𝕸𝖔𝖓𝖔𝖈𝖍𝖗𝖔𝖒𝖊

Act IV - Skin In The Game

Chapter 35: The Plans Of Mice And Men Part 3

With an audible pop, Lord Voldemort appeared in front of the dilapidated Lestrange mansion located south of Wales. Ever since the Lestranges had been imprisoned for life in Azkaban, Lucius Malfoy had held the Regency of the House, and despite its dilapidated frontage, he had transformed the interior into a perfect abode for his under-the-table operations, preparation of illegal potion ingredients, and performing dark ritualistic magic. In short, exactly the sort of place an invocator hiding from the ICW would love to inhabit while performing his dark deeds.

"Schulz!" He snapped, annoyed at the silence of the place.

There was no answer.

"Schulz! Answer me you decrepit relic!"

Still none.

A quiver of doubt began to form in Voldemort's stomach, and he rushed in. He was a seventy-year-old Dark Lord that had brought a nation down to his knees. And yet, in less than a year since his resurrection, things had gone downhill, not just for his people, but for himself. Voldemort had not only found climbing uphill, but realised that he was facing an enemy he was sure to lose against if he fought him directly.

He, Lord Voldemort, Master Necromancer, Heir of Salazar Slytherin and perhaps one of the greatest dark wizards in British history; he who had terrorised an entire nation; he who not even Albus Dumbledore could not defeat; he was having to play a strategic game while staying behind the curtains. He was having to resort to multiple tactics, enact traps and deal with entities he was not comfortable dealing with.

And all of that to fight whom? A Merlin-be-damned schoolboy.

As per his requests, Voldemort had left Schulz alone inside his sanctum earlier, free to focus on maintaining the ritual circle above the hospital, using the spirits of those dying from the curse as his eyes and ears to spy on whatever was happening inside. Schulz had instructed him very clearly that nobody should enter his sanctum while the work was in progress.

But desperate situations called for desperate measures.

With a sudden wisp of air passing, he vanished, only to reappear inside Schulz's sanctum. A wizard was without question, at their most dangerous inside their own territory. It was why the Ancient families constructed such vast manors, setting up multiple layers of wards between the outer periphery and the innermost sanctum, where they could practise the most specialised forms of their family craft, away from prying eyes or interference.

To just enter into another wizard's sanctum without permission translated into a gruesome death. Especially one set by an ectomancer. He was lucky Schulz had keyed him into the wards.

"Schulz!" He snapped, looking around for the ectomancer, only to freeze on his tracks. Inside the sanctum were two bodies. The first was Barty Crouch Junior, his body already pale, rotting and very much dead, with a stab-wound in the chest.

Dead. From the same power that had taken so many of his Inner-Circle.

Voldemort fisted his arms.

The other body was, unsurprisingly, Schulz. The ectomancer was spreadeagled inside his own ritual circle, his body spasming as if he was being constantly executed. Kneeling at the periphery, Voldemort cast entire chains of runic spells to undo the boundary, but they fizzled away.

What a waste! Thought Voldemort, and popped away.

He reappeared on the top of one of the remaining buildings close to the hospital, wanting to get a better look at the aftermath of Schulz's altercation with the Potter boy.

Instead he found himself taking in the sight of a devastated city.

To say that Diagon Alley was destroyed was like saying basilisk fangs were poisonous. It was an understatement of the worst kind, because the commercial district was barely even recognizable. The entire townscape had a magnificent red glow beneath dark clouds of smoke and ash. Hazy forms of ghosts were floating around in some of the burnt husks of the buildings that remained. Gringotts, ever-so-pristine, was a cracked, fractured caricature of its grand history. The cobbled streets had vast craters on them, matched by equally-sized craters on the building walls looming over the alley. Like meteorites had crashed upon the town, only with gravity gone sideways.

Gale force winds blew everywhere, with people running about to escape with their loved ones. This destruction, this carnage… it was far, far worse than anything he had inflicted upon Britain even at the height of his power. Was this… was this what letting the Beast lose had done to Wizarding Britain? Had Voldemort managed to drive Britain to the brink of ruin and despair even without having to raise a wand?

