Bridges
Chapter Twelve: Bridge Reconstruction
Harry managed to make it out of the door without being noticed, although that meant that he had to crouch uncomfortably close to the fallen body of a colleague. Keeping wary eyes trained down the hall, he reached to feel for a pulse, and was grateful to find one, steadily vibrating beneath his fingers.
Not dead then, he thought, wondering what that meant. He slunk over to the second Auror to find that he was dead, wearing that all too familiar blank stare. Why did they AK one, but not the other? He wondered briefly, but decided to follow the sounds of the battle down the corridor, where, evidently, the Auror in Charge still fought.
He didn't really want to let Annemarie's door out of her sight. He still didn't know who had attacked, and how many of them there were. There were two older Ludlow brothers, and Annemarie had had two attackers. Harry still thought it a possibility that they had recruited others to the mission, but he also knew that the Auror in Charge was outnumbered, and probably needed help.
There was a loud crash and a muffled shout from a doorway about halfway down the corridor. Something moved, and Harry leapt up, balancing on the balls of his feet, until he saw several very frightened Healers peering from the door that led to the stairwell. Waving at them with his hand in an effort to signal them to get back, he began to make his way down the hall.
When he reached the doorway, he peered in to a sort of a laboratory, all smooth, clean surfaces, and glinting decanters of multicolored potions. Or at least, it had been that way before a duel began there. The Auror in Charge was pinned in a corner, but had a large, well-placed, square column for a shield. Harry watched him fend off the two men who were determined to destroy him, and paranoia made him dart a glance back to the corridor, suddenly terrified that someone had breached Annemarie's room.
The hallway remained dark and still.
It was then that Harry realized what was going on. They had hoped to incapacitate the Aurors, and abduct or kill Annemarie. Whether their reason for this was the fear that she could identify them somehow or that she was a half-Blood pretender who deserved to die, Harry did not know. But somehow, their plan had gone awry, and they'd been seen. And with the panicked desperation of criminals who would rather die than be caught, they had shifted their strategy to murdering everyone who stood in their way.
He took a bead on the one nearest to the other agent, and neatly Stunned and Bound him, felling him with nary a sound. The second attacker turned so quickly that his hood fell, and Harry stood squarely face to face with Augustus Ludlow, whom he recognized from reviewing Ron's case files.
The man's face was guarded, as he tried pinpoint Harry's uncertain outline, and, with swift, successive motions as he swung his wand around, he blasted a long, thick gouge across the ceiling, and narrowly missed Harry with a hastily fired Avada Kedavra that was very nearly a lucky shot.
Harry threw himself to the ground, his own hex knocked wide by the sudden movement, and muttered a profanity under his breath. He looked up in time to see the ceiling begin to buckle and collapse, trapping the unfortunate Auror in Charge - and the fallen Ludlow brother - beneath large chunks of plaster and cabinetry. He fired another curse from his prostrate position, which barely missed Ludlow, but did cause him to lose his wand. It clattered noisily away into the debris.
Harry slowly stood, preparing to restrain Ludlow, when the man suddenly lunged for him, grabbing at his wand arm and forcing it down as they fell. Whether he could actually see Harry or was hazarding a guess that someone stood in the doorway, Harry was unsure, but in any case, he was thrown to the ground with a much larger man on top of him. All of the air left his lungs with a rushing wheeze, and he heard a bone crack, as he landed with his right arm twisted beneath him.
Harry let out a grunt of pain, as he tried to stealthily maneuver his wand out from under him, using fingers that no longer wanted to work properly. He lashed out with his feet, kicking at his attacker, hoping to give himself some kind of leverage.
Ludlow raised a massive fist above his head.
"You killed my brother," he breathed heavily, and for the first time, Harry was afraid, as he noted the mad glint in his attacker's eyes.
"No, you did that by caving in the ceiling. In fact, you're two for two in killing brothers, aren't you?"
Lights bloomed behind Harry's eyes as the punch landed. He felt something warm and wet begin to trickle down his face. There was a look of disgust on Ludlow's face, and Harry took a stab at the reason behind it.
"Look at you," Harry made a tsk-tsk noise. "Fighting like a Muggle." He fought down a wave of nausea, as the bones ground together in his arm. His fingers struggled to shove the wand toward his other hand, which was occupied, for the present, with defending himself. "Your mother would be appalled."
