There are moments when you are terrified you have made a mistake, and you are about to be revealed as a paranoid idiot in front of not only your friends and family, but the entire world. Then there are moments when it sucks so hard to be right.
This was not the first kind. Harry hated portkey travel. You spun so fast that landing any other fashion than like a pancake tossed by a five-year old's temper tantrum took years of experience. Years Harry did not have. What he did have was his absolute command of the sky, and since that literally started where the grass ended, a really good sense of what kind of land they were falling towards like an asteroid masquerading as a taxi.
It was not the Hogwarts stands. It was the little Hangleton cemetary where Tom Marvolo Riddle Senior was buried. Sirius used it as the apparition point when he lead the strike team to get Voldemort's ring horcrux, the one that left the resurrection stone sitting in Noodle's stomach like some Deathly Hallow Bezor for regurgitating dead people. Noodle had explained why he wanted it, and why Harry shouldn't have it, and for his own mental health Harry didn't argue.
That is a lot to go through your mind while you are falling from the sky, but Harry's brain was having a moment of gibbering panic. They were falling into Voldemort's trap. A trap that Harry, Noodle, and Hermione bet they could probably beat, given time, but Voldemort only had reason to keep one of the champions alive, even for a moment.
"Sorry" Harry screamed as they fell from the sky. Three champions of the Tri-Wizard tournament, the best the three greatest schools of witchcraft and wizardry in Europe could produce, three peers who had chosen to take up Harry's fight as their own, and choose to face death at his side.
They were the kind of brave you read about in wizarding story books, but Harry was raised goblin. Heroes died first. Only cheaters prosper, and war is theft written large. Voldemort would kill them in the first seconds, and none of them would run, given a choice.
So Harry didn't give one. In a blast of his air magic, the only kind he could really muster hanging on for dear life to a spinning portkey with his wand safely holstered, Harry blasted the three champions off the portkey, letting centripetal force toss them clear.
Falling uncontrolled for fifty meters in the dark over a graveyard filled with the kind of stone items that really seemed like a bad idea to meet on your way down may well have doomed them, but had they stayed with Harry to the end of the trip, it would have been the end of their lives for sure.
Harry hit the ground like a sixty kilos of wet cement. He lost his breath, and never got the chance to get it back.
"Incarcerous" Shouted Lucius no-name
"Stupify" Shouted Lord Parkinson, head of the conservative faction of the wizagamot.
Harry woke up bound to a cross above a bubbling cauldron the size of a bathtub. A wizened baby sat inside the cauldron, looking up. The ancient bitter face staring back at him lived in his every nightmare and no few of his memories.
"Voldemort." Harry snarled.
"Ah, Harry Potter. Or should I say Harry Potion, because it turned out that in the end you were not the Boy Who Lived, but the Boy Who Helped Voldemort Live Again. That is the future the old fool Dumbledore saved you for. A potion ingredient to return me to power," Voldemort laughed.
"You will fail Voldemort. I have always beaten you in the past." Harry snarled, testing his bonds and finding them too well tied to leave him any useful play to escape.
Voldemort sneered. "You have won nothing. That muggleborn slut of a mother of yours has cost me much. Killing her was far too easy an end. That woman was wasted on the Potter idiot, she managed to turn my killing her into a weapon against me. There was no power in the world that could stop me, so she stole my own killing power and turned it against me. You were nothing. You were nothing more than the trigger of her trap. She made her blood into poison not only against me but against my magic."
Harry grinned, feeling his mother's spirit stir within him. She rose inside him like fire, her green eyes staring out through Harry's to look at her ancient foe, who once again threatened her son.
"She beat you before. She will always beat you." Harry sneered.
Voldemort dug in the the cauldron, and pulled out a loose bone. "Bone of the father. He wasn't much, but he gave rise to greatness, even if not willingly. That is fine, his sacrifice doesn't require his willingness."
He turned to Lucius. "Flesh of the servant, freely given." and Voldemort's eyes pinned the former fop and dandy Lucius no name like a snake gazing at a fat legless mouse covered in honey. Lucius shivered, and with Harry's own goblin silver knife cut through his own wrist to drop his own hand into the potion cauldron with Voldemort.
Voldemort turned to face Harry Potter. "This is your last chance to stop it. The blood of the enemy, taken against his will. You could defy me. You could defy the prophesy itself by submitting to me now. Oh yes, I know the prophesy Dumbledore never told you about. You and I are destined to meet."
Voldemort laughed. "Dumbledore defended the prophesy in the Department of Mysteries and set traps for anyone who sought it out. He let Karkarov into the Hogwarts with the seer who gave the prophesy. A sad broken witch and failure who cannot even detect verituserum in her whiskey. Igor Karkarov betrayed me, and thinks if he can betray everyone else fast enough and thoroughly enough I will let him live. I admit this offering wasn't bad. Did you ever know why Dumbledore wanted you Harry? It was never about you. You were simply a tool. A chink in my defenses, a vulnerability that I might be caught upon.
