CW: Torture
A tiny figure leaned into the snow, bending into the howling winds. Makeshift rags covered his form from the biting cold. He trudged in a straight line across a vast, flat and featureless snowscape. The faintest outline of the Spine was visible through the blizzard on his left, jagged shark teeth of white on white. His footsteps trailed behind him in a straight line for a dozen meters before the winds and falling snow filled them in, erasing all traces of his passing.
Far off towards the shore, laying similarly ephemeral trails, another dark cloaked figure approached.
Harry felt time drag on as the two figures trudged towards each other. It seemed to take ages.
Snow whipped through the air, so cold it chapped any exposed skin. Boots crunched in the snow. Labored plumes of fog marked every frigid breath.
The two met warily, like wild animals sizing each other up. Harry immediately recognized the second person.
"Now what brings a Rider to this forsaken patch of ice and snow, without his dragon?" The voice cut straight through to Harry.
"What do you want?" the Rider demanded, holding up his palm in warning. Through the gaps in the rags wrapped around it, the gedwey ignasia gleamed through. "Who are you?"
The Shade smiled. "We are Durza. We should be asking you. Where is your dragon?"
"Dead," the Rider said angrily. The desperate longing in his voice was clear as day. Harry could hear the gaping hole in his heart the man was trying to fill. "What do you want?"
Durza grimaced. His eyes shone two different colors, one red, one black. His body seemed to seethe and boil beneath his translucent skin. "Shades do not last forever," he growled, biting back a gasp. "Not without help. There are too many of us for this vessel. Help us, and we will help you."
Galbatorix gave him a wary look. "How so?"
"With anything you want." The Shade seemed desperate.
"Swear it," he demanded.
Durza obliged. His smile widened, his sharpened teeth poking through.
Harry woke groggy. He didn't have a headache or anything, he just felt…thick. Dense, really. Was this how Dudley always felt? No wonder he was always so angry.
His cell was just a stone box with an iron door and a bench. The bench had rings set in them. They were caked with something. Harry hoped it was rust.
Just like in his dreams of Arya, a tiny barred window revealed an overcast sky.
He couldn't think of many situations more dire than this in which to play his trump card. Harry knit his brows. He tried to work a bit of wandless magic, but found that he couldn't. His mind was too foggy. Like he'd been listening to Binns or Trelawney for hours, complex thought was completely impossible. He couldn't get a good handle on what the incantations ought to be. Amora? Almroha?
His panic spiked. The potentially catastrophic consequences of what just happened began to sink in. He might be royally hosed, but he was only one guy. Far, far worse;
Durza had just defeated him.
Durza won the allegiance of the Elder Wand.
Harry didn't know enough to know how terrified he ought to be. Durza might count as a muggle to the wand, a bit like Eragon did. He might also be a true wizard, or maybe Eragon could have used the wand properly if he had its allegiance, or maybe it was all moot and having all three Hallows disqualified Harry from losing the Elder Wand.
But he couldn't afford to risk it.
Harry did his best to swallow his anxiety and keep a level head. Panicking would not help him escape.
Yet even when he managed to check his fear at a manageable level, there wasn't much to do. There were no cracks in the stones or crumbling mortar, no rusty hinge or filed-away bar in the little square window.
Wandless magic proved impossible while he felt so thick. Harry wasn't sure why it was so hard. Had he fallen and hit his head when he fell after Durza slept him?
Later in the day, food was delivered to his cell. Slid under the door on a metal tray, Harry heard the footsteps of some guard walking away after. He ate it without thinking. It was not an impressive meal.
Afterwards Harry sat on the stone bench and waited. Nothing happened all day. It was as boring as a Binns lecture, but with the added tension of knowing what the last person to escape this prison had looked like when he'd busted her out.
Several more hours failing at wandless magic later, the guard returned to knock at the door. "Slide out your tray."
Harry scrambled up to the door. There was a slat for the guard to peek in, but it was still closed. "Hello? Why did you arrest me? When will I be released?"
The guard said nothing. Harry saw the shadow of his feet on the ground behind the slat on the floor.
Grudgingly, Harry slid his tray out. After a pause, another tray clicked onto the ground and scraped over the flagstones. Harry picked it up and looked down at the gruel unhappily. "Hey, what's going on–"
But the guard was already walking away. "Hello?!" Harry called.
"Bloody useless," he muttered under his breath. He glanced down at the tray of 'food.' His stomach growled.
It was late when Harry heard someone approach his cell again. It was too late to be food; Harry had been about to try to get some sleep. The sky through the tiny window was pitch black.
A key slipped into the lock smoothly, turning with a series of clicks. Harry got up and sat on the edge of the shelf, quelling his rising nerves. After what happened to Arya–
The door swung open. Durza stood in the doorway, looking down on him with that catlike curiosity, just the same as Voldemort.
"What?" Harry asked.