Augustus Ludlow let out an inarticulate roar, and lifted Harry from the cold tile floor, evidently intent on hurling him into a heavy metal rolling cart that was parked nearby. As he did so, the wand rolled free, and Harry snatched his chance.
There was such power in the hex that Ludlow was lifted off of his feet, before being thrown down in a heap with great force. He did not move again. Harry tumbled unceremoniously to the floor, and blinked in astonishment at the magnitude of the spell, until he looked up to see Ron, standing behind Ludlow, with a squad of Aurors at the ready.
"Finite Incantatem. I always knew… we made a good team," Harry quipped, ending the Disillusionment and daubing blood off of his cheek with his left hand, as he shimmered back to normal. Ron offered him a hand up.
"You all right, mate?"
"Nothing a visit… with Madam Pomfrey couldn't cure," he answered back, gingerly favoring his injured arm, and tenderly touching his face.
"So it was the Ludlows, eh?"
"Apparently so," Harry replied, still somewhat out of breath. "The Auror in Charge is under there," he pointed toward the destroyed laboratory. "So is Edmund Ludlow, I'd wager. The Auror by the door is alive, just Stunned, but the other one is dead."
Ron's face flickered with sadness. "Holloway," he stated dully. The other Aurors fanned out. "Did they get to Annemarie?"
"No… no they never made it inside the door," Harry was confident, but then trepidation crossed his face. "Hermione must be worried sick. Hold this." He handed Ron his wand, and carefully opened the door, proceeding in hands first.
"It's over," he said, swinging the door wide, to reveal Hermione, wand sagging in relief from where she'd had it trained on the door. He nodded out to the team of Aurors in the corridor, swarming over everything, delving into the debris, and restraining the unconscious Augustus Ludlow.
"Thank Merlin," she breathed, and cast Finite on the contents of the hospital room. She looked at Harry as if she'd like to throttle him with a bear hug, but wasn't sure how it would be received.
Harry heard someone cry that they needed a couple of Healers, and was glad that the Auror in Charge was still alive.
"Uncle Augustus?" Annemarie's voice broke into the silence between them, and Harry looked up to see two Aurors Levitate him, unconscious, with wrists and ankles magically manacled, past her door. Her fingers trailed up to trace the scar on her cheek. "He - he did this - ? He … killed Mum and Dad? Why - ?"
"None of it is your fault," Harry reassured her, "It's very late, and it is a very long story."
Annemarie gave him a piercing look that made her seem far older than her years.
"I'm awake now."
Harry exchanged looks with Hermione, and she nodded toward Annemarie, as if to say, go ahead, I'm right here.
"Almost eleven years ago, the - the night you were born… there - there was an accident at the hospital, a - a mistake." He didn't suppose there was any point in ruining her illusions about the only father she'd ever known by spilling that he'd paid for a black-market adoption without the birth mother's knowledge. Another uncertain glance flickered toward Hermione, who stepped toward him, and twined her hand through his.
"Herm - Healer Granger and your mum were both in the hospital having babies… only a few minutes apart. And the - the babies… they were switched." He seemed to be having difficulty. Hermione's hand tightened in his. "Healer Granger thought her baby had died, and - and your mum and dad took you home. And for ten years, hardly anybody even knew."
Annemarie stared at Hermione as if they'd never met before.
"Then you're… you're my mother?"
Hermione couldn't speak, but smiled and nodded, as tears sparkled in her eyes.
"Why did - why did my uncles kill my parents?"
"I suppose they were angry; they probably thought they'd been tricked… deceived into raising a Half-blood as a member of a noble family."
"Grandmother always hated Mum. She sometimes pretended like she didn't, but she did," Annemarie said in a very small voice, and Hermione wondered what her home life had actually been like, wondered why on earth Peter and Tabitha had remained under the thumb of that wretched woman.
Annemarie caught Harry with another swift, penetrating glance. "If you're my father, then why weren't you there?" The question was clinical, without accusation, accepting the obvious without bothering to ask. She'd obviously not missed his singular possessive, when referring to Hermione, her baby, not ours.
"I didn't know about you. I didn't know that there was a baby at all, even one who died, until today - yesterday." He corrected himself absently.