Here it is.
'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives. ' ."
Voldemort smiled. "Blood magic, how that old fool thinks I don't know it is beyond me. Your mother used her own death, and specifically my killing her to turn your blood into a protection against my magic in particular. You became a poison to my power, degrading and destroying my body, and my works at the simple touch of your body or blood."
Reaching up, Voldemort stroked Harry's face with his wand tip.
"I am going to take your blood to complete my body, taking that protection from you, and making it mine. This is it. This is your last chance. The blood must be taken unwilliingly. If you submit to me know and beg to serve me, I cannot use you to ressurect myself, and the prophesy itself will shatter, causing who knows what consequences for all of magic and the world!
Do you have it in you boy? Will you shatter all the world by bending the knee to me, the murderer of your precious mommy and daddy, or will you be a good little tool and defy me to the end?"
The history books would later claim Harry Potter said many things, all of which are noble and dramatic. In fact Harry went full goblin and what he actually said will never make anyone's history books.
"Your wand has no core, you sucked more than blood from that unicorn, your mother gives half price hand jobs outside Gringotts and takes leprechaun gold for them, the snakes didn't even give you your own name. Heir of Slytherin? Even his basilisk loves me better than you. Kiss my wand Voldemort."
Harry raged.
"$ I found them all Tom Riddle. All your Horcrux. You are already dead. $" Harry hissed in parseltongue.
Voldemort hissed a Parseltongue diffindo, and sliced a second Soweillo rune onto Harry's cheek deep enough to show bone, and Harry's blood spurted into the cauldron, and as it contacted the contents, the potion that had been months in brewing drank the magic of Harry Potter's blood as the final catalyst and caught fire.
Harry screamed as the flames of the cauldron burned jade green like the killing curse, and seered his cheek shut, leaving a second darker soweillo rune, a second and dark lightning bolt scar to match the rune of Voldemort's destruction with one of his ressurection.
Voldemort screamed as well, but his was a scream of triumph. From the flames of the cauldron stepped a nude figure, almost seven feet tall, muscled like a duelist or an dancer, he moved with a fluidity that shouted threat. Power seemed to cloak his naked form like a mantle, and both Lucius and Lord Parkinson didn't just drop to their knees, but pressed their faces to the dirt.
Stalking to where Malfoy knelt on the ground, he commanded him simply.
"Rise, give me your arm." Voldemort said softly.
Lucius rose, and offered the stump of his arm. Voldemort chuckled and ignored it, placing his wand instead on Lucius intact left forarm, on the Dark Mark.
In the next heartbeat he raised his wand, and cast "Morsmordre"
A green skull blazed in the sky, a snake extending like a tongue beneath it. The skull was the size of a house and the power of its anti-apparition and anti-portkey ward was so much stronger than any mere Death Eater could cast that it left no doubt in the minds of any who even brushed against the magic that the Dark Lord had returned, more powerful and more terrible than ever.
In flashes, the remaining Death Eaters appeared in the twisting black smoke of the style of apparition woven into their Dark Mark, a power only Voldemort ever mastered, and the only mortal magic that could penetrate the Dark Mark hanging in the sky.
A tall masked figure in Durmstrang robes threw himself at the feet of Voldemort.
"My lord, you are returned to us. We are blessed!" The fawning voice of Igor Karkarov sounded as he kissed the naked feet of Voldemort who sneered down at him. Turning to Lord Parkinson, he said simply "Robe me".
As Voldemort was robed in black, he pressed his bare foot into Karkarov's face, grinding it into the dirt, and softly whispered. "Crucio"
As Karkarov screamed, Voldemort turned to his Death Eaters.
"My friends, no, not my friends, as you all forswore me. All denied me. All pretended you served me only by Imperius curse. Some like Karkarov actually delivered your loyal brethren to Azkaban to earn a scrap of freedom and mercy from those weak fools in the Ministry and that trusting idiot Dumbledore."
Voldemort sneered.
"Few stayed loyal to me, even if they lost everything doing so. Let the world see now what service to me brings. Lucius, give me your stump." Voldemort smiled softly as he held out his hand.
Trembling Lucius held out his stump. Voldemort took Lucius wand, and snapped it.
Voldemort sneered. "Made of elm, Dragon heartstring core. A shame. The Death Eater who gave his arm to bring me back should have no common thing as that. No, no. Let us do better. "
Voldemort began to chant in parseltongue and streams of silver formed in the air, drawing the dragon heartstrings from the snapped wand worked them into the forming silver hand. Lucius opened and closed the shimmering silver hand, looking like liquid silver or mercury, it felt like flesh and blood, responding like his living hand.
Reaching out to slam it into a gravestone, the gravestone smashed under the punishment of the magically enhanced fist. Holding out his hand in wonder, Lucius whispered "Reparo" and the shattered marble and dust reformed into an intact tombstone, even the original writing was restored. His magic was amplified through the hand more perfectly than any wand, and more powerfully. A charms master, but never a particularly powerful wizard, the latter statement was no longer true. With this hand, he could match the raw power of stronger wizards channelling through a normal wand.
