Ladies and Gentleman,
The final act is about to reach its climax and the author kindly asks you to take your seats.
It's Harry Potter Vs Voldemort.
The Heir to the Hunt vs. the Harbinger of Fear.
As always, this chapter was edited by Politically Problematic Prose Pundit.
On with the show!
Harry Potter, Maige Tuired, somewhere off the west coast of Ireland.
"-And by like you, I meant like a Magician. An in-between for the gods and mortals. In a time long ago, you would have been a high priest of your mother, her voice to the people of the world to guide them by the will of the gods-" the words Brigid had told him so many months ago settled into the back of Harry's mind and percolated for months, like some unwanted pest buzzing in his ear.
But at the very least, The Morrígan was true to her word. As soon as Harry, Ron, Hermione, Theodore, Luna, and Fúamnach stepped foot into the Hedge, the ever-shifting maze of the fae's endless corridors untangled before them, revealing a single path ahead of them. Harry takes point and goes at a slow pace so the others can keep up with him, and before the group of students can even take fifty steps, the black vapor signifying the exit from the Hedge comes to life in a twisting, screaming face of a blood-soaked warrior.
"There!" Theodore yells, pointing for those who had never traveled through the mists of the Hedge could see it.
"Bloody hell," Ron swears from behind Harry, "can't she be less creepy about this shite?"
The unanimous answer of "No" comes deadpanned from Harry, Theodore, and Fúamnach just before Harry jumps into the screaming mouth of the warrior. He feels the same itchy, scratchy sensation cover him as he slips back into the lands he knows, only to appear midair almost twenty feet in the air.
"Fuck!" Harry hissed as his wand arm lashed out, ejecting his wand from its holster and into his waiting hand. With his first wave, he vanishes the earth below him before swinging his arm back just as quickly to cast a cushioning charm into the trench he had just made. He hears the others leaving the Hedge curse as well as they fall through the air. Harry lands first and quickly turns, casting two summoning charms in quick succession, pulling both Hermione and Luna into safety, as Fúamnach, Ron, and Theodore landed just a bit rougher than they would want.
Harry flinches at their rough landing and glares as he tries for a weak grin at the other three people. "Sorry," He whispers before ducking down into the trench, pressing his back against the wall. "I could only grab two of you in that short of a time," he explains quickly. "Everyone good?" he asks.
"And of course, you go for the maidens," Fúamnach mutters angrily as she leans over and rubs her butt to soothe the pain of landing on it.
"Oh!" Hermione says quickly before rounding on Fúamnach with wide eyes. "You've noticed that too?" she asks quietly.
"Of course," Fúamnach says with a bit of a sniff. "It's practically hard-wired into him," she says as she leans against one of the walls of the trench.
"Does it have anything to do with-" Hermione begins to ask before Harry cuts her off.
"Guys!" Harry hisses at them, gaining both of the witch's attention. "I can not believe I'm the one saying this, but focus! We're in enemy territory," he snaps at both of them and Hermione has the decency to look apologetic at him while Fúamnach just rolls her eyes.
Fúamnach looks at Hermione and nods her head toward the trench walls. Hermione somehow understands and nods her head as she readies her wand and Fúamnach raises her quindent. Both begin to mutter as they aim their respective foci upwards, creating a shimmering shield of magic that fades as quickly as it was cast.
Harry looks at Hermione questioningly. "Notice-me-not charm," she explains quickly before peeking over the edge of the trench. "Just in case," she says with a smirk. Harry huffs out a small laugh before the rest of his group all peer over the edge of the trench to get the lay of the land this unfamiliar land.
It was a small island with one lone peak jutting out of the sea that swept downward like one half of a valley toward a small beach at the lowest point of the island. The Morrígan has made sure that the small group was deposited close to the highest peak of the island to get a good view of the land, which was a lot more than Harry had expected from her. The grass was yellow and dead and a smell so foul and thick- of stagnant ocean brine and sweet-smelling rot in the air Harry could do nothing but wrinkle his nose in disgust. Under the shadow of the sweeping peak, Harry could make out the ruins of a once-mighty castle, it paled in comparison to the size of Hogwarts, but it was still bigger than what any muggle could build on the island from the age of myths that it was undoubtedly from.
The fortress was shattered and scattered across the war-torn island that had yet to fully heal from the battle that was fought on it so long ago. Only the high walls of the remained barely standing, and even they were crumbling to the unstopped March of time. Harry could make out tiny motes of witchlight from wands as groups of mortals patrolled in tight groups around the ruins looking for anyone who would disturb the ritual that was happening within the walls of the fallen fortress.
"Mag Turied," Theodore says breathlessly as he looks down at the mythical fortress with wide eyes. "This was the seat of the Firbolg, the race that predates even the Dé Danann. Rebuilt by the Formorians when they came crawling out from under the sea, where the Tuatha Dé Danann fought both of them and won," he says with awe in his voice. Fúamnach hums in agreement, but offers nothing else as her eyes sweep across the fortress.
"We should have grabbed the Omnioculars," Ron mutters as he peeks down at the ruined fortress bathed in the light of the full moon.
"An oversight we won't make again," Hermione says determinedly at his side as she too studies the sight below. "Ron, call it," she says as she turns to the redhead, but before he can speak up, Harry cuts him off.
"No," He says, causing both Hermione and Ron to look at him oddly. "Hermione, Ron, take my cloak and flank left. Keep under its cover and take out the patrols, pick them off one by one if you've got to. Theodore and Luna will do the same but with the right flank," Harry tells them in an ice-cold voice.
"And by take them out, you mean?" Hermione says, her voice shaking a bit as she asks.
Harry hesitates for a moment- "Stun them, use a sticking charm to stick their clothes to the ground before taking their wands and snapping them. That way even if they get woken up, they won't have any means to fight back and have to run around in their underwear," Harry says before turning to Hermione. Her lips were pressed in a thin line with a worried look in her eyes as she stared at him, but in the end, nodded as Luna giggled beside Harry.
"Sounds solid," Ron says, his eyes not leaving the battlefield as he puts in his two sickles. "What about you?" he asks Harry.
"I'm going right after Voldemort," Harry says in a hard voice. "The sooner I can kill him, the sooner we can beat a quick retreat when the Order shows up to deal with the rest, but let's try to thin their numbers before they show up," He says, looking over at Ron, who finally looks away from the fortress.
A look of concern crosses his face before he lets out a worried sigh and nods his head. "Right. Just- just don't let him kill you, otherwise I'll never hear the end of it from mum," he says with a tiny grin.
"And worry Mrs. Weasley? Never," Harry says with a scoff and a roguish grin as Ron chuckles. Harry raises his arm with a closed fist, and Ron does the same before they share a fist bump.
"Take care, mate," Ron says with a smile.
"Cheers, mate," Harry says in return before turning to Hermione with the same gesture. But the bushy-headed bookworm ignores it as she throws her arms around Harry and crushes him to her.
"Don't make me be the first person to return the dead back to life with magic, Harry. I'd hate to be remembered just for that," she whispers just low enough for Harry to hear but no one else. Harry hugs her back with almost everything he has, burying his face into her neck.
"I won't, I promise," Harry reassures her before they break apart, sharing a smile. While she was no longer a member of the hunt, it didn't change how he saw Hermione and Harry was pretty sure she shared the unspoken sentiment.
"Well, this is my second Harry Potter adventure, and I must say, it gets more ridiculous each time," Theodore says with a smirk as he unfolds the replica of Manannán cloak and turns to Harry. "Try not to die like a headstrong Gryffindor, Potter," he tells Harry.
"Nah, I'll die like a Hufflepuff if anything," Harry quips back with a grin as Theodore looks at him oddly. "Taking everyone around me with me,"
Theodore laughs at that and shakes his head. "Then I'll live like a Slytherin and stay out of the blast zone while making sure my enemies are caught in it," he says with a grin that matches Harry's.
