CH25: Desolation

November 3rd

12:48am

Black Chateau, Isle of Man

Daphne

The world stopped spinning and before Daphne's eyes adjusted, her nose could smell the damage. 'I'll never forget the smell,' she thought as the world came back to view, 'fire and death.'

"Avada kedavra!"

Daphne dropped to the floor, the muddy ground offered next to no cushioning and so she hit it hard.

"Crucio!"

She tucked her arms in and rolled to the right. The momentum carried her to the stone crenulations that acted as guard rails between the apparition point and the cliffs below.

"Agh!"

Daphne heard a thump and dared to look up. Tonks, covered in equal parts blood and mud, had her wand pointed at a squirming man on the floor. Daphne pulled herself to her feet and joined the pregnant auror's side.

'Mercenary scum,' she thought, recognising the Giant's Fist coat of arms. Daphne brought her wand up and viciously said, "ossis conture." The man's leg below his knee exploded as his bones shattered outwards. Daphne ignored his screams and turned to Tonks who's eyes were fixed on the suffering man.

"They're not playing around, we can't either" Tonks ripped his eyes from the mercenary and turned them to the crumbling medical building. "We need to get to the house, the horcruxes must be retrieved at any cost."

Tonks shook her head to clear it and her features morphed to determined confidence. "I will escort you."

Daphne and Tonks broke out into a steady run. The devastation of the camp couldn't be understated. For every tent aflame, two bodies laid dead in the dirt, some charred and unrecognisable and others who could just as easily have passed in their sleep. The sky, usually alight with the twinkling constellations of far away stars, was covered by the enormous cloud of smoke that had formed and hovered above the grounds. The main building itself had sustained heavy damage. The eastern half of the roof had collapsed into the second floor and more smoke escaped the mess of tiles and stone. A fire had broken out in the first floor western wing as well, the flames escaped through the shattered windows and spread onto the grounds creating even more chaos.

"Elphias," Tonks whispered mournfully.

The man was face down in the dirt, his wand laid useless by his unmoving fingers and the moth-eaten fez he was so fond of was beside his head, trampled.

"Let's go. There's nothing we can do for him" Daphne placed her hand on Tonk's back and gently pushed to urge her forward. 'If those horcruxes are returned to Voldemort then we can consider this war finished.'

"It's Greengrass!"

Daphne's head whipped to the left and saw a group of at least ten death eaters and mercenaries wading through the demolished tents.

'We don't have time for this.' Daphne reached into Hermione's old bag and grasped the jagged rock that held the Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder. She tapped her wand to the rock and whispered, "tempa."

"What are you–"

"Get ready to run," she interrupted Tonks as she brought her arm back and threw the rock into the sky directly above them. 'Three, two, one.' On her count, the magical powder exploded outwards, leaving a blanket of darkness powder to descend over an expanse.

"Go!" Daphne and Tonks broke into a sprint through the powder. She could hear the confused shouts of the men that had tried to attack them but also others all around them in the dark. A flash of light caught her eye on her left and she stopped, brought her right arm out in front of Tonks and stopped her too. Sickly green magic passed before them and sailed into the abyss.

"Thanks," Tonks breathed out, the proximity of the killing curse had her holding her breath.

"Just returning the favour." Having spent so much time walking the grounds, Daphne knew they were getting close to the main house. A crunch beneath her feet gave her pause and she looked down. A familiar photo frame was cracked beneath her boot, the photo of her younger self, smiling despite the scene around them. Daphne turned her gaze to the tent beside her, collapsed in its entirety and unrecognisable to all but four. "Did Moody begin the evacuation plan?"

"I don't know," Tonks admitted, her sympathetic tone conveyed she understood Daphne's concerns. "I heard a commotion from my room and saw explosions at the ward line, there were so many people running around I- I couldn't tell if anyone was getting out. I heard one of the aurors tell a man to go to Hogwarts but that's it."

'They made it out, they must have.' The only thing stopping her from apparating to Hogwarts then and there to check on Astoria were the trinkets in the basement. Daphne stepped over the photo and forward towards the main house.

"Spread out! I want the house completely encircled for when our lord arrives."

"Merlin dammit, Lestrange gets all the bloody fun."

The darkness powder had thinned and Daphne could make out a mass of black cloaks gathered in front of the main entrance. Daphne and Tonks crouched behind a semi-upright tent and cautiously scanned the increasingly visible environment.

