CHAPTER 104: The Only One He'll Ever Fear (Part 3)

Department of Mysteries

1:00 a.m.

Sirius cried out a primal scream of rage as he rolled out of the way of Malfoy's curses. Blood was trickling down the crown of his head, and his entire body was covered in cuts, burns, and bruises. Everything was aching, flaring with pain, and it was only his unbridled rage that kept him moving. Dodging. Hurling any curse he was allowed to cast. He would die happy knowing he had taken Malfoy with him.

He avoided the two curses that had been sent his way but was too late to shield himself from the third as he was blown back onto the table behind him. It broke instantly, countless wooden splinters lodging themselves on his back and arms as the cauldrons clattered on the floor, the potions leaking onto the floor, rapidly crawling onto his hands. His robes.

Blindly reaching out, he grabbed one of the cauldrons and launched it towards Malfoy. Quickly reaching for the other one, Sirius barely had time to twist his fingers around its edges before he was struck in the face with the cauldron he had already launched. The room started spinning around him, his vision fogged by the tears welling up in his eyes. He began reeling backward before a hand grabbed him by the scruff of his robes and picked him up.

"Who else did you bring with you?" Malfoy asked again, jamming his wand into Sirius' gut. A scream was torn out of Sirius, his vision turning white from the sheer pain. His breath was sucked out of him, his insides squished, stretched, and twisted relentlessly. He lost control of his body, jerking and spasming wildly, in a futile attempt to escape from the torture. "Where is Longbottom?"

Malfoy let go of the curse, and Sirius immediately surged forward. He fought off the mask, it clattered on the ground as Malfoy reacted and cursed him once more. This time he didn't even try to stop himself from screaming, but somehow, he managed to keep his focus on Malfoy's face. His right hand graced against a soft bump, and he pressed into it with as much strength as he could muster.

Malfoy tore himself away and Sirius was dropped to the ground. Twisting away from the vivid red curse, Sirius pushed himself up and parried away another curse before throwing caution to the wind and launching himself towards Malfoy. He crashed onto the Death Eater, using his momentum to trip him up, Malfoy's head bouncing off the hard floor.

Sirius punched him in the face. Again. And when Malfoy raised his wand at him Sirius twisted his left arm, the limp limb absorbing the blasting curse right as Sirius had headbutted the Death Eater. But as his hand was blasted into pieces, Malfoy overpowered him. The two of them rolled on the ground as the room began shifting around them, the dark blue and black colours shifting and blending into each other as red and orange lights began filling the room.

Fighting against his hold, Malfoy struggled for a few moments before he managed to pry Sirius off of him. Sirius growled, rolling backward and quickly putting up a shield that was instantly blasted apart. Thrown back by the shock wave, Sirius stumbled but managed to launch a curse at Malfoy right before he fell back onto his arse. The Death Eater easily parried the curse back to him, carving out another gash onto his chest.

For the first time, Malfoy looked outright murderous. Blood dripped from his left eye socket, his nose was crooked, and soft red bruises were beginning to form on his jaw and another eye. Sirius smirked at the sight but soon paid for it as Malfoy showed none of the restraint he had before. He went fully on the offensive, advancing and hurling curses at him at an impossible pace.

Sirius managed to crawl away from the first two before a bright pink curse broke through his shoe and sliced up his feet. After that, he couldn't avoid the rest of the onslaught. The curses travelled up his body, hitting his ankle, his thigh, and his hip. Sirius's body curled up into a ball, two pale blue curses rapidly heading towards his chest and face.

He raised his wand, a last feeble attempt at raising a shield. But the curses crashed into an invisible barrier before he could even raise one. Someone jumped over him, raising more shields that Malfoy kept blasting apart as a pair of hands grabbed him under the shoulders and pulled him back.

"Ah, the werewolf," Malfoy sneered at Sirius' protector. "I should have known."

Sirius groaned as he crashed back onto the ground. Looking up, he saw Potter there, raising his wand at him as the pain that was beginning to get unbearable started to slowly ebb away. He wanted to growl, to snarl at the brat. But before he could, Potter was gone, and Remus was slowly being forced to retreat as Malfoy kept pushing towards them.