Harry then turns to Luna, she is still wearing her wide dreamy smile as she looks at him. "You'll come back," she says, but this wasn't spoken like a question. Luna said it with utter and unwavering confidence as if it was merely a statement of fact that had yet to come to pass.
Harry smiled down at Luna. "Yeah," he says, with the same confidence as the girl before him. "I will," Luna hugged him then, it was over quickly but as she stepped back, she raised her hand and bopped him on the nose with her finger. Harry chuckles at the odd girl's antics before turning to Theodore.
"I'm leaving Luna to you, Theodore. Make sure she's safe, or I'll have to hunt you down as well," Harry warns him, and Theodore chuckles warmly.
"And that is more terrifying than anything Voldemort can do to me," Theodore says with a shake of his head and a fond smile.
"I'll give you all a few minutes' head start, that way we can try and synchronize this as best we can," Harry says, looking between his friends. "Just stay hidden, and if it starts looking bad just run and hide until the Order gets here," he says and watches the four of them nod before pulling themselves out of the trench on opposite sides and slipping under their respective cloaks, leaving Harry in the trench with the last person of their group; Fúamnach.
She gives Harry a queer look. "What? No order for me?" she asks with a raised brow.
Harry lets out a single hollow laugh. "You're an over three-thousand-year-old witch, who's probably been in more battles than years I've lived. I think you'll be fine without a young whipper snapper like me trying to order you around," he says with a shrug to Fúamnach's growing smile.
"Why Mister Potter, was that a crack at my age?" Fúamnach asks in mocking aghast, her hand placed over her heart as she does. Harry rolls his eyes and says nothing as he conjures a helm like the ones the suits of armor at Hogwarts wear before layering charms across it. Fúamnach watches him quietly for a moment, her face falling to a flat look. "You could have gone with them, you would have made much quicker progress if you did," she states.
"I know," Harry says, finishing up his charm work.
"Why didn't you?" Fúamnach asks, standing as she does.
Harry turns the helm around in his hands and frowns down at it. He begins to alter the look of the visor, twisting it in the face of a snarling wolf with far too many eyes. "Because I don't need Theodore or Luna to see what I'm about to do, and I don't need Ron and Hermione to have flashbacks to-" Harry stops himself with a sigh. "I almost killed them once before because I lost control, I don't want them to see that again," he admits as he looks down at his helm, a mirror of the snarling, snapping, and ravenous beast inside of his mind.
Fúamnach hums in understanding but says nothing more as she looks over the island. Only after a few minutes, she spoke up. "While you're busy with killing Voldemort, I think I'll be keeping his followers inside the fortress busy and disrupting the ritual as best I can," she says as she hoists herself over the lip of the trench.
"They won't interfere with me and Voldemort's fight," Harry says confidently as he does the same to stand next to Fúamnach. "He wants to kill me himself to prove something. The others won't interfere," Harry says, turning to look at Fúamnach, his helm tucked under his arm.
"Be that as it may, that is still what I'll be doing," Fúamnach says with a small smile as she turns to Harry before raising her weapon and tapping the island once before Harry watches her form melt into mist and vanish from sight. Harry lets out a long sigh as he looks up to the heavens, wondering if Artemis is watching over him at this moment as he looks at the full moon. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and relaxes himself before reaching out for his final blessing. He feels the light of the full moon fill him before putting on his helm, it holding fast thanks to the sticking charm he applied to the inside of it. He opens his eyes, and silver cat's eyes look across the world as a swell of power rises in his chest, he reaches under his jacket, grasping the torc wrapped around his arm, and pulls it free.
Gaé Buidhe, The Golden Rose of Mortality, the weapon that was gifted to him by Manannán after freeing him. "Fen-Iron weapons work just as well on mortals as they do on monsters," the god of the seas had told him, and as Harry looked down at the short spear in his hand, he could only think of how perfect a weapon it was for him. As he sees the wolf helm reflected in the golden blade, the words of Brigid come back to him again.
"-And by like you, I meant like a Magician. An in-between for the gods and mortals, in a time long ago, you would have been a high priest of your mother, her voice to the people of the world to guide them by the will of the gods-"
And he couldn't help but wonder what the words of his divine mother would be. Artemis wasn't one for speeches, her words were far more like orders to be followed and Harry thought "Go away" sounded a lot like her. He doubts she would have a lot of words of inspiration for the mortals of the world as he drops his arm and once more looks over the ruins of Mag Turied. But while his mother didn't have words, Harry knew the Hunt's message rather well, so as he reached for the tap inside his mind, the feeling more than words could ever say came unbidden to his mind.
"Kill or be killed, hunt or be hunted, devour or be devoured,"
And with his first step, Harry resolved himself to deliver these words to the mortals who meant his home ill intent personally.
His steps turn into a light jog, the jog turns into a flat run, and while running downhill, Harry turns into a blur of silver and black under the moonlight. With a swift and sure foot, he wasn't worried about tripping and falling at this speed. As one foot was placed in front of the other, he made it to the outskirts of the ruined fortress in seconds to the woe to the small patrol that met him first. Gaé Buidhe leaves a line of glowing gold as it meets the neck of the first Death Eater, cutting through flesh and bone like it wasn't even there. The man never knew what hit him, and as his head went flying through the air with a spray of blood, Harry slid to a stop.
The group of three other Death Eaters that were talking, chatting, and laughing with the newly headless corpse turned to it, confused as to why their friend's head was now twirling through the air. They hadn't even completely registered the fact the man's body had crumpled to the ground without its head before Harry slashed out with his wand. An overpowered cleaving curse was sent flying, and by the time one of the men had turned to look at Harry, it was too late. The curse split the other three men and the large broken section of wall they stood in front of in half, they didn't even scream as they died.
Harry spins back around and takes off again, ignoring the still-falling bodies, and keeps moving toward the ruined fortress. Nothing would stand between him and Voldemort, and if something did, he would simply cut it down. Harry jumped over stones and fallen pieces of ancient debris as he continued to move forward. He felt the wind shift and bring with it the noxious scent of the Formorians. Harry reacts quickly, bending his knees and using all the power in his legs to leap straight into the air.
Bursting from the earth was a maw of jagged stone, in an odd way it reminded Harry of a crocodile with the shale-like scales. It snapped at where Harry once stood hungrily, trying to trap him in its maw to drag him below the earth. Harry, in mid-leap, conjures a blade twice the size of the monster's jaws before banishing it toward the monster and spinning his short spear in his hand to have the tip of it point skyward and stabs upwards. An unholy screech could be heard as the blade of Gaé Buidhe pierced the body of the phantom of the night sky that also tried to swallow Harry whole. Harry twists the blade before ripping it from the void-like Formorian, a spray of black muck lands on Harry as he lands on the guillotine blade he used to kill the other monster.
Harry jumps off the guillotine blade and continues his mad dash over and through the scattered wreckage of the fortress. Making his way to the last standing visage, he happens upon the next group of poor souls between him and Voldemort, hearing them before he sees them.
"-Don't care if you're scared, if you wish a place at my lord's side, you will do as you are-" said a familiar voice behind a large broken section tower that fell long ago. Harry takes the corner and the voice cuts off to turn and look at Harry, the eyes behind the silver death mask of some dead wizard from long ago widen as the person takes in Harry's crouched and charging form. The group of men with the masked one, five in total, all turn to look at Harry thanks to him no longer being a blur of speed. The five men begin to either draw their wands or raise them to point at Harry, the masked man however was frozen, Harry could smell the fear and panic rolling off of him. The masked man's scent was also a familiar scent to Harry as he grins viciously.
