Twelve Hours Ago
The sounds of apparation brought Cyrus' fears back to the fore of his mind. They needed the mission to be successful. They needed Rouart's Blood Chalice if they were going to resurrect the Dark Lord, at least if he believed in Emile. But what other choice did he have than to believe in the alchemist who had once been apprenticed to Nicholas Flamel himself? With the chalice, they could cleanse the blood they've collected of any impurities for the ritual. Then the Dark Lord would surely be reborn.
Surely.
Getting out of their safe house had been a breeze. All of the Aurors sent to watch over it had been recalled to the Ministry only moments ago. Cyrus and Emile worked together to unravel the meagre wards placed around their safe house, and then they'd fled to Emile's laboratory. It was perhaps the only location that the Aurors still didn't know about, and it made for the perfect place to enact the ritual.
But the longer they spent here the more that Cyrus regretted coming. He hadn't expected to find half-alive men and women hanging upside down from the ceiling with a slow but steady stream of blood dripping down their outstretched arms into buckets. Nor was he prepared for the sight of the mass grave filled with corpses, prepared to be burned or banished or whatever the hell Emile intended to do with them. The sickly stench of death was all pervasive in this place. No amount of cleaning or bubble-head charms were enough to stop the stench from lingering in his nostrils.
Then there was the darkness. They were deep below the earth in a series of old catacombs beneath Paris, Emile had explained to him. Emile had gone to great lengths to disguise any magic performed within this area. Cyrus had no doubt that Emile would have used the Fidelius Charm if he had anyone he trusted enough to act as the Secret Keeper. Alas, he left to lesser magical means of keeping this place secure from prying eyes.
No one bothered them down here, and the echoing sounds of their actions ended at the magical barrier that disguised this place. Cyrus had once ventured out into the muggle-controlled area and swiftly found his way to the surface. Surprisingly, they weren't especially far from Place Cachée. It was supremely amusing to think that Emile had operated right beneath the noses of the men and women who'd hang him if they got the chance.
It wasn't long before, in a corridor where the walls were made up of the bones of long-dead muggles, that the three Death Eaters who'd apparated in suddenly appeared before Cyrus. They'd taken off their masks and were grinning like mad at the treasure in their hands.
"Is that Rouart's Blood Chalice?" Cyrus asked, instinctively knowing the answer already.
The chalice looked like a surprisingly mundane thing. It was a simple, golden chalice. The vessel itself was quite wide and stout with a thin neck leading to a wider base. There were no engravings or other ornamentation that Cyrus would've expected from a dark artefact such as this. Clearly, Rouart must have intended for his chalice to appear innocuous, perhaps to ward off any unwanted suspicion from his victims.
"Too right it is," the man clutching the chalice to his chest said excitedly.
Cyrus held out his hand for it wordlessly. He could see the reticence in the man's eyes. He likely wanted to hand it over to Emile himself to reap the rewards of being the one to find it. Of course, Cyrus wasn't blind to the fact that all of his Death Eaters, the ones that remained from those he'd brought over from England, now saw Emile as the de facto leader of the Death Eaters. Cyrus didn't have the heart to argue the point.
"Maybe it's best if I bring it to Emile?" The man suggested tentatively, still aware that his position was below Cyrus'.
"If that is what you wish," Cyrus replied blandly.
Cyrus trailed behind the three men as they hurried down through the catacombs to Emile's laboratory itself. They were jubilant, practically bouncing off of the walls. If the sights or smells all around bothered them, they didn't show it.
Emile's Laboratory was set up in a large cylindrical room. It had once perhaps been intended to be used as a place to delve deeper into the earth to build more catacombs. There was a small pit in the centre of the room, something that roughly resembled a stairwell, that went only a few metres downward before abruptly stopping. Now, it was filled with blood.
