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Chapter 34: La Bataille des Masques
Paris was a different city so early in the morning. Though its reek remained, the shadowed street before Narcissa was abandoned. The cool quiet left the space around her feeling less oppressive. Each breath felt fuller than she had grown accustomed to and each step came with ease she had not felt in almost an entire month.
Almost an entire month… Had she really been stuck here for so long?
Narcissa focused on the golden fingers of sunlight poking up above distant rooftops, and on the small bird nestled on a window sill nearby. Better to enjoy the simple pleasures than to dwell on bitterness she could not dispel. It was a lovely morning. It almost made waking up so early feel worthwhile.
The memory of being shaken awake so rudely drew a protracted yawn. "It's a Saturday!" she had hissed at Alden when he would not leave, gesturing to the faint grey sky outside her window.
"Are we closed on Saturdays?" he had asked her with an arched eyebrow.
"Oh, don't try and use that as a defence," she had shot back at him. "You haven't harassed me on any weekend until now."
"A mistake on my part, I now see. It seems that I have been encouraging your laziness. No longer will that stand."
No matter which tack she tried, the blasted man had not left her room until she agreed to meet him in the cluttered mess he called his lobby. The way he just stood there like an impatient parent rousing their child for the day ahead was infuriating. The fact he had sauntered straight through her wards made things even more frustrating.
Her mood had not improved when she stepped out into the lobby to find Alden whistling underneath his breath, bright and chipper as a gambler who had just won a hand of cards. "Your laziness is not the only bad habit I have been encouraging." There was no 'good morning', no 'how are you', no 'good to see you out of bed'. "My laxness ends today. Find yourself some breakfast. Then you will get started."
That was what had forced her out at the crack of dawn, searching for a suitable establishment open at such an obscene hour.
Narcissa rounded a corner and felt her eyes drawn toward a boarded window and the shallow cracks gouged into the masonry around it.
The damage was likely the result of a recent riot. There was no telling which one, as they had become frequent occurrences that past week. The last had seen Notre Dame accosted by a group of muggle terrorists.
Her hand drifted toward her wand almost without thinking. If her grandfather guessed right, tonight would breed chaos unlike anything so far.
Alden was examining some kind of ring through an enchanted lens when she returned.
"Is that all you bought?" he asked, nodding to the small bag clutched in her right hand, inside which was a single pastry. She stuck her nose up in response. "You may wish for more before too long." She tapped her foot against the floor. "Very well. Let us begin." With a quick gesture for her to trail behind, he started through the labyrinth of tables, almost clipping an overhanging coat rack with his left hip as he passed by. Near the room's rear he paused, retrieving what he had clearly been after.
"A cauldron?" Narcissa asked, her eyebrows raising into a straight line.
Alden's lip twitched, curling halfway up toward a smile. "An astute observation."
She would not blush. She was Narcissa Black, daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. She did not blush. "I fail to see its relevance."
"I would like it very much if you made this cauldron functional," Alden informed her without missing a beat.
Narcissa leant in to examine the artifact more closely. It was oddly coloured, a pale silver shining dully with a bluish hue. "What's wrong with it?"
That blasted, knowing smile was her only answer. "I think much can be learned if you find that out yourself."
There was too much moisture in the air. Sweat slicked his skin despite the early hour. Warm wind stirred his robes and beckoned in a wave of dark grey clouds. There was an earthy scent he had no name for whose meaning he knew too well.
A storm was coming.
The wind picked up as though it sensed his unrest. Harry could feel the coming rain against his skin and hear the crack of thunder as he prepared himself for a different kind of storm set to take place that night in a larger city. The sheets of rain grew hot and sticky in his mind's eye. Suddenly the scent he smelled was not ozone, but iron.
The Elder Wand shuddered, making its holster bump up and down against his forearm. One last fight, he promised himself. Soon there would be no need for further bloodshed.
At least not until he returned to his own world…
Sighing, he unclasped his hands from behind his back. It was past sunrise, regardless of the sky's denial of that fact. It was time to return to Hogwarts.
The tall trees lining the path up to the castle swayed like drunk men dancing to a silent song. Grass bent before the gusting wind, and the Black Lake roiled far off on his right, grey and restless as the encroaching storm clouds.
Had his senses not been so well-honed, the soft tread behind him might have gone unnoticed. "Morning, Peter." There was no doubt the steps belonged to Pettigrew; they had come out of nowhere.