Lucius dropped to his knees and then belly to kiss Voldemort's robe hem, his pride overcome with gratitude as he realized Voldemort had not simply restored him, he had enhanced him beyond his dreams. The Dark Lord was the ruler of the ambitious and selfish because power dripped from his hands like spilled gold, and all you had to do to receive it was kneel.
"Voldemort contineud to grind Karkarov's face into the ground.
"Many of you have lost faith. Lost faith because Harry Potter's mudblood bitch of a mother proved wiser than Dumbledore and the entire Light faction to embrace the darkest of sacrificial blood magic to protect her son from me.
She had the honour to die by my wand, and she earned it. Alone among my enemies, she defeated me. Destroyed my body, and even that lingering protection of her blood stopped my attempt to reform my old body.
I have done her the ultimate honour, I have taken that blood, the blood she left in her son Harry, and used it to make my new body. Now all her protection is mine. All the power she gave her life and soul for is now mine.
You all lost faith when I fell, even when death could not hold me. Did I not name you Death Eaters? Death is nothing to me. Death cannot hold me, and nothing that lives can face me. Some of you have heard the preachings of that faded fool Dumbledore and his Boy Who Lived. Some of you believe it was he who defeated me, that it is he who can oppose me, yes?
Let that end now. Harry Potter is the best and brightest the wizarding world has to offer, the prophesied saviour. Already bound and bled like a food animal, let us act out the last portion of this sad little drama and give the wizarding world the fairy tale ending it deserves."
Voldemort flicked his wand, and Harry on his cross flew from the cauldron to the air twenty feet away. With a flick of his hands, Voldemort banished the ropes binding Harry, and even scourgified his clothes so he was again immaculate.
With a lazy flick of his wand, Harry's knife and wand were returned to him, sliding into wrist holster and waist sheath with the same casual precision as Harry's own hands and tireless training. The ease and naturalness of Voldemort's magic terrified Harry. Harry had been unable to open his mouth and say anything since he had sworn at Voldemort, the casual way his verbal casting had been taken away even while Voldemort was undergoing rebirth reenforced how utterly potent the will of the Dark Lord remained, even after so long on the brink of annihilation.
Pointing to the hanging mirror above the assembly, Voldemort directed his followers and Harry's attention to it.
"Look up, Mister Potter. The Unspeakables made one of these for me, so I have been watching your trials with great interest. More importantly, all of Wizarding Britain, and indeed, most of Wizarding Europe is watching right now. This is to be your final duel, so try to do your mother proud, and don't die too early."
Harry felt the fury of his mother rise within him, and the flames of her rage seemed to ignite his mind. The flash in the night sky seemed to echo his rage, except it wasn't in his mind.
A flash of fire filled the sky as a phoenix appeared in the sky, its cry shattering the Dark Mark, even as it shattered the bindings on Harry's voice.
Voldemort's shield was raised in less than a heartbeat as he turned to glare at the descending phoenix.
"Impossible. This place is made unplottable by my own formula. Dumbledore CANNOT BE here."
Raising his wand to the descending phoenix, Voldemort began to chant "AVADA..." He got no further.
Harry Potter knew he could not blast down Voldemort's shield. The wizard was too much his superior, but the Unforgivables could not be blocked. His spell lashed out with all the fury of a lifetime of rage and pain, and the desperate need to defend that phoenix, for it was not, could not be Fawkes that descended in flames.
"CRUCIO!" Harry Potter screamed, and the blood red beam hammered into the Dark Lord through his strongest shield, as the Unforgiveable ignored its defense as a charging bull would ignore a soap bubble.
Voldemort had lived in pain since his body was destroyed, and by any stretch of the imagination his will was inhuman, but the torture curse could shatter anyone's concentration. There was nothing he could do but turn and toss himself into a fumbling roll out of the punishing beam.
Lashing out with a fire whip that Harry jumped over before it took his legs, he responded with calling lighting from the sky to rain down on the area around Voldemort with a chanted "Fulmin"
Voldemort used a shield now, takign the full elemental effects of an air elemental master and flinching as it dug into his own endurance to tank the hit. With a chantless bombarda, he tossed an explosion at the Potter boy so he was the one tossed and forced to move, buying Voldemort time to rise and regain control of the duel that was no longer a mockery.
So be it.
Let the world see how strong Harry Potter was. His death would make a fine adornment to Voldemort's legend.
Voldemort flowed through his spells as he spun and danced towards Harry Potter, his every motion launching a different spell, each more potent than the last. Blasting curses, cutting curses, flame, ice, blood boiling curses, organ corroding curses, they flowed from Voldemort's wand forcing Harry to dodge those that could not be blocked, and inflicting small injuries that soon began to batter and slow the boy.
Voldemort was shocked at the power of Harry Potter's return spells, the Soweillo rune in his forhead blazed with power every time he cast, showing the goblin magic woven into his flesh empowered him in ways different but equal to the forbidden enhancement rituals Voldemort had undertaken.
