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Chapter 39: The Headsman's Axe
Fog floated off the Black Lake's surface and streamed through Hogsmeade, threading through the iron gate that marked the city's outskirts. Wisps of it wound around the mountains, rising high so that it might enclose the peaks. There they swirled, spiralling like bright smoke and slicking the leather grip of the long scythe in Harry's hand.
Hefting the weapon so he might inspect the gilded stitching embroidered on its handle, he grimaced. The shoulder of his left arm throbbed where a stray gouging curse fired by one of the pursuing aurors had bored through flesh and bit into the muscle underneath. There was a sharp pain behind his right knee, too. Thankfully the spell that struck there had only glanced. Had its caster's aim been more precise, it was likely the pursuit would have been at an end. It had been a near thing as it was, and Harry was paying for his escape not only with his pain, but with exhaustion most of all — every bone felt like it was lined with lead.
The scythe felt twice its normal weight, yet he held it steady and stared at it in wonder. His eyes had not deceived him in the room with Croaker — that gold embroidery along the leather grip matched the lines decorating his wand perfectly.
The scythe of Kronos…
It was a shame how ignorant he was when it came to muggle myths and legends. Kronos had been a god of some kind, if he recalled correctly, and Croaker had said that the being bore a strong connection to the force of time. Maybe if Harry remembered more than that, he would have some slim hope of deciphering the weapon's inner working so it might return him whence he'd come. So far, hours of evaluation had yielded nothing.
The morning felt five degrees colder than it really was as the fear he might never see his friends again clawed up in him. He had always convinced himself it was just a waiting game.
I have to keep moving. There were things that needed doing before he could return home in any case, and Dumbledore had been right about standing uselessly before a rock-strewn road.
Harry stowed the scythe in his warded cave and cast one last look out over the fog-choked countryside before stepping sideways through an empty void. When the blackness peeled away and permitted him to breathe, the wild green of leaves and grass was there to greet him alongside the worn grey of ancient stonework that made up the castle gates.
Harry looked up at the decorative boar's head and felt his fatigue driven back by resolute determination. "Hello, old friend." Soon these stones and every inch of Hogwarts would be free from Riddle's taint.
Narcissa swept through the glass door and heard its soft chime ding as she peeled silk from where it was stuck against her sweat-soaked thigh. Just when she had been building some small tolerance against the springtime heat in Paris, summer had to saunter in and scorch the city.
Vieilla, kneeling before a black book whose yellowed pages were blotted with blue ink charmed never to fade, looked up from his work and smiled warmly. "I see you are still waking up with sunrise. That is good. Your habits are improved."
"It's a pleasure hearing from you, Master Vieilla. I had begun worrying." Narcissa's reply came out cooler than intended. Days had passed since the last time they had spoke. In that time she had not seen him even once.
"Spare no worry for a wizened man like me," Vieilla told her. "Little truly troubles me these days, I have merely become more absorbed than usual. I am sorry if my absence has been an inconvenience."
"Not at all, Master Vieilla." In a way it had been quite nice. Without his oversight, she had been free to strike off from the senseless riddle he had posed her and work on more purposeful projects.
Vieilla sighed. "Such a sweet smile you possess, yet even it remains enslaved by pomp and pretence." As if that casual condescension was not enough, the artificer pressed ahead as though he had read her thoughts. "What progress can you report on your assignment?"
"I have diagnosed the diadem," Narcissa said, swelling up with pride. "It has been returned to Mister Kalloway."
"Good." Vieilla did not so much as bad an eye. "And your other projects?"
Narcissa nibbled on her tongue to restrain a string of protests. Did deciphering the enchantments upon one of the world's most vaunted artifacts warrant such scant praise? "I've only just started on the cup, Master Vieilla."
The artificer waved a hand. "Not the cup, the cauldron."
A sour taste assailed Narcissa. "I—"
"Have taken every opportunity to avoid the task in light of your more interesting pursuits?"
"That's not true. I've spent no small amount of time studying its properties and testing theories as they come to me."
"Have you?" Vieilla raised his eyebrows. "Excellent. What progress?"
Narcissa's pursed lips pressed her next words flat as flagstone. "None, Master Vieilla."
"Ah. How unfortunate." Had the man's green eyes sparkled? Narcissa's ire mounted. Does he think this is some sort of game? "I would like it very much if you returned to working on the cauldron. I should be available almost the entire day in the event of any questions or reports."