"M-morning, Harry?" It was almost a question, the way those words were spoken.
"What's happening?" Harry asked, short on patience on account of his frayed nerves.
Pettigrew wrung his hands. "I j-just saw you on the map and wondered if I could have a word?"
Harry wondered how often the Marauders watched his movements. It doesn't matter, he decided. Pettigrew had attached himself to Harry for the time being. If the rat decided there was a surer bet, it might become a problem. Until then, there was little use in worrying. "What do you want to talk about?"
"James and Sirius had a row last night," the rat replied. "I thought you'd want to know since your name was dragged into it."
A sinking feeling came over Harry. "What did they say?"
"Sirius caught James writing a letter to his father asking about all the riots this week in Paris."
Harry smothered a spike of sharp anxiety, claiming solace in the warded borders barring unauthorized passage between nations. Briefly he wondered how Riddle planned on circumventing that restriction. "Why did my name get dragged into it?"
Pettigrew fussed with the front of his loose-fitting robes. "Well, Sirius got really angry. James said he was only curious, but Sirius didn't believe him. He said if he had waited five more minutes before looking over at the letter, he would have seen James requesting a portkey or some rubbish."
Harry dragged a hand through his windswept hair and sighed. "Sirius was probably right."
"James was livid. Blew up at Sirius in the middle of the common room; said maybe he should go out and help with the riots. Maybe then he would actually learn something since you just want everyone to stay damsels."
A muscle twitched in Harry's jaw. Was that really what James thought? "Any interesting rumours about the riots?"
"There's supposed to be a big one tonight," Pettigrew answered at once.
It took an effort to remain impassive. "Well I don't see how James could get to Paris on the fly, so if something's going down tonight, there's that at least. I'd still keep an eye on him, though. You lot are resourceful."
Pettigrew licked his lips. "I'm not sure how much I could do to stop him. I can try, though." Reluctant curiosity had its coils wound tight about the rat, visible in the slight shift of his jaw and the darting of his eyes. "I… listened in to your talk with Sirius." Pettigrew took a faltering step back; Harry's anger must have shown across his face. "I'm s-s-sorry," the rat stammered. "I d-didn't know it was you he was meeting. It was j-just a really bad excuse he made, so I got curious."
Harry's stare was pitiless and unwavering. "Ask your question, Pettigrew."
"How did you learn? You were talking about how James might learn the hard way. I was…" the rat trailed off, wringing out his hands again.
"Curious?" Harry finished for him. Pettigrew bobbed his head in affirmation. "It's not a story I like telling."
"All right. I'm sorry, Harry."
"It's fine. Just don't use that map to spy on me in the future, all right?"
"I wasn't! I just followed—"
"My point stands." He held that watery stare until the rat looked down at his feet. "Good. I'm heading inside. I'll see you around, Peter."
Narcissa scowled into the cauldron. Affronted anger had her right hand curled into a tight fist. This had to be a twisted joke. It was no wonder identifying the source of the cauldron's issues had taken her so long. She had not even considered that it might be made of tin.
Who on earth would ever use a cauldron made from tin? Beginners were often encouraged to use pewter cauldrons because the amount of tin found in the alloy helped minimize the impacts of misbrewed potions, while the copper ensured enough conductivity for the draughts to turn out passable. That was well enough, though no master would ever dampen their own work with such alloys.
Pure tin was something else entirely. Recipes would have to be scaled up exponentially for the merest hope of a successful brew. No shop worth its sign would sell such a thing, let alone line it in mercury the way the cauldron set out before her was.
She exhaled a long breath and forced her fingers to uncurl. Yes, a twisted joke was what this was. At best this cauldron would result in nothing but a waste of time on the part of whomever used it. At worst they would be competent enough to compensate and scale up the recipe, which would go disastrously wrong when the mercury over-stimulated the first spark of magic.
Narcissa tapped her lips with her forefinger. Some kind of test, then. What did Alden want her to do with this? There was no transfiguring the cauldron into more ideal substances, seeing as alchemical metals were inalterable. When she had asked whether he had other compounds on hand so she might line the cauldron and help counteract its functions, the old alchemist had told her to find a more elegant solution.
A frustrated wand wave dispelled the floating sphere of light. She needed a break before this drove her mad. How long had she been at it? Six hours? Eight?
