Chapter 44: Voldemort

"There's nothing you can do, Buffy—It's too late. There's nothing you can do… nothing… They're gone," Lupin said.

Then a portal snapped into existence and Dawn holding onto Sirius stepped out of it. Dawn laid her godfather on the floor and opened a portal beneath him sending him to Grimmauld Place.

"How?" Lupin asked confused on how anyone could return from the other side of the veil.

"Whatever that is," Dawn answered motioning back toward the veil. "I could feel it in my core where the Key is. It's a doorway. Knowing that I knew it had to lead somewhere. So, I dove in after Sirius."

Dumbledore had most of the remaining Death Eaters grouped in the middle of the room, seemingly immobilized by invisible ropes. Mad-Eye Moody had crawled across the room to where Tonks lay and was attempting to revive her. Behind the dais there were still flashes of light, grunts, and cries—Kingsley had run forward to continue Sirius's duel with Bellatrix.

There was a loud bang and a yell from behind the dais. Kingsley was yelling in pain, hit the ground. Bellatrix Lestrange turned tail and ran as Dumbledore whipped around. He aimed a spell at her but she deflected it. She was halfway up the steps now—

Buffy could feel the Slayer spirit inside her yelling at her telling her that Bellatrix just tried to kill her godfather. That Bellatrix needed to be stopped and that it was her duty as a Slayer to stop something that was a threat to humanity. She took off scrambling up the stone benches.

The hem of Bellatrix's robes whipped out of sight ahead and they were back in the room where the brains were swimming… She aimed a curse over her shoulder. The tank rose into the air and tipped. Buffy was deluged in the foul-smelling potion within. The brains slipped and slid over her and began spinning their long, colored tentacles, but she shouted, "Wingardium Leviosa!" and they flew into the air away from her. Slipping and sliding she ran on toward the door.

Buffy wrenched open the door into the circular black hall and saw Bellatrix disappearing through a door on the other side of the room—beyond her was the corridor leading back to the lifts. She ran, but Bellatrix had slammed the door behind her and the walls had begun to rotate

"Where's the exit?" Buffy shouted, as the wall rumbled to a halt again. "Where's the way out?"

The room seemed to have been waiting for her to ask. The door right behind her flew open, and the corridor toward the lifts stretched ahead of her, torch-lit and empty. She ran…

Buffy could hear a lift clattering ahead of her. She sprinted up the passageway, swung around the corner, and slammed her fist onto the button to call a second lift. It jangled and banged lower and lower; the grilles slid open and she dashed inside, now hammering the button marked Atrium.

The doors slid shut and she was rising…

Buffy forced her way out of the lift before the grilles were fully open and looked around. Bellatrix was almost at the telephone lift at the other end of the hall, but she looked back as Buffy sprinted toward her, and aimed another spell at the Slayer. Buffy dodged behind the fountain; the spell zoomed past her and hit the wrought gold gates at the other end of the Atrium so that they rang like bells. There were no more footsteps. She had stopped running.

Buffy crouched behind the statues, listening.

"Come out, come out, little Elizabeth!" Bellatrix called in her mock-baby voice, which echoed off the polished wooden floors. "What did you come after me for, then? I thought you were here to avenge my dear cousin!"

"I am here to do my duty as a Slayer," Buffy said as she stood up. "By attempting to actually kill Sirius the Slayer spirit that resides within all Slayers told me it now considered you a threat to humanity." She stepped out from behind the fountain and bellowed "Crucio!"

Bellatrix screamed. The spell had knocked her off her feet, but she did not writhe and shriek with pain. She was already on her feet again within seconds, breathless, no longer laughing.

"Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, girl?" she yelled. She had abandoned her baby voice now. "You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain—to enjoy it—righteous anger won't hurt me for long—I'll show you how it is done, shall I? I'll give you a lesson—"

Bellatrix screamed, "Crucio!" and Buffy ducked out of the way. "Potter, you cannot win against me!"

Buffy could hear Bellatrix moving to the right, trying to get a clear shot of her.