"We did a lot of things wrong, Annemarie, and never dreamed there would be such ripple effects," Hermione finally spoke, sounding more like her normal self. "But we're working things out, and …" Annemarie's gaze dropped to their joined hands, and lifted back to Hermione. "When everything… with your situation… has been put to rest, we - we want you to know that… that you aren't alone. That you don't have to be alone."
A sheen of tears filmed over Annemarie's eyes, while she said, simply,
"Thank you."
Really, the emotional maturity of this girl was amazing, Harry reflected, as he felt that he was only seconds from losing it altogether. He did manage to betray only a hint of uncontrolled emotion when he said,
"I'm so sorry."
"For what?" The answers were apparent and plentiful, but she evidently wanted to hear which one he would select as most worthy of regret. His hand came down gently to smooth her hair, and his thumb gently grazed her marred cheek with the barest touch.
"Because when they found out who I was, they did this to you."
She looked up at him for a long moment, clear-eyed, as if assessing him, and he could see hints of Hermione around her mouth and jaw line. Her lips trembled slightly, as she felt his light touch over her scar, which, even if it physically faded, would always be present in her soul.
"If my uncles did this to me because I'm your daughter, then - then I guess it's a badge of honor, isn't it? Like yours."
Show me yours.
Harry laughed then, a sudden, disbelieving laugh that was more than half sob, and he turned away so that Hermione and Annemarie would not see him cry.
Harry shouldered the duffle bag, as he glanced around his empty room one last time. He didn't know why he should be so undone over leaving. She'd been gone for nearly a month. She'd Owled Ron a few times, but hadn't sent anything to him. She had made it more than clear how she felt.
And yet somehow, the fact that his room - their room - was now as barren as the one she'd occupied for such a short time made it seem that much more final.
He sighed, and wondered what the point of his move was, when he wouldn't be able to escape himself. Perhaps once he had settled down in Sydney and cleared his head, he could hash things out with Hermione.
He heard faint voices from the living area, and then Ron shouted down the hallway,
"Harry! You're going to miss your Portkey to the International Floo Station." Harry moved through his door; his fingers lingered briefly on the door handle, but he did not look back again, as he headed in the direction of Ron's voice.
"Can you believe I'd end up being the one reminding people they're going to be late?" Ron was joking to someone as Harry rounded the corner, and froze.
Ginny was standing there, a hesitant smile on her face, as if she was unsure of her reception.
"Hi Ginny," Harry said, in a voice that was more weary than anything else.
"I - I just wanted to say good-bye," she offered.
"Yeah…" He lifted his lips half-heartedly, as he reached for the small medallion that would take him to the Ministry for the Sydney Floo.
"Harry, wait…" she blurted suddenly, and he saw Ron slinking into the kitchen in his peripheral vision.
"Haven't we been through all this, Ginny?" He struggled to tamp down the rising impatience in his tone. She had been a constant visitor to their flat after Hermione had left, trying everything she could to restore her relationship with Harry, no matter how politely he conveyed his disinterest. "Do you really want to do it again?"
She flinched a little, stung by his words.
"I just - I hoped you'd stay."
"For what?" he asked quickly, brutally. She took a half-step backwards.
"She left, Harry! I don't know what happened, but she's gone. You don't have to face her or anything. Why do you have to leave too?"
"I can't stay here." If I stand still, I'll drown. Hermione had understood, but not Ginny… never Ginny. "Not when she - not when I thought - " He closed his eyes, and swore. "Damn it, Ginny. Can't you leave well enough alone? Must you insist on tormenting me?"
"Tormenting…?" She seemed taken aback, hurt by the word he'd chosen, but growing awareness dawned in her eyes. "Merlin's Beard, you are in love with her, aren't you?"
He averted his eyes, unwilling for her to read the truth in his face. He heard Ron clattering happily in the kitchen, humming a snatch of a tune that sounded vaguely like "Weasley is Our King."
"I thought it was just a fling," Ginny said, more to herself than to him. "Harry, I-"
He waved off her pleading, irritated by her mere presence, and thoroughly uninterested in whatever she had to sell him.