Twelve was closer to the mark, judging by the sun's position outside when she emerged onto the building's second floor. No wonder I feel worn ragged.
Car horns blared beyond the window and there was a fainter, less distinctive din, like that which often emanates from a restless crowd.
Anxiety writhed inside her stomach. Her grandfather had been right. The riot had begun.
The portkey deposited him in a long room, lit by several spheres of emerald light hovering around the space's outskirts. The windows were hidden behind crimson curtains emblazoned with a black triskelion and a silver moon.
The Morrigan's mark. Ice trickled into Harry's veins. The silver scales of embroidered serpents stood out stark against the dark green carpet. Decorated in the same fashion was a wide circle of high-backed armchairs, all empty except five near a black stone hearth.
"Seven." mused a cold, smooth voice behind him. "An auspicious number for an auspicious night." Knife-thin and easily the tallest in that dim room, Riddle walked toward the fireplace, dressed in black robes and his silver mask. "A night that will be remembered for generations to come."
"Will we get to kill, my lord?" The woman's voice moved through him like a toxic venom. Saving lives had just become much harder.
"Oh yes, Bella," Riddle purred in his own voice rather than the monstrosity usually projected by his silver mask. "There will be plenty of that before the night is finished."
"My lord?" Zabini. "I was under the impression we were inflaming the riots that Atticus helped start." Atticus Lestrange, the man who had managed Riddle's estate during his years away.
"Our objective is Sacre Coeur," Riddle informed them. "It will burn tonight."
"The skirmishes between wizard and muggle broke open Britain." Where had Harry heard that voice before? "You mean to replicate that here, to turn the streets into a war zone."
"Astute as always, Dionysus."
Harry cursed to himself. Riddle had a High Martial in on this operation. If Dorea had not acted quietly enough, all of this would be for nothing.
"What do you think of the night's plans, Harry?"
Several of the white-masked figures stirred. "It's not my place to judge, my lord," Harry replied.
"Nor is it mine." Riddle reached into a pocket of his robes and withdrew a crystal vial filled with blood. "Andromeda."
Andromeda stepped out from shadows in the room's far corner, so meek and quiet Harry had not noticed she was there at all. Grief tore at him as he watched her kneel over the empty hearth and lay a square of cloth across the bed of ash and coals. This was not the same woman he had known in his world. Death would have been a kinder fate than this…
Riddle reached over his kneeling wife and poured the contents of his vial out over the silk. Andromeda sank onto her knees and the five white-masked monsters followed. Harry did the same while Riddle began chanting in a harsh language.
Harry looked up at the whooshing sound coming from the hearth a minute or so later. The black flames that had sprung up swallowed the silk cloth. The smell of blood was gone. Odd, as the fire ought to have hissed and spat as it was burned away…
"The Morrigan has spoken," Riddle intoned. Harry thought it more likely the man himself had used a clever bit of wandless magic to conjure an illusion and vanish whoever's blood had been inside the vial. "Our cause has been deemed just, and she wishes it fulfilled. So shall we make it!"
"SO SHALL WE MAKE IT!" the stooges shouted back.
"Rise." They obeyed at once. "Join hands. We will take a single portkey into Paris."
"Are we alone, my lord?" this voice was not one Harry recognized.
Riddle had activated his mask's enchantment, transforming each word into a metallic rasp. "We are far from alone."
Harry set his jaw. The Elder Wand vibrated in its holster. Soon this would be over.
Soon.
Pain prickled behind Narcissa's eyes. It had started hours back and intensified ever since. Nothing produced headaches quite like straining over puzzles that could not be solved.
No, she thought, tempering the softest edges of her resolve. There had to be a way — or she had to be completely certain there was none. She was Narcissa Black, daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. She did not give up so easily.
The study's door banged open. Narcissa jolted. Harsh reproaches leapt onto her tongue. "What do you…" The sight of Alden's face stilled her rant before it could get started. "What's happened?"
"Come." It was no request. "We cannot stay here."
Sweat beaded down behind his mask. Although the sun had set some time ago, the Parisian air was stiff and stifling. No wind blew through rare gaps in the tight-packed maze of buildings. The sound of screaming reached his ears, though he could not say whether it was near at hand.
"We are several blocks away," Riddle boomed. "Let us not waste time." A pale wand slid out of the black sleeve it had been hidden in. "Fiendfyre."