Durza said nothing, he just kept staring like Harry was a mildly interesting puzzle. "Something about me dislikes something about you," he said quietly. Harry did his best to hide his fear. He felt he had been lucky up until then to never have been captured, not like Arya or Luna or Ollivander or Griphook. Only ever for half an hour at a time, in the Graveyard and at Malfoy Manor.
But then, Harry thought nervously, half an hour was enough. He could remember Hermione's screams as if they were still echoing in his ears.
Harry swallowed.
"You're familiar with my work," Durza said casually. Harry snarled.
The Shade reached into the hall behind him and dumped a bag on the ground, spilling its contents over the stone floor. They clattered on the flagstones.
"Horseshoes, bags, a standard issue bow, are the Varden so desperate for supplies they send their agents to buy from their enemies?" Durza stared down at Harry. "I cannot understand why you would return here so soon. My men say you claimed to be a lone huntsman whose family was killed in Yazuac. You had a shoddy bow and two suspicious toys with you – pastic, my men tell me. Yet no elf. Your actions bewilder me. Why return to Gil'ead at al? Are you stationed here? Why allow yourself to be caught by my men on the way in? Did you only have enough energy to send the elf? What did you do with the horses? Besides evidently make effigies of them."
Harry kept his lips shut tight. He was certain Durza had revealed many misapprehensions in his deluge of demands. Harry just didn't trust himself to speak without giving something away. He got the feeling Durza would see right through any denials.
Durza smiled. It was a smile that promised pain.
"I usually like to play with my toys before I break them, but I'm a very busy Shade and I have to leave in a week. Don't worry," Durza flashed his sharpened teeth. "That's plenty of time for us to get to know each other. If you hold out, you'll take the elf's place in the carriage to Uru'baen."
Harry stared up defiantly.
"Kausta," Durza uttered. The scattered results of his shopping trip were summoned back into Harry's bag. He made to leave, then paused in the doorway. "There is…another option. Swear yourself to me in the Ancient Language, cooperate, and things can be much more comfortable."
Harry burst into derisive laughter.
Durza was annoyed. "None can withstand Galbatorix. I doubt you will last even a week with me. You are no elf." He reached out and pinched the top of Harry's ear.
Harry flinched, recoiling from Durza's touch. His skin was cold and clammy like a corpse.
"So squeamish," the Shade murmured. His breath was just as dead and frigid. It smelled a bit sour. "You should know, the only way to leave Galbatorix's service is death. I, however, have been known to release servants of mine I found…useful."
The door slammed shut. The lock clicked, then footsteps receded down the hallway.
Harry breathed a sigh of relief.
As his heartbeat settled and the active terror faded into dread, Harry berated himself for being so stupid and getting caught.
Why had he gone shopping in the den of an enemy actively hunting him? On the face of it, it seemed unforgivably dim-witted. Durza had never seen or smelled him, only heard him speak two odd words. It should have been safe. He should have been able to apparate. Why had Durza cast an anti-disapparition hex? According to Brom, the mere idea of teleporting should have been nearly impossible with Alagaesia's magic and the energy it would demand. Rotten luck forced him to confund the guard, which in turn alerted the magician who alerted Durza. It shouldn't have been dangerous. It shouldn't. To be caught as a result of such a trivial spell–
Harry sighed. Brom had been right again.
He would be lucky to escape this situation alive. Arya was about his only hope of survival. And if Durza had indeed unknowingly won the Elder Wand, death was no longer the safety net it had been. At least Arya still had the actual wand. Harry tried to grasp for wandless magic and felt it slip through his fingers again. He wasn't sure what he'd even do with it if he managed. Now that he knew to look for it, he could feel the anti-disapparition ward. It felt a bit like the way humid, low pressure air felt heavy before a storm. He kept at it until frustration and exhaustion sent him back to sleep.
Durza haunted his dreams as well as his waking hours.
Galbatorix looked much better. The two of them had built a shelter and a fire against the bitter weather. Durza no longer looked as wild, for want of a better word. He seemed composed. They were both still wary of each other.
"Now for your end of the bargain." Galbatorix licked his chapped lips. His hungry eyes flickered orange in the firelight. He seemed to hesitate, then shrugged his bag over his shoulder. He moved with infinite care, as if holding something utterly precious. "You deal in spirits."
Durza inclined his head.
Galbatorix opened the bag. He lifted a heavy object out slowly. He seemed to worry what Durza would think, but there was no concealing the desperation on his face. Harry frowned. He did not understand.
The Rider held up a hunk of crystal about the size of his skull. It was a dull, glossy purple, stained with blood and frozen gristle. "Show me how to bring her back."
Durza was floored. The expression didn't look right on his face, always so composed. "I–"
"You're a Shade, made from spirits that overcame a sorcerer who couldn't bind you, right?" Galbatorix demanded. "You know how."
Durza shook his head.