The death, the destruction, the carnage, it sang to him. Dark emotions hung around like a pallor, as tangible as any solid; ghostly things, restless spirits, drawn to the sense of fear, despair, and anger hung around like a thick mist; mindless shades that were always found in such places like rats in granaries gathering all around. To his eyes, it was like staring into the eyeball-less face of an empty, grinning skull. Everywhere he looked, just at the edge of his vision, silent and still and bleached white, as solid and real as though a fetichist had scattered them everywhere. Death. Death lay in the zone, tangible, solid, unavoidable. Past. Present. Future.

Maybe even his own.

No. Not his own. Lucius might have accidentally lost one some years ago, but the rest of them were absolutely safe, hidden in places that were themselves shrouded in the secrecy of Voldemort's own past. Even if, and a shudder ran down his spine — even if he was killed by this power, his soul was destroyed….

His horcruxes would ensure he continued on.

The last two altercations with Potter had proved that.

But if the beast was out there, rampaging and causing destruction, why had Narcissa claimed Potter had joined the Aurors to stage an Azkaban rescue? Did that mean that something else had caused this? What could….

He regarded the hospital. The aftereffects of the ritual were easy to see, but given the structure was still standing, chances of something big and ugly crossing through the ritual Circle were minimal. Then…

What caused all this?

Another quick apparition later, he was standing at the Woodcroft Point, the closest point on the North Sea shoreline that held a small set of buoys which constituted a dock, and could secure a muggle trawler specifically maintained to ferry prisoners to Azkaban. The pilots, a pair of squibs, were hired by the Ministry for exclusively this purpose.

But the trawler was nowhere to be seen.

Voldemort closed his eyes, and reached out through the Dark Mark. The magical tattoo, unlike what was commonly believed, did a lot more than just brand his loyal followers. Among other things, it allowed him to reach through and connect with their minds, and synchronise with their senses. Of course, every single one of his competent followers were well-versed in Occlumency, enough to keep him from reaching deep into their minds without them knowing, but it served the point.

Instantly, a myriad of paths appeared to him, like a forever changing labyrinth, with every passage leading to some Death Eater. With the majority of his Inner Circle imprisoned in Azkaban, he hadn't gotten the opportunity to fully activate the properties of the Dark Mark, and staying in that hell for the better part of two decades had not done any favours to his faithful followers.

Bellatrix… he reached out. Bellatrix….

But Bellatrix, his most loyal of all followers, did not answer. If the others felt like hedges of an ever shifting maze, hers felt like a nebula, utterly impenetrable, and yet, he knew she was present at the end of it.

Bellatrix… He called out.

But she would not answer.

His feet rising from the ground, Voldemort dashed in the direction of the island prison —'

— only to smash against the barrier, and crash into the waters.

"Ekrizdis!" Voldemort snarled, flying back into the air. 'Let me in!"

But the barrier did not even flutter.

Voldemort touched the invisible barrier, and felt the power surging within. Whatever was happening inside, Ekrizdis didn't want anyone to enter.

Either that, or things were spiralling so far beyond his control that he couldn't afford to lower the barrier.

Voldemort had known of Ekrizdis's continued existence ever since he had left Hogwarts. It was an unwritten rule that just like the great Shesha loomed over the Ruler and preserver of the Universe according to ancient Indian texts, in a similar fashion, the Lair's golem signified that the Warden of the Vault should aspire to reach similar heights. For those like Merlin and Wenlock, it was all about shaping the world in their image, leaving a legacy for others to follow. But for the others, like Nicholas Flamel, Ekrizdis, and Voldemort himself, it was about elevating oneself past the shackles of common wizardry. To walk among other wizards like the god-kings of ancient India did over fellow sorcerers.

Flamel achieved it, through Materia Phase Transmutation and the Philosopher's Stone.

And for Ekrizdis, through his Animus Eternum.

Interestingly, it had been Ekrizdis's own papers that had made a young Tom Riddle delve further in the subject of soul magic. Ekrizdis's ideas of expanding his soul to become more was terrifying, and beautiful, but it also came at the immense risk of overexposing oneself to Anima.