Crimson fire reared, rising fifty feet into the air. Stone melted into streams of lava, underneath which asphalt smoked and bubbled. The lava flowed into an orange river, arcing in a semi-circle around Riddle and his men.
Harry watched the fiends around him raise their wands. Somewhere behind him, a woman laughed a shrill, mad laugh.
Narcissa's heart pounded, a rapid drumbeat denying her the ability to breathe. Her feet ached from slamming again and again against the cobblestones. Each step sent fresh pain stabbing up her shins. Her face scrunched up as the cramp wound deeper into her.
Then there was Alden, who must have lied about taking a young apprentice so many years ago. No man that old and squat could move with such graceful ease.
Someone slammed into Narcissa's side and knocked her off her feet. Her shoulder throbbed when it struck the cobblestones. Strong hands dragged her back up faster than she could curse whoever had bowled into her. There were too many people and too little space, too much smoke and too many screams. She could hear nothing but those screams, the sound of her own heartbeat, and immense crashes coming closer.
I am not scared! she told herself. I am Narcissa Black, daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
"Alden!" So hoarse that word was, hissing from her like the sound cold water makes when poured over an open flame. "Alden!"
His hand closed around her forearm. "Just a little farther." The alchemist was panting. "Just a little farther…"
The ragged noise she made was half groan, half whimper. Her feet cramped. They would fail her any second now. The only question was whether lack of oxygen would claim her first. Her own saliva tasted like the wafting smoke and her head had started swimming . "Alden, I—"
"Merde!"
The sidewalk slammed against her chest. Her ears rang from the aftershocks of whatever had resounded on her left. She could no longer breathe; her ribs felt fit to crumble at the mere idea. Or was that the awful heat that had bore down on her?
"GARBB-SHRUTH!"
An explosion shook the concrete.
"Calypso!" Someone was shouting her false name. Alden, she realized. It was Alden — Alden who was calling out to her, Alden who had cast the spell whose incantation she had never heard before.
A muscle near her ribs spasmed when she tried to stand. The pain leached at the strength she had left. Although her skin no longer burned against the cobblestones, she had no luck trying to refill her aching lungs.
She was going to die.
"NARCISSA!"
She sucked in sharply, stiffening against the cobblestones as air flowed past her lips and dispersed the clouds of mist that had been muddying her thoughts. My name… my real name...
Awareness smashed into her. Pain filled her ribs like fire in a hearth, rising up her sides each time she shifted. Her feet felt like heaps of crumpled metal hammered too hard for too long and cuts along her arms and legs throbbed in time with her racing heart.
None of it would break her. She was Narcissa Black, daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
She did not break!
Pressing her palms against cobblestones that were slick with streams of water, Narcissa struggled to her feet.
The street to her left had been burned into a stretch of blacked stone, spewing steam and smoke into the velvet sky. The nearest buildings that had blocked her line of sight in that direction had all vanished. In their place were heaps of dark red rock, glowing like hot coals. It was as if they had all melted and then resolidified.
The damage ended where the ruined buildings had once stood on her left. Rightward, not a single structure had been touched, though the sounds of screaming had grown louder several streets in that direction.
Even as she noticed, something louder cracked through the air and drowned them out.
Gunfire…
Goosebumps bloomed along her arms. It was odd they should be so close to all that chaos, yet stand amid a small island blanketed in silence.
It was only then she saw why.
Alden had his back to her. Over his head of steel-grey hair leered a silver mask, sleek and seamless but for eyeholes the colour of fresh blood.
Fear seized her heart and squeezed. Riddle himself had come to Paris, and she had stumbled straight into his path.
"Step aside, old man." Cold as ice that voice was, harsh as heartbreak and rougher than the sea in storm.
Alden's upraised wand did not move a millimetre. "I will not let you burn my city."
Riddle laughed. It was a sound like glaciers crumbling. "I have fifty wands behind me and another hundred closing in on Sacre Coeur. Stand aside."
Alden's wand flashed, faster than Narcissa had believed was possible.
Silver light burst against an opaque shield and six curses shot back at him in answer. Alden moved the way a dancer might, gliding back on smooth feet and bringing his wand around like a baton. Each curse winked out before it could reach him. Their caster cackled as she pressed forward, cleaving her wand as if it were a butcher's knife. With each mad slash she laughed.