"No," Galbatorix refused. He didn't let Durza get any denials out. "You will help me. You swore."
"She's gone," Durza said. Where Galbatorix's breath made plumes of fog in the frigid air, Durza's breath was conspicuously invisible. "You should know this; if she didn't enter her heart before dying–"
"No," Galbatorix snarled. "I hold you to your oath. Whatever you can do–"
"Nothing," Durza snapped. "Nothing," he repeated. "Every magician knows; you can't bring back the dead."
"Spirits–"
"Are not the same thing." Durza stared at Galbatorix, daring him to challenge his assertion. "The void of knowledge the races of Alagaesia have on spirits does not grant you leave to conflate them with the beliefs of the superstitious. I cannot bring your dragon back to life." he repeated himself in the Ancient Language. "Nothing can."
Galbatorix shut down. Harry could almost see the gears turning behind his dark eyes as he worked to process the information, his denial confronted with the unassailable truth of the Ancient Language. For several minutes Durza and Harry both watched Galbatorix try to grapple and reckon with the awful, devastating reality that his dragon, his best and only friend, was gone.
Harry saw it in Durza's eyes, the moment he decided to take advantage of Galbatorix's vulnerability. He wanted to hex the Shade. "The Order must have been more foolish than normal to send you to such a dangerous place." Durza's tone was perfectly modulated. A bit disdainful, innocent, curious.
"They didn't send us to the ice sheets," Galbatorix said without thinking. He gazed into the fire.
Durza waited patiently. The fire crackled and popped.
"What do you know about black dirt and evil dreams?" He asked.
The Shade's expression gleamed with triumph. Galbatorix turned to look at him. Durza was quick to hide his expression. "Them," he snarled. Harry got the sense he was only half faking outrage.
Galbatorix raised a brow.
"What you did for me, one of them tried to hold over my head in some attempt to have me as a tool," Durza said. "I left when I realized they had no intention of abandoning their only leverage."
"So you know of them?"
He shook his head. "Only as much as the Rider Order certainly knows: they are very dangerous, and certainly not the sort of evil to send new recruits after."
The moment of silence stretched on. Galbatorix looked so lost. Harry recalled what it was like to speak mind-to-mind with Eragon and Saphira when they were flying off the shore. To be linked like that constantly with someone for years, and then have that ripped away–
Harry very much sympathized with Galbatorix.
All too soon he was waking back up to a nightmare.
Guards dragged his arms behind his back while he was still waking up, locking shackles on his wrists. "What– hey, what the fuck–"
They forced him upright. His cell felt tiny and crowded with three extra people in it crowded around him, pushing him towards the door.
Harry struggled, but the guards were unyielding. Two of them acted almost robotic, staring straight ahead down the narrow hallway and avoiding looking at him. The third was a handsome man with a dangerous glint in his eyes. "Fight," he urged with dark amusement. "The elf lost the will to struggle quickly. Or maybe Durza never left her in any condition to try after the first time."
Fear and fury mingled in Harry's chest. The guard read his face, grin widening.
The halls were narrow. He was shoved down a spiraling stairwell, all the while a guard gripped the chain that connected his shackled wrists. Harry felt panic crawl up into his throat. The morning daylight was gone, replaced by torchlight and dark halls. An imposing door stood at the end. Some animalistic part of Harry knew that allowing himself to be forced through that door would be terrible beyond words. He dug his heels in, shoved himself sideways against the guards, tried desperately to cast a wandless unlocking spell on his wrists, all to no avail.
The robotic guards handled it all with blank professionalism. The third watched with mounting glee.
Out of base terror and desperation, Harry threw caution to the wind. He did his best to let his image of the dugout beyond the walls of the city fill his mind and twisted, yanking the guards once more–
His heart plunged. The anti-apparition ward.
One of the robotic guards fit a key into the final door and twisted it. Harry heard heavy tumblers click and thud. The door swung open on silent hinges. A blast of frigid air raced down the hallway. The guards shoved him into the dark room. Harry scrambled to his feet, but the third guard was already closing the door. With a wink, it slammed shut.
Red eyes opened in the darkness.
"Garjzla," the Shade whispered.
Flat, sourceless, shadowless white light illuminated racks of tools. In the middle was a rack with bloody shackles on all four corners. Durza smiled horribly. "Let's see if I can't change your mind."
Arya squeezed through the fissure. Her heart raced. What a fool Harry had been. What a fool she was, for not speaking out against it.
She went to take off the Cloak, but hesitated.
Durza had obviously found Harry with his mind. But she had been much closer to the Shade than Harry. He should have sensed her.
Yet he didn't.
Arya pinched the silken fabric between her fingers. She was familiar with human-spun silk. To an elf's fingertips, she could count every thread. She was familiar with elven-spun silk, a hundred times more fine. Yet even that she could tell there were threads in the fabric, even if they were too numerous to count.