"I was and am the Dark Lord's most loyal servant, I learned the Dark Arts from him, and I know spells of such power that you, pathetic little girl, can never hope to compete—"

"You say that now but you have yet to fight one of the two most power Wiccan witches on the planet."

Buffy turned at the new voice and saw Dawn.

"Stupefy!" yelled Dawn.

"Protego!" Bellatrix yelled.

Dawn moved with the speed of a Slayer as she moved out of the way of her deflected stunning spell.

"Potter, I am going to give you one chance!" shouted Bellatrix. "Give me the prophecy—roll it out toward me now—and I may spare yours and your sister's lives!"

"Too bad so sad," Buffy said. "I smashed it."

"LIAR!" Bellatrix shrieked. "YOU'VE GOT IT, POTTER, AND YOU WILL GIVE IT TO ME—Accio Prophecy! ACCIO PROPHECY!"

Buffy and Dawn both laughed.

"Nothing there!" Dawn shouted. "Nothing to summon! It smashed and the only people who know the prophecy is our family and Dumbledore. I can just imagine what Voldemort will do when he learns that you failed."

"No!" she screamed. "It isn't true, you both are lying—MASTER, I TRIED, I TRIED—DO NOT PUNISH ME—"

"Don't waste your breath!" yelled Dawn remembering her initial Occlumency lessons. "He can't hear you from here!"

"Can't I, Potter?" said a high, cold voice.

Tall, thin, and black-hooded, his terrible snakelike face white and gaunt, his scarlet, slit-pupiled eyes staring… Lord Voldemort had appeared in the middle of the hall, his wand pointing at Buffy who stood frozen, quite unable to move.

"Buffy!" Dawn shouted. She wanted to throw up a shield around her sister. But she was afraid if she did that Voldemort might cast the killing curse before she could finish the spell.

"So, you smashed my prophecy?" said Voldemort softly, staring at Buffy. "No, Bella, they are not lying… There is no reason for a Slayer to lie. Not when lives are at stake… Months of preparation, months of effort… and my Death Eaters have let Elizabeth Potter thwart me again…"

"Master, I am sorry, I knew not, I was fighting the Animagus Black!" sobbed Bellatrix, flinging herself down at Voldemort's feet as he paced slowly nearer. "Master, you should know—"

"Be quiet, Bella," said Voldemort dangerously. "I shall deal with you in a moment. Do you think I have entered the Ministry of Magic to hear your sniveling apologies?"

"Now before I kill you, Dawn Potter. You can watch your sister die," Voldemort said. "Then you will beg me to join her and I being the merciful lord will grant it. AVADA KEDAVRA!"

The golden statue in the fountain sprung alive, leaping from its plinth, and landed on the floor with a crash between Buffy and Voldemort. The spell merely glanced off its chest as the statue flung out its arms, protecting Buffy.

"What—?" said Voldemort, staring around. And then he breathed, "Dumbledore!"

Dawn rushed to Buffy. "Are you okay?" she asked as Buffy nodded. They looked behind them and saw Dumbledore was standing in front of the golden gates.

Voldemort raised his wand and sent another jet of green light at Dumbledore, who turned and was gone in a whirling of his cloak; next second he had reappeared behind Voldemort and waved his wand toward the remnants of the fountain; the other statues sprang to life too. The statue of the witch ran at Bellatrix, who screamed and sent spells streaming uselessly off its chest, before it dived at her, pinning her to the floor. Meanwhile, the goblin and the house-elf scuttled toward the fireplaces set along the wall, and the one-armed centaur galloped at Voldemort, who vanished and reappeared beside the pool. The statue thrust Buffy and Dawn backward, away from the fight, as Dumbledore advanced on Voldemort and the golden centaur cantered around them both.

"It was foolish to come here tonight, Tom," said Dumbledore calmly. "The Aurors are on their way—"

"By which time I shall be gone, and you dead!" spat Voldemort. He sent another Killing Curse at Dumbledore but missed, instead hitting the security guards' desk, which burst into flame.