For a moment Narcissa forgot her own plight, dragged into dark memories by the sound of that shrill laughter.
Though only for a moment.
"So, you thought to hide from me." Riddle advanced slowly, unattended save a single shadow skulking close behind him. No sound came out when she tried to scream. Her legs were twin pillars made out of lead. All the while Riddle stalked her, implacable as Thanatos himself. "You must pay for disobedience." Clothed in robes as black as death, he raised his wand.
Green light leapt forth.
Not from the wand she had been certain was about to strike her down, but from behind its master's shoulder.
Narcissa found herself lying once more on the sidewalk, having collapsed when blind fear turned the muscles in her legs to water. Someone was standing between her and Riddle. Though the mask that hid his face had been bone-white seconds back, now it was the colour of the curse he'd just unleashed.
"You." rasped Riddle, having apparated out of the line of fire just in time.
"Me." Where Riddle's voice was the crumbling of glaciers, this man's was the roar of kindled flame. Where the first grated like the sound of steel on steel, the second rolled like water over a reef. Where one evoked the cold fury of a winter wind, the other bore a ferocious warning; the rumbling of thunder heralding a summer storm.
A string of whip-sharp cracks shattered the atmosphere between them and a sea of red and gold swept in through the streets of Paris.
Relief thrilled through Narcissa at the sight of them. The venators had come.
The chaos parted around him and Riddle. Everyone shrank back whenever their fight moved, ensuring there was always ample space for them to work with.
Or perhaps they simply got too close and died; Harry could not say which was true. The world had condensed, cutting him off from everything but Riddle.
Long ago he had realized it was the best way his brain knew how to keep him alive. In true battle, there was no telling what each spell was, or from where the next would come. Pausing to try and deduce those things was death.
In that narrow state of clearheadedness, Harry wasted no energy deciding what the best move was.
He simply stayed alive.
Parry, shield, attack, sidestep, attack, conjure, banish, shield, conjure, animate, roll — it was all as natural as breathing. One does not fight the urge to take in air. They simply breathe.
Silver light flashed, exploding inside the stones Harry had conjured to contain the blast. The shrapnel sprayed toward Riddle, trailed by some of the strongest spells in Harry's arsenal. Both attacks were lost amidst a wave of crimson flames. That sweltering storm shifted into the shape of a basilisk who plunged its burning fangs into Harry's wall of emerald Fiendfyre.
The resulting smoke hid all from sight. Harry capitalized on the brief break, catching his breath the best he could without inhaling harmful toxins. His throat already burned and there was a sharp stitch buried in his ribs. The ache of fatigue was in his calves and creeping slowly up his legs. Though the fight had not yet raged on long, it knew not of pacing or restraint.
Harry dispelled his emerald flames as the acrid curtain that smoke had woven thinned.
The first thing his stinging eyes picked out was Riddle's mask, shining silver as the stars above. "I should have known. The second I heard about your silver shield, I should have known. You cast it right in front of me at Hogwarts."
"You couldn't have known," Harry retorted. "That would involve you admitting I'm better than you were at my age."
Riddle's chest rose and fell with each ragged breath. "I know now."
Harry almost smiled underneath his mask. "It's a bit late for knowing."
Had he been able to see Riddle's face, he imagined that it would have borne a livid sneer. "Not too late to see that you pay the price for treason."
A crow unfurled out of the air between them, spreading its wings wide and baring the brunt of Riddle's killing curse. "You should have paid that price years ago!" Harry snarled, thrusting the Elder Wand in front of him. The stone street shattered into a thousand jagged shards. Every one of them were flaming swords by the time they reached Riddle.
Even among the roiling mayhem, Harry heard the bastard's hiss of pain as a single blazing blade slipped through his defences and burned away the fabric covering his left shoulder.
Riddle melted into black smoke.
This time, Harry had expected it. His will poured into the air. Particles contracted and the substance they formed shifted, forcing Riddle back into a solid shape.
The madman snarled. "Spreadhadh Talamh!"
The split-second Harry took withdrawing his will from the air in a bid to conserve energy was almost his undoing. The silver shield he threw up at the last instant shattered and he was sent sailing backward. His spine slammed against the cobblestones. The accompanying spasm left him unable to leap up and he was forced to cast more Fiendfyre between himself and the earthen army that his foe had conjured.