"It doesn't matter what you thought, or didn't think, does it? Or what I think. She's left no room for doubt. And I'm not going to sit around here mooning after her, while you moon after me." Ginny flushed crimson, but Harry plowed on. "I'm going to Sydney, and I don't know when I'll be back, or if I'll be back." He stepped toward her, and gave her a perfunctory kiss on the cheek, as if obligated. "As long as you understand that what was between you and me is in the past - that it will never happen - you're welcome to Owl me. I do mean that." He seemed to be trying to belatedly soften his abrasive words.
Ginny nodded noncommittally; now she was refusing to look at him. Harry checked his watch.
"Later, Ron!" he called out. Ron peeked out from the kitchen, with a half-eaten sandwich in one hand and a mouth full of food.
"O revore, mate," he returned cheekily. "Have fun in Oz."
The hook caught behind his navel as he closed his hand around the small, gold disc, and he was whisked away, trying to pretend he didn't care and trying to blot her out of his mind… and failing miserably.
Harry awakened with a jolt to full sunlight streaming in the corner windows in the flat the Trio had once shared. His arm ached only slightly at the site of the healed break. He and Hermione had come there in the wee hours of the morning, conjured separate beds in their old rooms, and gotten straight into them without much conversation. He had slept so deeply that it seemed more like a coma, but, as he roused, the memories hit him with all the force of the Hogwarts Express.
Annemarie. The attack. The Ludlows. Where's Hermione?
He took a hasty shower, and cast a Refreshing charm on his clothes before putting them back on. When he left his room, he found Hermione leaning on the kitchen counter, nursing a steaming cup of coffee.
"Morning," he greeted her in a growly voice. She responded by sending a second cup sliding down the counter top toward him, with one wand-stroke. He inhaled the strong aroma, and felt his nerve endings begin firing a little more efficiently.
The silence stretched out, and seemed weighted with all their worried musings on the sudden ways their lives had changed in the last twenty-four hours. Harry wasn't sure what to say, and his mind was occupied in racing through the events of the night before.
Hermione opened her mouth to speak, at the same time that they heard the familiar sound of rushing flames in the grate.
"Harry, you here?" Harry heard Ron's voice, and came fully into the living room, greeting his oldest friend's floating head, by lifting his coffee mug in a kind of salute. Ron smiled in reply, but his eyes looked very somber.
"Something's come up," he informed Harry. "You probably ought to come on down to the Ministry."
"Is something wrong with Annemarie?" he asked quickly, and saw Hermione pop around the corner, radiating worry.
"She's fine. Ate breakfast this morning, and is still under guard as a precaution."
"Then what's wrong?"
Ron looked uncertain and worried.
"Just come down here, and let's talk." Harry acquiesced and rose, tossing back the last bit of his coffee.
"I've got to go," he said, half-apologetically.
"I'll be at St. Mungo's," she informed him, and he was struck by the casual intimacy of the act of letting someone know where you were going to be.
"We're really going to do this?" he wondered aloud, as if amazed that it was coming to pass at all. She seemed to follow his line of thought, and met his gaze with large, luminous eyes.
"I hope so."
He kissed her gently, and, even as he looked in askance at the empty mantel, she was pressing a small packet of Floo powder into his hand. With a smile and a small, surprised shake of his head, he called out for the Ministry, and stepped into the flames.
He staggered only slightly as he exited the Floo, and met a waiting Ron, who began back in mid-conversation, without missing a stride.
"We've got Augustus dead to rights. Examination of his wand nails him as one of her attackers." Harry concentrated momentarily on squelching the urge for vengeance, and missed the next part of what Ron said. " - thing at all."
"I'm sorry, what was that?"
"We've dissected Edmund's wand as well, and there's nothing on it - at least, not anything that would be an Azkaban-worthy offense. Stunner on that Auror last night, and that's all. He's the right build for it, and we've got the circumstantial evidence, but - but we can't place him at the scene of Annemarie's attack. We talked to him at St. Mungo's this morning, but he's not saying anything."
Harry's mind was racing, as he crouched before the fireplace. It didn't make any sense. Why would the brothers have attempted to attack Annemarie the second time, but not the first? If Edmund wasn't involved, then who was?
They arrived in Ron's office, and each took seats. Ron shuffled the wand paperwork, as Harry slid the box of evidence out of his way with one foot. The leather bound ledger fell out, as he did so, landing on the floor with a dusty thwack. He picked it up, and placed it back atop a red volume entitled, Ritual Blood Ceremony, without paying much attention. Ron was handing him the results on Edmund's wand.