"Apparate inside?" Tonks asked.

"No, we have no idea what's waiting for us." Daphne scanned the house looking for another entrance. 'There,' she thought, looking at the window into the first floor eastern hallway, 'cause a distraction and slip in under disillusionment.'

"No!" someone inside the house yelled in anguish, their cry turned into a blood curdling scream that flooded her ears, followed by an explosion of light out of the very window Daphne had just been observing. Glass showered the death eaters that had taken up posts in the immediate area under the window and they scattered to avoid it.

Daphne's blood pumped in her ears as she stared at the window, mouth agape. 'I know that voice…' Her legs moved on auto pilot and propelled her into action. She burst from their hiding place behind the tent and sprinted past the scurrying death eaters. She jumped right through the shattered window, not even noticing the cuts she received from the broken blades of glass that had maintained their position in the window sill.

Daphne found herself in the hallway towards the guest rooms which looked like a bomb had just gone off inside. Bits of ceiling covered the tattered carpets and floorboard and the tapestries had been torn to shreds. But she could care less for tapestries and carpets as her attention was brought further down the hall when a 'thunk' penetrated her hearing.

A woman in black robes with wild curly black hair was pushing herself up off the floor slowly. A flash of silver and Daphne was moving. She crossed the distance rapidly, grabbed a fist full of the crazed witches' hair and kicked her in the stomach. The witch tumbled to the ground and now laid on her back, Daphne jumped on her and pressed her left knee into the witches right bicep, pinning it in place.

"Off!"

Lestrange cried out in anger and desperation as her metal arm became useless to her. She reached up with her left to choke Daphne but the determined Greengrass had expected that. She caught the death eater's forearm in her armpit and pushed.

"AGHH-Hahahaha!" Despite her arm being broken, Bellartrix managed to gleefully laugh in Daphne's face. "Little Golden Greengrass knows how to play." The house shook violently and Daphne's knee slipped ever so slightly. Bellatrix felt this and used the leverage to bring her metal forearm up to Daphne's own and throw her off. Bellatrix stood up shakily and coughed up blood on the damaged rugs. "Baby Greengrass learnt how to play too," the mad witch taunted as she wiped blood from her lips, "after we made mummy and daddy squeal."

Daphne tumbled into a crouch and flicked her wand at Bellatrix's feet, watching in satisfaction as the most feared death eater in Voldemort's ranks fell face first into the floorboards by a mere banisher. She didn't take any more chances, and so with several swishes of her wand, the frayed carpet came to life and pinned the death eater to the floor at her hands, feet and neck.

"Where is she?" Daphne asked using every ounce of her emotional control to ask it calmly.

"What a pity big sister was away." Bellatrix smiled toothily as she taunted Daphne, "your father lasted longer than we thought he would, filthy blood trai–"

"Where is she!" Daphne cried out in an unnatural mixture of rage, desperation and fear. Daphne had no idea how much her appearance matched her victim. Her eyes were bloodshot and dry and her hair had long since passed messy. Specks of blood spotted her black hooded vest and her teeth ground against each other as her lips pulled back in a rage fueled seethe. Whether Daphne's tactics had intimidated the crazed witch or if it was simply the restraint around Bellatrix's neck tightening, her captive flicked her eyes down the hall to the guest rooms for the briefest moment.

Daphne turned and ran like her life depended on it. The closer she got to the bedrooms, the signs of the explosion grew more frequent with scorch marks covering the walls, floor and ceiling. Bodies cloaked in black began appearing with small wisps of smoke rolling off of them. She made a left into the wide hallway that separated each side of the rooms and stopped.

Arrayed in a semi circle, half a dozen death eaters were dead and covered in burns. The doors of the room were blown off their hinges and the silver dungeon door was soot black. But, at the epicentre of the chaos, laid a man, a woman and a girl, blonde of hair and as still as still can be. Daphne fell to her knees.

"No…" Daphne muttered, "no, no, no."

She crawled towards Astoria's body, over rubble and corpses, until she was beside her prone sister, cradling her in her lap. "Astoria," she mumbled, hot tears staining her cheeks as she rocked back and forth. "Please," she begged to anyone — anything that would listen as she rested her forehead on Astoria's, "please don't go."