The Cloak felt too smooth, like it was not woven at all. Yet she felt no creases or pores, nothing to indicate it was made from hide. No plant fibers, threads, nothing.
What was this item?
Nothing could hide a mind. Was that what Durza had meant when he accused Harry of reading from the Book of Tosk?
Arya resolved to continue to wear it. They had to be looking for her, didn't they? Why else did Durza seem so sure Harry was alone?
Unless…
A twisted smile touched her lips. Durza had seen it once before. After all, she'd done it right in front of him.
Arya adjusted the cowl of the Cloak over her head and set about collecting the things in the dugout. She wasn't sure how to collapse the tent, so she treated it like a normal one and uprooted a stake. The whole assembly popped off the ground and folded itself up.
She picked up the pair of toy horses off the counter in the operating room. They seemed so small in the palm of her hand. Without Harry, she couldn't leave. Except on foot. The Skilna Bragh was still in her system. The bezoars slowed its progress, the Wiggenweld reversed its damage, but neither could cure her. Could she make it to Osilon on foot with just her remaining doses?
Harry's remaining doses.
Arya shook her head. Sentimentality had no place in such a critical decision. She should leave. Mo–
Islanzadi, she corrected herself. Islanzadi needed to know that she was alive, who she sent the egg to. Nothing else could take precedence. The Empire hadn't recovered the egg yet. Durza loved to gloat. He would have told her in the Ancient Language the instant the Empire recovered it.
But would she make it? Running would keep her blood pumping, accelerating the poison's damage. Arya unrolled the medkit. The glass bottles clinked against each other.
Four green vials remained.
She assessed herself. Her skin was unnaturally pale and her veins had begun to darken again, but she felt well enough. Arya pocketed a vial and a bezoar. She rolled up the medkit.
She should leave. Things happened in war. Harry would not be the first casualty. Her mission was too crucial, her information too dangerous to risk recapture.
Arya cleaned up the rest of the dugout, stuffing everything into Harry's expanded backpack. She tried not to think about what Harry was going through at the moment, what she had just gone through.
She hiked the pack over her back and crawled back through the fissure into the daylight.
Gil'ead loomed ahead, an obelisk that dominated the horizon like a bad memory. Arya looked down at her invisible hands. She felt the strange toy horses in her palm.
"When you get mysterious, magical dreams about a woman being tortured that you might be able to save, do you just roll over and go back to sleep?"
Arya swallowed. She turned her back and started walking.
Harry clenched his teeth so hard he thought they'd shatter. His throat had long since gone hoarse from screaming. The smell of burnt flesh filled his nostrils. He shivered uncontrollably in the frigid room, his arms and legs strained. Every breath was a struggle; he had to pull his body together to inhale, an act which only sharpened the agony.
Durza chuckled. "For a human, you are resilient."
The Shade moved beyond his field of vision. Harry's mind threw up terrible, apprehensive thoughts. What sort of tool was he grabbing? There were no shadows in the room, no way to tell what he was doing. Just the flat, white light.
"Why so desperate for a 'servant?'" Harry gasped, flexing his core muscles for a precious breath. "Mad you lost the elf?" His tongue was bleeding from deep bites, as were his lips, but the taunt felt good. The freezing air made him shiver violently.
"Desperate?" Durza mused. "I'm not desperate."
"Then…why?" he forced out.
Durza was suddenly inches from his ear. "Because it's fun."
Agony exploded in his side. Harry screamed.
A slap to his face shocked him back into clarity. Durza was leaning right over him, eyes inches from his face. "No daydreaming," he scolded. "I want you to be lucid for this."
Harry struggled to pull his torso together enough for another breath. His limbs were on fire and he felt a million pounds heavier than normal. He struggled to fill his lungs with precious air, to silence his body's screams, urging him to take a breath. He struggled and failed. Panic began to set in. Black spots danced in his eyes, he felt his consciousness fading again–
Durza kicked a post under his back. It was narrow and uncomfortable and it had edges that dug into his skin, but Harry did not care. He gulped for breath.
"You've been tortured before," Durza observed.
Harry clenched his jaw. Bow to death, Harry. It may even be painless. I would not know, I have never died.
"I know it would spoil our fun, but I have to wonder: why do you so prefer to serve Galbatorix instead of me?" Durza was back behind him at the rack of tools.
"Said he was more powerful," Harry huffed. "Who wants to lick the boots of a bootlicker?" Wormtail came to mind.
Durza chuckled. "Of course. Where did you get the impression I was a servant of the King's?"
"Heard it said," Harry murmured. "You do his errands. Torture elves he wants information from."
"Brisingr," Durza muttered. Harry had come to know what that dreaded word meant. A moment later, he screamed as the Shade pressed the hot iron into his skin. It went on for what felt like an eternity. Harry writhed and struggled. His writhing knocked the post over beneath him and let him fall taut again, unable to breathe. Durza kept the iron against him until it had cooled off too much to burn anymore.