"Mr. Malfoy," Harry thinks to himself, elated at finding the elder Malfoy here and practically alone. The Hunt growls hungrily in his mind at the scent of a meal long denied to it. "Well, it's time to feed you then, isn't it?" Harry thinks to the primal force of nature as he feels the Hunt push even more power into Harry.
He lashes out with his spear, loosening his grip just enough to extend it toward the fastest of the wizards and cutting off his arm at the elbow. He then spins with the momentum, drawing his wand across from the natural rock formation to the wall of the broken tower. A massive blade of steel shoots from the rocks, perpendicular to the ground, to the wall and swiftly cuts all but two men in half. The last dark wizard looked at Harry in shock, his face turning green as he watched Harry brutally kill his comrades before Harry leaped onto the flat of the blade and charged forward. The dark wizard looks ready to run, but Malfoy reaches out and grabs the man by the back of his collar and throws him forward as Harry leaps from the bloody blade at them. Lucius goes to draw his wand from his cane just as the golden blade of Harry's spear finds a home in the other man's eye socket.
Harry raises his wand over the shoulder of the now-dead body he crashes into and swiftly casts another cleaving curse at Lucius, trying to cut his wand in two before he can draw it. Lucius brings his cane up to meet the spell, the warded cane that acted like a shield to his wand flares to life, trying to block the spell cast by Harry. But as soon as the curse meets the shield, it causes the magical interlocking plates of the magic to crack, and Lucius abandons blocking the spell completely and angles his cane to deflect the spell. He manages to draw his wand from his cane and casts a curse in an underhanded motion. The purple curse spirals out like a helix at Harry, with a violent jerk and twist that splits the head the blade was buried in like a ripe melon, he pulls his spear free.
Lucius watches as his curse hits the body and carves a perfect circle through the corpus and the boy. His Lord would be upset with him, he knew that, but he was sure he could talk his way out of any punishment so long as he phrased it just right. Something catches Lucius' attention, but by the time the man looks down, the heel of Harry's boot digs itself deep into his gut, and with all the power of the Hunt-enhanced demigod strength, Harry launches Lucius skyward.
Harry hadn't stopped his momentum once, juking around the dead body and keeping low and out of Lucius' line of sight as his eyes followed his curse. Harry spins and slashes his wand at Lucius, hitting him in the chest with a banishing charm. With another whip quick flourish of his wand, he summons a set of stairs aimed right at the falling man and charges up them, spinning both his spear and wand into a reverse grip. As Harry reaches the apex of the stairs he flips off of them, aiming at Lucius as liquid metal forms around his wand. By the time Harry hits Lucius and wraps his legs around the chest of the man, his wand is covered in a replica of the head and a short section of the pole of his teacher's divine armament.
Lucius' eyes widen under his mask as he sees the glowing silver eyes underneath the visor of a beast. "I told you I would be hunting snakes!" Harry snarls at the man, his spears, one gold, and one silver, raised above his head as they both fall from the sky. Harry brings down the spears in swift, vicious, and savage motions, stabbing at Lucius as they both fall. The heart, lungs, throat, brain, eyes, and whatever else Harry could reach got viciously perforated by both spears as he took Lucius Malfoy's life to the howling elation of the Hunt.
The final blow came as they landed, Harry letting go with his legs to stab the replica of the Gaé Bolg right through Lucius' forehead as they hit the earth, splitting the mask in two.
Harry stands over the body of Lucius, pulling his wand from the replica as he does. He looks down for a moment at the body and lets out a harsh laugh at the now-dead man. "Some sticky end you got, huh?" he says scornfully before turning away from the body and dashing off once more.
Harry makes his way through the ruins as quickly as he can, only coming across a few more formorians as he does. One of feather and beak that tried to turn and run as soon as it saw Harry. He had pierced its heart before moving on. The next two were some kind of monstrous spider with the head of a woman and a shadow person. While Harry had killed the spider easily enough, the shadow slipped away and ran from him.
Seriously, how the hell was he to kill a shadow? Stab the bloody floor!?
Harry followed the shadows' flickering form as it led him to a set of large iron doors. Tall and imposing they stood, and Harry knew at once that the monster was on the other side of it. He raised his hands to push the door open but stopped. In the flickering light that came from the crack in the door and the solemn moonlight overhead, Harry sees the blood and caked muck on his hands and arms. The sight stops him and he pulls his hand back from the door as he stares at the red gore and blackish muck caked on his hand and arm. How many people did he just kill? He honestly couldn't remember, maybe nine? Or was it eleven? Harry couldn't say.
A sight he must look, covered in blood and muck from the people he had killed and the formorians he had hunted. Harry was once again completing the cycle, Killer and Hunter, he had killed the Death Eaters in his way and Hunted the Formorian on the island. Harry shakes his head to banish the thoughts of death from his mind, he doesn't need any moral quandaries for what he has done, he doesn't need to question things. He had a single job in all this, kill Voldemort, and that was something he wasn't going to fail at, not with stakes this high.
So, Harry lets out a breath and pushes the doors open. "Well, time to play the hero," he thinks to himself.
The monster was there, waiting for him as Harry expected. The hood of his robe was drawn back, and scarlet serpentine eyes looked at him as if he were a curious beast or odd sight one might see in a sideshow at a circus. A sneer curled the monster's thin pale lips and a look of disgust and anger flashed in the monster's eyes, mirroring Harry's own feelings about the monster. The chamber he stood in could be nothing but a ruined throne room, witchlight illuminated destroyed mosaics and broken walls. The columns that would have held up a great roof were now nothing but a stark reminder of the powers that had once fought in these very halls. With the thin white fog that stank of the putrid dead filling the space and clinging to everything that drew a breath like it was trying to feed off of them made the columns look more like fangs to Harry; as if he was walking into the jaws of the beast.
The monster wasn't alone either, because of course he wasn't, Harry's eyes flick to behind the monster as he walks into the room, drifting across the familiar faces he had seen in the black and white pages of the Daily Prophet when they had escaped Azkaban. The Lestrange brothers stand together at the far back of the room while Rookwood knelt while engraving symbols into the stone floor to create a large ritual circle. A woman who sat on a piece of rubble was looking down and watching Rookwood work. For a moment Harry had thought Andromeda had switched sides, taken aback at just how similar Bellatrix Lestrange and her older sister looked. But as Bellatrix turns and looks at Harry, he starts to spot the differences between the two sisters and the similarities between mother and daughter.
While Andy had laugh lines around her eyes and mouth from a lifetime of joy that she had spent with her husband and daughter. Bellatrix had gaunt and sunken-in eyes with a cruel and mad smile that stretched across her face as soon as she saw him; the same smile Harry would see on Delphini's face when she was planning trouble. Andy was healthy with broad shoulders and baby weight she never truly shed, Bellatrix was thin and gaunt thanks to her time spent in Azkaban. But Harry could see where Delphini had inherited her figure from. Bellatrix had once held a terrible beauty to her, but her stint in the cold hell that was Azkaban had robbed her of much of it, causing her to look sickly and pale.
There were other Death Eaters in the room, along with over a dozen people kneeling in the ritual circle appearing to be in a horrifying trance by the looks on their faces. But Harry couldn't care less about them as his eyes turned back to Voldemort, the sneer had yet to leave him as he inspected Harry, a malevolent and hateful look in his serpentine eyes.
A look Harry didn't doubt that was in his eyes as well.
"One way or another," Harry thinks to himself, cementing his will of iron as he looks upon the monster that so haunted his life. "One of us isn't leaving this island alive." Harry redoubles his grip on his wand and spear, knowing that even if he fails in killing the monster and Voldemort kills him, the monster won't live to see the dawn. Because as soon as he stepped off the island, The Morrígan would be waiting for Voldemort to render him into a fine red paste. but Harry wasn't planning on dying here, he wasn't going to die at the hands of the monster, he had too much to live for, too much he wanted to do. Too much he had to get back to as his mind drifted to the conversation he had overheard between Sirius and Artemis.