Harry was Voldemort's equal, in potential. But Voldemort was, and Harry only might one day be, that powerful.
A jelly legged jinx got through. It wasn't much, but it was enough to make the finely trained goblin and beater boy lose his finely honed dodging ability. In well trained reflex, he threw up his strongest Protego to tank the next spell.
Harry had time to see Voldemort smile, and realized it was all over. Unforgiveables cannot be blocked, only dodged. The only chance lay in the fact they could not be silently or wandlessly cast. They must be spoken and gestured, and the spell took more time than some other attacks.
"Avada Kadevera!" Voldemort shouted in triumph, a green bar of light matching the blaze from Harry's eyes perfectly lanced out to connect the two wizards.
"Expelliurmis!" Harry Potter chanted in desperation, the shorter incantation but later start caused the two spells to cross, and bind.
A column of light as thick as a man's torso formed between the two wands, and power howled from the sky and earth as the magic from the land itself was drawn into the vortex of power linking the two wands. Harry Potter remembered a conversation he had with Olivander when he got his wand.
"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. It so happens that the phoenix whose tailfeather resides in your wand gave another feather... just one other. It is curious that you should be destined for this wand when its brother gave you that scar."
The brother wand effect. Two wands sharing the same core when the spells cross turn into a battle for ownership of the wand. A wand binds to a wizard's soul. Normally an older and more experienced wizard would always win this, their soul and their wand had longer to bond, formed a deeper and more natural connection than a younger and less experienced wizard and wand pairing.
Normally.
If you were stupid enough to cut your soul seven times, and face the owner of your brother wand who had eaten six of them, it was a rather different situation.
A ghost stepped out of Harry Potter's wand. A redheaded woman in a well worn sweater and jeans. Her eyes blazed a bright green that made the light of the killing curse seem faded in comparison.
"Hello Tom. You should have left my boy alone. I might have let you live." Lilly Potter said, as she strode towards Voldemort through the living river of power joining the two wands. Voldemort noticed how the stream of power, although thrashing like a living lightning bolt or panicked serpent always ran perfectly through her heart, and felt his own suddenly feel the cold grip of fear.
Voldemort was incapable of being afraid of Harry Potter, but Lilly Potter was a threat to his immortality that he had come, reluctantly, to admit he did fear. Not Dumbledore, not Harry Potter, not the whole of the DMLE or the massed might of the ICW, Voldemort feared only the shade of the muggle born witch who had turned her own death into a weapon that nearly destroyed him.
He stepped back.
There were shouts around him, spells going off. A part of him recognized the voices. Sirius Black, Alastor Moody, a boy that sounded a lot like Frank Longbottom but obviously could not be, and two girls he did not recognize.
The phoenix had not brought Dumbledore, it had brough Harry's friends.
Voldemort felt his magic being drawn into the battle for his own wand, and for the first time realized, he was losing. He reached out for his link to Nagini. The snake was suling in a tunnel he dug for her. Voldemort was not willing to risk his familiar and Horcrux in actual battle until he had Harry Potter's soul fragment safely bound in the Muggle House of Common's mace, but the snake was close enough for Voldemort to reach out, and draw upon the soul fragment in the serpent to bolster his defense in the battle for his wand.
Shouting to his followers. "Deal with the vermin, leave Potter to me!"
There was chaos and battle all around him, but Voldemort's followers were many and strong, fighting beneath his eyes they would not fail. Harry Potter had not brought Dumbledore, just two has been Aurors and some children. This battle was already over.
- Mid air explosion, Fleur Delacour
It was irritating. She was only here to keep Harry Potter from sacrificing himself in some sort of Hufflepuff reflex. She had assumed his goblin upbringing would balance that out, and right up until he blasted the rest of them off the cup mid air, she had allowed herself to hope. Those who were not Veela would probably react badly to being blown off a portkey fifty meters in the sky, in the dark, blasted off sideways into space at a frankly terrifying speed.
Of course other people were not large predatory birds trying very hard to be women. Fleur was more than a little angry at Harry for his chivalrous bullshit, so her other form was closer than normal. Most Veela could manifest claws and beak, with some feathers. They had aspects of their ancient bloodline, but it was too far back to use for more than tapping it for the magic of the allure, and the fire in their blood.
Fleur was not most Veela. She was not the most beautiful Veela living because of lucky genetics; she was the most beautiful Veela living because she had developed her power and her connection to her ancient bloodline beyond any Veela in living memory.
Tossed into the sky, Fleur tucked her arms to her side, pointed her body into the dive, and screamed. Feathers grew over her, claws and a beak, but still she kept her wings close, as spells howled around her as wizards sniped at her from the ground. Leaving a ball of fire to flash in the air for a second behind her, she felt the two Bombarda Maxima hit where the flare went off, now dozens of feet behind her, and rode the explosion out before snapping open her wings and sweeping over the tombstones close enough to feel the coldness of the stone.