He hadn't wanted to waste his magic. Not for Black. Not that way. Aurora may have recharged him, but even now, he knew every bit of it counted. But there were too many Death Eaters out there, and he still hadn't found Ginny or Granger or Longbottom. Lupin was far from a match for Malfoy, he had seen that the moment they started duelling. He couldn't waste time-saving them, but at the same time, he would lose any ground he had if Black and Lupin got themselves killed and left him to deal with everyone else on his own.

If he was lucky, a somewhat functioning Sirius Black would be enough to stall Malfoy without getting both morons killed.

Harry sent Aurora to help them out. It didn't hurt to add a little insurance.

He kept moving from room to room, startling the few Death Eaters he came across but paying no mind to them. While his body was travelling, his eyes were already looking ahead, scouring every room he could find for the presence of the Gryffindors. It was hard balancing both of his senses, depending on his ears to announce any presence where he was while his vision was focused elsewhere.

It was a harrowing cry that sparked him into action. He immediately pulled away from the amphitheatre filled to the brim with mindless living corpses. His eyes struggled to adapt to their new surroundings right as he instinctively jumped out of the way. There was a sudden flash of a poisonous green bolt. A mad cackle. Harry turned around and quickly dropped, rolled forward, and shielded himself from the masked woman's onslaught. His eyes fell on the broken, trembling body on the ground, meeting the hazel orbs for a moment before he picked himself back up and raised his wand at his attacker.

"Impressive," she said lightly, twirling her wand in her hand as she slowly approached him. "Not many schoolboys can move like that."

"Oh, honey, not many men can move like me," Harry said darkly.

"We'll have to see about that, won't we?"

The two curses left her wand faster than she had even moved it, but Harry had telegraphed it even before they had been cast. Swerving, first to the left and then to the right, Harry quickly reached for his knife and launched it at the woman. She batted it away, hurling it down towards the ground where it bounced once before Harry caught it with his wand and sent it flying at the Death Eater's back.

She had launched a curse at him - one he barely managed to block at the last second - before her eyes followed his wand, and she twisted on her heel. The knife missed its target, only managing to grace her arm before it flew back into Harry's grip. Twisting the room around him, Harry jumped and teleported right behind her. But before he had even appeared again, she had somehow managed to turn and banish him across the room.

The knife clattered on the ground, far from Harry's reach even as he immediately sprang into action and dodged the woman's curses. He was suddenly lifted from the ground, left floating in the air for half a second before the woman jerked her wand back, and he felt the front of his shirt pull him towards her.

His hand acted purely on instinct as he cast a soft-cut charm, slightly ripping up his shirt from where it was being pulled, managing to cancel the summoning charm a few feet away from her. Rolling, Harry cushioned his fall before quickly jamming the wand up at her and launching a set of blasting and cutting curses. She batted the blasting curses away, one exploding only a few feet from Granger's head, but she let the cutting charm strike her cheek as she chose to attack him instead.

Harry's eyes bulged, his arm jerking upward, managing to place a shield just in time. It caught the first curse but was blasted apart by the second one. Harry was flung backward, a third curse hitting him in the gut mid-flight before he landed on his knees halfway across the room. He raised his head only to watch a long whip lash at his neck, curling around it. Harry cut the leash before the woman could tug at it, throwing a few curses of cover fire as he nursed the rapidly infecting would that had begun spreading across his stomach.

She easily parried the curses away and launched another set at him, but Harry managed to swerve around them just in time.

"You're good," the woman conceded airily, laughing a little. "But not good enough. Not even close."

Harry didn't doubt that, and it made him hate her even more for it. He'd done some damage, but not nearly enough. Not like she had. But he didn't have to beat her to still win. As soon as he moved so did she. He had barely cast the banishing charm before he was forced to teleport away from the curses she had sent his way.

He landed right above Granger, grabbing her trembling shoulder with his right arm as he watched the woman react just as he'd predicted. Dodging to the right, she evaded the knife, and it flew right into his hand. She turned, and even behind the mask, he could see her glare.

"Not good enough," he echoed her own words before teleporting into the room with Granger firmly in his hold.