Harry shuddered as his cold fingers gripped his sides and lifted him up, raising the post again to support the small of his back.
"I torture because I like it," Durza corrected. He seemed a bit cross. "And it serves my purpose to allow people to believe what they will about the relationship between Galbatorix and I. But you should never forget; he is scarcely older than his fifteenth decade. He wields unthinkable power, but he is a novice. It was I who helped him take that first step to topple the old Riders. And when the time comes to topple him, I may have use of another human servant." Durza tapped Harry's chest with his fingernails.
Harry spat in his face.
Durza moved inhumanly quickly, catching the saliva with his hand. He tsk'd. "Are you hoping to enrage me enough to accidentally kill you?"
Yes, some traitorous part of Harry's mind begged. Durza retreated to the rack of tools. "You won't escape so easily."
Harry had never been so happy to lay on a slab of cold stone. His cell door slammed shut behind the guards. Every inch of his body was in agony, but he was so exhausted he thought he might fall asleep anyways.
A moment later, a set of footsteps approached his cell.
A deep and animalistic terror paralyzed him. Surely Durza was not returning so soon? That was exactly the sadistic kind of mind game Harry would believe he'd play. He nearly collapsed in relief when the metal meal tray came sliding under the slat.
Harry forced himself upright and collapsed on the food. His throat tasted like swallowed blood and it was dry from screaming. Even stale, lukewarm water sounded divine. He drank the water with weak, clumsy fingers and ate the gruel gratefully.
Laying back down, Harry prayed Arya would come back for him.
He slept fitfully. Every time a set of footsteps approached his door, Harry was woken with paralyzing fear, terrified it would be the same guards coming to take him back to the basement.
Harry did not think he could survive another session. It was almost worse than the cruciatus curse. The Unforgivable hurt far, far more, but when it was done, it was over. Burns, cuts, and bruises did not go away the moment Durza turned his attention away. And beyond that, the cruciatus lacked the animalistic fear of receiving wounds. It left no marks, no injuries, nothing but pure pain. Harry would never choose the cruciatus over anything, but Durza would make him hesitate. The feel of red hot metal pressed against his skin, burning and burrowing deep into his skin and muscles, it was a different sort of torture.
Another tray arrived beneath the door. This time, Harry hesitated before eating. His head still had not cleared, and magic was as far from him as it had been when he first arrived. Arya had been poisoned to keep her from escaping. What if his food was poisoned, too?
It tested his self control not to eat and drink when his stomach begged for food and his throat was so dry it was bleeding. He threw the food and water out the tiny window before he crumbled and ate it.
"Aguamenti" Harry chanted pitifully, pointing his finger at his open mouth. "Aguamenti." But magic eluded him.
Harry knew with dreadful certainty when they came for him. A squad of heavy footsteps that stopped in front of his door, the idle sounds of breathing and shifting armor, then a key stuffed in the lock of the cell door.
He flattened himself against the far wall. The same three guards entered, crowding around him. Harry squirmed and kicked and hit, but his feet and fists met indifferent armor. The third guard struck him on the head with a gauntleted fist, dazing him. The other two shackled his arms again.
The panic closed his throat and made it hard to breathe. He couldn't go down there, he wouldn't.
But each step the guards took dragged him one step closer. Harry tried to brace his feet on the walls in the spiral staircase down to the basement and resist, but the third guard delighted in striking the inside of his knees and letting him fall onto the stone edges of the stairs.
"I hear he's got a guest for you today," the third guard grinned, lifting Harry off the ground and forcing him deeper. "A genius, Durza is. You never know what he's going to do next. Knows exactly how to pick people apart."
Harry felt sick. The torchlit basement hall opened from the bottom of the stairs. Every step took him closer to the door at the end of the hall.
The moment the guards released him, Harry scrambled in an attempt to get out before the door slammed shut. He was half a second too slow, locked in the freezing cold.
"Garjzla," Durza uttered again. Harry blinked against the light. The rack was already occupied by a gagged, familiar old man.
"Unfortunately somebody is in your place. You remember this man, don't you?" Durza held a familiar bow between his hands. The maker's mark was stark against the flat white light. "Malthinae."
Harry's limbs seized in place as if hit by the petrification hex. Durza gestured and floated him against the far stone wall. An icy steel collar locked around his neck, the chain hardly two links from the ring mounted to the stone wall.
"Guilt is such a curious emotion," Durza said. He tossed Harry the bow. Out of instincts born of years of practice, he caught it. The collar jarred his neck. "I was human once, you know. Shades are made, not born. It was a very long time ago; I've mostly forgotten how it felt. Except guilt. I remember not liking that very much."
Durza plucked an arrow up and turned it over between his hands. "Some men are haunted by it. Others aren't so bothered. The elf seemed to be the latter. Which will you be, I wonder? Mordrin here sold Imperial weapons to an enemy of the Empire. That's treason, isn't it?"