As much as he hated the prophecy that stole away any semblance of a peaceful life from him, it had only made him all the more determined to see the life he wanted beyond the cupboard with his own two eyes.
He had a home to get back to with Sirius and Atalanta, and he wasn't about to let Voldemort stop him.
"One way or another, Voldemort dies tonight," Harry thinks as he lets everything else go. The Morrígan, His mom, his friends, Delphini (the front door slams shut once more. Imfineimfineimfineimfine!), and embraces the hunt before him. Harry raises his wand at the same time Voldemort does, and spears in the shape of his teacher's divine armament twist their way into existence before firing off at high speeds at the monster, intent on skewering him.
A wall of fire pours from the tip of Voldemort's wand, filling the space between Harry and the monster in less than a second, Harry smirks at the sight. "The exploding spears must have left an impression on the monster," Harry thinks to himself before bending his knees and dashing forward into the flames. His coat and armor would protect him from the worst of the fire, only things like cursed flames or the like could actually burn him while he was in his full regalia. Harry bursts from the flames right in front of the monster, Gaé Buidhe dawns back across him as Harry then slashes forward, trying to cut Voldemort's head in two. But the monster seemed to be just as quick as he swiftly brought up his wand. Harry felt Gaé Buidhe hit something before in a short looping motion, Voldemort deflected the strike.
Harry lashes out with his wand, sending a cleaving curse to bisect Voldemort from shoulder to hip, but much to Harry's surprise, Voldemort lifts his free hand and bats the curse away as if it were a joke to him. Harry lands on his feet next to Voldemort right before they both swing their wands at one another again; both casting the same simple spell.
The Banishing Charm.
Voldemort casts it to gain a respectable distance from his opponent and to humiliate them. Harry casts it to knock his opponent off their feet and backwards to where his speed could be used to blitz them. But as both spells meet at the apex of both of the combatant's swings, the sound of twisting metal echoed throughout the ruined castle, like two greet steel girders being twisted and wrenched apart as two unstoppable forces collide with each other. Voldemort's eyes widen slightly as he feels the two spells clash, each trying to overpower the other. Harry grits his teeth as he holds his own against the monster in front of him, the words of Ginny during their duels the last few months of school drifting back to him.
"He's never met his equal in terms of raw magic output, at least, not when he went to Hogwarts. By the time he was in his third year, he could overpower anyone with raw might, even the seventh-years with stable cores. That was his favorite tactic, to make them bow, to overwhelm them, to make them feel as if they were an insect caught up in a typhoon,"
"Well," Harry thinks to himself as he starts to pull on his own core. "Time to show the monster what it means to meet his equal," he thinks before Harry brings forth the full power of the divine domain of the moon to bear.
There is a deafening crack! As the opposing magics from the Monster and the Boy rip past each other and strike their intended target.
Both Harry and Voldemort are launched backwards from one another, flying in opposing directions across the chamber. Voldemort tumbles through the air before hitting the ground hard and rolling before hitting the wall with a thud! Harry, however, has been fighting stronger opponents for years, between Atalanta, Zoé, and Scáthach, he was used to being thrown backwards by them. Harry rights himself in midair to land on his feet before sliding the last few feet to the opposing wall from Voldemort before taking off once more. The monster gathers himself and pushes himself from the ground just before Harry's boot connects with his head, bouncing it off the wall once more.
"Get up!" Harry snarls at the monster as he turns and kicks Voldemort in the ribs, sending the dark lord flying. "Get up and fight!" He yells at Voldemort as he stands and watches the dark lord stand shakily to his feet, his eyes wide with pure disbelief at the boy who stands before him. "It would be a poor ending to our first real fight we've had, and a shitty way to end this hunt if you were to die on your back. So get up and fight me!" Harry yells at the monster as he settles himself into a wide stance, readying himself for the real fight to begin.
Voldemort's face shifts into a look of rage before pushing himself fully back to his feet, and with a scream that announces his wrath and bloodlust to the world itself, he sends a wide net of cleaving curses at Harry. But the Heir to the Hunt answers the spell with his own, copying Voldemort's wand movements perfectly. He sends his own net of curses right back at the monster but unlike the monster, the Heir charges as the twin spells collide and shatter against each other as liquid metal pours forth from the tip of his wand.
Augustus Rookwood.
"Monsters, the fucking both of them!" Rookwood thinks to himself as he feels the raw power and magic that both Voldy and Harry-bloody-Potter are throwing around, and he wasn't even magically sensitive by the witch-fathers tits! He braces himself as another wave of magic surges forth just before an explosion rocks the fortress, but he doesn't dare look back, he knew he was sorta safe while he worked on the ritual circle thanks to the wards that Voldy himself set up. Rookwood was carefully carving away at the stone beneath him, setting up the ritual circle around the thirteen poor dumb bastards around him as Bella and the rest of the Death Eaters watched the unfolding fight before them.
Bella cackles away madly as she watches. "Oh, poor little Potty doesn't know, he doesn't know," she says as she rocks back and forth while watching Voldy duel.
"No, he doesn't. But who could?" Rookwood thinks to himself as he continues with his work. He was almost done with his work, he was probably one of the most accomplished wizards when it came to Runecraft and ritual magic of his age. But even with that accolade under his belt, this task proved to be a bitch to complete. The Formorians had half-assed putting the ritual together with the help of dark witches and wizards over the millennia that the big ones were locked away. It took both himself and Voldy putting their collective heads together to not only understand the half-mad ramblings of witches and wizards from ages past, but to also fix the slapdash mess the formorian presented them with.
It took the better part of five months of long nights to work it all out, but now Rookwood could happily say this was going to be his greatest work to date. As to just why he was helping release ancient and eldritch evils from their long imprisonment, when he, a normally level-headed and careful person, should have balked at just the idea?
Well, he thought it was going to make things…interesting.
It was one of the reasons he had joined Voldy in the first place, to push the edge of understanding of what magic could fundamentally do! And what better way to do that than test it against the very gods themselves?
The old cunts in the Department of Mysteries never wanted to push the line too far, always wanting to get to the edge of a breakthrough before stepping away and calling it a day. That had infuriated Rookwood when he was younger, and it infuriated him now! But now, now he could finally test a few theories he had about the nature of the divine and he couldn't be any more giddy.
"Hmmm, I think you need to use gort instead of gétal there," a voice from behind Rookwood says, rolling his eyes before following the line of the medieval Irish language of Ogham back to the center of the circle.
He was surprised to see that the voice was right, Rookwood blinked for a moment before erasing what he was carving into the stone and fixing it. "Cheers for that," he says as he turns his head to the odd witch in the floppy hat before turning back to his work.
Rookwood pauses again. "Hold up a tick," he thinks to himself before swiftly turning back to the smiling face of the witch looking over his shoulder. "Who the bloody hell are you?!" he shouts before jumping up and leveling his wand at the woman in leather armor and wielding an oversized fork. The witch had the nerve to look surprised and offended at Rookwood, placing her free hand over her heart and blocking her midsection with a silver and gold shield.
"Who?" she says, turning her head to look behind her, as to check if there was anyone he could be talking to, before looking back at Rookwood. "Little old me?" she asks sweetly with a matching smile.
Rookwood wasn't going to give this the time of day, he had a job to do. "Bella! Rabastan! Rudolphus! We've got company!" he shouts at the three of Voldy's most ruthless attack dogs, causing the three to turn and look toward him only to see the witch in the floppy hat smiling at them all.
