Harry Potter and the War of Shadows, Book 3
A/N Here we go again, I must be insane. As is usual for my long fics, this will be R rated, so there's your
warning. Strong language, Violence, Sex and everything else will abound. The majority of the story as of the next
chapter will start about six years after the events in Harry Potter and the Lions of Gryffindor and its prequel Harry
Potter and the Darkness before the Dawn. If you haven't read those, then some of this might not make sense. As you
might have guessed since HBP is coming out in like 40 days as of this writing, this will technically be AU.
Rating: R (Mature)
War of the Shadows: Prologue
Prologue
*Chamber of Secrets, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Northern Scotland
"Your mudblood is dead Potter," The hooded man cackled, the red glow from his eyes growing brighter by the second. "She did not escape me a second time" Voldemort turned from the lifeless body, and turned back to him. Voldemort idly twirled Harry's wand. "I have your wand, Godric's sword is buried under the rubble and you are weak, so weak Potter, if you hadn't let me distract you with her fate you might have destroyed me. As it is, oh well, it is time to end it." The red glow illuminating his eyes grew bright as he pointed his wand at the feet of the statue, "OPEN" Voldemort hissed, but the words came out in Parseltongue. A panel appeared, with a carved channel that seemed to exactly replicate the outline of a sword, the very dark blade that Voldemort carried in fact. Voldemort turned back to Harry and idly pointed his wand at parts of Harry's body, as if deciding what part to torture first. "Shall I kill you now, Harry? Or shall I wait until after I have activated the chamber so you can see how utterly pointless your resistance was? Before you die."
Harry looked up with pure hatred in his eyes, but even so it did not consume him, for he knew something that Voldemort did not, it wasn't over not yet. Damn that's going to leave a mark. Hermione muttered in his mind, her thoughts colored with pain. He purposely put that fact out his mind, and on the job at hand.
Harry slowly, painfully, stood up, he could feel the ends of at least two broken ribs rubbing together and he panted with the pain. His eyes flicked to a spot slightly behind Riddle and with a last hiss of pain, a smile slowly grew on his face, and he laughed bitterly, "Tom, you just never learn do you, you have been trying to kill me for sixteen years, and you know what?"
"What?" Voldemort snarled.
"That power you know not, it's behind you."
"EXPELLIARMUS" Hermione bellowed, her hand outstretched, she had rolled onto her back, and fired the spell directly at Voldemort's back wandlessly, her sudden movement flinging blood from a gash on her forehead onto the stones below. A wave of pure force hammered the Dark Lord, Voldemort's wand and Harry's captured ones flew twenty feet from him. He started to spin towards where Hermione lay, her eyes glowing, panting slightly, blood plastering her hair to her forehead and staining the stones beneath her, but very much still in the fight when he froze, impossibly Harry had once again vanished from in front of his very eyes.
"Hello Tom." Harry hissed, and the Sword of Gryffindor danced. Voldemort barely caught the edge on his blade. A strike to the head, another to the body, both blocked. The clang of the ancient swords echoed off the walls. Harry struck again and again, each strike driving the Dark Lord away from the statue and his goal. Desperately, Voldemort fought back, his blade a shadowy blur, but in the end, despite his skills, despite his vast and dark powers, he was alone. A red stunner bolt snapped past his ear, he turned for an instant, and a silver blade hissed.
The Sword of Slytherin lay on the ground, his hand still attached. Suddenly the Chamber was still. The gentle drip of lake water, and the soft panting of Harry and Hermione were the only noises to be heard. Voldemort stared, amazed at the space at the end of his arm that used to hold a long-fingered gray hand.
A soft voice whispered in his ear, "Goodbye Tom." Eyes blazing blue, Harry snapped the Gryffindor sword horizontally at head height. For a long moment nothing happened, then Thomas Riddle's; Lord Voldemort's, head toppled from his shoulders to roll away in the darkness. Instead of blood, a weird green glow slowly oozed from the stump of his neck. Then in a blinding explosion of green light, Harry was knocked through the air, to crash into Hermione where she lay, several meters away. Both of their bodies seemed to be enveloped in a faint green glow, which changed to a brilliant white, before the glow was absorbed into their bodies. For a moment Harry could see the immense statue of Salazar Slytherin trembling, its feet cut out from under it by the explosion, then as the scene faded to black, he could see the statue start to slowly tumble down behind the body of Thomas Riddle, its fate echoing the that of the last heir of Slytherin.
***********************Somewhere Else*********************************
Somewhere, in a dank, dark cave, a crystal orb sat heavily on a black, wrought iron tripod. A pair of flickering torches was mounted to either side of the tripod, each burning with an odd, green flame. The legs of the tripod were shaped to resemble serpents, and the head of the serpents flared outward to form the mounting bracket for the orb. Without warning, the once dull, translucent white orb, flared bright. In an instant the orb was now a deep red color, as if the orb had been filled with fresh blood, and was now glowing, heatedly, like molten steel. The torches had all died with the awakening of the orb; the only illumination in the cave was now a dull red glow.
*************Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland**************
June 20, 2006
A sharp breeze blew off the lake, scattering light debris and parchments about the grounds. Up at the foot of the castle, the remains of the ruined Ravenclaw tower still laid at the base of the castle walls. Even the house elves of Hogwarts had not been able to totally negate the mess resulting from one quarter of the school dorms' destruction. Almost two weeks had passed since the tower had fallen, and the world had been saved once more. In the end, so many, too many had paid the ultimate sacrifice so that others; muggles, muggle-borns and half-bloods could breathe the air and enjoy the sun. And many more had risked everything, their lives, their loves and their honor to stop the darkness, at least for a little while.