Voldemort wanted immortality, not by ascending to a state beyond the physical existence, but by shattering past the mortal coil. He wanted to remain in the physical world, wanted to dominate, wanted to rule the entire world as its god, fixated in his belief that his was the only existence that mattered.

It was this line of thinking that made him reject Ekrizdis's ideas, and choose to elevate Herpo's creation — the horcrux.

But that was far from being all the influence that Ekrizdis had on him. In the last war, he and Ekrizdis had come to a mutual understanding. Dementors were innately dark, amortal creatures, unable to be killed by any known methods. As the most terrifying Dark Lord that Britain had ever faced, they would fight on his side, and in exchange, Ekrizdis would gain access to a lot more souls than the Ministry would allow the dementors to usually feed on.

It was a partnership that had ended suddenly with his fall on Halloween, 1981. His followers had been routed to Azkaban, and the dementors had been forced to cower back, no thanks to the ironclad magic binding Azkaban and the British Ministry.

Now, years later, they had come together to work a second time. Only this time, they had one more common ground.

Harry Potter.

The Peverell heir.

Death's Vessel.

The one entity that both of them feared.

The one entity that was standing between them and world domination.

The one entity that was capable of ending both of them for good.

It was what led to Project Prometheus. A collaboration between two of the greatest minds in existence. Schulz might have been one to construct the Ritual Circle atop St. Mungo's, but it was only through Ekrizdis's aid that they had been able to set it up so seamlessly. All for a single aim in mind.

Entrap Harry Potter.

Through that one single act, Voldemort would get his hands on the Prophecy. Harry Potter would be trapped forever, and Ekrizdis would be free of the Ministry that sought to control him through contractual magic they themselves didn't quite know existed.

While Voldemort had ultimately gotten his hands on the Prophecy, it still felt like he was standing exactly where he had been before when it came to understanding Harry Potter. No, if anything, it felt like he was pushed several steps back. The Prophecy was supposed to be the key to his victory, instead it had turned out to be a vault of increasingly confusing questions.

To make matters worse, Harry Potter had escaped the Circle, yet something equally dangerous had devastated Diagon Alley. And now Death's Vessel had gone to Azkaban, the last place Ekrizdis wanted him to be.

Harry Potter was the kiss of Death, his powers the very antithesis of magic. And now, Destiny had brought Death's Vessel into the lair of amortal beasts and souls — where Death had no meaning.

It was a grim situation, but at least, he could appreciate the irony.

Now only if he could find a mundane trawler quickly before things went further downhill.

A Nexus-Child.

That was what Ekrizdis had called him.

Harry didn't know why, but the term felt both foreign and yet, intimately familiar. Like he had heard it before, like he had been addressed by that term before in some half-forgotten dream. But regardless, a part of him felt thankful to Ekrizdis for confirming his own theories about the nature of his power, and his existence.

A soul that was made out of Animons and nothing else. By Ekrizdis's own logic, it meant a soul that was connected to the Anima so intimately that it was difficult to even fathom where one ended and where one began. That his animagus form was an owl, a traveller between worlds, was only conclusive evidence to that theory.

The prophecy had claimed that he'd be born with the power the Dark Lord knows not. Was this the power? Being born as a Nexus-child?

Was this why… Voldemort had come after him?

The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. There was no saying exactly what happened that night on Halloween, and while a part of him actually wanted to go find the elusive Stone of Resurrection, and seek his mother's shade out, demanding answers, he knew that the dead must stay dead. Their stories were complete, and all that was left of their existence was the legacy they left behind.

Bereft of the mortal coil, they deserved to be at peace.

"Does that mean you'll let him go?" asked Amelia Bones.

"Let him go?" repeated Ekrizdis in amusement. "He is my perfect meal, little witch. With the potential of his soul, and the gravity of my own Animus, I shall become the greatest spiritual existence upon this world. Greater than gods, greater than the Family magics and their Vessels… I shall become Animus Eternum."

"Well….." said Harry Potter. "Shit!"