Dumbledore flicked his own wand and sent another spell toward Voldemort. This time Voldemort was forced to conjure a shining silver shield out of thin air to deflect it.

"You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?" called Voldemort, his scarlet eyes narrowed over the top of the shield. "Above such brutality, are you?"

"We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom," Dumbledore said calmly, continuing to walk toward Voldemort as though he had not a fear in the world, as though nothing had happened to interrupt his stroll up the hall. "Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit—"

"There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!" snarled Voldemort.

"You are quite wrong," said Dumbledore, still closing in upon Voldemort and speaking as lightly as though they were discussing the matter over drinks. "Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness—"

Another jet of green light flew from behind the silver shield. This time it was the one-armed centaur, galloping in front of Dumbledore, that took the blast and shattered into a hundred pieces, but before the fragments had even hit the floor, Dumbledore had drawn back his wand and waved it as though brandishing a whip. A long thin flame flew from the tip; it wrapped itself around Voldemort, shield and all. For a moment, it seemed Dumbledore had won, but then the fiery rope became a serpent, which relinquished its hold upon Voldemort at once and turned, hissing furiously, to face Dumbledore.

Voldemort vanished. The snake reared from the floor, ready to strike—

There was a burst of flame in midair above Dumbledore just as Voldemort reappeared, standing on the plinth in the middle of the pool where so recently the five statues had stood.

A jet of green light had flown at Dumbledore from Voldemort's wand and the snake had struck—

Fawkes swooped down in front of Dumbledore, opened his beak wide, and swallowed the jet of green light whole. He burst into flame and fell to the floor, small, wrinkled, and flightless. At the same moment, Dumbledore brandished his wand in one, long, fluid movement—the snake, which had been an instant from sinking its fangs into him, flew high into the air and vanished in a wisp of dark smoke; the water in the pool rose up and covered Voldemort like a cocoon of molten glass—

For a few seconds Voldemort was visible only as a dark, rippling, faceless figure, shimmering and indistinct upon the plinth, clearly struggling to throw off the suffocating mass—

Then he was gone, and the water fell with a crash back into its pool, slopping wildly over the sides, drenching the polished floor.

"MASTER!" screamed Bellatrix.

Dawn doubled over in pain from the scar on her forehead. When she stood straight there was a change in her that both Buffy and Dumbledore could see. "Kill me now, Dumbledore…" she said.

"Dawn?" Buffy said. "No!"

"If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the girl…"

Suddenly out of Dawn's lips a new voice was heard. "I am Sineya, First of the Ones. You will release my daughter or be forever destroyed."

Dawn suddenly crumpled to the floor.

Voldemort reappeared running at Bellatrix. He grabbed her and they apparated.

"Buffy?" Dumbledore said as he walked up to the blonde Slayer. "What was that?"

"I have no idea," Buffy said. "Not for sure. Willow entered Dawn's mind during the Christmas holidays she said that the only connections to Dawn were the Key, Harry and the Slayer spirit. I assume that was the Slayer spirit. I've never heard it like that. With me it's inside, it's like you know your little inner voice that tells you right from wrong and all that. That's how I've heard the Slayer spirit as just a voice in my head."

Dawn raised her head an inch to see Dumbledore and Buffy looking at her.

"Are you all right, Dawn?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes," said Dawn as Buffy helped her to her feet.

They noticed that the Atrium was slowly beginning to fill with people. The floor was reflecting emerald-green flames that had burst into life in all the fireplaces along one wall, and a stream of witches and wizards was emerging from them.

The tiny gold statues of the house-elf and the goblin leading a stunned-looking Cornelius Fudge forward.

"He was there!" shouted a scarlet-robed man with a ponytail, who was pointing at a pile of golden rubble on the other side of the hall, where Bellatrix had lain trapped moments before. "I saw him, Mr. Fudge, I swear, it was You-Know-Who, he grabbed a woman and Disapparated!"