Those heroes and heroines, had mostly worn Auror midnight, or Ravenclaw blue or Gryffindor crimson, and at their head three had stood against the night, and beat it back. One had held the line, leading a forlorn hope to give the other two that most precious commodity, time, time to fight and delay, time to destroy the one that had, in some way, cast a shadow over their entire lives.
The last pair, bonded in blood and bound by their hearts, had fulfilled a prophecy and with the sweep of a thousand year old blade, had freed themselves from the night. Or so they thought.
At the main doors to the grand keep of Hogwarts Castle, that pair stood in the company of another. A fellow traveler that had seen far too much darkness in his almost one hundred and sixty years, who had stood in their place after the defeat of a Dark Lord, and had known as well that it would never be over, had stood with the love of his life and vowed to go on, to live.
The sun shown down on Dumbledore, glinting off his half-moon spectacles and shining off his silver mane and beard. Fawkes the phoenix alighted on his shoulder and cooed softly to the pair standing with him. "So" Dumbledore smiled, his eyes alight at his favorite two students, former now anyway, and his newest granddaughter in law. Of whom one of the pair represented in both parts, while the other had already been the grandson that he had been forced to hide for so many years. "You will take me up on my offer? I admit that the place is not a vacation resort, but I promise that no reporter from the Prophet or the New York Seer will be able to get past the wards." Dumbledore motioned over the grounds, "unfortunately here, or even in Grimmauld or the Hollow, I could not guarantee that forever. Too many others know of their locations."
"I think it would be lovely, grandfather." Hermione replied, the fingers of her right hand, intertwined with those of Harry's left. She looked down at their hands for a moment and her thumb absently played with a platinum and gold band on Harry's ring finger. "We will be able to relax, and I hear that part of the States is beautiful." She frowned for an instant as her some segment of her prodigious brain raised its metaphorical hand. "You never did tell us, exactly why you owned a horse farm, even a magical one in Kentucky."
Harry's eyes flicked over to her and he squeezed her hand in lieu of a laugh, "Yeah you never did, I am not surprised that you have been there, but a farm..." Hermione leaned into his shoulder as Dumbledore chuckled, an old memory flashing before his eyes. Harry held her as his other hand ran though his hair, leaving it even messier than before. His disheveled mop fell back over his forehead, only partially blocking the scar that would probably never fade away totally.
Dumbledore's blue eyes laughed, "I was once your age, and much less adverse to risk." He chuckled out loud at a memory and looked out over the lake.
"Well?" Harry asked impatiently.
"I was in San Francisco in 1899, they had just passed a law outlawing gambling in the city, and Nicolas and I were out having fun. Nicolas was without his wife for some reason, and Anne and I hadn't gotten married yet..." Dumbledore looked indulgently at them, "Nicolas somehow got me into the last game of poker officially played. To this day, I don't know how, I ended up playing this gentleman from Kentucky. He had had the plantation since the end of the American civil war when he had purchased it cheap from a widow. He was out of funds and he put up the farm for collateral. I tried to refuse him, but he insisted, and said it was a point of honor. Since I very well couldn't deny that, we played, and I won."
Dumbledore reached up and petted his familiar, "it was only after I first visited the farm that I realized the man was a wizard. I arrived and there were unicorns and thestrals and pegasi everywhere. It is a very restful place, you can relax there for a while before you take the rest of your honeymoon." Dumbledore gave them a sly grin behind his beard, "and you two can easily apparate anywhere in the States from there."
"Thank you" Hermione said softly, only peripherally talking about their getaway. She hugged the ancient wizard.
"You're welcome my dear." Dumbledore muttered. He stood back and hugged Harry as well. Dumbledore held out a large gold key to Harry, he took it with a small smile, "this portkey will take you there; the wards around the site have already been keyed to you. I will see you in month or so, yes?"
Harry nodded as he stepped back from Dumbledore slightly. Hermione grabbed his hand once more as from out of the cloudless, blue sky, a majestic, snowy-white owl settled on his opposite shoulder with a soft hoot. A large ginger kneazle padded up and leaned against Hermione's legs, purring all the while. Harry and Hermione gave a small wave with their joined hands.
In a rainbow fall of light, Harry, Hermione and their familiars vanished with a soft pop. Dumbledore nodded at their passage and started walking towards the fallen Ravenclaw tower to check on the reconstruction.
Away at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, a cloaked figure lowered a pair of omniocculars with a grimace; the cloak was thrown forward to hide his face leaving only a few faint wisps of platinum blond hair to escape. On his right ring finger, a gold and onyx ring glinted in the gloom of the forest's edge, the stone inset with a platinum M. "Enjoy this respite, Tom was a fool. I will not underestimate you; I will take my time. You will die Potter, you, your mudblood and that old fool Dumbledore. And when you do, the world will be mine. But in the meantime, I wonder if I can come up with a way to remind you..." Malfoy trailed off, as a second smaller figure came up behind him.
"It is time, my Lord." The shadowy figure whispered, bowing low. "We have the orb, we are ready to open the portal fully."
Malfoy smiled darkly and nodded, he turned to leave, following the hunched wizard into the forest, along the trail that would lead outside of Hogwarts' grounds, and the anti-apparition defenses. "Good Barris, good, this will bind them to my cause irretrievably."
A/N: There you go; I'm back. I'm not sure what schedule this story will be updated on. But here we go. I'm
also not sure how long this one will be, depending on how I break it, it'll probably be either about the length of
Darkness with another immediately after or one long book. And yes Barris is named after the Dark Jedi.