Banking behind a larger mausoleum, she tucked her wings back in and folded to the ground, letting her human shape take over. She was a long way from the graveyard now. She was safe.
"Merlin's bloody beard. If that idiot gets killed before I get back, I will turn his corpse into bread and feed him to the stupid ducks on his stupid lake. They can poop him all over that stupid drafty castle."
Wand in hand, cursing now softly, Fleur Delacour wrapped herself in the most powerful notice me not charms she knew. Illusion and invisibility would not work against Death Eater masks, but notice me nots were enough as long as something else was going to that was more interesting.
Harry Potter was the definition of something more interesting. As long as he was interesting and alive when she got there, she promised to keep him that way.
- Mid Air Explosion Cedric
Cedric had been expecting it. Harry was Hufflepuff, so Hufflepuff it almost hurt. No Hufflepuff would let a friend go into battle alone, but if they really felt they were going to die, they would do whatever it took not to let a friend get caught up in it anyway.
To be a Prefect is a challenge. Ravenclaw Prefects had to deal with students who routinely messed with the boundaries of reality and potential explosions that could blow up small cities because it seemed like the next natural step in research. Slytherin Prefects had to deal with assassinations ranging from character to 'and dispose of the corpses of witnesses'. Gryffindor's had to deal with legendary impulse control issues that made the list of what Gryffindors did with it and the list of most dangerous things you can do with any spell, enchanted object or potion the same list.
To be Hufflepuff Prefect meant that you had to understand that reason was of limited use. Hufflepuff's understood probability and consequences like Slytherins, they just did math like Gryffindors. When Harry idiotically decided to face certain doom alone, of course Cedric was ready for it.
He was a Hufflepuff prefect for Helga's sake. You cannot surprise a Hufflepuff prefect with the reflexive urge to protect your friends even at the cost of your own life. It was literally in the Hufflepuff prefect manual written by Helga Hufflepuff herself.
Once blasted free, Cedric cast two spells, the first was an illusion of fog, and the second was the most powerful gust of wind spell he could muster. Sure Death Eaters could detect illusion, that was fine. Knowing the fog wasn't real didn't make it easier to see or shoot through. The gust of wind spell was because if Harry figured they would be shot at as soon as they hit ground, if not before, then being farther from where they were shooting sounded like a good idea.
A powerful explosion of fire below and left of him blasted him another dozen yards in the sky, and cost him any control of his flight. Luckily, he managed to cast Arresto Momentum before hitting the ground. Honestly, as a seeker and prime bludger target in any Quidditch game, he could cast that spell while semiconcious and blasted off his broomstick.
Hitting the ground at a sustainable pace. Cedric cast a quick notice me not charm on himself, it wouldn't stop anyone looking for and at him directly from noticing him, but at least if they were distracted, they would always choose to look at something else first.
Harry was about the best distraction you could get, unless you wanted to unleash the Weasleys. Come to think of it, Harry is the only one bold enough to deliberately unleash the Weasleys. Cedric was beginning to understand why.
Feeling a bit like an idiot, Cedric began creeping towards the part of the graveyard the big green Dark Mark was hanging over. Cedric was a seeker, a wizard, a budding master of runes and enchantment, but somehow sneaking up on people in dark graveyards had never really been part of his training. He stubbed his toe and tripped on a grave marker set in the ground.
Blushing a bit. Cedric noted how none of the heroic biographies he had read mentioned how much the need to pee weighs upon the mind in life and death situations. Nor did the stubbing of toes come up much. He began to consider a certain amount of editing had gone into these biographies, or Cedric was doing heroic entirely wrong.
- Blasted off in mid air, Victor
Victor was a seeker by training, and a hunter by inclination. To say that he was surprised to be blased off into mid air, spinning out of control, in the dark, and above a graveyard filled with murderers would be a lie. Honestly, blasting into the dark and deadly unknown, Victor felt at peace.
He was not good with converstaion, clever word games and humour. Victor was one of the brightest wizards of his generation, but a solitary life, and humble background did not prepare him for political games or manipulation. He could recognize when these games were being played, but he neither knew the rules, nor cared about the stakes.
Seekers waged a private war against the entire other team. Hunters waged a private war against the wild. Victor spent most of his life alone, knowing that every one he met was a danger, until he became strong enough to be the danger.
Tucking into a ball, he accepted the tumble that would make him a harder target to hit, then extended into the classic swan dive on whatever random vector his tumble had left him. Touching but not drawing his wand in his wrist holster, he cast arresto momentum as he neared the ground and dropped silently to the grass behind a tombstone.
Shifting to his wolf form, he slunk towards the green mark hanging in the sky. His prey gathered beneath it. They would have all precautions against magical stealth and illusion. He let his grin flash, a quick flash of white teeth in the moonlight. He was a mountain wolf in a dark graveyard filled with tombstones the same colour as his fur. He made less sound than the wind, and had years of experience hunting creatures with far better senses than human wizards while wearing his fur form.