Daphne's dry lips felt the faintest brush of air and her eyes snapped open. She brought her ear to Astoria's mouth and waited. 'Please be real, please be real please be–' A breath caressed her skin and Daphne felt the briefest hint of hope. She grasped for Astoria's arm and pressed two fingers to her wrist. 'A pulse okay, she's okay I just need–' Daphne's renewed determination was swiftly destroyed as she noticed the deep red stain on Astoria pyjamas for the first time. Daphne pulled out one of her hands from under Astoria and found it to be shaking and blood-soaked.

"Daphne! Daphne, where are you?"

'Harry,' she realised in relief. "Here!"

Tonks rounded the corner with Harry right behind her. They were both covered in dust and grime, having had to fight their way in. Daphne felt guilty because of the comfort she took in Harry and Tonks' arrival, they were here for her but no one was there for Astoria and her parents.

"Save her," she charged them, "please."

Tonks wasted no time, moving so fast she almost tumbled over when she came to a stop beside Astoria. Daphne stood and stepped away to give her space. Her clothes were now soaked in Astoria's blood. With Astoria being taken care of, her eyes wandered to her parents, face up, eyes unblinking but expressions contorted into ones of agony. "This isn't happening," she murmured as she swiped at her tears with her bloody hand.

"Hey, hey," Harry stepped in her line of sight and used the sleeve of his vest to wipe her face without getting blood all over it in the process as she had. "Tonks has got her okay? Just sit down."

'This isn't real.'

"Harry! I need your help here!" Tonks was holding her wand over Astoria's stomach where a large piece of the roof's tiles was embedded inside her. "You're going to pull and I'm going to heal. Ready?"

"Ready." Harry gripped the tile and waited only one second before pulling it out clean. Blood spurted out of Astoria like a geyser, spraying Harry and Tonks alike.

"Valnera sanentur, valnera sanentur, valnera sanentur." Tonks' voice sounded almost song-like as she waved her wand in a bow shape over the wound. The blood flow slowed and the puncture wound began to heal over. "Blood replenisher?"

Harry reached into his vest and produced a red potion for Tonks to take and uncap. The metamorphmagus lifted Astoria's head and opened her mouth, pouring the liquid down her throat until the potion vial was empty.

"That should do–" The house shook again, much more aggressively that time. Down the hall, they heard the doors of the main entrance crash inwards as a cheer rose up outside. "Ah, why is that happening?"

Daphne's head snapped up hearing the worry in Tonk's voice. Astoria's wound had reopened and she was once again leaking blood.

'Why? Why would the gods let this happen?'

"She's got a blood curse, her magic can be haywire, could that be it?" Harry's frantic voice was the most animated it had been in weeks. He'd immediately placed his hands over the puncture to stem the flow of blood but it was no use.

"Maybe," Tonks replied uncertainly, her hair flickering between anxious blue to focused grey, "but that means I'll need to stitch it up muggle style."

'How could I let this happen?'

"Can't we move her?" Harry had produced an emergency first aid kit from his vest and was helping Tonks find the necessary equipment. Although, with his hands slick with blood, it was taking longer than anticipated. "They could be on us any second now."

"No, I can't risk apparition with Astoria in this state."

'I failed again…'

Harry stood, wand and knife sliding into his hands. "I'll buy some time then."

"I need you here, if they get past–"

'No more.' Daphne kicked off the wall and made her way to the hallway. She didn't hear Harry calling her name, everything sounded like she was underwater, muffled and incoherent. She pushed on down the hall, vaguely noticing Bellatrix's absence. At the end of the corridor Daphne saw a congregation of black cloaks and white masks, listening attentively to the man who'd started it all.

'All this pain and heartache because of one man, one less than a man. No more.'

Daphne's stride picked up, her heavy footfalls not going unnoticed by the witches and wizards in her newfound home. Faces and wands turned to point at her, innumerable, but Astoria needed more time and the wards were down. She quickened to a run and then a sprint and as the first volley of spells were less than metre from her she apparated… right beside the Dark Lord.

Daphne twisted her body and collided with the Dark Lord with her shoulder. The Dark Lord fought to stay upright but decided to apparate in front of his troops instead of risking the embarrassment of falling on his arse.

"YOU DARE?" Voldemort bellowed, "YOU DARE TOUCH ME WITH YOUR MORTAL SHELL?"

Daphne now had her back to the grand staircase and had an army between herself and the front entrance, with Voldemort at its head. There was no fear, only focused violence, as long as she lived, so too did Astoria. Daphne struck like a viper, sticking to what she knew, she dropped low and spun in a circle. Fire spewed from her wand in a spiral as she rose to full height and once she was facing the army again she unleashed the flames like a tsunami, rolling towards the dark forces to bathe them in light.