The blinding, fiery gold flame was enough to blind both Remus and Malfoy. He reeled back from it, watching as the phoenix dodged the curses Malfoy sent at it before it lunged at the man. Malfoy evaded its talons, throwing himself on the ground as Remus finally reacted and began launching his own curses at the Death Eater as well. But Malfoy managed to put up his shield, the transparent construct absorbing the impact of Remus' attacks only to burst when Sirius joined him in the assault.

Sirius and Remus began rotating around him, wordlessly coordinating with the phoenix as they formed a triangle around the Death Eater as they continued their attacks. It was an old strategy of Sirius and James, one that Remus had seen many times in their Hogwarts days when they rounded up on Snape. Only Snape wasn't even close to being as good a dueller as Malfoy was. And even the addition of Harry's phoenix wasn't good enough to ensure their victory.

Malfoy moved quickly, blocking their curses from both sides, even managing to parry a few of them to target the other and force them to block them or dodge out of the way. It gave him a few extra seconds, but that was all Malfoy needed to deal with the phoenix, keeping it at bay and avoiding it from lunging towards him.

Being in a non-stop battle for what felt like a whole hour was beginning to take its toll on Remus. Every spell was getting harder and harder to cast, and he was beginning to breathe heavily. Sirius wasn't looking too good either. He audibly growled, slowly walking forward without stopping his barrage of curses. Remus joined him, seeing what Sirius wanted to do.

And as Harry's phoenix began raining bursts of fire down at the Death Eater while he and Sirius began restricting his space to move, Lucius Malfoy gritted his teeth and looked concerned for once.

Harry stopped the moment they came across an empty room, his eyes trailing over the various hourglasses around him before they settled on Granger. She had begun to shake more violently, and before he could even blink, she had thrown up onto the ground. Cringing slightly, Harry wondered if this was what he had looked like after Dolohov had tortured him.

"Alright," he said, mostly to himself, studying her for any wounds in desperate need of healing. "You're done. Let's go."

"No-" she coughed and coughed, spit and blood splurting all over her hand. "No…" She gripped onto his arm, twisting around and trying to pull herself upwards. "Neville… Ron… Ginny…"

"I know," Harry snapped. "I'll deal with them."

"No!" She doubled over, convulsing violently and dropping back to the ground as she gave soft cries of pain. "No," she said once it stopped, once again trying to claw herself from the ground by climbing onto his arm. "I have to… I'm not… I can… I can help."

"Oh, yes, I'm sure. The Death Eaters will just tremble at the sight of you."

"S-stop! Stop… I have to… Have to try."

Harry rolled his eyes and stood up. There was nothing he could do for her. He walked away, and she fell back onto the ground, whimpering a little as she began shaking again. He should have felt pity, and on a level, he did. But now, he was more annoyed than anything. He couldn't even bring himself to say anything.

He turned his back on her, his eyes already looking into the other rooms for Ginny as a wave of heat brushed past the back of his neck. "Harry," she choked out, confused and angry and completely ignored by him. He almost felt as Aurora grabbed onto her arm, disappearing again in a burst of fire, leaving a grateful Harry alone once again.

That bloody bird, Sirius fumed. His shield soaked up the violet and orange curses, but he was still being forced back as Malfoy began to gain more ground on the both of them. If only Potter's stupid phoenix had stayed and actually done its job. They had him. Dead to rights. Malfoy was just about to crumble under their combined assault when the ruddy bird ignited itself and disappeared from the room completely.

He knew it. The moment it happened, Sirius knew they would stand no chance just the two of them against Malfoy. And yet, he hadn't missed a beat, continuing his attacks and thanking fucking Merlin that Remus hadn't stopped either. They kept advancing on him, their shouts turning more desperate. Their attacks were faster and faster. Malfoy parried both of Sirius' cutting curses to the ground, ducking from Remus' assault and forcing Sirius to block against them at the very last minute.

Malfoy had begun lashing out against Remus and thankfully Malfoy wasn't able to land a single blow in the few seconds it took for Sirius to re-enter the battle.