Oddities lined the various tables around the laboratory. Silver objects that emitted puffs of smoke, beakers of green-coloured sludge that bubbled away beneath an open fire, and severed limbs were not uncommon sights. Emile was found next to one of the tables that held piles of various metals. He was placing tiny droplets of blood on each, which the metals then absorbed. Cyrus was not learned in the alchemical arts, so he could not say for certain what Emile was doing, but it seemed strange. Though, that could be said for almost everything that Emile did.
"Monsieur Delacour, sir," the man clutching Rouart's Blood Chalice said quietly so as to not disturb the alchemist at work. "We have the chalice."
"Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh," Emile said quickly. His gaze, no, his entire being was focused on those various pieces of metal.
In a flash, blood started leaping into the air from the metals one by one. First came the baser metals like iron, tin and cobalt. Then came the noble metals. Platinum shot out its blood first, then did palladium and iridium. Emile often ranted about these metals, explaining them to Cyrus like he was a schoolboy. At least now he could identify most of them by sight, but he still had no bloody clue what the significance of any of this was.
Finally, gold was the last to emit its blood. The droplet leapt up less high than the others, and when it plopped back down, it was reabsorbed into the gold.
With a well-deserved sigh, Emile turned to Cyrus, ignoring the three Death Eaters with him. "I've done it. This blood is as pure as can be without using Rouart's Blood Chalice. It should ensure a proper ritual, now that we have the chalice in hand."
When Emile held out his hand for the chalice, the Death Eater handed it over without a second thought.
"Thank you, my friends," Emile smiled genially.
Suddenly, a silver dagger flew out of nowhere and sliced the throats of the three men.
Cyrus leapt back in shock and surprise as the men clutched at the smooth cuts in their necks. Blood was spilling out uncontrollably, slipping through their fingers. They couldn't stem the bleeding; it was too late for them to do anything at all.
Emile tsked. "You're letting all of your precious blood go to waste. Our lord can't be denied now."
With a wave of his wand, which had been hidden in his sleeve, Emile conjured three sets of thick ropes to wrap around the dying mens' ankles. It hoisted them up above the pit in the centre of the room, leaving them dangling upside down.
As the life left the eyes of the three men, their hands slipped away, and the blood continued to flow freely down their faces. It spilt down into the pool of blood with heavy splashes.
"We've done it, Cyrus," Emile grinned brightly, uncaring about the deaths he'd just caused.
"Yes, we have," Cyrus said warily, fearing that his death would be next.
"It's almost time for the ritual," Emile said. "At least once these three bleed out."
"What of the chalice?" Cyrus asked as he turned away so that the dying men were no longer in his peripheral vision.
"The blood shall be placed inside of the chalice and then dashed about the ritual circle," Emile explained exasperatedly, as though he'd already explained this to Cyrus a hundred times before.
"It'll take a long time to transfer all that blood to the ritual circle," Cyrus pointed out.
"Then I'd best get to work soon then," Emile replied. "Be a dear and help those three bleed out a bit faster, would you?"
Cyrus' stomach turned at the thought of desecrating these bodies even further, but his fear of Emile won out. He used carefully placed cutting charms to open up all of the arteries of these men, helping the last few droplets of blood to leave their bodies. Eventually, he took control of the conjured ropes and shook the corpses to make sure that every last bit of blood left them. Then, he unhooked them and brought them back over to the mass grave.
When Cyrus returned to the chamber, Emile had already cleared his tables away from the ritual circle at the side of the room. He watched as Emile carefully scooped up blood with the chalice. The chalice's golden colour turned silver for an instant before it went back to gold. Smiling to himself, Emile carried the chalice over to the ritual circle and poured out all of the blood. The thick, white chalk lines written in arcane script seemed to soak up the blood like a sponge. They seemed hungry for more.
It took well over an hour before all of the blood had been transferred. Emile had set up a ladder to climb in and out of the pit and used waded in the blood, trusting in the purity of himself to not taint anything. When it finished, the white chalk lines had turned red, and the ritual was ready to commence.