Voldemort traced a quick square in front of him with his wand and open palm punched it just as the fire reached him.

Daphne saw the ward activate and knew she had failed to gain the advantage. The fire splashed against Voldemort's protective wall and, like water on rocks, rose up before crashing to the ground. Through the flames she saw a figure walking towards her. The Dark Lord, seemingly unbothered by the inferno, crossed the threshold of his own defences and smiled.

"You reek of loss, girl." Voldemort waved his hand and the flames cowed below it, coming to a pitiful end. "Did you think your defiance led to a happy ending?"

November 3rd

1:31am

Black Chateau, Isle of Man

Harry

"Daphne! Daphne, wait!" Harry hurriedly stood up and made to follow her. Tonks tried to grab his arm but it was slick with blood and so he made it a few more steps before Tonks' words stopped him.

"Harry Potter, do not go after her." He'd never heard Tonks so stern before so he turned around to see he wasn't even looking at him. Instead she was threading the first of the stitches into Astoria's belly.

"She's going to face them alone." It was hard arguing with someone who couldn't see your desperation. 'He's here I'm sure of it, I can't let him kill her.'

"And this is her sister," Tonks stressed, finally looking at him, "give me time."

Harry turned back to the hallway and watched Daphne disapparate before the first set of spells hit her. "Protego maxima," Harry spoke clearly and watched the shield cover the floor to the ceiling in a convex shape around Tonks.

"YOU DARE?" he heard Voldemort bellow, "YOU DARE TOUCH ME WITH YOUR MORTAL SHELL?"

'Just hold on Daphne, I'll be there soon.' Harry looked over at Tonks working away on Astoria and then chanced a glance at Damien and Johanna. He couldn't stand looking at their charred bodies and so he levitated bedsheets from the nearby bedrooms and laid them over the deceased Greengrass parents. 'We will avenge your deaths, I promise.'

'Pop'

Harry spun faster than what many would think possible, grabbed the man who appeared behind him and slammed him into the metal basement door.

"Harry Potter sir, wait!"

Harry looked down and saw Dobby with raised hands. 'Raised towards… me?' He turned back to who he'd man-handled and saw Sirius' sheepish smile.

"Sirius," Harry breathed in relief. "Sorry for–"

"It's fine," he interjected as he looked past Harry's shoulder. His mouth moved wordlessly as he saw Tonks stitching Astoria's wound.

"Why are you here?" Harry hadn't meant to ask it with a negative undertone but he didn't have time for any foolishness.

"Kingsley made it to Hogwarts, he said he didn't see you or Daphne here and I couldn't find you there." Sirius looked troubled by Harry's tone but seemed to get over it quickly enough. "So I came looking."

"Of all the stupid things," Harry muttered, his hand landed in his hair as he tried to distress. He pointed his finger at Sirius accusatory, "you are not ready."

"Harry." He turned and looked at Tonks who scrunched up her face as she tied off Astoria's shirt to keep it away from the wound. "The horcruxes."

Harry mentally scoffed. 'Give a bunch of mentally manipulative artefacts to the guy with the least mental fortitude?'

Sirius sensed his doubt. "Hey," he said, grabbing Harry's attention. There was no hint of a joke in Sirius' eyes like there had been before the world had gone to madness. Nor was there the endless pit that had moved in when he turned to the bottle. He was focused and entirely in the moment. "I'm here," he told him,

"use me."

Harry studied his godfather some more. He seemed genuine, but did that make him ready for that kind of responsibility? 'What choice do I have? No one else came back to help.'

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose whilst nodding his head. "Alright," he finally agreed with Tonks. He grabbed Sirius' shoulders and stared him down as he spoke. "Take Dobby and go down into the basement, go right to the end and keep going through the illusionary wall. Grab everything, the cup, the locket and the wand. Do not touch them with your bare hands and whatever you do, do not lose them."

"You can count on me, Harry." Sirius turned around and opened the door he'd been slammed against just moments prior and began his descent into the dungeon. Dobby followed close behind, waddling goofily to keep up with Sirius' purposeful pace.

'I hope so, Sirius, I sincerely do.'

"I'm done here Harry, she needs a real healer though, these stitches are temporary." Tonks stood up and wiped her bloody hands on her jeans, it didn't do much but Harry knew the deep compulsion to try and get rid of the red stains.