"Nobody can sanitize a wand that completely," Harry said, wanting to doubt what his own eyes were reading. "There are always traces."
"Then maybe he wasn't involved," Ron offered. "He'll be charged with unlawful entry and assault for what happened at St. Mungo's, but he won't do much time."
"If he didn't do it, then that means we have no idea who else participated in the initial attack." Harry's eyes flashed, by way of saying that the situation was unacceptable. "What about the other brother? What does he say?"
"Well, Augustus Ludlow is completely nutters, to begin with. Been screeching all night long about a New Era, and some kind of rebirth. I think Spencer'd AK him, if we asked. He's had to listen to it for hours."
Puzzle pieces began to slowly assemble themselves in Harry's mind, but a complete picture eluded him.
"Where's the grandmother?" he asked
"I reckon she's at the manor," Ron answered slowly. "But there's no way it was her. She's seventy-five, if she's a day, and it was definitely a man down in Knockturn Alley…"
"Not her," Harry returned with impatience. "Not her, her wand. Has anyone examined her wand?"
"You think - "
Harry grabbed the ledger and threw it aside, drawing out the book that he'd only halfway taken notice of earlier. Ritual Blood Ceremony. He waved it in Ron's general direction. It didn't take the red-haired Auror long to cotton on.
"The mark on her face - ?"
"I'd stake my life on it. They might have been angry at the deception - that might have been part of the reason Peter and Tabitha Ludlow were killed - but they weren't upset about Annemarie's true origins. It was like a belated Christmas present. My daughter, my blood."
"What do you think they intend to do with it?"
"Nothing good," was Harry's grim response. "We'd better get over there."
~*~
Ludlow Manor was eerily lifeless, when a dozen Aurors broke down the wards, and Apparated in all over the house. Muffled voices rang in over Harry's earpiece securing various exits and rooms, and there was still no sign of the Ludlow matriarch.
"Do you think she went back to - " Harry asked worriedly.
"I just checked," Ron replied, meeting him in the large, grandly appointed parlor. "Annemarie is fine. Hermione is with her, Tonks is there, and we've doubled the guard."
"Then we must have - " Harry began, but stopped suddenly, walking over to a wall, and fingering an imperfection in the wallpaper. He slid one finger down the ridged surface, until he hit a notch and pushed. A segment of the wall, fronted by a large and ornate grandfather clock, slid to one side.
"Well done, mate," Ron congratulated, as he checked for wards, and wordlessly signaled two more Aurors to accompany them.
Rickety wooden stairs spiraled downward into darkness, but Harry could see fresh footprints outlined clearly in the fine layer of dust. As they neared the bottom, a dim green glow began to overtake some of the utter blackness, and they could hear a voice, rising and falling in a sing-song chant, words still indistinct.
They moved silently onto worn flagstone, when they reached the end of the staircase. The voice was louder now, and clearly female. Sizzle of flame and bubble of cauldron could also be heard.
The Aurors peered through an archway into a small antechamber. Griselda Ludlow stood there, her small form seeming even more diminutive as she stood before a hulking cauldron, wreathed in smoke and green vapor. Harry couldn't make out any of the words she sang, but would have sworn that the temperature in the small room had suddenly dropped several degrees. The chant built to a crescendo, and stopped abruptly. Mrs. Ludlow extended her arms over the cauldron, and flourished her wand. Something red and viscous welled up from the tip.
"Stop!" Harry yelled, without thinking, even as the substance fell. The single cool plop it made somehow overwhelmed the boiling sound of the potion, and echoed among the stones.
Griselda Ludlow looked up at them then, and laughed.
"You're too late." A wind whipped up from nowhere, streaming in their robes and in their hair, and it seemed to Ron that a discordant chorus of fell voices cried out within it.
"What have you done?" Harry cried.
Something shadow-shrouded, wraithlike and insubstantial began to rise from the cauldron. Harry's scar began to burn.
"Powerful bloodlines, opposing bloodlines… and I will be chosen to wield them as One."
"Two bloodlines?" Ron asked. Harry felt his vision darkening. The thing in the cauldron rotated toward him; what passed for its head seemed to be looking in his direction.
