As usual….well I'm never usual. Thanks to a Little Bunny for getting me to post this, and thanks to Lady Starlight for her work on this fic, It's been a while…
Chapter 45: Through the Shimmering Curtain
A pair of shadows resolved out of the darkness, emerald eyes blazing enough to displace the night. The smaller of the pair slowly bent down next to Emilia, her fingers stroking wet, dark curls away from her eyes.
"Mummy…I'm sorry-"
"Shh…" Hermione murmured, bending forward to kiss Emilia's hair, "You did your part, honey, let us take him now."
"We couldn't…he had Harriet-"
Hermione nodded again and flicked her fingers as she stood. Emilia's sword shot out of the darkness to drop into her hand, Hermione glanced around, and summoned Emilia's wand as well, from where it had fallen, and handed them to her daughter before slipping over to Harry.
The Sword of Gryffindor filled his hand, pointing down and away from his body, the blade still glowing brightly. Her fingers brushed his empty hand before she took a pair of large, gliding steps to the left, opening up the distance between them. She watched, her eyes blazing, as the Dark One pushed his way upright, and laughed.
"It's is too late, I have all of the powers of my sire, and my own, thanks to your son's little slut. You can not hope to stand against me."
A head of chestnut curls slowly looked to her right, meeting a pair of glowing orbs as she crooked an eyebrow. "Honestly," she growled, "Our children, held their own against you. What exactly do you think that we are going to do to you?"
Harry's free hand slowly rose to chest height as a sizzling blue-white ball of chained lightening danced on his palm, flickering in time with the fire in his eyes. He did not say a word as he let the power skitter and flow, well beyond any repartee with his foe. He started to walk to the side, the tip of the Sword ripping a fiery trail in the barren soil as the trio started to circle each other, waiting for an opening.
Hermione's eyes flicked to the side as Emilia steadied herself, gripping her sword, "No, Emilia, it's ours now."
"But, MUM…"
"You have done enough, Poppet," Harry said without ever removing his gaze from his foe, "There are still plenty to go around, go take care of the rest of the family."
"Done playing with the kiddies?" Voldemort taunted, and watched Emilia turn and sprint into the night. He did not even wince as she dispatched a pair of his Death Eaters that were still harrying the remaining kids who by now had retreated to a thin defensive wall around Harriet. A stone wall had been created around the stone table where the redhead still waited, and Emilia vaulted it to stand back to back with Rain.
The crash of Reductors from off to the right, where Luna and Ron were fighting a running battle, almost drowned out the remainder of his comment, "Shame, she has a rather nice arse."
"Yes, she does," Hermione retorted matter-of-factly, "but that is the last you'll see of it."
The Dark Lord smirked at her words, turning back to Hermione with soft, laugh, that eerily reminded her of another Dark Lord and another night a long time ago. "We shall see, Lady Potter," his words dripping with sarcasm. "Perhaps you shall join her in my bed, I admit, I have never had a mother and daughter, it should be...
A flare of blue light, forked and spiked, ripped across the night, sending him spinning to the side. His robe smoldered as he turned to Harry, whose wandtip was smoking slightly. "Did not like that Potter, afraid that I am more a man than you?"
"No, not really," Harry whispered, with a glance to the side as Hermione waved to one of the kids, sending them back, again, "I rather expect that I would hate to inflict the-boredom-such an encounter would impart to either of them." Harry resheathed his wand on his thigh, transferring the sword back to his right in the same motion. It slid to a low guard, the point trailing as one toe fell back, digging into the disturbed soil of the graveyard, "Let's dance, Lord Voldemort, and settle this here and now."
"Why, Potter, I would think that you are ready to die," A bar of silver danced in the remaining light of the few torches still standing as Harry vanished in a blur, racing forward to crash the sword into a suddenly reappeared one in Voldemort's hand.