Harry said nothing.
"Maybe Mordrin knew your allegiances. Maybe he serves the Varden himself." Durza traced Mordrin's bare chest with the edge of the arrowhead. Mordrin hissed through the gag as he left a thin red line beaded with blood. "Today, you will be the judge of his punishment."
Durza tossed the arrow at Harry. Barely, he managed to catch it. Harry immediately put the arrow to the string and drew it, aimed at the Shade's head. Durza's expression was amused, daring Harry to shoot him. Mordrin's eyes were wide with fear.
With a sinking feeling, Harry realized Durza was too quick to be shot.
"I choose to let him go free," Harry said quickly.
"Justice must be served," Durza chided. "I shall help you overcome your…indecision."
Harry tried to shut out the screams. But the old man had been struggling to breathe before Durza ever got started. From the outside, Harry was sickened by what Durza looked like while he worked. He was excited.
Mordrin's gaze turned to begging, staring down at Harry, pleading.
Harry knew he was not begging to live.
Despising himself, Harry drew back the bow. The old man gave a tiny little nod. Harry closed his eyes.
"Don't miss," Durza said with a cruel smile.
Harry opened his eyes and put the arrowhead right over Mordrin's head. He was about to release the arrow when his sixth sense perked up. Somebody wearing the Cloak was just on the other side of the door. He held the string drawn and waited.
Somebody knocked at the door. Durza frowned and turned to look. In that instant, Harry released the arrow. It whistled across the room, passing inches over Mordrin's body, and sank into Durza's shoulder.
The Shade spun on Harry with a hateful glare.
Another knock on the door.
Furious, Durza stalked to the door and ripped it open. A guard was standing there, looking a bit nervous. "If you do not provide me with an excellent reason for disturbing me, you will take his place," the Shade snarled, pointing back at Mordrin. The guard paled.
"Yes sir. Gishin was just killed. She just collapsed, blood spilling from her mouth."
Durza glowered. He whirled to stare at Harry and Mordrin in the freezing room. He raised his hand towards Harry. "Slytha."
For whatever reason, the spell had no effect. The instant he realized, Harry slumped and feigned sleep. The collar choked his neck, but he could only hope Durza would notice it quick enough.
"Ládrin," Durza scowled, and the collar popped open. Harry forced himself to go boneless and take the fall, resisting the instinct to guide his fall to be less painful. He slammed into the stone floor, suppressing his wince.
The Shade's voice went low. Harry strained to hear. "You will watch these two with your life. The younger one especially. If either of them escape, you will take their place on that rack. You will stand here in this spot until I return. You will leave for no reason whatsoever. If this place catches fire, you will stand here and die obediently, for if you do not, I will find you and make you wish you had. Understood?"
The soldier swallowed and nodded.
"Good. Now where?"
"Out front on the thoroughfare," the soldier whispered.
Durza stalked away without another word. The soldier stood fastidiously at the cell door until Durza was out of sight beyond the stairs.
His head fell off. Blood rushed from his neck. Harry jumped back in horror. Arya threw off the Cloak and wiped the blood from Durza's sword. Its long, deep scratch glinted in the torchlight.
"Let's go." Arya handed Harry a vial and a bezoar. Harry slapped the bezoar to his mouth first. His mind immediately cleared. The Wiggenweld healed the worst of his injuries.
"Why'd you kill him?" Harry hissed.
Arya gave him a strange look, handing over the Elder Wand. "You heard Durza. It is mercy." Her dark green eyes fell upon Mordrin, who was watching and listening wide-eyed. Harry saw it in her eyes before she moved, walking towards Mordrin with Durza's blade.
"Are you crazy?" Harry demanded, leaping between her and Mordrin.
"For the same reason," the elf uttered.
"No," Harry refused.
"The only way he is not subjected to the same torture is to take him with us–"
Harry flicked the Elder Wand. "Stupefy. Obliviate. Homofors." The old bowyer shrank down into a doll. It took longer than it ought to have, like the wand was fighting him. He snatched him up. "Let's go."
Arya didn't waste time arguing. She handed him his backpack. Harry put it on the ground and pointed at it. "Accio boots. Accio, accio." He stuffed his feet into the boots and snatched up the two vials. Popping the cork, Harry dropped the hair in one vial into the murky liquid in the other. It turned an inoffensive shade of red.
He threw it back and shuddered as the polyjuice took effect. He didn't bother wasting time stripping the guard Arya had killed for a uniform. He simply transfigured his own clothes to match, then slung his bow over his shoulder. The Elder Wand was fighting him. It felt even worse than the blackthorn wand he'd stolen from Snatchers a couple of years ago. "Did you empty the dugout?" Harry whispered.
Arya nodded. She adjusted to his change in form remarkably quickly.