"Shit is right," said Amelia. "I can't believe my own ancestors would choose to keep this thing alive and festering."

Harry wanted to disagree. Worse things had been done in the name of Magic and Ancestry. Harry could go out on a limb and claim that the Ministry at the time wanted to use Ekrizdis's wishcrafting power for itself, and thus, allowed it to exist, like a necessary evil. Of course, the public would need answers, and hence, an elaborate charade of dragging his 'body' through the Ministry and passing it through the Veil happened.

"Regardless, we're leaving this place," she said gallantly. "And if that needs us to burn this place down for good, we will."

The Director raised the sword of Godric Gryffindor, its blackened gaze making the tunnel appear just a tad more monochromatic grey than before. Assuming he got out of this place alive, he'd need to find a way to ensure she kept whatever happened here a secret.

It would not do to let the knowledge of the Sunken Vault, or Ekrizdis's grand existence pass onto the hands of paper-pushing politicians that saw little beyond their own selfish interests.

But looking at her reminded him of something else. Something the woman had said back when they had first met.

First year — he had destroyed the Philosopher's stone by holding it.

Second year — he had killed the basilisk with the blade of Gryffindor. And while the blade was many things, it couldn't possibly top basilisk blood or venom when it came to deadliness.

Third year — the dementors.

Fourth year — the cemetery.

All this time, he had wondered if he had the power of Death arising in him because of some universal whim as a kid.

But maybe he was wrong.

It could be that Ekrizdis was right — that he was born as a Nexus-Child. Or perhaps, whatever happened the night his parents died had transformed his soul into one. Either way, it made little difference.

No, in all of this, he had forgotten one tiny thing.

A gift. From an unknown — Dumbledore, most likely. A cloak that was a Potter heirloom, passed down from Father to Son. A relic containing a shard of the ancient Peverell family magic.

And then, he had ensured that Harry faced the Mirror of Erised — one that showed him his dead parents.

Had Albus Dumbledore, unwittingly, pushed the young eleven-year-old Harry Potter into the arms of the Anima and not even realised what he had so unknowingly done? Did he even realise that in planning Voldemort's capture using Harry as his little pawn, he had opened the very doors through which Ignotus Peverell's power and purpose had seeped and soaked Harry's very soul with the essence of Death? And if that was true then….

Oh.

The realisation brought a frown on his face. Closing his eyes, he began to run through a worst case scenario and make assumptions on what it could mean as fast as he could. He barely even paid attention to what Amelia Bones was saying next.

"Leave."

Bones turned at him. "...what?"

"I said leave," he said, unable to believe he was really considering the option. Warden of Salazar's Vault of not, he was chosen to be in Gryffindor for a reason. He hoped his little plan wouldn't explode on his face.

…Oh who was he kidding? Knowing his luck, things would go up in a shitstorm. They always did.

He regarded Ekrizdis. "You wanted me, your final piece. Let the Director and the rest of the prisoners go. Every single one of them — Azkaban guards, DMLE staff, the taskforce, everyone single one of them. I'll stay."

"Harry —"

"Director!" He snapped. "Please stay out of this."

He paused for a moment, and then took out the pouch containing Morty, and a few other interesting trinkets inside it. One among which, was Fleur's portable wardstone, only filled to the brim with Summer magic. There was another, an exact replica, only containing Death. For a second, he debated giving away the Cloak, but ultimately decided against it. If things really hit the fan, he might need to use it as the last option. But then, if he did end up using the Cloak, there might not even be a world to save after that.

"I'd like it if you'd give this to Daphne Greengrass. She'd know what to do with it."

"What if I say no?"

"Don't forget your duty to your people. Get them out. And if you can, get the Ministry to neuter whatever pact keeps you from burning this place down."

Assuming he didn't do it already.

"And what if I say no?" asked Ekrizdis, cocking his head.

Harry met the ancient wizard's gaze. "You are an ancient archwizard that has exalted himself so far above us mere mortals that you might even be called a minor deity. You have been collecting and harvesting souls for centuries."