Only a bare few individuals in the world could have followed the action without aid of advanced cameras or magical devices. Hermione and her children, of course, a significant portion of those, as they watched Harry and the Dark Lord duel. The Sword crashed into a dark blade, sending Voldemort staggering back. Harry, spun back, the blade arching down towards Voldemort's feet, only to find air as he leapt above it, striking back with his own blade, only to find the Sword already there, interposing itself between Harry's neck and death.
Blocking inwardly, Harry flipped to the side and sent a flaming filament towards his opponent's knees, searing the black cloth and raising a howl of pain. An emerald beam, sent with the sound of a thousand rushing horses retaliated only to shatter on a chunk of flying stone that raced to intersect it. Voldemort turned to the side, just in time to barely deflect the overpowered Reductor that raced towards his chest, sending it careening into the night as Hermione charged, her own blades flickering faster than the unaided eye could see, sending a steady wave of destruction towards him.
He spun back, gesturing towards the still-open portal and a fresh trail of black lightning raced to him. He gestured and it redirected, crashing into Hermione and sending her sprawling, her sudden scream of agony hammering at Harry's soul as he raced back in. Voldemort gestured again, sending the dark magic at Harry, and only succeeding in plowing a glass-filled furrow in the ground as Harry leapt twenty feet to the side, flipping over a line of stones and rolling down a small hill.
Mione? he gasped, and got back, a moment later a mental moan.
"Come out, Potter," Voldemort taunted and deflected a wave of Reductors sent his way from the few kids still in the fight. He did not bother to retaliate as he strode tauntingly towards the spot where Hermione had flown. An inarticulate scream of rage filled the night as he reached the sheltered spot only to find her not there, a few traces of bright red blood on a bare stone the only marks of her passage.
Here, Harry, Hermione replied a beat later, crouched in invisibility twenty yards from where the Dark Lord railed. Distantly both of them felt the fresh Apparations traces, as the reinforcements finally arrived and started to work inward, taking out Death Eaters, one, two, three at a time, slowly and almost inconspicuously pressing the fifty or so remaining ones, that had been concentrated on the kids, and ignoring the Potters as the Dark Lord had already commanded, against that deadly bulwark composed of Emilia, Sirius, Rain, Xander, Elliot and Abby, the still-functional ones that is. Honestly, she sighed, that's a rather annoying trick.
What the hell is going on? Harry replied, vanishing himself into intangibility and slipping towards the Dark Lord's other side, There's no--
Hermione's eyes flicked about, aided by magic she picked out details around Harriet, and then the portal and back to the Dark Lord. A sudden flash of insight, aided by years of research, and esoteric magical knowledge, He's used Harriet as an anchor to call, at the very least, Tom's magic to him through time, maybe more...he's reinforced his powers...
Is it enough?
No, Hermione replied darkly as she tightened her grip on her weapons, not with my kids in his sights, it isn't anywhere near enough.
In the darkness beyond where the main attraction was occurring, dark as it was, another, just as desperate battle was raging.
Luna spun, the Death Eater in front of her fluttering to the ground in a lifeless heap, moving out of the way of the green bolt from a second that she had seen pass this way a millisecond before. It went on to end in a cut-off scream as it hit a third, and a fourth died as Ron fired over her head, shattering the skull of an unmasked Eater with a Reductor.
"Move," he grunted, grabbing her collar with his left hand, which also held his wand, and pulling her to the side as he cut up and left, his short sword flicking out to a take a throat. His wand bucked, and a purple wave cut another pair of Eaters off at the knees, before he joined Luna behind a pile of rubble near the edge of the graveyard. "How are they doing?" he asked, not looking at his wife, as he picked of another Death Eater from cover and cast a shield almost with the same movement. A brief, unasked thought passed, regarding the casual ease that he cast these days and the despair that he had felt when he was his daughter's age about ever casting silently, let alone at the level he did now.