The Lestrange family acted faster than any of the other Death Eaters in the room as Rookwood dived away from the woman and three cries of "Avada Kedavra" could be heard. The three killing curses surge at the woman from three different directions, but all the unknown witch does is smile as she tips her oversized fork on the ground. From the five points of her weapon water surged forth and cocoons around, three areas solidifying into ice as the curses strike.
The ice shatters upon contact with the spells before melting back into the water as the dome of seawater begins to surge and spin. It quickly condenses into a single circle of water before the witch thrusts out her hands and sends the pressurized outward. Most of the quicker and smarter Death Eaters duck out of the way, but the rest who were too slow or stupid to know what high-pressurized water can do, get cut into twain in a bloody cascade.
"This was the first time seeing that spell," the witch admits before drawing back the surge of water. "I heard about it from Scáthach of course, but to see and feel it firsthand is another thing entirely. To think, you foolish mortals would figure out a way to reach out past the gods and touch upon the domains themselves to try and kill one another, how… repugnant," she says with a growl of hate as the Death Eaters begin to stand once more. "But I shouldn't be surprised with something like Antioch's wand flitting about, another thing a blasphemous act created, but to steal directly from a domain," she says quietly to herself with a shake of her head and a look of disappointment on her face.
"Whatever Lady Persephone did to those three is far too good for them. But alas, I am not here to give a history lesson," she says before tapping her fork on the ground once more and summoning an even larger source of water around her. It splits into three, and like the first one, they begin to contract and spin at high speeds. "You asked who I am, little wizard," She says as she turns to Rookwood. "Allow me to tell you. I am the Bane of Étain and the fear of Midir, I am the Bella in the wych-elm and founder of the circle of Nott and Branch," the witch says just as, like Voldy himself, she begins to hover and fly above the earth. "I am Fúamnach, and you are fucking with my greatest work!" the witch of Brí Léith shouts angrily at the assembled Death Eaters below her.
The rings of water floating around Fúamnach lash out in streams of pressure, aiming at the thirteen sacrifices for the ritual. Fúamnach intended to cut the ritual off by denying the sacrifices full of fear that would feed the magic of the ritual. But as the streams of water come within a foot of the thirteen doomed souls, a ward that surrounds each one springs to life and deflects the attack away from them.
"Fuck! Bella! Stop her now!" Rookwood screams before scrambling back to where he had stopped with his runecraft. Fúamnach swings her weapon at the runemaster, if she cannot kill the sacrifices before it begins then she would take out the one preparing it to grind it to a halt. Five lashing whips of the cold depths of the sea were sent out to do just that, but with a crack of forked lightning, they were reduced to steam and salt before the witch of Brí Leith turned her attention to the mad dog of Voldemort who was smiling up at her.
"Fine, if you want a battle, then allow me to show you what real Battlemagic is!" Fúamnach before summoning a surging and crushing wave of icy water to tear down her enemies as Bellatrix laughs at the challenge before her.
Voldemort
Why?
Voldemort floats on high, out of the reach of the boy as his eyes narrow at him with a glare. Their fight has moved from the chamber to the remnants of the once-great castle, fire coursed like blood through the empty halls and patchwork rooms. Voldemort watches as the shadow of the boy charges through the flames, heedless of the heat and flame, thin silvery geometrical plates float around him in abundance and somehow keep up with the boy's great speed. The boy had used them as both a shield and sword, blocking his curses and banishing the razor-sharp pieces of metal at him when he could.
Why?
The boy had a seemingly never-ending supply of them, conjuring more of them whenever he needed them. Turning himself into a cyclone of blades wherever he got close enough to Voldemort, trying to shred him to bits. The shadow moves at terrifying speeds through the halls before making it to a broken tower in what had to be a world record for the hundred-meter dash. The boy sends the silvery blades at the walls in a spiral that he then uses to ascend the tower at lightning speed like they were a staircase, never taking his eyes off of Voldemort, and getting closer.
Why?
Voldemort levels his wand and casts three simultaneous killing curses as the boy reaches the apex of the tower, a feat that would bring lesser wizards to their knees. But to the dark lord's endless infuration with the boy, three of the sheets snap in front of him and block the spells. The sheets of metal shatter and crumble under the power of the killing curse just as the boy banishes the remnants at him. With a flourish of the boy's wand, the pieces of his shattered shields quickly reshape into crescent blades. But with a lazy flick of Voldemort's wand, he sends the blades aiming towards him scattering past him harmlessly. The boy pulls his wand back before circling the tip of it into a downward spiral, Voldemort casts a look behind him just in time to see the blades shooting back at him with a summoning charm. The dark lord snorts dismissively before leveling his wand at the incoming barrage.
Voldemort would have vanished the blades, but every time he does, the boy changes the composition of the metal to something else. While he could just simply overpower the conjuration to vanish them, he did not feel it was a productive use of the power and time it would take to do it when he could simply deflect them.
As the blades close in on him he flicks his wand to send them scattering again, only to see the blades begin to sizzle like the end of a firework just before they explode. In a blinding flash of light, Voldemort is knocked from the sky and sent back down to the earth with a scream. He crashes into the hallway below, only having a moment to put out the flames and apply a cushing charm to the floor before his hard landing.
Why!?
Voldemort lays on his back and opens his eyes just in time to see a glint of gold aimed at his head. He rolls out of the way just in time as the golden blade of the boy's cursed spear stabs into the stone where his head once was. Voldemort rolls to his feet as the boy drags his blade through the stone for a follow-up slash that Voldemort deflects before launching a flesh-twisting curse at him. The boy shields it before sending another cleaving curse at him. Voldemort sends his own right back at the boy, and as the spells clash in midair. Voldemort cuts the power to his and steps quickly out of the way of the boy's before flicking his wand at the boy's feet, catching Potter's foot in the Snaring spell before flinging him into the wall. Voldemort takes his opportunity with the wind knocked out of the boy, "Avada Kadavra!" he cries with absolutely no intent of casting the killing curse. As one of the silvery plates snaps in front of the boy, Voldemort casts a wordless but powerful banishing charm on the boy and his stupid fucking shield.
Why!
The wall shatters under the force of Voldemort's spell, sending the boy and the stones flying back into the ritual chamber. Voldemort ignores the sound of combat coming from the back half of the room. The ritual circle was guarded against any damage caused by anyone who wasn't Rookwood, so it was safe for the time being.
"Why!?" Voldemort snaps as he watches the boy get back to his feet with a roll of his shoulders as if he is quickly checking for anything broken.
"Fuck you, that's why," the boy snarls back like an animal as he proceeds to assume his wide but low stance once more.
"He even fights like an animal," Voldemort thinks to himself as his wand snaps up as he casts a spell of his creation at the cheeky brat. A large orb of bright green and viscous liquid is conjured from the tip of Voldemort's wand before three serpents the size of Slytherin's Basilisk shoot forward. A spell he created later in his life, one that copied and recreated the potent venom of the mighty king of serpents that once resided under Hogwarts.
The boy quickly brings his wand up, surrounding himself in a dome of earth that Voldemort's spell begins to quickly eat through once it collides with it. Voldemort smiles before leveling his wand once more at the dome and sending a chain of Bombardae at it. In the middle of his attack, the earth before him explodes outwards, sending dirt and debris at him, causing him to close his eyes and cover his face for but a moment.
But a moment was all the boy needed.
With a war cry, the boy comes from below with a swing of his golden spear, Voldemort could practically taste the curse rolling off the blade. With experience and blind luck, Voldemort blocks the attack before deflecting again, raising his hand to stop the boy's next cleaving curse. But with his eyes closed he didn't see, nor react in time for the silvery blade to bite into his shoulder and sever his arm from his body.