"I know, Williamson, I know, I saw him too!" gibbered Fudge, who was wearing pajamas under his pinstriped cloak and was gasping as though he had just run miles. "Merlin's beard —here—here! —in the Ministry of Magic! —great heavens above— it doesn't seem possible —my word— how can this be?"

"If you proceed downstairs into the Department of Mysteries, Cornelius," said Dumbledore walking forward so that the newcomers realized he was there for the first time, "you will find several escaped Death Eaters contained in the Death Chamber, bound by an Anti-Disapparation Jinx and awaiting your decision as to what to do with them."

"Dumbledore!" gasped Fudge, apparently beside himself with amazement. "You—here—I—I—"

He looked wildly around at the Aurors he had brought with him, and it could not have been clearer that he was in half a mind to cry, "Seize him!"

"Cornelius, I am ready to fight your men—and win again!" said Dumbledore in a thunderous voice. "But a few minutes ago, you saw proof, with your own eyes, that both Buffy and I have been telling you the truth for a year. Lord Voldemort has returned, you have been chasing the wrong men for twelve months, and it is time you listened to sense!"

"I—don't—well—" blustered Fudge, looking around as though hoping somebody was going to tell him what to do. When nobody did, he said, "Very well—Dawlish! Williamson! Go down to the Department of Mysteries and see… Dumbledore, you—you will need to tell me exactly—the Fountain of Magical Brethren—what happened?" he added in a kind of whimper, staring around at the floor, where the remains of the statues of the witch, wizard, and centaur now lay scattered.

"We can discuss that after I have sent Buffy and Dawn back to Hogwarts," said Dumbledore.

"Elizabeth and Dawn Potter?" Fudge spun around and stared at Buffy and Dawn. "They're here?" he said "Why—what's all this about?"

"I shall explain everything," repeated Dumbledore, "when they are back at school."

"We'll head to Hogwarts in a moment, Albus," Buffy said. "We have a stop to make first. Need to get Sirius, Harry and Willow to the hospital wing, they're currently at Grimmauld Place. I didn't want to risk sending them straight to the hospital wing while Umbridge was in charge."

"Quite understandable, Buffy," Dumbledore said. "Dawn, do you feel up to opening two more portals tonight?"

"I think so," Dawn said as she closed her eyes.

"You will give the order to remove Dolores Umbridge from Hogwarts," said Dumbledore as he looked back at Fudge. "You will tell your Aurors to stop searching for my Care of Magical Creatures teacher so that he can return to work. I will give you…" Dumbledore pulled a watch with twelve hands from his pocket and glanced at it, "half an hour of my time tonight, in which I think we shall be more than able to cover the important points of what has happened here. After that, I shall need to return to my school. If you need more help from me you are, of course, more than welcome to contact me at Hogwarts. Letters addressed to the headmaster will find me."

Fudge goggled worse than ever. His mouth was open and his round face grew pinker under his rumpled gray hair. "I—you—"

Dumbledore turned his back on the sisters. "I shall see you both in half an hour," he said quietly as a portal snapped into existence and the sisters stepped through it.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Dawn opened a portal and sent Willow, Harry and Sirius to the hospital wing as she and Buffy followed. They explained everything and Madam Pomfrey began work on her three patients.

"Will they be all right, Poppy?" Buffy asked.

"Yes," Madam Pomfrey replied seeing the relieved look in Buffy's eyes. She laid a comforting hand on the blonde Slayer before returning her attention to her patients.

Dawn then opened one last portal to Dumbledore's office and the sisters stepped through to wait.

A few minutes later the empty fireplace burst into emerald-green flame and Dumbledore stepped out. He did not look at the sisters at first, but walked over to the perch beside the door and withdrew, from an inside pocket of his robes, the tiny, ugly, featherless Fawkes, whom he placed gently on the tray of soft ashes beneath the golden post where the full-grown Fawkes usually stood.

"Well, Dawn, Buffy," said Dumbledore, finally turning away from the baby bird, "you will be pleased to hear that Harry, Willow and Sirius are not going to suffer lasting damage from the night's events. Nymphadora Tonks may need to spend a little time in St. Mungo's, but it seems that she will make a full recovery. Dawn, while I am proud of what you did tonight. What you also did was dangerous. You could have been trapped beyond the veil yourself."