Every muscle in his body trembled as he hauled himself upright. Tremors wracked his back when he regained his feet. The flames' heat pressed in — not close enough to inflict Fiendfyre burns, but close enough to sap some of what little strength remained to him,
Doubt drove its icy fangs into his heart for the first time that night. None of the battles over the previous six years had been this hard. He had never achieved so little using so much magic.
Except for that last evening when he had retreated on leaden legs, stumbling backward over gnarled roots in the shadow of Mount Othrys.
The doubt bore deeper into him. On that occasion, he had lost. Had it not been for the freak miracle that landed him in this strange world, he wouldn't have lived to see another sunrise.
Harry grunted and grimaced, wrestling the remaining fragments of Fiendfyre back under control. I can't die! No one can stop him if I die! Trelawney's words echoed in his ears alongside the hurried pounding of his heart.
"Either must die at the hand of the other …"
Emerald fire spewed at Riddle, who hunched with the effort of imbuing the air around him and holding back the hungry flames. Harry snuffed them out and threw his will against Riddle's, cracking the Elder Wand as if it were a whip. Lightning stabbed out of the sky, splitting into twin prongs. The first sought Riddle's life while the second cleaved through a building on his right. The structure sagged and split apart. Stones the size of kitchen tables burst on Riddle's hasty shield. Harry drew a broad circle in the air using the tip of the Elder Wand. The debris around them came alive, contorting into the shape of serpents, lions, wolves, and other beasts.
An unseen wall of brute force blasted them all to shrapnel before they could shatter Riddle's shield. Harry felt that shockwave surge toward him and was forced to launch himself skyward with a burst of wind.
The topmost fragment of that shockwave struck and sent him soaring off his chosen course. Harry saw the rooftop hurtling toward him and turned his body just in time. His back struck white stone and blackness swallowed up his sight.
He was mercifully awake again only a second later.
Or perhaps it had been longer… there was no saying for sure.
What was the last thing that had happened?
Agony, exhaustion, and weightlessness…
His ribs flamed with pain as he scrambled for the scythe that he had used to block Voldemort's…
No… It was not Voldemort he was fighting — it was Tom Riddle.
This was not Mount Othrys — it was Paris.
At least three of his ribs had cracked. Pain pulsed up his spine, fierce enough to turn his stomach.
Yet he stood, slow and shaky as the sickened shadow of a man who'd once been great. Clutching a stone spire to maintain his balance, he surveyed his surroundings.
The battle raged on far below. All around were black robed figures locked in losing fights against a superior force wearing red cloaks trimmed in gold. Violence flowed around the high building he had crashed into, a sea of death surrounding his reprieve.
Sacre Coeur. The rooftop he had crash landed on belonged to Sacre Coeur.
The building groaned beneath him. Vibrations ran up his shaking legs and filled the spire he was clutching.
Then the whole roof slanted.
Harry's stomach dropped as he threw himself into open air rather than fall amid the debris as the old church crumbled. The sound of it was like an avalanche in slow-motion, audible even above the roar of wind rushing past him as he raced toward the street below.
"ACCIO TOM RIDDLE!"
The sudden shift in flight felt like a car crash. His back bent and his legs curled up toward his chest as paralyzing quantities of pain knifed through him.
He slammed into a blurred shape hard enough to grey out his vision. The next thing he knew, he was bouncing across slick stones with one arm wrapped around a thin waist.
When the world was finished flashing past his eyes, he was on his back, looking up at a silver mask and its scarlet eyeholes. Nothing happened when he tried to breathe except the violent protests his cracked ribs pitched. Only when his vision darkened yet again did he realize the cause was not his injuries, but the long fingers of a pale hand curled around his throat.
Riddle's fingers. Riddle's hand. Riddle's wand, drawing back and taking aim between his eyes.
"Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives."
Harry put all his strength into lurching forward. His head cracked into Riddle's cheek and he snapped his jaw down on the bastard's wand hand. Blood poured in between his lips, so much it was as if he had drank deep from a bottle filled with it.
Riddle screamed. Harry was on top of him faster than he could process. Clasping both hands around the sides of Riddle's face, he drove his skull back into the sidewalk. Before he could do it a second time, Riddle had melted into smoke once more.
"No!" Harry gasped, rolling onto his back so he could better see around him. Again he forced the air solid, and again Riddle reformed.