"Finally," Emile cackled. "Witness me Cyrus! Witness me as I bring our Dark Lord back to life! The world will bow down to his might, and we will once again rise as the dominant race!"
Cyrus feared what he'd just unleashed upon the world. It was a necessary evil, he told himself. Absolutely necessary.
Present
Harry didn't let any hint of emotion show through on his face, but his mind was reeling with the implications of Cyrus' words. He had a cure for Astoria?
"Talk," Harry said simply.
The tired-looking man suddenly became passionate and animated as the words began to spill out of his lips. "The Dark Lord—"
"Voldemort," Harry corrected him with a harsh glare.
"V-Voldemort," Cyrus managed to stutter out, looking terribly uncomfortable at having to use the man's name. "Back before… when he still lived, he promised me that he would save my daughter. That he would cure the blood malediction curse in our family's line."
"And you believed him?" Harry asked, wanting to snort. Voldemort never did anything good for anyone else without an ulterior motive, and more often than not, he simply took without paying his debts. He was a dark, cruel, malevolent man that Harry couldn't see spending his time trying to fix a curse like this when he had so many more ambitious plans in his mind.
"I did, and I still do," Cyrus said emphatically.
Harry could see the genuine hope in the man's eyes, the utter conviction that Voldemort would follow through on his promise. He didn't know if it was genuine or just a desperate belief that was the last good thing left in his life that he could cling to.
"Why?" Harry asked.
"The Dark… V-Voldemort needed my family's support during the war," Cyrus cringed. "He burned through the fortunes of his followers to pay for mercenaries, werewolves, and all manner of beasts to fight for him. And then once the Death Eaters took over the Ministry, he needed money to enact his purges of all muggleborns. I'd never been a follower of his, but when he came to me to demand a donation, I couldn't refuse him. He knew where I lived, where my family was, and I… I made the best deal I could given the circumstances."
"You made the best deal you could?" Harry scoffed. "Let me guess, he only offered you his word that he would help you, right? The Voldemort I know wouldn't allow himself to be bound by any magical contracts."
"He promised!" Cyrus insisted. "He wouldn't… he couldn't… lie to me."
Harry was torn between pity and scorn for the broken man in front of him. He'd held onto this belief for so long that it was the only thing keeping him going. It drove his every action. But there was a problem here.
"Voldemort is dead," Harry pointed out. "He can't help you anymore, and I doubt that any of his remaining followers have enough power to do anything to help you either."
"Yes, he's dead," Cyrus said, but there was something off in the way he said it that made a shiver run down Harry's spine.
"Then why are you still helping the Death Eaters?" Harry asked.
"Because it was my only hope…" Cyrus trailed off as he looked over at Astoria's unconscious face. "To help her."
"How?" Harry pressed. "How were you going to help her?"
Cyrus took a long, deep breath. "There was a ritual my partner knew about. With, I could bring the Dark Lord back to life and—"
Harry couldn't help himself. He suddenly lunged forward, grabbing Cyrus by the collar and slamming him back up against the closest wall. Cyrus gasped and flailed about as the back of his head smacked off of the wall, but Harry's grip on him was too strong for him to escape now.
"You were going to bring back a man who killed thousands?" Harry asked dangerously. "How fucking stupid do you have to be to go through with something like that?"
"Not stupid," Cyrus protested weakly. "Just desperate."
Harry couldn't believe it. All this time he spent tracking down Cyrus through France, he was really trying to stop Voldemort's resurrection. Merlin, if word got out about this, it'd cause an international panic. Even six years on from the death of Voldemort, Britain was still feeling the effects of his horrific actions.
"No, you're very, very stupid," Harry sighed, dropping Cyrus down and taking a couple of steps back. This was horrific. He needed to get into contact with Sebastian and let him know what was going on. If he didn't…
"It doesn't matter," Cyrus replied, his voice turning bitter. "The ritual doesn't work. We've tried and tried and tried again. Even after getting Rouart's Blood Chalice, it still failed. I don't understand! We made the blood as pure as pure can be! The Dark Lord should have been resurrected!"