"I know," Dawn said with a sigh. "But I also know that wherever that led that the veil itself was just a doorway. I could feel it in my core."

"The Key," Dumbledore said in understanding. He looked at Buffy. "Buffy, I take it you went to the Ministry tonight because…"

"Harry had told me he had seen Sirius at the Ministry being tortured. So, I used the mirror. Faith said Sirius had gone to Grimmauld Place. So, we portaled there. Kreacher had said he left. I sent Dawn and Harry back to try Sirius again knowing he would send reinforcements. Then Willow and I went to make sure whatever Voldemort was after he would not get."

"I should have told you that there was a copy of the prophecy in the Department of Mysteries. If I had you may not have gone tonight. Of course, if I had you may have gone earlier. Your first duty has always been to your family after all," Dumbledore said. "What about Bellatrix Lestrange?"

"The Slayer told me she was a threat to humanity and needed to be stopped," Buffy answered.

"Now I must explain myself. I guessed, fifteen years ago," said Dumbledore, "when I saw the scar upon Harry's forehead, what it might mean. I guessed that it might be the sign of a connection forged between him and Voldemort. It became apparent, shortly after you two rejoined the wizarding world, that I was correct, and that his scar was giving him warnings when Voldemort was close, or else feeling powerful emotion."

"Then I saw your scar last year, Dawn. After hearing your story, I began to fear what all this could mean. It is why I had suggested Occlumency lessons last year even though they were never started then. I knew that if Voldemort gained access that you might become a threat and if he could break you, turn you, while he possessed you. We could have been looking at a new Dark Lord to rival him. While he would not want a rival, I do believe he would have wanted a partner. I became concerned that Voldemort might realize that the connection between Harry and himself exists and through Harry that he had a connection to you as well. Sure enough, there came a time when Harry entered so far into his mind and thoughts that he sensed both of your presences. I am speaking, of course, of the night when you and Harry witnessed the attack on Mr. Weasley."

"So, he knew about me before tonight?" Dawn asked.

"I do not know for certain," Dumbledore said. "But I believe he may have. I believed it could not be long before Voldemort attempted to force his way into yours or Harry's minds, to manipulate and misdirect yours or his thoughts, and I was not eager to give him more incentives to do so."

"You were afraid he would use Harry or Dawn to spy on you," Buffy said.

"Yes, Buffy, I believe I was right to think that Voldemort would have made use of Harry or Dawn in such a way. That said Voldemort's aim tonight would not have been my destruction. It would have been yours, Dawn. He hoped, when he possessed you briefly a short while ago, that I would sacrifice you in the hope of killing him."

"But he didn't expect the Slayer spirit to fight back," Dawn said.

"No, he didn't," Dumbledore agreed. "Which means for yourself I had been worrying for nothing. Harry on the other hand is sadly a much different story. There is something else I noticed tonight. Did you see it, Buffy?"

"Dawn moved with the speed of a Slayer?" Buffy asked.

"Yes," Dumbledore said. "I believe that Dawn has not been an uncalled Potential for a year now. I believe Dawn has been a Slayer since the day you told me of when Willow healed Ms. Lehane. After all you yourself said that Faith died and was brought back by the muggle doctor's before Willow came and magically healed her. There is one last thing I want to explain. You and Harry both may, perhaps, have wondered why I never chose either of you as a prefect, Dawn? I must confess… that I rather thought… you both had enough responsibilities to be going on with."

"Given what Buffy and I have gone through before we met Harry and gone through since, you were probably right," Dawn said. "That said I hope you will consider Ginny next time."

Dumbledore laughed as he motioned toward the claddagh ring on Dawn's finger. "I can see why you recommend her. You like your sister are always concerned for those you love. You like your sister put their wellbeing before your own. And I do believe that you like Buffy will become one of the longest living Slayers in history because … you love."