Wandless.
Instinct urged Harry halfway to his feet before the damage he had suffered struck him with an iron hand. "Ugh!" He crumpled to the cobblestones, providing Riddle the time he needed to reclaim his fallen wand.
Harry conjured up another gust of wind, barely strong enough to toss himself up into the air. Riddle's curse missed his head by inches and Harry cast a wordless sticking charm on the bottoms of his feet to ensure he stayed upright.
Upright in total agony and unable to move his legs, but upright nonetheless. Better to be a stationary target who can fight back than a prone one who is completely helpless.
Harry poured malice through the link he maintained with the air around the place where Riddle stood. An explosion echoed through the teeming streets and shook the cobbles underfoot. Harry teetered, still stuck to the heaving ground.
Relief flared like the sun inside him when he saw the orange fireball that had consumed the place where Riddle had been standing.
So odd for any version of Voldemort to be so abruptly beaten after all these years… for it to just be over… for—
A tall shadow hobbled from the flames. Smoke curled up off its tattered robes and streams of soot were smeared across its silver mask.
It was then, as shock and dismay rooted him in place as surely as the spell on the soles of his feet, that he realized his own mask had fallen off at some point in the fighting.
A second flash of silver from the corner of one wide eye drew his attention. He feared for a moment that Riddle had used an illusion to distract him.
The truth made his heart lurch almost as much as his fear had. What he had seen was no mask. Instead it was Narcissa's hair, slick with sweat and singed in places. Showing through some few tears in her robes were shallow gouges. Most were no longer bleeding.
Harry deflected the curse he'd known was coming, responding with a counter. That pale wand moved too slow and the gouging curse burrowed into Riddle's bicep. Blood sprayed out between his clutching fingers and he almost dropped his wand a second time.
But he'd seen where Harry's eyes had wandered…
"Kill the girl!"
Most of Riddle's men had either been overpowered by the venators or struck down by muggle weaponry. Less than a third of his initial force remained, and of that number only half were in any position to attack Narcissa.
Terror tore through Harry nonetheless. "No!" The ten or so Knights who had surged forward were all swept back by the strength of his mass banishment. Four recovered quickly, coming on again.
Harry clenched his jaw, dragging up the dregs of what he had left to give. "Spreadhadh Talamh!"
The ground around Narcissa broke apart. Life-sized dragons made from stone and clay clawed free, spreading their dark wings and soaring around her in protective circles.
White light flashed and a wall of force slammed into Harry's chest. Both his ankles snapped, torn asunder by Riddle's banishing hex conflicting with the sticking charm that had held Harry's feet in place. Agony lanced up his shins and he felt his back strike against the sidewalk.
Knowing he had no hope of fighting from his current place, he aimed the Elder Wand toward his mangled legs. A shard of bone jutted from the skin connecting his left shin and ankle. Nausea roiled in his stomach and his vision slanted.
Another spell struck him and he was sent skidding down the sidewalk. Road rash burned even through his robes, its heat a dull afterthought against his cacophony of more pressing injuries.
"Where did you come from?" Riddle stalked him, each measured step a paragon of malice. "Who are you?" Harry lay still and remained silent. The wand would return to its holster if given enough time. "Answer me!" All he had to do was buy himself— "Crucio!"
All the imitations he had called agony were gone. In their place was proper pain, raw and primal as a wolf's howl in dark woods. It was acid in his veins, fire in his bones, flaming knives flaying every inch of flesh he had.
His tongue was stiff and swollen when the world came back into focus. Blood coated the inside of his mouth and he was panting hard. At least he had not screamed.
Riddle's boot came down mere inches from his head. "Answer me!"
Harry spat onto the cobblestones. "Fuck you!"
He could practically see the sneer beneath that silver mask as Riddle raised his wand, riled past the point of rhyme or reason. "AVADA KEDAVRA!"
"PROTEGO AUREUM!"
The jet of green light glanced off a shield-shaped slab of gold that had materialized between them.
The Elder Wand had returned itself in the nick of time.
Though not into its holster. It had appeared between his fingers as if summoned wandlessly, though he had lacked the focus necessary for such feats.
Or was he misremembering? Had he summoned it reflexively and just forgotten thanks to the waves of pain that he was slowly drowning in?