"Then we just have to get away from Durza." If distance affected the price of magic, Durza's anti-disapparition ward had to have an edge. His voice was changed by the change in form.
She put the cowl back up and the two of them started back up the stairs. Harry kept the wand hidden in his sleeve. If they encountered Durza, he could not risk losing it.
He marched like he belonged. He passed by several guards unchallenged like that. "Where is the exit?" Harry muttered through the corner of his mouth. Arya relayed directions. He followed them for two turns before the exit came into view, a cluster of checkpoints and guards blocked by a crowd. Harry caught a glimpse of crimson and abruptly changed directions.
"New plan," he whispered. "Opposite side of the building."
Arya gave him new directions. They climbed the stairs to the very top and headed down the hall to the guard room. There were half a dozen men in there. Four of them played cards on a table, the other two sat at another table doing paperwork. They all perked up when Harry entered wearing someone else's face. Confiscated weapons hung from pegboards mounted on the walls. Arya crossed invisibly to the far wall of weapons. There was an unusual set of weapons hanging there, a bow and sword.
"Captain Tabard?" one demanded. "The hell are you doing here?"
Harry thought furiously. "I was summoned to give my report on the man my search party encountered a few days ago."
The other guy at the desk frowned. "You already did." he rose warily and rested his hand on the pommel of his sword. "Tell me the truth. You should be in the Ranger's barracks right now."
"Stupefy." The first bolt caught him by surprise. Harry was quick to stun the rest of the guards. He followed with obliviations, fighting the Elder Wand all the way. At some point, Arya's weapons had winked out of visibility.
"We don't have time," Arya whispered urgently. "What does obliviate do?"
"Erases memories," Harry said shortly.
"Well, what a fascinating ability."
Harry's heart sank. Durza stood in the doorway with a gleaming naked blade in his grip, some borrowed sword. "You must tell me all about it."
Panicked, Harry twisted, focusing on the dugout. He rebounded off the wards.
Durza chuckled. "Captain Tabard, how unexpected. I had no idea you were a magician. You must know my newest prisoner; it seems everybody knows the transport spell these days."
Harry summoned a sword from the rack of weapons, remembering at the last second to say "Kausta," aloud. Durza laughed and strode forwards.
The instant their blades met, it became obvious that Durza was toying with him. Even while invisible, Harry had barely managed to survive the Shade. Injured, afraid, exhausted, and in an unfamiliar body, he stood no chance. Durza's sword was a web of glimmering steel that forced Harry to back up over and over. Durza kept coming, walking forward lazily as he slashed, blocked, and parried. He was an unstoppable, inescapable force.
"Shall I assume you were responsible for Gishin's death?"
Harry's brain stuttered for a moment while he tried to understand what Durza meant. "Y-aye," Harry stumbled over himself to use the right dialect of English.
Durza backed him against the wall. With a ring of steel, he struck Harry's sword from his hand and grasped him by the front of his breastplate, pushing him up against the wall and off the ground. Harry struggled to breathe through the pressure on his chest.
Harry heard the clatter of a thin stick of wood falling on stone. His heart stopped.
Durza sensed his panic. The Elder Wand had fallen from his sleeve and clattered on the ground. The Shade glanced down curiously. "What is this?"
The world seemed to slow to a crawl. Harry didn't know how he knew it, but he knew that the Wand was waiting for Durza. He could have sworn the pale stick of wood vibrated a bit. Durza stooped down to pick it up. His fingers outstretched, the wand wiggled, one end lifting off the ground by an inch or so, as if magnetized to the Shade.
Harry kicked Durza in the chest as hard as he could. Durza caught his leg and wrenched it to the side, drawing a gasp from Harry.
Harry saw his pale fingers outstretched, just like Voldemort's–
Durza reacted. He dove to the side. Dark blood drenched the space he had just occupied. He scrambled to regain his footing, but he was too late. Durza seemed to know it, too. Harry watched bewildered as the Shade seemed to lean into Arya's invisible strike, catching it on his neck rather than his chest.
He burst into a cloud of black smoke. Ethereal howls screamed in his ear, heard as if through a long concrete tunnel. The temperature in the air plunged, arctic air lashing through the guardhouse. The blackness clustered around him. Harry felt it wrap around his body, whirling and pressing down on him, choking him. The smoke pressed against his lips like a thousand ravenous fingers, trying to pry it open. Harry felt an ache in his chest, like some part deep inside him was reacting to Durza, whether in revulsion or eagerness, he could not tell.
Harry summoned the Elder Wand off the ground and pointed it at himself, incanting as powerfully as he could in his head, pushing through a suddenly much more cooperative wand. EXPECTO PATRONUM!
White light haloed his head and shoulders. Warmth chased away the cold, radiant beams of white and silver light filling the guardhouse. The smoke dissipated like salt in water.