A thick, twisted blue-white beam raced from Luna's wand, freezing solid a Death Eater in mid-stride as he raced towards them. His momentum continued and he crashed to the ground to shatter into a thousand giblets. "That's going to be rather a mess," she remarked absently. Her eyes flicked to Ron, distant and almost empty as she probed the night, "Harriet...is bad," she whispered and even the soft, airy tone could not hide her bone-deep fear from him, "some of the rest aren't all that much better, really...Hermione just broke a couple of ribs, I think...And Tonks and Remus are finally here..." Luna winced as an Auror died out in the darkness, victim of one of the Death Eaters who had started to realize that the tide had already turned against them-assuming Harry and Hermione won; that is.
A few hundred yards away, a half-dozen Death Eaters sprinted into the woods surrounding the manor house and the graveyard below. They turned back towards the terribly beautiful lightshow filling the night centered around the trio fighting there, and stood awestruck for a heartbeat as a blue-white wave tossed the Dark Lord to the ground.
"We should go, Charles," a tall woman said, grabbing onto the sleeve of a Death Eater.
"How..." he moaned, seemingly ignoring her, "they couldn't have known...The damn Mudbloods and traitors..."
A soft crack of a branch breaking carried, somehow, over the sounds of battle below, and a single woman, dressed in black, with short, spiky inky hair stumbled out of the woods, and almost fell into the center of them. Every eater spun, wands extending, "At least we can kill this one," the woman said, "AVADA--"
Tonks' slight form seemed to melt away, to reform right next to herself, as she dodged to the side. The Death Curse shot across, killing a Death Eater behind her, just as she slashed her wand sideways sending a pair of silver jets out to drill neat, two-inch holes in the hearts of the Death Eaters who had spoke. She dove left, moving out of the way, and deflected a pair of Reductors with a conjured blue shield, dropping it even as she bounded straight up, her right heel spinning around to neatly clip the chin of another Death Eater, dropping him in a pile of robes.
A silver flash and she grunted as a Cutting Curse creased her side, and the scent of her blood filled her nostrils, and as she retaliated with a overcharged Reductor that collapsed the shield it was aimed at, and knocked another Death Eater out.
The scent carried to one other as well.
A scream died almost as fast as it began as a wall of silver-grey fur, white teeth and serrated claws rushed out from the tree line, tearing into the remaining Death Eaters surrounding Tonks. A splash of red nearly reached her, as she took another one out of the fight permanently.
Lupin turned from his target with a soft growling howl, tossing away an arm, and shrugged off a pair of Reductors as if they were Stinging Hexes cast by a first year. One long leap carried him into the midst of three more and his claws flashed to the side, disemboweling two even as jaws ripped out the throat of the third. The remaining pair tossed down their wands and tried to flee, only to be casually stunned by the Metamorph.
Reaching up, she did not even seem to notice the bits of blood and other matter on Remus' fur as she scratched him between the ears, and he sniffed at her, "Wotcher, I'm alright."
A wolfish grunt answered her and he bounded off into the night, racing along the tree line to catch more Death Eaters as they tried to escape, in this type of battle, he would be more effective in that role than any. Tonks watched him leave, and then dark eyes hardened once more as ten Aurors slipped from the night, all that she had been able to gather that had full gear.
"Let's go," she said and touched a rune on her shadow suit, and faded away.
Emilia ducked forward, just in time for Rain's sword to slice through where her eyes had just been, to continue on to send a Death Eater tumbling back a foot shorter. A flare of blue-white fire flashed from her off hand, shattering another pair of Death Eaters, and suddenly the area around the kids, was clear, the nearest fighting, her parents as they flicked in and out of existence, closely engaging the Dark Lord.
Hermione panted as she flicked her wand at the ground, changing it to a swamp beneath Voldemort's feet. He sank instantly to his knees, and stuck there as she swiped her wand again, making the ground solid. A whitish beam erupted from Harry's wand, deflecting around a silver shield that appeared in his hand.
A glittering dome of ice covered the Dark Lord, and Harry gestured to each side, summoning a pair of twin vortexes. The swirling winds instantly picked up small, shattered bits of stone, that ripped into the dome, shattering it into a trillion tiny chunks. Lord Gryffindor scowled as the mini-tornados vanished to leave only slowly melting chunks of ice and no Dark Lord.