But by then Malfoy had already taken his chance. Swaying his wand emphatically, he charmed the flames from the torches around them. They danced and merged in the air, the relatively small fires growing and pouring down on them. Sirius managed to easily dodge them, barely taking his focus from Malfoy as he continued launching curses at the man. Even Remus dealt with the fires quickly, casting large spurts of water that extinguished them before they could even reach them.

It was those precious few seconds that Malfoy had earned that gave him the advantage. Soon enough it wasn't just fire lashing out at them. Spikes were launched from the walls beside them. The ground surged from beneath them, trapping Sirius' feet and making him stumble while latching themselves onto Remus' arm and trying to yank his wand away from him. What started as creeping, slow attacks that only staggered them for a few moments turned into relentless distractions and then into overwhelming attacks that consumed their focus.

Before they knew it, they were the ones trying to escape from Malfoy's incursions, barely managing to block the deadlier curses as the Death Eater chipped at them slowly. His curses cutting and blasting away at them, piece by piece, and they were forced to concede all of it over and over again. Remus bore the brunt of it, even after spending over a decade in Azkaban he remained the better dueller. But Sirius was far from being in a favourable position.

Malfoy turned the tide seamlessly, and soon enough Sirius found himself limping back onto the nearest wall, barely able to keep shielding and evading Malfoy's attacks. Remus was on the ground across the room, his knee twisted upside down with various gashes over his chest. And it was only the sudden shifting of the room that saved the both of them from Malfoy's wrath.

London

1:05 a.m.

"Take cover!" Dawlish shouted, the piercing sounds of the windows of the Leaky Cauldron behind him being blasted apart drowning his voice.

Only a few Aurors managed to get into the building before all hell broke loose, the quiet street erupting in a cacophony of screams and explosions. They raised their shields. Transfigured the ground to build cover around them. Sought out the looming threat as curses kept raining down on them.

His mind was reeling. His ears still ringing. They had caught them all. He was sure of it. Or had been right before he saw the dozen or more Death Eaters standing on the rooftops above them. Had this all been a trap? Was the whole Ministry angle a way to trap them all here and kill them more easily? The question left as fast as it came once Dawlish sprang into action. Launching cover fire at the robed figures above them, he began edging back towards the pub.

"Everyone inside now!" He commanded. A couple of Aurors quickly followed his orders, jumping back and rushing towards the door only to be mauled down by the jet of pink and red curses. Those rookies never stood a chance, and as the Aurors were pinned down in their cover the Death Eaters began advancing on them.

Dawlish immediately recognised Dolohov when he saw him. Leading the charge as he and three more Death Eaters appeared on the street in front of them. A few Aurors tried to engage him, but they were forced back into cover by the sheer volume of curses sent at them.

"Kill them all!" Dolohov shouted.

They advanced towards them, Dolohov taking the lead as he sprinted across the street. Dawlish peered out from the side of the stone slab he had transfigured, hurling a few tripping jinxes, incarcerous charms, and blasting curses at the Death Eater. Only the latter hit him, grazing him in the shoulder after he'd jumped over and blocked the other spells. And with a mix of a smirk and a sneer, Dolohov didn't hold back as he launched countless killing curses at him.

They tore at the stone. Blasting it apart and leaving behind the poisonous, singed smell when it collided against his cover. There were very few wizards who could use the killing curse like that - who would use it like that. The threat of any simple mistake ending his life kept him behind his cover, working to fix the damages and reinforce it as Dolohov kept trying to pierce through it.

Dolohov was getting closer and closer. Dawlish tried to stop him - to stall him. But all his counter-attacks heavily missed their mark, and Dolohov was unperturbed. And then he was suddenly there, vaulting over the stone wall and throwing killing curses down at him. Dawlish jumped, rolled, and crawled out of the way, blindly hurling cover fire as the green bolts of lightning kept striking all around him.

He skirted around the wall, immediately shielding himself from the assault from above as he evaded Dolohov's curses. He quickly raised barrier after barrier over his head, using a mix of magical and physical barriers to shield himself from the other Death Eaters before quickly turning back, wand ready for Dolohov. Only he never came. As he braved himself to peer around the wall, eyes searching for Dolohov, he was met with a trail of two corpses leading to the swaying door of the Leaky Cauldron.