"We need to go before the other magicians reach us." Arya pulled down the hood. Suddenly, her swords were visible, Durza's in one hand, the leaf-shaped one that had been on the pegboard in the other. Durza's was covered in dark, almost black blood. The grooved scratch was filled in and dripping down the tip onto the flagstones next to the slowly spreading puddle beneath where the Shade had stood.
Harry thrust the Elder Wand at the wall of the guardhouse behind him. Reducto.
The fitted stone blocks turned to sand. A bombarda blasted the grains away. The breeze outside blew some sand back into their eyes. Harry blasted them away too with the ventus charm. He peered over the ledge. They were three storeys off the ground. Arya joined him. Below, walls surrounded the compound two dozen feet from the wall. "Can you make the jump?" he asked her. Arya nodded.
Harry backed up. He heard men clamoring up the spiral stairs. Harry took a running start, sprinting towards the edge and leapt off into the air. His enchanted boots gave him superhuman speed and height. He sailed through the air, wildly overshooting his target. He flew right over the street on the east side of the city and nearly smashed into the wall of a house on the opposite side.
He sensed Arya land in the center of the street, much more familiar with superhuman abilities. "Give me your hand," he urged. He felt Arya's invisible grip close around his extended palm. Harry fixed his destination in mind and twisted.
He rebounded off the same anti-disapparition ward, jerked back as if yanked by a bungee cord around his chest.
"What are you doing?" she demanded. Harry rubbed his head.
"Trying to get out of here. We have to get beyond the wards."
Arya clearly didn't understand, but followed obligingly as Harry began to sprint towards the lakeside gate towards Lake Isentar. His boots let him accelerate to superhuman speeds. Arya managed to keep pace. Arrows hissed past, but they were both running faster than any archer would be trained to hit, and the archers were hesitant of collateral damage in the crowded street.
Guards who had heard him blast open the wall of the guardhouse tried to block their way. Harry was liberal with his stunners, dropping whichever guards were unlucky enough to get directly in their path.
"They're closing the gate," Arya warned. Ahead, the portcullis had begun to lower and block their path. There was no way they'd make it in time, and the wall was far too high to jump. Harry shook his head.
"Keep going." He hoped the spell he had in mind would be enough.
Harry heard a faint shout lost over the wind of their sprinting. Arya staggered, nearly tripping at thirty miles an hour on the paved road.
"Keep going," she repeated to him, recovering.
Harry almost missed a guard who leapt out from an alley at the last moment with his pike outstretched. Harry never saw Arya. The guard just seemed to fall into three big pieces. He averted his eyes and poured on the last bit of speed. The gate loomed and they were about to be too close to stop in time. A line of cavalry stood in front of the portcullis, spears outstretched.
He aimed for a spot just above and behind the guards. Please, he begged the Elder Wand. Just one good spell. BOMBARDA MAXIMA!
A fat slug of citron yellow light winged towards the reinforced iron portcullis. It struck hardly a foot above the heads of the horsemen. A massive explosion shook the ground, the shockwave striking them like a slap across the whole front of their bodies. The guards and their horses were thrown outwards like broken toys. Harry flinched away from the splintered head of a spear that came flying towards them.
They bounded over the pile of bodies, rubble, and twisted metal. Harry offered his hand again. Arya grabbed it. A moment later, they twisted into the void.
Credit to Scarze for beta'ing this chapter
AN: In so many MoD!Harry fics, the issue of the Elder Wand is never even considered. People either have Harry never lose a single fight, or losing fights never ends in a clear 1v1 'defeat,' or the Elder Wand's allegiance is never considered, and it's assumed that Harry will have it forever.
I admit in the first posted version of Chapter 27, I did not address why Harry thought he was safe to go into Gil'ead. I had my own justifications, but I didn't make them clear so it seemed like a pretty fucking stupid decision to make on the face of it. I have updated that chapter in a couple of ways to make it all seem a bit less stupid.
And his capture being contrived; this is the first time Harry has ever gone up against a hostile magician. And it exposed a glaring weakness of his. This will be expanded on in the future.
I also want to mention (for anyone who reads the whole AN) that struggle is what makes victory satisfying. Trying to capture that in writing necessitates that you read through some uncomfortable moments for the main characters so when the good times come, they stand out.
Triumphs always feel greater when you have to work for them. Are you more proud of passing a test you never studied for and breezed through, or the one you struggled and studied for and managed to pass knowing it was your own effort that got you that grade?
When Harry finally comes into his own and finds his niche in this story, I promise it will feel like a greater accomplishment than if he had never struggled at all.
You wouldn't much appreciate the power of the Elder Wand if Harry never lost it, never struggled with it, took it for granted. If I ever redid this fic a third time, I would make sure to write him using it in the way it's meant to be at least once so the readers knew what he was missing, but you'll just have to wait and accept that when it happens, it's going to feel so much better than if he never had to work for it.