Voldemort lets out a cry of pain as he opens his eyes to see the boy coming in with another attack with his spear, intent on piercing through his heart. In an inelegant manner of how to use magic, Voldemort lets out a primal scream and forces his magic to knock back anyone and thing near him and sends them flying, including the boy. Voldemort grabs at the stump of where his arm once was and thanks to whatever chance of luck the boy severed his left arm and not his right. He could feel the wet hot blood pump forth from the wound as he glared at the boy.
Why!?
Why!?
Why!?
WHY!?
The boy stands back up, the sound of deep, even breaths comes from the dented helmet he wears as he prepares for another charge.
"What's wrong, Tom, need a hand?" the boy says snidely in between breaths. He was biding for time to recover from their exchanges. That was just dandy with Voldemort, it also gave him time.
"No," Voldemort says, his lips curling into a pained smile. "I think I have this, in hand," he shoots back before, with a flourish of his wand, he regrows his left arm in an explosion of blood and gore. "Arggh! Yes, that's-that is much better," he says with a sigh and a grin at the boy and flexes his arm and hand to test for any imperfections.
"How in the-" the boy says, his voice dripping with shock and disbelief, oh, what Voldemort wouldn't give to see his face at the moment.
The dark lord chuckles before repairing his robe. "As you so eloquently put it earlier, fuck you, that's how," he says with a grin as he looked back at the boy. "But, let us return to my earlier question, shall we?" Voldemort asks as he stands to his full height before the boy, his face a passive mask. "Why?" he asks.
"I don't know, you were the one who didn't want a nose," the boy snarks back at him, the raw cheek of the boy was more than enough of a reason to kill the boy.
Voldemort fights the urge to roll his eyes at the boy. "Why on so many fronts," he mutters hatefully. "Why do you bow and scrape at the feet of those who are your lesser by the very virtue of your birth? Why free gods that aren't your own? Why bleed for them, and Albus, and the Ministry? Why did you not bring the lesser beings to heel? Why do you, in defiance of everything I stand for, wallow in your mediocrity when you have the power and skill to excel in anything you do?!" Voldemort screams, yelling by the end of his questions in frustration and anger at the child standing before him in defiance. The boy stands from his stance, his silver eyes glowing in the darkness of his helm as he watches Voldemort as he rages. The boy pauses watching Voldemort for a short moment before finally answering him.
"You think I'm here because Dumbledore sent me?" the boy asks with a tilt of his head. "If he had any say in this he would have kept me at Hogwarts and came himself, but he doesn't. I came here because of the prophecy between the two of us, because I'm the only one who can kill you," he says as Voldemort narrows his eyes at the boy.
"He knows about the prophecy? Does he know what the rest of it said?" Voldemort thinks to himself.
"I'm not a monster like you, I don't want to hurt people, and I don't want them to bow and beg before me for some stupid reason either," the boy states, his hands gripping his weapons harder. "All I've ever wanted was to be left alone, to never be forced into something again. I never wanted power, I never wanted to rule, all I want is a peaceful life and I won't get that as long as you're still breathing. Whether The Morrígan wanted me to or not, whether Dumbledore wanted me to or not, hell, even if that shit hole called a Ministry wanted me to fight you or not, it doesn't matter because you're a monster," the boy says before sliding back into his low and wide stance. "And I hunt monsters," the boy says with a growl.
Voldemort couldn't help the laugh that escaped his throat, a singular cutting sound that echoed in the night sky. "Even your philosophy, so rooted in your mother's divine grace, is nothing but a common act. Hunter and hunted, prey and predator, a never-ending cycle that is more routine than the murder of a human. You truly are pathetic," Voldemort says with a cruel smile. "It is no wonder why your aunt and uncle had such an easy time bringing you to heel, locking you away, and tormenting you so easily," he says, watching the boy tense at the mention of his family, the dark lord's smile growing.
"Do you want to know, boy?" Voldemort asks, enjoying the slight flinch that runs through the boy at the word. "How they screamed as I pulled the flesh from their bodies?"
"Shut up," the boy says in a hoarse whisper.
"How they both cursed you in their final breath of freedom before I shoved them into the cupboard under the stairs?"
"Shut up!"
"Or do you want to know why? Why your aunt hated you so much, of why, even with all that hate, she still kept you around like some unwanted pet? Like some…freak?"
"I SAID-"
Mag Turied
"SHUT. UP!" Harry roars as he feels his ears pop as his final blessing is brought to bear, black web-like lines and pulsating inky spots bloom over the form of Voldemort as Harry charges him. With a flick of his wand, Voldemort rebuilds the cupboard under the stairs to trap Harry in with a cruel laugh. The door shatters outwards as Harry smashes through it, heedless of what it is and the fear it once brought him for he was not that child any longer. Harry tries to pierce the heart of the monster only for Voldemort to turn his body at the last moment, letting the spear miss him. The monster draws his wand upward, sending earthen spears into the hunter out for his blood, they slam into the hunter from below breaking across the armor he wore.
Voldemort takes a quick step back before banishing the boy once more across the room, he watches as Harry controls his fall and slams into the wall across the room feet first before leveling his wand at Voldemort at the same time the monster does. The orb of Basilisk venom forms once more at the tip of Voldemort's wand before he once again releases his spell, but it isn't three forms of the king of serpents that rise, but six.
And three of them weren't from Voldemort's wand.
"What!?" the dark lord thinks as three acidic forms of the King of Serpents come crashing down at him. Voldemort's form quickly flickers away as he quick-steps away from his own spell, before once again taking to the air. His eyes search quickly for the boy as he fumes on the inside. "How!? I haven't even taught Bella that spell, where did the boy learn it!?" Voldemort thinks, his nostrils flaring in rage, he hadn't even written the damn thing down!
The sound of whirling blades cutting through the air from below answers at least one of Voldemort's questions. He quickly scatters the silvery blades around him before shielding himself in case they explode again. But to his surprise, they freeze in midair, Voldemort looks down and sees a trail of them leading directly to him with Harry all but a blur as he jumps between them. Voldemort raises his wand to send a killing curse at Harry but is stopped when one of the blades extends into a silver cord and wraps around his wrist to stop his movement. The monster looks back in shock but it is all too late as the hunter is on him, wrapping his legs around the monster's midsection with his golden spear raised to slay him.
Voldemort raises his forearm and blocks the stab from the golden spear easily with his wand hand as his free hand shoots out with the speed of a striking snake and grabs Harry's wand hand. Voldemort can't hold up two people in the air and both he and Harry begin to fall, the silver cord falling with them.
Harry releases Voldemort's midsection right before they both land hard on their sides on the chamber floor; he recovers faster than Voldemort thanks to his armor. Harry draws his legs back and kicks the monster in the chest, sending both him and Voldemort flying away from one another. Harry levels his wand at the monster once more and sends his own spell back at him in the form of three great serpents.
"The brat is learning as he fights!" Voldemort realizes before casting the counterspell for the King of Serpents spell. In the back of his mind, he quickly realizes that he should have guessed this was the case when he had used the cleaving net curse. Rayner had filled him in on all things demi-god-related months ago in anticipation of fighting the boy. Intuitive and ingrained fighting skills from divine blood, hyper-awareness in a battle, skills, and powers passed on by divine blood. With all that combined with the boy's own skill with magic and his lunar- synchronicity that Delphini had informed him of months ago, it was shocking how long it took him to figure out that tidbit about the boy.
"He has an instinctive grasp of combative magic, the little bastard can copy any combat spell so long as he sees it used, not needing to understand the why or how behind the spell!" Voldemort thinks to himself before pushing himself up to his knees at the same time Harry does. "Copy this, Potter!" Voldemort screams in rage as he draws up his wand and ignites the air with the one spell he didn't want to use.
Fiendfyre.