Department of Mysteries

1:10 a.m.

Neville was shaking. His hands. His arms. His entire body. He had been dropped in another solitary room for the fourth time in a row - away from his friends and the Death Eaters alike. It was a compact, square room - white and bitterly cold. The entire room was dazzlingly bright despite any torches or other light sources, and it was in this glaring whiteness that the tall, dark figures stuck out the most. There were nearly a dozen tight, rectangular cages spread out across the room, each containing a dementor inside.

Some looked almost human, standing on the ground rather than hovering like the others. There was one whose chest seemed to be bursting with light and another that was almost wheezing as if it was trying to say something. All of them dementors, but somehow slightly different. It was them that were making the room almost unbearably cold.

"But that's not the reason why you're shaking, is it?" His doppelgänger said lightly, studying the dementors one by one.

"You're not real. You're not real. You're not real." It was the mantra he kept repeating, over and over again. The only way he addressed its presence, for he refused to talk to it. Neville wanted it gone. He wanted to rid himself of it. But for some reason, he didn't think the apparition would poof out of existence this time. There was something wrong. Something had changed. And that was more terrifying than any dementor around him.

"I'm more real than you ever were," it whispered in his ear, sending a shiver down his spine.

Neville snapped upwards, his body acting on its own as he turned and jerked the wands forward. Five blasting curses erupted from his wand, sending him staggering backward as they collided against the white, marble wall behind him, not even leaving a dent behind.

"What the fuck happened to you?" A voice spoke from behind him and Neville reacted just as he had moments ago. The curses left the wands in his hand before he had even thought of them, but before they could make it far, they were abruptly batted away by Harry Potter.

"You!" Neville snarled, a curse on the tip of his tongue before the wands in his hands were suddenly snapped away. They clattered to the ground, rolling away from him, and before he could react Potter clocked him on the jaw.

"Don't," he warned, stepping on Neville's hand as he ducked down to fish out his wand from the pile. "The reason I'm here is to fix your mistakes in the first place."

"They would have killed Hermione!"

"She's halfway there regardless! And so is Fred. And Ron. And George. God knows if we'll ever find Ginny. If you had just kept your head down and stayed at the bloody castle, then none of this would have happened!"

His dark mirror chuckled, leaning against one of the glass cells with his foot against the pane. "Keep your head down? You're Neville Longbottom! The Boy Who Lived. The Vanquisher of the Dark Lord. Those sorts of things are below you, aren't they? Or at least they would, if you weren't such a fraud."

"You're lying!" Neville ripped out his hand from underneath Potter's shoe, cringing at the pain as he traced his thumb against the wand.

"Of course he is," his doppelgänger patronized. "At the end of the day, this is all his fault. Or Dumbledore's, you seem to blame him often as well. If all else fails, then maybe you can just blame our dear old gram. Anyone but ourselves."

"Shut up!" Neville hurled the blasting curse across the room. Potter immediately shielded, but the spell was never meant for him. It passed through the Dark Neville and crashed into the glass, small cracks spreading around it

"Are you fucking mad?" Potter lashed out, wild-eyed. "Alright, I've had it with you. It's time for you-" he suddenly dropped to the ground, teeth gritted in pain before he rolled forward and cast a shield that absorbed the first red curse before it was blasted apart by the orange bolt that followed. The two boys were thrown back by the sheer power of it.

"Get them!" A man shouted as two Death Eaters appeared behind the glass cases and began throwing spells at them.

Remus cried out in pain as his leg was abruptly righted by the spell. The bones cracked back into place. Tears stinging at his eyes. His hand was shaking, the battle still fresh on his mind as he nursed his wounds as much as he could. He could use his magic to numb the pain and fix his wounds, but he was well aware that he was in for a few uncomfortable days after this. If he survived, that is.