Riddle staggered backward with the unsteady air of someone who has just stumbled upon a mortal fear.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
Riddle jolted into action just in time. The square of stone he tore out of the sidewalk with a short flick of his wand blocked the jet of bright, green light that had been aimed between his shoulderblades.
Harry's next breath snagged somewhere in his chest. Narcissa had freed herself from the earthen army and snuck up behind Riddle. She had dried blood on one cheek and a slight bend in her back that left her unsteady on her feet.
The murder gleaming in her blue eyes paid none of that a single thought.
Narcissa's next three spells splashed against a silver shield composed of writhing serpents while Riddle regained his bearings and sent forth a storm of scarlet flames.
Harry tried to rise. The blood went rushing to his head and his entire body throbbed. He had not even made it up onto his knees.
Smoke swallowed the entire world. His ribs pulsed with each dry cough. The scene was like something from a dream; everywhere he looked, the smoke was as opaque as the total darkness of a cloudy night at sea.
Harry closed his eyes to protect them from the sting. What had just happened? The Fiendfyre had met no resistance, yet it had been reduced to smoke.
Except that did not quite match. There was far too much smoke for those cursed flames to have been its only source.
Did that mean Narcissa…
No! She was still alive. He had to believe that she was still alive!
A sudden hush had fallen over the city. Harry opened his eyes halfway. A shadow stood amid the thinning smoke, interposed between Riddle and Narcissa. The gold cape hanging from his shoulders came into focus first. Then his hair, burnished gold but for the wisps of smoke that clung to it.
The silence deepened. Not a soul drew breath, or so Harry would have sworn.
The newcomer was clothed in all black except for his gold cape and boot buckles of the same colour. Though his regal face bore no expression, the truth was in his eyes. They were matching chips of brittle ice, cold as death and gleaming like a winter sun.
Most striking of all was the shroud of silver light that wreathed him.
The man raised his right arm with the languid leisure of a stretching cat, levelling his wand at Riddle's chest.
A cold gust blew through Harry's veins. The archaic carvings along that wand's length were hauntingly familiar…
That's impossible. It was the Elder Wand.
Gellert Grindelwald surveyed the scene, looking from the blackened streets to the empty plots of land where blocks of buildings had once stood. "Quite the show you have put on." Those cold eyes were on Riddle now. "Commendable as this performance was, it is at an end. Drop that wand and show us all your face before I have reason to write my own act."
Riddle spat onto the sidewalk in the precise manner Harry had a minute or so prior. "Kill him!"
The imperial soldiers were too stunned to stop the surge of Riddle's servants. Almost all of them that were still standing charged toward the Emperor as one.
Grindelwald did not so much as take a step or move his wand. The shroud around him swirled, spinning into a silver tempest at whose heart he stood as spells sparked and sputtered in the air before him. The mist-like substance swelled. No, Harry realized, not swelled. More of it was pouring out from between the fingers of Grindelwald's right hand.
The crack of apparition drew Harry's eye. "No!" he rasped, struggling to raise the… his Elder Wand without success. The handful of Knights who had not thrown themselves at Grindelwald were fleeing. And Riddle…
Riddle was already a plume of black smoke riding the faint breeze all the way to freedom.
The expected rage did not come, nor was there the bitterness that had nearly broken him on the spring solstice. Harry supposed that so much pain was screaming for his attention, there was simply no room for any more.
The city had gone silent for a second time. Harry only noticed when the sound of booted footfalls resounded like the beating of a herald's staff against old flagstones. "Mister Kalloway." Grindelwald had stopped three paces from the place he lay. Of the Knights who had accosted him, there was no sign; Harry had been too distracted watching Riddle escape to see what had come of them. "I am sorry this day has waited so many months. I think it is past time the two of us had a…discussion."
"When the law fails to serve us, we must serve as the law."
― Kenneth Eade
Author's Note:
You all have my sincerest apologies for the impromptu hiatus. It turns out getting married and the build-up to said wedding leads to a really chaotic couple of months. Uploads are now back, but they will be biweekly for the next while, as I have a lot of catching up to do and also have to travel for some family stuff this summer.
A special thank you to my high-tier patron, Cup, for her generous and unwavering support.
PS: The next chapter will be out in one week. Remember that chapters can be read early on Discord, YouTube, and P.A.T.R.E.O.N! All those links are on my profile, and if any give you trouble, use my website's homepage. That site can be found via a generic Google search of my pen name.