Narcissa's cheeks resisted as she wrenched her face into a poor approximation of her demurest smile. "Yes, Master Vieilla."
Sweat beaded Harry's brow and his heart beat hard enough to turn his breathing ragged. The corridor was all but crackling with energy, every inch of it alight. Seeing so much of that gold glow served only to heighten his adrenaline and anticipation. There was too much of both. They made him restless and he was forced to wrestle with himself to ensure his hand stayed steady. The outer layer of Riddle's wards had been peeled away, exposing the more potent protections underneath. Any misstep would trigger them. Doing so would mean near-certain death.
I can't die. The emperors would move on Hogwarts if he failed, and Merlin only knew how many lives would be lost in that event. Plus there was Voldemort waiting in the world Harry needed so badly to be back in. No one can stop him if I fail here.
Harry deftly delved deeper into Riddle's ward scheme. No matter how devoutly he despised the man, there was no doubting brilliance when it was before you. If there had been more time, Harry might have marvelled at his rival's skill. These wards were a work of art. Their scheme was at once more durable and delicate than the one sealing the Department of Mysteries off from the greater Ministry of Magic.
Harry's grudging reverence gave way to cold dread several minutes later. Riddle had created such a tight entanglement between so many volatile triggers, there was no way of unravelling them subtly. Maybe if Harry had had longer than nine months to study or Bill's skill then he would have a chance. As it was, the diadem and its invaluable insight was the only reason he had made it so far in the first place.
Harry's dread dried up. In its place was a barren kind of calm he had felt often in the heat of battle. It was foolish, just as feeling so at ease in the midst of fighting after being so worried prior to was foolish. Letting go of his hope of dipping in and out with the horcrux unnoticed in his grasp should have chilled his blood.
Yet he thought a part of him had known it would come to this. Being able to see clearly enough to avoid blunders was only ever going to get him so far. In a fight he could match him blow for blow, but Riddle had always been the better wizard by and large; there had never been a day when combatting him hadn't been an uphill battle.
Harry stepped some distance back. A deft movement of the Elder Wand snapped the central knot of wards and sent the protections crumbling to nothing.
The in-built alarm he had initially been working around went off. There was no sound, nor any indication to the naked eye, but Harry saw the hurried pulsing as the last strands of magic split apart.
An alert had gone out — Riddle knew his wards had just been compromised.
The Elder Wand's dark whisper wafted up inside Harry. For once he fancied that its meaning was quite clear.
Soon.
Sirius's face was all hard lines and grim edges while watching Lily press a kiss to James's lips before the couple parted. The Head Boy stood straight and proud while Lily swept gracefully through the portrait hole and into the corridor beyond.
"Sometimes I don't understand him," Remus murmured. "How can anyone be so clever, yet so blind?"
Sirius grunted. "It's like you read my mind," he muttered, watching as James slouched and slunk up the stairs toward their dorm. There was a strange intensity about the way he walked.
Remus's eyes darkened as his face went flat as glass. Sirius braced himself, aware what that look meant. It was little wonder what Remus was steeling himself to say. "You could try talking sense into him again. I know you two are at odds, but enough time has passed that he might listen."
"No." Sirius softened his next words. Just because James was the biggest moron Hogwarts had seen this century did not mean his own frustration over that should leak out onto Remus. "I just know nothing would come of it. James has dug his grave and is intent on lying in it. Not much I can do to change that."
"Are you sure?" Remus's eyes too had tracked James's progress up the stairs and watched him slink out of sight. "There's been something off about him these past couple of days. I think he might be getting suspicious of her."
"Doubt it. You and I both know James couldn't hide his cards if all the gold in his father's vaults hung on the hand. If he suspected, he'd confront her and there'd be a shitshow. Git's just worried some better looking bloke might come around."
"But if he's worried, you could use that," Remus pointed out. "All you would have to do is make him see he's not as sure as he'd like to be. James doesn't commit halfway."
"That right there's the problem. James has already committed, and so he'll go down with the ship if need be." Kalloway had the right of it. "We have to let it go, Moony. Sometimes people have to learn the hard way."
The bathroom door slammed so hard into the wall when he threw it open, it nearly cracked into him on the rebound.