With any luck, his Headmaster Karkarov had returned to his Dark Lord. Wouldn't it be terrible if he was forced to defend himself, and through no fault of his own, had to tear out the throat of his dearly beloved and sorely missed Headmaster. From brow beating bully to ass licking syncopant, not a single interaction with Igor Karkarov had left Victor feeling safe, sane, or clean. Maybe killing him would be the one time that washed all the bad memories away.
Don't die Harry. Victor thought. Trading any number of dead enemies for a dead friend is still a loss. The world was full of enemies, and he had so very few friends.
-Hogwarts viewing stands.
Dumbledore rose to his feet. "Impossible. It can't be!"
Delores Umbridge gripped her seat in panic. "The Minister said it was a lie, that Voldemort was dead and just an excuse the rabble made to excuse their lawlessness!"
Hermione, Neville, Milicent and Noodle slipped from the stands. Sirius Black was nudged by Mad Eye Moody and swifty followed.
"$ You have Speaker? $" Hermione hissed.
Noodle nodded. "$ We are one. Magic will not allow anything to separate us. I can guide you. $"
Sirius broke in jogging up. "Where do you think you are going?"
Neville blocked his way, glaring at the powerful Wizagamot lord. "We are going after Harry, do not stop us."
Alsastor trotted up. "New bloody foot, still not used to it. Not stopping you boy, coming along. Keep you young heroes from getting dead."
Milicent snarled at them. "Stay out of the way. We can't save Harry until Voldemort is back alive, and we don't interfere until Noodle says so."
Sirius clearly did not understand and was about to say something when Alastor cut him off with a brusque "What do you need?"
Hermione looked the old Auror in his restored eyes and said simply. "Kill me."
Before Sirus could object, Moody rammed a knife from his sleeve through her eye and into her brain, killing her instantly.
She fell in flames and a phoenix flamed into life.
"Bugger me if that ever gets less creepy." Sirius muttered, and Noodle wrapped himself around the phoenix that was his Mouse Giver.
With a cry she rose in the air, and as she flew above them, several sets of hands latched on to her feet, and she tore into the sky in a flare of fire that rivaled any explosion, but left no shock wave behind save in the minds of those washed in the cleansing power of the phoenix pure light magic.
She flared out of existence at half a kilometer in the sky, and no amount of Dumbledore's magic could track her.
They appeared in the green glowing wrongness of the Dark Mark, even as Harry Potter and Voldemort's magic locked into a storm of power that blinded everyone's magical senses to an alarming degree. Spell fire sought them, but the explosion of Phoenix fire and the Dark Magic of the disrupted Dark Mark made spells warp, twist, and fragment terribly.
Alastor, Sirius, Hermione, Milicent and Neville alighted on the ground, drew wands and went to fake an assault, just enough to draw fire, but not willing to press an attack against a superior force they had no intention of fighting to the finish.
Noodle reached inside, to the Ressurection Stone, to his connection to Speaker, his Speaker. He reached and he pulled, and Lilly Potter answered. A fragment of her spirit filled Noodle, and through her he could feel the fragment of Voldemort's soul that was bound beneath the earth in a place no human could reach. A tunnel the great snake Nagini had crawled through. Many times Noodles size, Nagini was a slow and dangerous predator, one that had grown fat executing Voldemorts enemies.
Noodle had grown to power hunting in the Forbidden Forest and teaching young basilisk, technically his god children, how to hunt. Noodle had hunted so many things beyond his power, including the mother basilisk, that he no longer bothered counting. There was no doubt in his mind, who was predaor and who was prey.
Down into the dark, into the tunnel went Noodle, and death followed with him.
Nagini sensed somethin stirring in the tunnel, something coming after him. A lesser serpent. Hissing happily, he waited in patient ambush. One of the Death Eaters had lost control of a summoned snake again. They seldom lasted once eaten, being conjured and not real, but they died nicely and tasted nicely. It was enough.
Noodle could see the heat from Nagini. The fat serpent had grown so used to being fed already disabled prey that it forgot that down in the tunnels there are only the scared and the dead, and Nagini was not scared.
There is a truth about ambush, it is a thing that uses surprise as a second weapon, rendering what should have been an even fight into a one sided slaughter. Those who have never gone down into the dark to pit fangs and hunger against the same forget; if you know it is an ambush and do not care, surprise can go the other way.
Nagini was in the cavern Voldemort had dug for her, coiled and ready. The foolish snake that came from the tunnel would emerge with at most a few inches of play in their body to strike with, while Nagini was coiled and ready at range, eyes open, tongue tasting the heat and scent of her prey.
Noodle could smell the heat and scent of Nagini. Not a snake, not really. So lost in its abomination Noodle could not even smell what it truly was, and he guessed she could not remember how to become that again anyway so it didn't matter. She held the last portion of the Heir of Slytherin that Speaker needed. Noodle had come for her.