"Go, take her to Pompfrey at Hogwarts." Tonks nodded and reached down to place a hand on Astoria. "And Tonks," she looked up at him and Harry could see from her no-nonsense expression that his face showed the gravity of his request, "take them too."

"Of course," she agreed solemnly. She pickled up Astoria and laid her down next to her parents. Tonks looked up at him as she prepared to apparate and bade him, "bring her back," before disapparating with Damien, Johanna and Astoria.

'I will.'

Harry reached into his pocket and in one motion, retrieved death's cloak and threw it over his shoulders. He moved swiftly down the eastern hallway and saw the death eaters still gathered, enraptured by something in the entrance hall. Harry perched himself on a wooden crate and looked over the crowd to see Voldemort and Daphne trading spells. Daphne wasn't moving her off arm and her dodges were sluggish and staggering.

Harry analysed the surroundings and could only come up with one idea that would work. His heart full of regret, Harry raised death's wand to the ceiling above the group of death eaters and cast bombarda maxima from his perch. The house groaned in discomfort as his spell connected and shattered rock and wood collapsed on his unsuspecting adversaries.

Harry didn't stop to watch the carnage. He instead twisted on the spot and reappeared next to Daphne near the grand stairs. Her laboured breathing made apparent just how dire her condition was. He slipped under her arm to support her and took one last look at Voldemort who had completely ignored his arrival, distracted by a pile of stone tiles that had landed on his snake. Harry used that opportunity to twist in place and vanish from the Black Chateau with Daphne in tow.

They reappeared hundreds of kilometres away in Scotland at the golden gates of Hogwarts castle. Daphne wheezed in his ear when they landed and Harry reached out a hand to blast the gates open. It was unnecessary however, as they were met at the gates by Filius Flitwick who took one look at them and opened the gate.

"Welcome back Mr Potter, Miss Greengrass," the half goblin professor greeted them, "there is a temporary medical tent just over the rise."

Harry's face contorted in confusion but he followed where Flitwick was pointing and slowly climbed the rise with Daphne limping alongside him. Daphne's breaths came out as wheezes as she clutched her chest, Harry knew the pain of broken ribs and attempted to reassure her.

"You're okay," he said encouragingly as they made it to the top of the hill. Harry smiled when he saw what Flitwick was talking about. A mass of at least a thousand people sprawled across the school grounds and right in the middle of it all was a large tent, larger than any they had at the chateau, adorned with the Rod of Asclepius symbol.

'So many made it,' Harry realised with a smile. The sight of their resilience birthed new life into him as he took on more of Daphne's weight and started towards their people. As they approached the camp slowly, Harry found himself repeating one phrase for Daphne's and his own benefit.

"We're going to be okay."

Author's Note

I'd like to apologise. These stories have been very doom and gloom, Voldemort knows what's up; defiance doesn't usually lead to a happy ending. But, I swear, I'm building to something so let me cook.

This chapter is basically a gut punch to Daphne, the universe's attempt at balancing itself after the absolutely diabolical gut lunch she gave Alecto Carrow at the start of this book. She loses her mum, and her dad, and her little sister is in critical condition and worst of, she's starting to lose her mind.

The mental part of the coming consequences is a major driving force in a decision she makes in the next arc that would be considered OOC (out of character). I've already written the chapter and I think it flows pretty well from here.

I know there are some who prefer to just see a really confident, borderline arrogant, Daphne and honestly I'd include myself in that bunch. It's much more fun to write that's for sure. But this breakdown of her psyche, I feel at least, makes for a more interesting character.

Sirius got his moment just like I promised he would. The screw up alcoholic completed the most high priority mission of the war when both Harry and Daphne failed to do so. No one else came back to help — Sirius did. I think it was important to make Sirius feel the losses keenly as we're always given the sense that he was a deeply passionate person. For the overarching theme of the book though, he had to show that you can always come back.

Also, in case it isnt clear, Astoria did a massive burst of accidental/emotional magic with basically scorched everything around her.

Anyways, this is the end of Arc 3 which I had duelling dubbed 'Desolation' we now go to Arc 4: Hogwarts. I've got two more chapters to finish before that arc is complete. I'll only begin positing chapters when the arc is done.

Thanks everyone for reading and I hope to have a chapter for you next week… or maybe I'll let you all mellow over Daphne's loss hahaha

Cya

RevanchistVII