Harry hardly noticed. Time was so short, especially after he had paused to ward the corridor outside against any hapless student who might stumble by. Cut off from all sound and concealed against perception, hopefully the corridor would elude wanderers and keep them safe from any crossfire.
One thing the wards would not do was save Harry from Riddle. Speed had to be his top priority now that subtlety was lost to him.
Neither time nor the strange world he'd fallen into had made an impression on the bathroom. It was just as he remembered, with the white-tiled floor and row of porcelain sinks reflected under the light layer of dust covering the mirrors. A damp odour like some sour perversion of the smell of wet asphalt soon after rainfall filled the room. Harry knew without looking that it came from the mould which was marching through a collection of small cracks in the far wall. On the surface of a shallow puddle spreading halfway across the floor gleamed the light of torches flickering in brackets around the room's perimeter.
Odd, that. In his world this bathroom had been drenched more oft than not on account of Moaning Myrtle, but the paperwork Dorea had acquired for him concerning Riddle said that a spirit belonging to the student who had suffered an 'unfortunate accident' in this bathroom had been exorcised years back.
Harry charged ahead, kicking up the water as he went. There was no time to pause and ponder what its source could be. He had to hurry.
"Open."
James pushed a tapestry ajar and ducked into the dim alcove it concealed. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." The web of interwoven names and corridors had hardly started spinning out across the parchment when his eyes began their hurried hunt.
Singling out her dot was simple, since he knew she could not have gotten far in so short a time.
James's fingers curled into fists and crumpled the map's corners when his eyes picked out Lily's name among an odd quintet drawing near a landing to the marble staircase on the seventh floor.
Severus Prince, Bartemius Crouch, Antonin Dolohov, Lily Evans, Tom Riddle.
A wave of heat washed through James. For weeks he'd wondered why Lily so often came up with odd excuses so she could slip away. Although Macdonald had refused to divulge anything, McKinnon had mentioned more than once that Lils was attending the headmaster.
That was one thing between classes and even during dinner, yet it was quite another when those summons came after curfew or before breakfast had begun.
What the fuck does he want with Lils?
With thoughts of how soon after school Andromeda had married Riddle and of his mother's cryptic warnings about him over spring break, James thrust the map into the pocket of his robes and sprinted from the alcove.
The terror of meeting Tom Riddle for the first time had made Harry forget the horror of creeping along the dark tunnel and wondering whether the basilisk might be lurking beyond each corner. Every shadow seemed to slither serpent-like over the stones, and the crunch of loose rock underfoot was transformed into something like the grating of huge scales as an immense snake tried to force its way through a space too small for it.
It felt as if five hard, uphill miles had been put behind him when the stone doors swam into sight. His first glimpse of the two serpents carved there almost stopped his heart before he remembered what they were and let out a long exhale.
"Open."
The way the doors ground made him wince. If the basilisk was at all awake, it now knew company had come. Hopefully there was no way for it to escape the statue's maw unless manually set free.
It was the stench that struck him first, threatening to make him heave before he was across the threshold. Bile burned his throat and forced him to bend forward at the waist so that he could gag. Sick slipped up his nostrils yet made no dent in the reek around him.
"What the fuck?" he gasped, wrestling to regain control over his ragged breathing. "What the fuck!?"
And then he saw them.
Spikes thrust through each ruined jaw to hold them steady on their hooks. A scant few faces were preserved, where the rest had rotted long ago. On these there was no trace of flesh. Bone which had once been white had since gone soft and brown. Pale strips of that bone had peeled back in the fashion of flesh that had begun to sloth away. The sickening stench bled off these skulls like heat off of an open fire. Underneath each head was an old clipping from the Daily Prophet; some were excerpts alerting the public to a missing person, whereas others declared that the respective victim was most likely dead. A few of them were proper obituaries.
Near the grotesque necropolis were two couches and a ring of chairs whose leather looked wrong somehow.
Then it clicked — Riddle had fashioned furniture using his victims' skin.
Harry hardly smelled the stench now. Too fierce was his fury, burning all external stimuli away.
I'll fucking kill him! he raged. I'll shit in his cracked skull and hang a hundred pieces of his face along the walls.
Whirling to face the statue whose long shadow swayed in the unsteady torchlight, he brought up the Elder Wand and set his jaw. "Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four!"