He looked to the side and exploded into a long, magic-assisted backflip just as a stuttering fuscia spell shattered the ground at his feet. Pain flickered through his mind as he felt Hermione catch the nimbus of some unknown spell, and her silent cry filled his head.
Hermione's return rent the night with a long, white crack of lightning, shattering more grave markers even as the new Voldemort vanished in a dark blur. Hermione took a breath and jumped straight up, vanishing into the darkness even as the ground came alive at her feet, giant stone serpents oozing out of the soil to strike at her heels.
A wave of fire shattered them, and Harry ducked back behind a retaining wall. He bit back a grunt as the wall shattered next to him, sending a rain of small rubble to batter him. Harry dove out and away from the spellfire, and reached up, feeling the blood on his forehead for an instant before the pain and injury were pushed aside.
Seventeen years ago, Alastor Moody had remarked that the Potter's largest advantage, and greatest weakness were one and the same, each other. Back then, Hermione would have already rushed out to attack, to drive the Dark One back, not taking that femtosecond's pause to check on Harry's condition. But now…they had learned, and learned well.
Instead of the desperate charge, one that was still within both, but unneeded, Hermione took a breath and stepped into shadow, vanishing as a cluster of blue bolts roared from Harry's wand, sending a blinding lightshow fit to dazzle any onlooker, even a nascent Dark Lord fighting to rid himself of his greatest nemesis.
He smirked and cast a dark, yellowish charm, and a short chopped scream carried as Hermione tumbled out the air, to crash and roll across the ground, ending up with her side against a half-shattered headstone.
The newest Lord Voldemort lifted his wand, gathering the black lightning from the portal, it streamed faster and faster until a three-foot, spot of roiling eternal darkness floated at his call, "Let us end this, Potter, I have entertaining to do tonight."
Harry nodded slowly, and blinked a drop of blood out of his right eye, the Sword swirled around his wrist, "Actually, so do I…" Harry looked over to the right where Hermione was sitting, panting, and holding her ribs against a still-standing head stone.
"Too bad, Potter…I believe that I will have a touch more fun than you…Goodbye." He pulled back his arms, as if preparing to throw the vast ball of power…he froze as a slender sliver blade emerged from his chest, and a sudden spew of blackish blood erupted from his lips. "Wha…" he sputtered as the blade slipped out in another rush of blood.
He looked back and his eyes widened, as he found a head of tousled black hair slowly faded into view, almost hiding glowing green eyes looking back up at him, young hands still tight on the twisted wrap of his sword. Sirius grunted something and pushed the dark lord back with a hard kick, pulling his sword free in a spray of black blood at the even as the youngest Potter collapsed exhaustedly, his hand falling to his side.
Hermione grunted from near the tombstone as her veil that had been hiding her son's approach faded, and she pushed to her feet, her own blades filling her hands as a renewed vigor filled her bones. She took a step forward, her eyes brightening, "Die," she said softly and smiled darkly even as the Dark Lord turned at a soft scrape.
Harry exploded across the distance between them, his blade sweeping upward. A thunderous crack of light rent the dark air as the blade bisected the Dark Lord from stern to stem. Two steaming sides, like a rent, split cow stood for perhaps a half second…
A wall of greenish magic roared out, picking up both Potters and tossing them through the air backwards. Harry grunted as his head rapped off a root and his glasses tumbled away, only to have the world to darkness.
A/N: Ok, yep it's been a while, and honestly this chapter has been written for a long time, as certain folks know…Since I stated this book, my life has done about a 2664 (that's a 360*7.4) J Hell, we most of use didn't even have smart phones when we started this trip, so you can image where I'm at these days.
In a bit of self promotion, I have a completely original novel that I'm working on, so watch on certain giant booksellers for it…he he… In regard to that, is there anyone out here that would like to make a cover for it. You won't make anything off of it, unless you count a free copy of the book, or the ARC.