Reaching down into the well where his magic lived, his gift from Speaker, he reached into the stone and called out through his link to Speaker to her who was bound to his blood, her who was bound to his soul. Her who was bound to a revenge so terrible she bound her child to carry it out even if it cost her own immortal soul.
"$ Lilly Potter $" Noodle hissed as he slithered out of the tight tunnel and into the deep cavern bunker Voldemort had wrought for his familiar and last of his Horcrux.
Nagini was already exploding into motion when the face shone in the darkness, a smiling red headed woman, green eyes burning with the green of the killing curse as her mouth opened an a terrible laugh came out.
Nagini flinched in a blind panic that came from that part of her that was bound to the Heir of Slytherin, that last part of a soul that was not hers that allowed her to remember she was more than just a dumb unthinking beast. The terror roared through her and she flinched away.
Noodle wasted no time, boiling through the tunnel and into the cave, he struck as Nagini turned to strike at him when her instincts took her past the panic to see the emerging foe. Nagini was badly out of position, and slow to strike. Noodle came in knowing he had one second, maybe two, and he did not wait until he was in range of Nagini but struck for her attack.
The smaller rock viper struck from beneath the lunging Nagini, driving her snapping jaws over and past Noodles low form as his own fangs sank into Nagini. In the cavern, a red haired witch's ghostly head opened its mouth wide enough to inspire terror, and sank bright white ghostly teeth into flesh that held two souls.
Noodle hung on in desperation, controlling the panicked spasming of the dying Nagini, his own terror almost driving him to flee as the soul of Voldemort screamed in terror as it was drawn into the hungry mouth of Lilly Potter. Noodle's eyes met the mother of Speaker, and the black ichor that had been Voldemort's soul stuff dripped down her lips. Voldemort was mortal.
"When the time comes. Do not let my son falter. I gave my life for his. I gave my life for Voldemorts destruction. At the last, do not let him hesitate for me." She said and then she faded.
Noodle's blood was cold by nature, but if it had been mammal warm, her words would have ran it cold right then anyway.
-Little Hangleton Cemetary, the duel part II
Harry felt his blood run cold as his mother walked down the torrent of wild magic that roared between his wand and Voldemorts. His core and his mind howled in pain as more magic than he had ever channeled was drawn from his body and soul to match the output of Voldemort. He would one day be Voldemort's equal, but this would not be that day, his reserves bled from him like a river, while Voldemort's was like trying to drain the ocean, yet Lilly kept striding forward.
In the battle of souls, Harry's soul was more than whole, more than any single living soul could be, and Voldemort had made it so, even as had Lilly. As magic roared from them both, the greatest wizard in the last century, the man who had held death itself at bay simply by an act of will, watched his will failing.
Reaching back into Nagini, Voldemort called upon the link to his soul fragment in Naginit to bolster him against the boy. Was this what the prophesy was about, the brother wand affect? Not just brother wands, but brother souls. Voldemort snarled in fury. A trick, in the end it was little more than a trick. Voldemort's doom? What a joke. Half of his followers could snuff this child like a candle, he was no match for Voldemort's skill, even if his raw power was close. No, this was an advantage Harry Potter only had against Voldemort, and only while he bore a brother wand to Voldemort's own.
"EXPELLIURMIS!" Voldemort roared, and with his off hand, cast the most potent disarming spell he knew, blasting Harry Potter a dozen feet backward, and casting the smoking wand of the boy to the earth between them.
As Voldemort threw back his head to laugh in victory, a jolt of terror came down through his link to Nagini, then through the open bond Voldemort felt his Horcrux...die. Rather than returning to him, his soul fragment was consumed, was eaten!
This was not the old man's trap. This was soul magic, soul devouring magic so dark Dumbledore would have cut his own eyes out for reading it. He saw again those green eyes, that red headed witch who had turned her death into his defeat. This was her work.
"Lilly Potter." Voldemort snarled. Then took his wand in hand, and pointed to the boy who was even now staggering upright.
"You think you have won? You have made me mortal, and you think you have won? I am Voldemort, I cannot be killed by a child. I defy the prophesy, I defy fate. I will remake the world as it ought to be, and all shall know my coming and despair." Voldemort shouted, then his voice got quiet, his face almost reasonable.
"Goodbye Harry Potter." Voldemort said, and bowed slightly.
"Avada Kadevera" The bolt of jade light that was the killing curse lanced out, and at the last second Harry Potter went invisible, but you could not hide from the killing curse with any spell or cloak. His spell struck home, and Voldemort saw the flash of flesh lit by its terrible light, and felt the severing of a soul.
"It is finished." Voldemort said. Still, he had no Horcrux left, the gaping emptiness he felt at the death of Nagini told him that much. He could not guess how, but they had found them. He had to strike now, while they were unprepared and while his puppet held the post of Minister of Magic.
The battle raged around him, that idiot Karkarov seemed to have got himself killed. Well, Voldemort planned on using him to soak up traps and spells like the few werewolves and vampires he was able to recruit. Lucius was still fine, but in danger of getting himself killed as he slunk closer to the battle between Black, Moody and the dozen Death Eaters that faced them. Lucius should know better than to try to backstab Mad Eye Moody.