The curse flames were incredibly difficult to control in perfect circumstances, and the middle of a pitched battle was far from perfect. The flames would devour anything and everything in their way, including wards, and were a danger to the ritual if Voldemort lost concentration for even a second. The dark flames birthed from the tip of his wand twisted and formed into that of a giant serpent that dwarfed even Slytherin's Basilisk in size. Voldemort lets the flame loose, directing it toward Harry in hopes the boy would try and copy the spell and be devoured by his flames. But to Voldemort's surprise, the boy tosses the golden spear into the pillar near him before placing the tip of his wand in the palm of his hand and casting another spell entirely.
Harry screams in rage and pain, rage at the monster for not dying already and pain from the amount of raw magic coursing through his core. It was his first time trying one of the final tiers of Battle-magic from the book he got from Hermione. That section of the book starts with a word of warning, that the spells found in the section were not for everyday wizards or witches to use, only those who had the skill and dedication to the craft to use or else it may end in their death.
Entropic Battle Magic.
As Harry felt his core swell at the sheer amount of power pouring through it, he felt a newfound respect for Dora for being able to pull off an even more powerful spell than the one he was casting. Harry pulls the tip of his wand away from his palm, he feels a cold calm come over him as the heart of a star is born and dies at the tip of his wand. He levels the spell at the surging cursed flames that were heading right for him and releases the spell.
And much like the death of a star it was based on, the spell became a vacuum, a well of gravity that pulled in all things to the heart of it and crushed it to nothing.
What was a bit of cursed flame to the end of a heavenly body?
Not much.
The Stella Cadens swallowed the serpent of cursed fire like it was nothing more than a spicy pasta noodle. Harry then angles the spell behind him before he proceeds to throw it at the monster. Voldemort's eyes widen at the sight of his Fiendfyre being swallowed up, and as the boy rears back and throws the spell he quick-steps to the boy's unguarded side. Voldemort takes the opportunity before him and levels against the boy a storm of cleaving, piercing, and bludgeoning hexes as fast as he can chain them together. Harry, temporarily drained from casting such a costly spell, can do nothing but raise his arms and take the chain of spells that knocked him off his feet and send him flying.
Harry slams against the floor and is sent sliding across the rubble, silently thanking Sirius and Remus for enchanting his armor to soften hard landings. He could feel the burns of pain as some of the monster's spells were able to punch through his armor, but he mostly felt the pain in his arms and legs. With any luck, he'd be able to stand back up and continue the fight, but as he has that very thought, he hears another person land right beside him from the opposite side of the room. Swiftly opening his eyes, he sees the form of Fúamnach lying next to him. Bleeding from a few flesh wounds and missing her hat, her mismatched eyes look at him for a moment before giving him a pained smile.
"I may have underestimated the help, just a bit," Fúamnach admits with a grimace before both she and Harry stand up together, facing opposite directions.
"Want to switch?" Harry asks, more of a joke than anything in between deep breaths.
"No, I'm good. I don't think I'll be able to fight him as well as you can," Fúamnach admits freely, never turning her attention from the Death Eaters behind Harry.
"Well, damn. Let's get ba-" Harry begins to say before a shout from behind him cuts him off.
"VOLDY!" Rookwood screams, turning to the dark lord from the circle, desperation and manic glee coloring his tone in equal measure. "IT'S TIME!" he screams and Harry's stomach drops.
Harry quickly turns, but with a sharp snap, the visage of Voldemort fills his vision. "Then let's end this, shall we?" the monster asks with a twisted smile. Harry quickly sends another cleaving curse at the monster, but instead of shielding it or deflecting it like he was expecting the Monster to do, Voldemort ducks it and presses his fingertips to his shadow.
"Feeding time," Voldemort says with a final smile before his shadow extends to cover the entire room, snuffing out all light and all hope faster than either Harry or Fúamnach could react.
"NOOOOOOO!" Fúamnach screams in fear and recognition as the jaws of the Still and Lightless Beast emerge from endless darkness and swallow both her and Harry whole.
Voldemort turns around to face the ritual circle and begins to chant, wasting no time, and giving the boy no hope of stopping him. "Sibhse a dhéanann faire agus nach dtuigeann agus nach dtuigeann aon duine. Sibhse a éisteann agus a éisteann, agus nach dtuigfidh. Sibhse a fhanann agus a fhanann agus a ólann i ngach ní nach leatsa de chart," Voldemort chants, raising his hands skyward, his voice strong and clear, his intent cemented in sadistic glee.
They came crawling from the shadows around the chamber, hundreds of them, each more monstrous than the last, The Lesser Formorians. They flocked to the chamber, crawling over one another and reaching for the sky as each of the sacrifices was consumed by their fears and terrors. Blood poured from the bodies and began to gather and float upwards, forming a perfect sphere and the door that was needed for the greatest fears to pass through.
Fúamnach, Inside the maw of shadow.
Fúamnach was panicking, she wasn't ashamed to admit that. She was trapped in the maw of possibly the strongest of the lesser kin of the Formorians, and one of the very few ways that could kill her. She could see nothing in the eternal darkness of Indech's realm, her breath came out quick and shallow as she swung the quindent of Midir around, trying to find her only hope of escape.
"Harry!" she calls out into the darkness, "Harry, where are you!?" her panicked cry rings out and the only thing she hears is the pained whimper of the Heir to the Hunt. "Harry, whatever it's showing you, you need to fight back! It's an illusion, it's calling on your worst memories, your nightmares! It's not real!" she says, the fear in her own voice doing nothing to calm the boy.
"Harr-Ahhhhh!" Fúamnach tried one more time to reach out for the boy lost in the darkness, but as she extended her shield arm, the Beast had struck. Severing her arm with a single mighty sweep of its claws at her bicep, she drops the quindent of Midir to grasp at the blooding stump that was her arm as she falls to her knees. "Fuck!" she screams out her curse in rage in pain as she gets back to her feet. "H-Harry, call-call on the H-Hu-Hunt! Please! It will get rid of the visions!" she tells the boy, taking careful steps forward, trying to find the boy.
Fúamnach screams again as she feels the claws of the Beast rip through her back, but she doesn't fall, even when she feels her blood begin to pour down her back. "Harry!" she cries once more and is answered by a scream from the boy, she turns and runs endlessly toward the sound. "Harry!" she calls out, and again she is answered by tormented screams. Closer and closer she gets, and just before she can take the final steps toward her only hope, the Beast takes her leg from her. Ripped from her body by a set of powerful jaws that cut through muscle and bone like it was nothing. Fúamnach cries out again, reaching out instinctively toward the wound, the Beast had taken everything below the knee on her right leg.
Fúamnach turns over and begins to crawl, crying out every time the unseen Beast sinks its claws into her. Her bicep, her calf, and even across her face, but still she crawled until finally got to the downed boy.
"Harry, Harry please, you need to get up," Fúamnach weeps as she grabs onto the boy's jacket and pulls herself up and over him. "You have to call on the Hunt, you need to use the Gaé Bolg, Please," she begs but all the boy does is shiver under her. "Why?! He shouldn't be affected so much by this with the Hunt coursing through him," Fúamnach thinks to herself.
"Unless…"
"Unless…"
Fúamnach reaches across the boy and lays her hand on his chest, reaching into him with her magic and gasps. The Beast wasn't just affecting Harry's mind but also drawing the experiences scarred into the boy's soul, and she knew of only one person who could bring out this kind of fear from a soul long washed of its memories.
"Aoife!" Fúamnach screams into the depths of the darkness. "Does your pettiness know no end!? That you would torment your own blood even after both of you have passed!?" she screams, knowing her old student was somewhere in this darkness, enjoying the suffering she was inflicting on a boy who should be nothing to her. But all that answers her is the chuffing laughter of the Lightless Beast. "Curse you, Aoife! I should have never taught you the secrets of magic! I should have only taken Scáthach as a student!" she yells back in the darkness before pulling herself up to a sitting position and cradling Harry's head in her lap.