He hadn't checked around the room. Barely conscious, Remus hadn't managed to do much besides crawl into cover and hope no one else was in the room as he began healing himself. Minutes had gone by and there was still nothing. Not a sound, not even a small whisper to put him back on edge. He was alone, free to make sure he didn't pass out from the pain. He absently wondered about the others. Sirius, Harry, the other kids…

He had never felt so useless. Harry had brought him here, trusting him to be able to help. Even when he wasn't being used as a training dummy by Malfoy and Lestrange, he had stood petrified, unable to help George before Harry had to step in and do it for him. It was degrading. The humiliation somehow hit worse than any curses Malfoy and Lestrange could throw at him. Even worse, he could do nothing about it but feel sorry for himself.

When the room began shifting around him, changing from dull grey colours to a slightly more vibrant orange and brown hue, Remus stood up and gripped his wand tightly. He was dropped in a small library, bookcases filled to the brink with time turners hanging on the walls beside them. His focus, though, was immediately drawn to the loud cries at the centre of the room. Ginny Weasley was writhing violently as the blood-red bolt of the cruciatus curse was continuously striking at her torso.

Three Death Eaters loomed above her. The one in the centre holding the cruciatus as the others cast intermittent curses at her. They'd already done a lot of damage, she seemed to be hanging onto life by a single thread. And there was no one but him here to help her.

Neville managed to react, placing a quick shield that caught all the curses levied at them without even straining before Potter pulled the two of them to take cover behind the nearest vitrine.

"Oh, great casting, Potter." Neville mocked. "If only you could have made it any weaker."

Potter cast a murderous glare at Neville before rushing into action, leaping from their cover as he cast a rapid string of curses that caught the first Death Eater on the torso while the other one ducked and crawled to cover.

Neville tried to bite back his anger at seeing Potter in his element. Every spell he cast was perfectly cast and aimed, not even a tiny error in his delivery. And the way he moved around the room, leaping and side-stepping around the Death Eater's curses as if it was a well-rehearsed dance. He didn't even need a shield or any sort of cover, letting the curses crash against the glass cases around them, sounds of glass cracking whispering underneath the cacophony of the barrage of curses that was flying across the room.

He would never be able to do that, especially not after his wand arm had been burnt away by the bloody orb of Fate. And the jealousy was literally burning him from the inside. After all the shit he'd gone through, every bloody thing that had happened to him… Neville couldn't help but feel he deserved better. If anyone deserved to be the hero, the people looked up to, it was him.

But that wasn't the case. Not now. Not when Potter had suddenly come here to save them all while he had been the fuck-up that had brought them down here in the first place. And now he couldn't even take solace in the fact that he had a purpose. A meaning for his life. For all that he'd gone through. He would have to see Potter's name plastered on the paper again, crowning him the true hero again.

"And they'd be right." His Dark Mirror whispered behind his ear.

Neville growled, quickly joined him, and cast a few curses of his own. But before half of them had even left his wand, a knife had already impaled itself onto the cloaked figure's neck before flying back to Potter's hand.

None of his own curses even hit their target as they veered off wildly.

"Quippy and helpful," Potter sneered. "Whatever would I do without you?"

"You try aiming with-" His rant was suddenly caught off when the other Death Eater sprung from his hiding place and threw a hail of spells at them. Neville quickly placed a shield long enough to cover both him and Potter, successfully catching whatever curses the man had sent at him. But he managed to quickly dodge Potter's curses, using the glass case where Neville's doppelgänger was standing against for cover. They passed through the figment, crashing violently against the glass as its crack crawled further and further away.

Potter quickly motioned towards the right as he moved to the left. Grudgingly, Neville followed his orders, the two of them slowly making their way around the case. The dementor loomed over him, pressed against the glass, its fingers slowly scratched against the glass, cracking it even further.

"There you are Siri," the hated voice giggled behind him. "I was wondering why you weren't in Azkaban with the rest of us when our Lord saved us."

He turned around and found his cousin there, a mask still on her face as she tilted her head in amusement. Rage unlike anything he'd ever felt flared inside him. Here was the bitch that had tortured him for months. That manipulated his own brother into turning his back on him. That helped torture and kill Lily and James. And suddenly he didn't care about Potter. He didn't care if he was actually a Death Eater that had led them all to a trap. The brat had promised him Bellatrix Lestrange and now here she was. He would not let the night go by without her blood on his hands.

Not after he'd thrown away that chance when he fled from the Dementors three years ago.