His lips twisted into a condescending sneer. "The great Ekrizdis, exalted so far above mere mortals that you might even be a minor deity. You, who has been the Warden of the Sunken Vault, you have been harvesting souls for centuries… is haggling for a few hundred or so fresh souls, with a greenhorn like me? Talk about disappointing."

Daphne would've clapped if she'd been there to see it.

"Let them go," he said. "Consider it the rookie calling out the veteran. You wanted me to finish your magnum opus. Here I am. I'm even giving away Gryffindor's blade. Unless…" His lips twisted further, "you think you need more advantages on your side to face lil' old me?"

Ekrizdis glared at him.

"Potter!" Amelia hissed in alarm. "What are you doing?"

"Come on," snapped Harry, ignoring her. "Some of us actually have jobs to do. You're practically the sixth world-destroying power I've had to deal with recently. Trying to appear all intimidating got boring four turns ago."

"You would stay back?" Ekrizdis asked. "No tricks?"

"I would stay back, and fight with everything I've got. I've no intentions of turning about and being fucked at your whim. You want me — Nexus-Child or whatever, then you've got to fight for it."

"You raise an interesting proposition, little Ward— no, Harry Potter. But say, what's keeping me from keeping all of them here? Why must I agree to your proposal? How will you save them when you're too busy fighting for your own life?"

"I don't want to hear that from someone that depends on Voldemort for his continued safety."

His vicious riposte smacked the smile off Ekrizdis's face instantly.

"Voldemort…." Amelia Bones began.

"Elementary," said Harry. "Dementors had joined the war when Voldemort was at the height of his power. And now, they rejoin him again. I'd understand if dementors were just amortal wraiths with a fetish for souls, but knowing what we do about their origins, is it not… too coincidental?"

Dark Lord Voldemort, working with Ekrizdis, a coalition that would supplement each other's plans for good.

"I knew there was something odd about the enchantments surrounding this island from the very start. Too many coincidences."

His green eyes drilled into Ekrizdis's hollow ones. "Just how deep does this go, Ekrizdis? Just what has Voldemort offered you to entrap me forever? Or is it your collective fear of Death that makes you join forces?"

Really, the day just kept on giving. It was like his life was destined to be locked in a struggle with ever-increasing enemies. Just a year ago, his greatest worry was surviving the Triwizard. Voldemort was a nightmare on the horizon. Draco Malfoy and his wrecked friendship with Ron held more priority.

Now though…

Voldemort. Death-Eaters. Death. Summer. The Flamels and the Cabal. Wizengamot politics. And now this…. It was just one thing after another.

And he was at the end of his patience.

He had kept his cool when the Ministry had come for him. He had kept his cool even when Ignotus had constantly twisted things to ensure he chose Death. He had kept his cool when the Cabal and Nicholas Flamel had attempted to use him. He had kept his cool when he realised what a titanic job it was to stay at the crossroads and defy the greater powers forever. He had even held his wrath in control when he realised that Sirius had to pay the price for his stupidity, and was now lost somewhere in the Anima realm.

But even he had his limits.

"You insane psychopaths," he snarled, the cold, wintry plume of Death and the burning golden flame of Summer erupting on each fist. "You are just so obsessed with playing gods, that you think that you can just walk into my life and fuck with things I consider my own?" He rasped it all out in an edged tone that didn't feel like his own. "You think that just because you have the power, you have the right to do it?"

"Let them go," he said at last. "They have no business here. If Voldemort wants a shot at me, bring him here. I'll wait. Then both of you can give it your best shot. If you win, you become Animus Eternum, and Voldemort is free of me. If you don't, I'll let Death take control and see just how immortal you really are."

Images of the destroyed hospital waded into view. The death, the destruction that had happened by his hand. The knowledge that Frank Longbottom was lost for good after coming so close to waking up. The realisation that his friend Neville had transformed into an abomination because Voldemort and his Death-Eaters wanted to destroy his family at a whim. The threat that Ekrizdis might just torture all those prisoners and turn them into soul-sucking wraiths for all eternity…

Enough was enough. They wanted a demon so bad? Well then, a demon was what they would get.

"So," he asked a glaring Ekrizdis. "What's it gonna be?"

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