The mouth, looming so high it was half obscured by shadows, ground open. Every inch of Harry tingled. This must have been how sprinters felt when waiting in the blocks. The second that snake moved, he would cast before it could come forth with its deadly gaze.
Nothing moved.
"Come!" he hissed up at the statue.
There was no reply.
Harry donned the diadem, sure the basilisk would be marked by some distinctive shade or shape of magic. A thousand nimbuses burst into being all around him, so many that to keep track of half was dizzying, yet none stood out as deadly or malicious.
Except…
"Accio horcrux!" A gold locket sailed out from the statue's maw despite that it was almost certainly warded against such attempted summoning.
A twist of the Elder Wand halted the horcrux's flight. Worked into its chain was a withering curse not unlike the one that Dumbledore had fallen prey to.
Only when the curse had been undone a minute later did Harry seize the locket. It was like holding malice made solid. Every inch of gold screamed between his fingers. The locket throbbed with hate. Its shudder made him nauseous once again. All that kept his rebellious stomach in check was the flood of relief that weighed said nausea down.
He had been right! Only now that he had confirmation could he admit that a small part of him had begun doubting whether Riddle had gone ahead with making horcruxes, while a far larger part had worried that the chamber might not yield one.
Harry crushed the impulse to crack the diadem with a cleave of the Elder Wand. It was too important. The emperors had to see that he had been speaking truth.
Suddenly the path was clear as he soothed the wand's shuddering between his fingers. All that was left was Riddle, the locket's destruction, and then finding the second horcrux before the bastard could restore his body.
And the basilisk.
Where the hell's the snake?
Not knowing gnawed at him while he rode conjured winds up the long pipe and tried not to smash himself to bloody pieces. Would that he could sneak through the school and find the snake before escaping. Unfortunately his time was already up. Harry was not naive enough to think otherwise, nor was he so foolish that he did not see the trap which he was heading into.
There was simply no other option.
The empty bathroom did not convince him he was off the hook. A silent human revealing charm cast out its probes, and for the first time his calm cracked. Five? He had been gambling that Riddle's pride would demand he faced him on his own.
They were waiting in the corridor. All their wands were drawn. "Welcome home, Harry."
It was a moment before he felt up to answering, until he felt fit to breathe at all. It was not seeing pale-faced Antonin Dolohov and knowing how much harder this would now be that rooted him in place, nor spying greasy hair and a sallow face he so deeply loathed — it was not even the faint surprise he felt at finding fifth-year Barty Crouch on hand.
It was the sight of Lily looming over Riddle's shoulder.
Rage reared up from Harry's chest and he ripped the locket out from underneath his robes and dangled it in front of him. "It's over, Riddle! I know what you've done." Harry jingled the locket. "Come with me to the ministry."
No alarm showed itself on Riddle's face. Only in his eyes, cold and dark as death itself, could anything be glimpsed. "You cannot believe I will comply, knowing what you know."
Harry's grip around the locket tightened. "I had to try."
"There are five of us, and one of you. Drop the locket. I am here to exact the price of treason."
"So am I." Harry pressed the tip of the Elder Wand against the locket. "You will release Lily Evans from the imperius curse," he said, calm and clear in his best approximation of the way Dumbledore had made demands of Fudge the night on which he'd duelled Voldemort. "You will send away your sycophants and drop your wand. You will come with me"
"Do you take me for a fool?" Anger flared from Riddle for the first time, flashing like fire in his dark eyes. "If I were to come with you, then what you hold would be destroyed. Compliance buys me nothing."
"That's not true." The Elder Wand had grown so hot, the locket's gold was reddening. "It buys you time to scheme up something, which you're pretty short on at the moment."
The rage had bled into Riddle's eyes. For the first time since Harry had arrived here, the scarlet shadow of Lord Voldemort had prevailed itself upon Tom Riddle's pupils. "On the contrary, I think it is you who's short on time."
Lily stepped out into the open and drew a dagger from the pocket of her robes. Before Harry could so much as move, she had the blade up and held against her throat.
Harry froze.
"I know your type," Riddle hissed out between bared teeth, "fools who care for things like trust and love." Scarlet pupils swelled like welling blood. "Men like you will never threaten men like me — not when I hold your heart between my fingers and can crush it at my leisure."
"Fine," Harry gritted out. "What do you want?" I just need to buy time.