He growled at her, sounding more like a feral beast than an actual man. Without thinking, he leaped forward and transformed into Padfoot before his paws touched the ground. Bellatrix laughed madly, raining curses down on him. He skirted around them, the blasts sending shards of stone against his skin before he jumped at her, claws ready to strike.

She caught him mid-air and cackled as she slammed him down onto the ground. A cry escaped his muzzle, but Bellatrix didn't lift the spell as she picked him up and slammed him down again. He quickly transformed back into human form, quickly breaking her spell only for a mustard yellow bolt to strike him in the arm.

His blood sizzled. Muscles spasmed. His arm itself began melting off. And if he hadn't immediately recognised the curse from the endless repertoire of dark curses from the previous war, he would have been dead in a matter of minutes. He ducked and rolled away from her string of attacks as he quickly cast the counter-curse. It immediately stopped spreading, but the curse had done its work, and the pain would take days to fully ebb away.

Perhaps, once he actually managed to kill her, he would allow himself to feel it.

"You're quiet tonight, cousin," Bellatrix taunted him without stopping her attacks. "You know I hate it when you're quiet. Come on… give me a little scream!"

"You're not getting that satisfaction." Sirius snarled. His barrage of cutting, blasting, and reductor curses was batted back at him, but only the former managed to hit him, slicing him in the shoulder. And before he even had time to react she unleashed hell upon him. It was swift, wild, and violent all at the same time. By the time he blocked the first curse, he had realised his mistake. She had read him like a book, anticipating his every move, and the following curses did their work.

His legs were suddenly tied up, and then he was suddenly propelled backwards. Four curses of her curses shattered his shield and gave access to the final two blue and purple bolts to hit him before his body could crash back onto the ground.

The scream he let out was unlike anything he'd ever heard. It echoed around the room, somehow louder and louder. His hands traced over where his ribs had pierced through his chest and his right leg shook violently as its skin was being forcefully peeled off.

"Oh, don't worry, Siri," she whispered in his ear, cradling his body in a way that made him shiver. "I won't kill you. Not yet. Not tonight."

He could feel the wicked smile against his ear.

"I'll have to settle for only a little bit of fun with you."

As soon as the Death Eater realised what they were doing, he tried to stop them. Thankfully, the moron targeted Longbottom. No wonder given how he was the cripple of the two of them. The man was as mediocre as the rest of them, but he was a fast caster launching five curses in a row as he moved toward him. But Longbottom managed to raise a shield that stopped them all. He didn't even try to fire back, and Harry knew it would have been a fruitless endeavour. Longbottom had already been barely average with his aim to begin with. Now, casting with his left hand, he was downright pitiful.

He quickly lunged forward, sliding across the ground and gaining the attention of the Death Eater. The man reacted quicker than Harry expected, sending two curses that Harry easily slid under before he parried the rest of them out of the way. They crashed against the floor, the walls, the glass case beside him, anywhere but their true target. And without even having to get up from the ground, Harry cast three quick spells at him that immediately took him out of the game, disarming him, banishing him back towards the wall beside them as a small piece of rope flew out of his wand, latched itself across his neck, and pinned him to the wall.

The bastard tried to struggle against it, but it was of no use. He wouldn't manage to pry himself out in time.

But before he or Longbottom could say anything, the glass at his side shattered in a fierce explosion. Longbottom was thrown down onto the ground. Pieces flew all over the place, and Harry barely had time to cover his face before they stabbed at his side. And then came the cold. Freezing. It almost reached inside and chilled his very bones. It was a sensation he'd felt many times before. One that never failed to completely petrify him.

The dementor hovered out of its case, looming over them both. Harry tried backing away, but couldn't muster more than a half-step. He tried to speak but only managed to stutter. His body was shaking, trembling almost as bad as Granger's was when he found her. And when the dementor turned to him, Harry was sure it could smell the fear that was pouring out of him.

It flew towards him and the world began fading around him. The floor, the walls, the air around him. Everything began turning black and the only thing he could see was the rotten, decomposing carcass barely concealed by the cloak.

"NO! NO! PLEASE! DON'T!"

