposite to the chains of the Mirror of Erised, trying to slowly pry the divinity from his soul rather than cut him off from it completely.
He could feel Hermione's magic raging down below, his Ice Queen sending great bolts of pure magic to try and fend off the Dementors, but they just ate the brilliant power happily.
He could also feel that he was not killing them. The black cloaks were just drones, cells of the larger aspect of Dark that hunted him. He understood why the books said that Dementors could not be killed. He was just doing roughly the equivalent of exfoliating the ravenous Dark.
The Dementors closed in, overcoming the Patronuses circling him and swirling around him in a hurricane as he was forced to retreat within a globe of hardened magic, trying to resist the pull of their breath as he called on more and more power to maintain his connection to the divine even as they tried to consume him.
He could feel the chains starting to tighten, the feeling of helpless dread settling into his soul. This was a new kind of threat that he was not prepared for. He could not throw more power at it and overcome it by force.
Or maybe he could?
He was the Death Walker, Bladesinger, Knight of the Kingdom of Magic. But before that, he had pondered the truth of the world. Of the reality that was both surrounding him and was him.
He closed his eyes and looked deeper. He knew the truth, deep in his soul. He knew that the world around him was not rain and biting cold and despair. Underneath, there was nothing. Empty, endless Dark with only the equal and opposite forces creating the reality that he both was made of and perceived.
Harry threaded his magic through this endless night, feeling the forces of the very fabric of reality within and around him. He expanded his power away from and within himself, allowing it to infuse and permeate the endless Dark between and within the forces that made up the particles that built the world above. He could feel the raw power, the potential there.
And he became one with the Storm.
…
Still unable to bring any happiness to the fore and her power doing nothing useful against the Dementors, Hermione raced at top speed over to the staff section of the stands. She no longer cared if everyone saw her power, Harry had quite handily let that cat out of the bag. She tried not to get distracted by the light show above as Harry was enclosed within the seething mass of black cloaks.
She arrived and saw Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape focused intently on maintaining their Patronus charms.
"Isn't there anything else you can do, headmaster?" She yelled over the storm and the screaming of the crowd.
"No. The Elder Wand is of the Dark and does not aid me in combating Dementors. The Immortal Fire is the antithesis to the entropy of the ravenous Dark but will also be consumed by it if I bring it forth."
Hermione looked helplessly at the sky.
"I'm going to go get him," she yelled, running towards the edge of the stands even as she extended her magic, calling to her Nimbus that Harry had gotten for her so long ago.
She was about to leap from the edge of the stands when the hairs on her neck stood up and she felt Harry's magic explode forth like never before, sinking deep into the world and extending for what felt like miles in every direction. She stopped and looked up in awe and horror.
High above, thousands of feet in the air, the storm twisted and raged. As the air crackled and she felt the power of the world become clenched in the first of Harry's will, the very air rushed to his command.
A great skull, hundreds of feet tall, loomed out of the storm. It stared down at the screaming crowd and the Dementors with disdain, power humming and crackling through the wind.
And on its forehead, as tall as a tower, the Mark of Sacrifice burned with a brilliant green light.
The crowd seemed split between running in terror and staring transfixed. She was the latter, unable to look away as Harry's true power descended upon the servants of the hungry Dark. She heard someone yell something about the Dark Mark.
Hundreds of lightning strikes tore the Dementors to shreds as the air clashed and burned against itself. The wind ripped and disintegrated the black cloaks down to their atoms as they were undone from within, the very composition of matter turning against them under Harry's power.
They retreated, screaming into the hurricane of death that gripped them. Now visible without the churning mass of cloaks surrounding him, Harry hung eerie and suspended in the air, his arms outstretched to either side as he commanded the storm. Even from where she stood far below, Hermione could see his eyes and Mark glowing with blinding light as he floated like an avenging angel above the crowd.
His broom was nowhere to be seen.
He began to move once again, and with great sweeps of his arms the storm ravaged the remaining Dementors. As the hungry Dark finally retreated, Hermione was left staring in awe as her best friend descended slowly, flying for the first time under his own power until he floated in the empty air before her as she stood on the edge of the stands.
And he smiled his stupid, cheeky grin.
She leapt from the balcony and threw her arms around him, holding and hanging from her best friend as she squeezed him with all of her empowered strength. She felt his arms support her as he hugged her back, electricity and magic snapping and crackling around them.
Oh, he is going to be insufferably smug for weeks.