Red had ravaged Riddle's eyes; no white remained in either iris. "I would like to know who you are, where you came from, how you conjured gold, how you wield opposing elements, and how you know so many things you shouldn't." Riddle's smile could have cut through stone. "I would advise against deception." Lily dug the knife in just enough to gouge a line of blood along her neck.
Harry closed his eyes to block out the sight. Riddle would not kill her when she was all that kept his horcrux safe. "I don't suppose you'll accept my famed amnesia story?"
When Harry opened his eyes, Riddle was no longer smiling. "I will not."
Harry drew in a deep breath. I can give a partial truth about the Elder Wand. Voldemort had not known of the hallows where Harry had come from, and that was in a world where their history was unsuppressed. "I—"
Red light flashed and the knife went spinning out of Lily's hand.
Confusion registered on Riddle's face as Harry smirked at him.
The venators had come — just as he had arranged with Dorea and Arcturus before returning to Paris.
Squaring up to Riddle, Harry raised the Elder Wand.
"COME!"
Horror had just enough time to hollow Harry's heart before blocks of stone the size of serving plates sprayed up from the floor.
One chunk cracked into his shoulder and sent him sprawling backward.
Debris dug through his robes and bit into his arm while he fought for footing. Surrounded by a shroud of dust in the centre of the corridor was a fifteen-foot hole where a section of stone had stood not ten seconds prior. Harry's blood went cold as he peered at it. Through that dust he could see a huge shadow rearing from the floor; the distinctive outline of a tale was facing him.
The sound of bodies falling thudded through the corridor faster than the men could start their screaming.
Riddle was cackling, high and cold, with his arms outspread as if in prayer while Prince, Crouch, and Dolohov shot spells past the serpent's scaly back, toward where the venators were scrambling for shelter.
There was none to find. They were being massacred.
Harry's face screwed up in frustrated rage as he raised the Elder Wand.
"Stop!" It was Lily who called out to him, dagger once more pressed into her throat. Drops of blood had dripped onto the silver blade. "Harry… please."
That word…
Hermione had said it so often in that grime-stained cellar when she was not busy trying to strangle herself or tear out her hair.
Harry had been helpless then, just as he was helpless now.
Just as he had been helpless when that sallow-skinned traitor standing not twenty-feet from him had taken Harry's mentor.
Fear from another night rushed back in and crippled him.
"Severus… please."
Harry's legs buckled under the weight of panic and regret. It was he who tore at his hair now, he who dragged his nails along his cheeks because he had to do something, and yet there was nothing he could do.
"EXPELLIARMUS!"
It was less the caster's cry than it was Riddle's hateful scream that brought Harry's head up from his hands.
Lily had once more been disarmed and was standing in the centre of the chaos as a dark shape hurtled toward her, attracting the basilisk's attention.
Harry's eyes went wide. "JAMES! NO!"
James bowled into Lily and they went spilling to the floor, but where she struggled underneath him the moment that they struck the stones, he did not so much as move a muscle.
"NO!" It was not the Elder Wand in Harry's hand, it was an open flame so hot that it sent every nerve in his entire body screaming, so hot that he need not hold it, for it had burned itself into his black, charred palm. "FIENDFYRE!"
The flames charged forth like a feral hound no longer fettered. Bedlam broke out all at once. Stones smoked and sagged beneath the blaze, melting into streaks of lava that streamed down onto the floor below. The fire howled like so many wolves, roared loud enough to shame a pack of lions, and laughed its chilling laughter all the while.
The basilisk's shrill scream was almost lost amidst it all.
Riddle's shouts were not. "Knights! Here!"
"No!" Harry rounded on Riddle and sent the green fire streaming toward him.
Lily leapt into the fire's path.
Harry screamed and snuffed out the fire. Smoke swirled through the corridor. A long moment passed in which he did not know whether she was alive or dead.
Lily was standing there when the smoke dispersed, blank-eyed and with her red hair singed.
Riddle seized her arm, with Prince and Dolohov already hanging off him. Those red eyes burned like angry suns as they bored into Harry's face.
"I will have my answers, and I will have the price of treason."
There was no cloud of smoke, no sound of apparition.
They were simply gone.
"The headsman's axe knows not where it is to fall."
— Graham McNeil
A special thank you to my high-tier patron, Cup, for her generous and unwavering support.
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