"Boys, hold him in place."

"NO! PLEASE! YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS! I'M SORRY! I'LL LEAVE YOU ALONE! I SWEAR!"

No. No. No. No. This couldn't be happening. Harry raised his wand, his hand trembling as it faced the dementor. "Ex-Expecto Patronum!"

"You can't do this forever. Why keep suffering needlessly? This is it, the last thing you do before you finally rest. Can you even remember what resting means? Can you recall a time when you felt peaceful, truly peaceful?"

"AHHHHHH!" The blade was plunged deeper into him, he could almost feel it scrapping against his bones.

"You will feel no pain. Once I take over, you'll see what I see. But I can't do that until you accept."

He tried to focus on a happy memory. A happy memory. Anything to keep him going. Theo. Pansy. Moody. But the names came and went, and no memory came to mind. "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

"If Dumbledore isn't going to do anything about him, then I will."

"Sirius don't!"

SNAP!

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

Harry was suddenly forced out of his memories, the world reappearing around him as a shiny, silvery turtle swimming in the air, rushing towards the dementor that had immediately begun to run away from the Patronus. Harry kept shaking, his mind reeling, trying to process everything.

And then he saw it. Longbottom. His wand pulled. A self-satisfied look on his face.

It was he who had cast the Patronus.

He who had managed to drive the dementor away.

He who was the one who managed to overcome them.

Harry felt a surge of hatred rise through him. Hatred and spitefulness and jealousy coursing in his blood. And when Longbottom was suddenly tugged away by a magical force right before his eyes, disappearing completely from the room, Harry's only thought was that he wished Voldemort would be in whatever room he appeared in next.

Lucius finally managed to regain his breath when he charmed another mask to cover his face. It had been well over a decade since he had found himself in a situation like that. If Dumbledore's phoenix hadn't abruptly left, the situation could have been much more dire. But the fact that it had appeared there to help them in the first place was enough cause to worry. If the bird was here, then Dumbledore would soon follow. And no one had managed to one-up the man in well over seven decades.

Not even the Dark Lord.

But he couldn't leave empty-handed. He had learned Longbottom wasn't the one the prophecy spoke of, that was as good information as any. But it still didn't reveal who was the subject of the prophecy. And after an endeavour of this scale, the Dark Lord wouldn't settle for anything less than tangible results. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, unsure of how to move without eliciting the wrath of either of the most powerful wizards in all of Britain.

Thankfully, the answer soon presented itself once the room shifted around him, and he was thrown somewhere else within the Department of Mysteries. There, only a few feet in front of him was Neville Longbottom. Panting. Hunched over. Completely unaware of the fact that he was right behind him.

Before the boy could turn around, Lucius snapped his wand at him. A chain snapped around the boy's neck before it transfigured itself into a collar. Longbottom yelped, but before he could do anything else Lucius yanked the chain and the boy stumbled down to his knees, pathetically trying to compensate for his lack of arm and keep his balance.

"You've had enough fun for the day, Mister Longbottom. It's time for us to leave."

Without bothering to wait for a response Lucius turned around and yanked the boy forward with him. His eyes were already searching around for the exit to this godforsaken place, but his mind was somewhere else. Pulling back the sleeves of his clothes, Lucius pressed the Dark Mark on his arm and silently commanded his Death Eaters to retreat from the Department of Mysteries.

And after a second of hesitation, he pressed the mark one more time.

"I have the boy," his voice a cold whisper. "I'm taking him to the Atrium as we speak."

That's it for this chapter, thank you all for reading!

Welcome to the GRAND FIFTH-YEAR FINALE! Sit back and enjoy, we're going to be here a while ;)

By the time I'm posting this, I'm THIRTEEN chapters ahead, and have just finished writing the fourth chapter of the last arc of fifth-year titled No Rest For The Wicked! THERE IS OFFICIALLY ONLY ONE CHAPTER LEFT BEFORE I FINISH WITH FIFTH-YEAR! If you are interested in learning how to get early access to them, join my discord server using the following link: discord . gg / jyPfbGqhJT

As always, thank you for reading, favouriting, and commenting! I appreciate all of you! :)