Harry blinked in surprise. Suddenly, it all connected together in his mind. Cyrus and Emile had begun collecting magical blood indiscriminately, leading a balance that did not match Voldemort's half-muggle half-pure-blood parentage. Then, fearing that the blood wasn't pure enough, they went after pure-bloods to get the blood they needed. And even then they feared that it didn't match up to what they believed to be Voldemort's perfectly pure pedigree. So, they kept searching for ways to purify the pure-bloods' blood even further.
Sardonic laughter bubbled out of Harry's lips, and once it started, he couldn't stop it for several seconds.
"You absolute fools," Harry hissed as fury bubbled up inside of his chest. "You killed so many innocent people for nothing. Haven't you listened to any one of my speeches at the memorial for the Battle of Hogwarts over the last five years? Voldemort isn't a pure-blood; he never was. He's a half-blood."
"Lies and propaganda," Cyrus protested reflexively.
"It's the truth, whether you want to believe it or not," Harry retorted angrily. "Everything that you've done up until now has been for nothing. You can't bring Voldemort back."
"If we get enough of the right blood—" Cyrus began to say.
"I'll stop you right there," Harry said sharply. "You're not getting out of this room except in chains. You're not going to share this information with anyone. Your partner, Emile, will keep bumbling over himself to try to figure out what's wrong, and we'll find him before he can reach the logical conclusion that he should have found years ago. You and your stupid pure-blood supremacist beliefs are what failed you, Cyrus. But if you couldn't see that back when Voldemort was killed, I don't know if you'll see it now."
"But… I…"
Cyrus crumpled to the floor, staring at Astoria in supreme horror. He buried his face in his hands and let out a sob.
"What have I done?" Cyrus gasped.
"You're not going to resurrect Voldemort, but you still have the chance to do the right thing," Harry said, biting back his anger. "Tell me where Emile is, and I promise that you'll have a lenient sentence. Given all that you've done, you'll still be in Azkaban, but I'll ensure that you're in the safer ward where the Dementors patrol less. You'll have nicer food and a nicer cell. It's the best offer you're going to get."
"I can't go there," Cyrus pleaded. "I won't survive it. Everything I've done has been for my family. I need to be with them. I need to be free."
"Everything you've done has been for your own selfish desires," Harry retorted sharply. "You killed hundreds to try to save the life of your daughter, and if you were successful in doing so then you would have brought back to life one of the darkest wizards that this world has ever seen. Astoria wouldn't want you to be doing this for her. She'd be mortified to know what you've done."
"As long as she lives, then I don't care what she thinks about me," Cyrus said sadly.
Merlin, he really did love his daughter, Harry realised. He was willing to sacrifice absolutely everything and anyone to keep her alive. On a certain level, Harry had some degree of respect for that sentiment, but the actions he took to achieve it were unbelievably despicable. Cyrus deserved death for what he'd done, but Harry still had need of him.
"There's nothing you can do about it now," Harry said firmly. "But what you can do is save countless families the heartbreak and loss that you're feeling right now by telling me where to find Emile. I'll put a stop to all of this, and then at least your daughters can know that you did one good thing at the end of this mess."
Cyrus slowly stood back up to his feet, and this time, Harry allowed him to walk to Astoria's side. He kept his wand trained at the man's back, but he knew that he didn't need to worry. Cyrus wouldn't do anything to harm Astoria in the slightest. He just took her hand in his and let out another sob.
"All right," Cyrus finally said. "I'll tell you everything you want to know. And then you can take me away to Azkaban."
Harry let out a sigh of relief. He hated lying to this man. He wasn't going to make it out of this hospital alive. But first, he had to go get Daphne.
A/N: Hey, thanks for reading! If you are interested in reading more or supporting me, check out at p atreon .com(slash) ashox