He was trash, but the best of what he had left.
"Enough, my Death Eaters. Britain falls tonight. To the Ministry!" Voldemort shouted, and vanished in a puff of black smoke. In waves, the Death Eaters vanished, following their master to his long planned assault on the Ministry of Magic itself.
Hermione sprinted to where Harry had fallen, watching Fleur Delacour and VIctor Krum converging from where they had been fighting with other Death Eaters. A body lay on the ground, lifeless.
The three watched in horror as the dead body shifted, and fell on its side to reveal the smiling and lifeless face of Cedric Diggory and the rage filled face of a very battered but still living Harry Potter.
-Moments before
"Karkarov!" Shouted Mad Eye Moody as he moved on the large lanky figure in Durmstrang robes whose mask failed to conceal his identity from the Auror that arrested him so long ago. Karkarov, not daring to face him alone getured to the half dozen Death Eaters around him and shouted.
"Kill him you fools!" Karkarov shouted, stepping back and raising his wand to strike when it was safe for him to do so. His back turned, wand outstretched, and every fiber of his being focused on Mad Eye Moody, he never saw the wolf charge from the darnkess without a sound, and lunge to drive him into the ground.
Karkarov never screamed, in the seconds he fought to regain senses and breath, the jaws of a mountain wolf tore his throat open, and the Headmaster of Durmstrang fell to the fangs of its champion.
Fleur Delacour spun a dozen illusions of herself, it was difficult and challenging work, but the final illusion she laid over her true form, was also of herself. Smiling she walked out proudly, and waited as the Death Eaters began targeting her.
Of course Death Eater masks can detect illusions, and both the dozen of her illusions and her true form were covered with identical illusions, so all thirteen detected as illusions of Fleur. She let her allure run wild, knowing the strongest Death Eaters could and would fight it off, but it was another distraction, another division of their focus in the moments when so very few of Harry's friends and family faced so many Death Eaters. If she cast a single spell, she would lack the concentration to hold the illusion, so all she could do is walk smiling towards the Death Eaters and know she was tying up a dozen of the enemy for as long as she could.
She really hoped someone else would join the fight, or she suddenly came up with a next step in this plan. She tried not to flinch, and indeed masked it with a laugh as spellfire tore through three of her illusions without harming them.
Fleur felt a Finite Incantum hit her spell, but she was a Veela and a champion of Beauxbaton. She was the equal of any charms master in illusion and with the gift of her race, she could hold this illusion against anyone less than Dumbledore or Voldemort.
"They are illusions you idiots. Start blasting the tombstones. The bitch has to be hiding behind one of them, making fools of us with these illusions!" A Death Eater shouted, his attempt at disillusionment failing.
Death Eaters began blasting the tombstones at random. Fleur felt one carve a wound in her back, but she kept walking as if she was untouched. Illusions could not show pain after all. She felt the blood running down her back, slower than she felt her time running out. Someone had to break this stalemate.
Sirius, Hermione and Neville pressed towards the duel while Milicent and Moody tried to keep the Death Eaters busy, they worked towards the battle, and Sirius caught himself as he saw something that stopped his heart and breath for a second.
"Lilly!" He whispered. Walking down a torrent of magic so bright it made a lightning bolt look dark was Lilly Potter. She swayed towards Voldemort like she was walking towards the desert tray at the restaurant, not like she was at war. He saw Voldemort step back in fear as she came for him.
His shock broke when Voldemort blasted Harry from his feet with an off hand disarmament hex moments before Lilly could reach him. Sirius tried to battle through to reach his godson, but there were too many Death Eaters, and he had to hold Hermione and Neville back from getting themselves killed charging ahead blind.
Cedric Diggory watched the duel, and he had never seen magic anywhere close to that level of power. He had always assumed the tales of Dumbledore and Grindelwald had been exaggerated, but now watching Harry Potter and Voldemort he understood that wizards like Grindelwald and Voldemort could not be beaten by normal wizards. It took someone special.
It took Harry.
Voldemort was a few feet away from destruction when he suddenly thrust out his hand and blasted Harry off his feet and disarmed him. Cedric watched Harry try to stand as Voldemort boasted about how close Harry had come to finally ending him, but Voldemort was going to kill him now.
Cedric could not kill Voldemort. He could save Harry.
Without thinking about it, Cedric put his most powerful invisibility charm on himself and charged out to tackle Harry Potter. In the end, Voldemort was too fast. No one should be able to cast a chanted spell that swiftly. How many times do you have to cast the murder curse for it to come that easily? Cedric hit Harry even as the spell hit Cedric. He felt something break inside him, and he saw Harry Potter fall to the ground.
He saw Harry Potter crushed under the weight of his body. Cedric looked down and realized he had not fallen with it. His body lay atop the Boy Who Lived because Cedric didn't.
He was dead.
Oh.
Bugger.