"I was Griselda Blackthorne," she stated proudly, drawing herself up to her full height. "But my mother was Marivella Gaunt, lost younger daughter to Marvolo, last of the Slytherin line and long thought dead."
Harry hissed in his breath, and Griselda smiled, a long, sharp dagger of a smile.
"Yes, Mr. Potter. Your blood - from that creature who dared pass herself off as a Pureblood, as a Ludlow, and mine - descended from Salazar Slytherin himself. Edmund should have killed her, of course, but he was unaccustomed to my wand - the Slytherin wand that he needed to use…"
A strangled growl burst from Harry's throat, and he raised his wand, but the thing surged toward him, with shadowy limbs and the hint of a gaping maw. He lifted his wand, but the spell passed through it harmlessly and shattered a small wardrobe on the other side of the damp room.
And then it was upon him, colder than death, sinewy and strong, though somehow it seemed to sift through his fingers, even while it wrapped around his neck and inserted a long projecting tendril of itself into his mouth.
Screams rang in his ears from a thousand lost souls, and there was cold and fear and he couldn't breathe, but wanted to gag. He felt pressure building in his face, and black points danced before his eyes.
Annemarie! He thought, Hermione.
Not Harry, something cried out. Not Harry. There was green light flashing everywhere, and lightning bolts struck behind his eyes. He saw his mother fall, he saw Tom Marvolo Riddle sketching his name in the air from letters of fire, he saw that which Voldemort had become rising from a dark cauldron in a graveyard, he felt the knife point of old stroke like acid down his arm. He wanted to cry out, but could not.
Somewhere far away, there was a distant clamor, shouts, and something that rang and vibrated like a struck gong. He could hear spellfire and shrieking; something was lifting him, and then - like morning mist burning away in the sunrise, the wraith was gone.
He sucked in a noisy gasp of air, and collapsed onto the flagstones.
"Harry!" He heard Ron's cry close by, and struggled to open his eyes. "Come on, Harry! Sweet Merlin, Hermione's going to kill me."
At this, Harry wheezed out a weak laugh, and Ron's image began to swim before his bleary gaze. He tried to sit up, while Ron cautioned him to move slowly, and began to make out the blurry movements of the two other Aurors, securely binding Griselda Ludlow, who was cackling like an escapee from Bedlam.
"What… the hell…?" He gasped. His throat was burning, and his neck felt like someone had tried to wrench off his head - which he supposed wasn't too far off the truth.
"The - the - whatever that was - it was still drawing itself out of the potion in the cauldron. The old lady's attention was fairly well fixed on you, so I - I tipped it over." He made a representative gesture with his wand, motioning toward the upturned vessel and the viscous substance now leeching into the cellar floor. "By the time she realized what had happened, we had her. And when Kenilworth snapped her wand, that thing - it let you go."
"What happened to it?" Harry wondered, eying the dark corners of the ceiling with trepidation.
"Split apart and vanished," Ron said, flicking his fingers outward. "We ought to get you to St. Mungo's," he observed, as Harry absently rubbed his fingers across his neck. "Whatever that was, it was corporeal enough to bruise you."
Harry was drained enough to succumb without an argument. As they began to climb the stairs, he heard Ron give Kenilworth orders.
"Clear this entire place out," he barked. "List Annemarie Ludlow as the beneficiary." Harry looked quizzically at him.
"That kind of Dark Magic?" Ron responded. "They'll not see this side of Azkaban Island again."
"Then it's over?" There was unadulterated relief in Harry's tone. Ron clapped him on the shoulder.
"I'll make sure of it," he said. They re-entered the parlor, and Ron lifted the lid of a porcelain box on the mantel, and tossed Floo powder into the flames. "St. Mungo's," he called out clearly. Then to Harry, "Go see your family."
Harry's eyes were fatigued, but his grin was broad, as he stepped into the emerald flames.
Epilogue to come…. Just a little something, probably fluffish, to establish what happens to Harry and his family!
Hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. The last scene especially was fun to write.
I've got the first couple chapters to the Shadow Walks sequel done, so after I post this epilogue, I'll probably start posting it.
Thanks for reading. You may leave a review on your way out, if you like.
lorien
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