But even with all of this, the Hunt still should have roared, it should have refocused its hunter back to the hunt and chased away anything that would interfere, but it hadn't. It was like it was being restrained, being muzzled by something, but the only thing that a domain would listen to was…
Was…
"Oh," the word escaped Fúamnach's mouth in such softness and bleakness that it stilled the Lightless Beast. It was a revelation to her in the worst possible way because she realized just how much of a fool she was. In her pride, she did not see what her actions were leading to, what her presence here would lead to.
For here, in Mag Turied was not just two souls that cheated death, but three.
Of course that would get that thing's attention, of course, it would interfere just to try and reap all of them at once, and to top it all off, one of them had its mark and blessing.
Fáumnach's face screwed up in the pain of understanding as her head bowed in the darkness, it was holding Harry hostage, forcing the Hunt to heel until it got what it wanted. She looks back up and into the darkness and sees it looking back, the endless black pitiless abyss looking back at her, demanding only one thing.
The one thing that Fúamnach feared the most to give.
"Tar chugainn i do iomláine," Voldemorts voice echoes in the endless darkness of the forever blind. "Tar chugainn i do foirfeacht," as if it was a countdown to an unavoidable end.
"This is it? This is what you want, isn't it?" Fúamnach asks, uncaring about the Lightless Beast being kept at bay by a far bigger fish. It doesn't answer back, it never does, it wasn't something that you could reason with nor beg of, it simply was.
Fúamnach sighs, regretting ever coming back to this damnable island. She bowed her head once more, her bleeding forehead resting on the ruined plate helm of the boy she promised her queen she would protect as if he was Theodore. "Harry," she whispers, her voice hitching as a soft sob escapes her lips. "I know you can hear me, I know what is to come next. But you mustn't blame yourself, you mustn't fear it like I have over these countless years, embrace it. Embrace it and be the hand that ends it all, be the howl of the ending hunt," She tells Harry in a soft voice as her hand slides down his back and grasps the handle of the blade he always kept on his person. "Please, protect Theodore, protect Luna, they are the last of my line and they must live for Nott and Branch to grow strong once more," Fúamnach says as she draws the blade from the holster, she was more myth than mortal at this point, so the silver of the blade should do the job.
"Embrace the end, and wield it like Tethra once did," Fúamnach whispers to the boy one last time before turning back to the eyes in the darkness. "My life I offer to thee, of free will and unclouded mind. In return I ask not for a soul, but for you to release the boy and let him fulfill what he was born to do," Fúamnach offers the thing in the dark as the Lightless Beast snaps and roars. She watches the eyes close, knowing her deal was accepted.
"Beir leat go léir a bhfuil eagla agus gach a bhfuil sceimhle agus go léir ar an uafás uafásach a scáineadh agus tachtadh agus dallóga agus titim agus casadh agus duilleoga agus seithí agus fíodóireacht agus dó agus fiach agus sracadh agus bleed agus bás!" the voice of Voldemort begins to reach its crescendo as the ritual reaches its height.
Fúamnach closes her eyes and plunges the silver blade into her heart, releasing the spell that had kept her alive for so long.
And the Hunt roared to life, chasing shadows away as Amber filled the eyes of the Heir, who echoed its hungry roar.
Mag Turied.
The roar that escaped the maw of the Still and Lightless Beast wasn't human. It echoed around the chamber, freezing all but one in their place as the rattle of broken chains quickly followed it. The dome of shadows that held the boy back quivers in fear before one side of it is torn open in a visceral display of blackened gore and magic.
"Tar Chugainn!" Voldemort screams, feeling his endless magic swell up, passing through him and into the congealed and tainted sphere of blood, causing fissures to spread throughout it.
Rayner and the Formorian host turn and witness their greatest fear come to life. The living legacy of Tethra, the Formorian of death and the fear of it, was born again. Eyes of the Hunt would not fool them, the fear of death was a thick miasma around the Magician spreading through the host like a plague as the boy charged at them. Some of the host fled at the mere sight of the boy, but the rest turned and charged at him; they could not let the ritual be interrupted, even if it meant their deaths.
For what looked to be a demigod about to run head-first into a wall of monsters while lost to his own rage and madness, in truth, it was the Formorians charging headfirst into a blender. The boy sent cleaving curses at the monsters as he cut through them all, every spell that hit was deadly, no matter where it landed.
"I-"
From even the smallest wound that was delivered by the boy, the black and cursed veins of death would spread, consuming anything and everything the boy saw as a monster.
"-OSCAILTE-"
The lesser Formorians pile onto the Living Legacy of Tethra in the vain hope of slowing him down enough for Harbinger to finish the ritual. But the boy conjures formless blades that slice and slash and spread death to them all. He tries to banish them at the Harbinger and many Formorians leap into their way, taking the blow and the curse of Tethra. The boy continues to fight through the sea of fear to get to his prey in a mad rush to stop the monster from freeing their sires, Rayner is the last to take the blow from the boy, getting cut down mercilessly as Harry leaps at Voldemort with a roar.
Voldemort turns to the screaming child and the gore-soaked path he cut through the lesser formorians to get to him, smiling as the boy's wand comes down on his head.
"-AN DORAS!"
With the final words spoken, the sphere of blood and fear ruptures and floods the hall with its tainted power, knocking all those close enough away, and set upon the lesser formorians as they became fuel and nourishment for their sires.
The hall falls quiet as the tainted blood shifts and all eyes fall to the circle from which it came from. The sounds of a single pair of footsteps echo in the chamber along with the dripping of blood.
"Finally, after so long," a new voice speaks, low and regal, as soft as silk and as cold as glacial ice. "It's time for a feast!" Indech, the forever blind, and the King of the Formorians says before his icy laughter carries across the island of Mag Turied.
And the great fears, the Formorians, arise once again!
Chapter done!
*Racks shotgun to eject the spent shell*
Boy, oh boy do I hope no one liked those characters.
Oh, hey guys and gals! How have y'all been? Now I know you're all still railing over what just happened, so we're just skipping that for now.
Onto Harry's "Superform":
It is, as all his abilities are, super simple. Harry can infect death on anything he considers a "monster" in his mind no matter how superficial the wound may be, if Harry makes them bleed with his magic or weapon, they will die.
There are limitations to this, of course, Harry needs to consider whatever he is hunting as a monster from the bottom of his heart for it to affect them. Certain big-name monsters can resist this effect, namely, Typhon, Echidna, Medusa, Titans, Giants, and things that have cemented their place in myth for eons to come.
But some random Cyclops or Formorian? Forget about it, they're dead.
But holy fuck this was a fun chapter to write, now that the Formorians are free and walking the earth anew, things about to get really heated when backup shows up next chapter.
Translated Irish Gaelic:
"You who watch and know and understand none. You who listen and hear and will not comprehend. You who wait and wait and drink in all that is not yours by right.
Come to us in your wholeness.
Come to us in your perfection.
Bring all that is fear and all that is terror and all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and bleeds and dies!
Come to us.
I – OPEN – THE DOOR!"
And yes, this was ripped right from The Magnus Archives.
But how does a ragtag volunteer army, in need of a shower, take on a supernatural power?
How do they emerge from this Quagmire, leaving the battlefield waving the banner of the Phoenix ever higher?
Yo, it turns out they had a secret weapon, an immigrant you know who's unafraid to step in, she's constantly confusing and confounding Voldemorts henchman!
EVERYONE GIVE IT UP FOR THE ORDER'S FAVORITE FIGHTING FRENCH-
Kingsaxcul, Out!