A/N: I will get this all into one chapter.
One address before we get into the action. A couple of reviewers asked how Draco was able to reveal the location of the Manor if it was under the Fidelus Charm. Take your pick…either it's because Draco lived there for 18 months (and a part of him considered it as "home" and thus would be allowed under the provisions of the Fidelus Charm to reveal its location) or Draco simply led Caliban to the general location and Caliban's inherent wizard-tracking abilities did the rest. It bears little weight on the story in the end.
I apologize in advance if my battle descriptions are somewhat lacking.
Chapter 31: Life and Death
Caliban merely smirked as he stared at Harry and Hermione, who quickly had their wands raised, and were certainly thinking to themselves how best to plot a defensive strategy. Caliban took one look at Harry, and quickly deduced that it would be best to separate the two of them. Alone, Potter would be vulnerable. United with the girl and he'd be much stronger, he easily surmised.
"Now now," Caliban asked with mock sincerity, "We have no quarrel here. Voldemort just wants to have a little chat with you Mr. Potter, that's all! If you'll just come along with me, I'm sure we'll have all this business settled in no time."
"Save it!" Harry exclaimed, raising his wand a little higher, and turning the corner of his eyes towards Draco to see what he was up to. To his surprise, Draco merely kept his gaze turned downwards, not making eye contact with either Harry or Hermione. Caliban glanced down at Draco as well, and smiled broadly.
"You'll have to forgive my friend here, he's feeling a little shell shocked after everything I've put him through." He circled Draco and put him between Caliban and Harry's wand. "You two are probably wondering how exactly I found you, right? Well you have Draco to thank here, he unwittingly aided me greatly. Of course you wouldn't have recognized him as he is now." Hermione noticed the word's used by Caliban, and focused greatly on Draco's demeanor. Caliban thought for a moment, and briefly allowed a silhouette of Colin's face to appear over Draco's still bowed head. Hermione's breath caught, and Harry lashed his teeth as he put two and two together.
"Where's Colin," Harry immediately growled, and Caliban's smile grew even wider.
"I'm afraid you'll find that Mr. Creevey is…shall we say…permanently indisposed." Caliban began to laugh loudly, and Harry stood by long enough. He launched a barrage of silent curses towards Caliban, causing the elder wizard to toss Draco roughly to the side and dodge out of the way. In one fell swoop he aimed his wand skyward. A yellow bolt of energy shot skywards and exploded high above their heads. Caliban immediately yelled at Draco as the yellow energy rapidly expanded downward in a spherical motion, "Keep the mudblood out of this!" He fired his hands towards Hermione, pushing her out of the way and beyond the yellow sphere.
"Hermione!" Harry yelled, rushing over to reach her. Caliban fired up a wall of flames to separate the two of them as the sphere collapsed down around them, effectively cutting them off from one another. Harry could see Hermione get to her feet from inside the dome, a faint shadow moving in contrast to the pale yellow glow of the sphere. He turned slowly as he heard Caliban laughing at him.
"You can't get to her I'm afraid. This sphere is specifically designed for dueling, to make sure that it keeps us in and, more importantly, others out. Don't even bother trying to find a way to take it down." Caliban twirled his wand around and removed his robes, revealing a black tunic and long black pants not so different from muggle jogging attire. Harry simply kept his gaze fixed on Caliban, loosening the collar on his polo shirt to allow for greater movement. "I have been looking forward to this Mr. Potter."
"You're going to pay," Harry cursed at Caliban as he knelt down and examined Caliban's stance. "You're going to pay for everyone you've killed. You're going to pay for killing Molly."
"Cousin Molly?" Caliban questioned. "I still don't see what the big deal about that was. For you maybe, it was a defining moment in your life. For me…it was Wednesday."
Harry's anger flared up at the dismissal and he immediately fired a sharp yellow curse towards Caliban, which he easily dodged. "Refracto!" The bonebreaker curse was fired in rapid fire motion by Caliban, and Harry ducked and weaved, dodging every single one of them.
Suddenly Harry stopped in his tracks and buried himself in the ground. "Reflectus Maximus!" A mirror-like shield appeared in front of him, and four of Caliban's curses immediately shot back at him, forcing him to run the opposite direction and dive for cover. Harry immediately stood up and pointed his wand at Caliban. "Reducto!" The blasting curse missed Caliban's feet by mere centimeters, blowing a gaping hole in the ground where he had stood. With Caliban on the defensive, Harry whispered, pointing to the ground, "Serpensortia!" A rather nasty looking snake popped out of his wand, appearing on the ground, which Harry knelt down in front of and quickly spoke in parseltongue "Bite him on the ankles." The snake nodded its head and Harry stood up, cursing himself that Caliban had seen part of the exchange. The snake slithered towards Caliban, causing the wizard to stand there, periodically dodging various hexes from Harry and reflecting some back with his own mirror shield.
"CONFUNDUS!" The snake was immediately confused by the massive charm from Caliban, who then conjured a silver axe out of thin air and fired it right at the snake, lopping its head off in the process. He glared at Harry, and both of them took a deep breath. "Very well done, I see the Dark Lord has pushed you to train yourself well. But how much of this is you, and how much is just your blood…how much is just the gifts of the founders…" Harry cocked an eyebrow. "You didn't think you could keep your secret from me, did you?"
"We all have secrets," Harry said, preparing for another assault. As he stared at Caliban, the familial resemblance to Dumbledore briefly crossed his mind.
"Very well done," Caliban said smiling, having caught the fleeting thought that escaped Harry's mental shields, "I am Dumbledore's son." The momentary gasp from Harry allowed Caliban to fire a piercing shot right at his shoulder, causing extreme pain in Harry's left arm. "Never let your guard down for a second," Caliban scolded, before launching another volley of curses towards Harry.
/ - / - / - /
Hermione watched with horror as Harry disappeared behind the golden veil that enveloped a good portion of the front lawn of Potter Manor. If she concentrated hard enough she thought she could see the silhouettes of the two wizards beginning to move around each other, and after several moments she began to hear spellfire. Frantically she lifted her wand, trying to think of a way to pierce the golden dome. A stunner flew across her field of vision, causing a small dent in the front porch staircase of the manner, and she turned and glared at Draco. "I can't let you do that," he coldly whispered, not speaking with the malice or venomous hatred she expected to hear.
"How could you," she angrily asked, barely speaking above a whisper. "How could you do that to us? To Ginny?" Draco winced at the name, and glared harder at Hermione.
"Don't pretend to think you understand this Hermione," Draco coldly replied, "I didn't have a choice…"
"THERE'S ALWAYS A CHOICE!" Hermione shouted back. "Whatever your problems we could have helped you!"
"Not after impersonating Creevey, even if it was against my…" Draco stopped, catching his emotions and breathing deeply. "None of that matters now…once this is over with I'm going to leave this war behind." He turned his head as he heard Hermione chuckle.
"You actually think that they'll let you go that easily? That's naïve, even for you Malfoy." Draco sneered. Hermione once again turned to the dome, "I'm going to help my fiancé, regardless of what you say." Draco merely raised his wand.
"You will try…" Hermione fired a cutting curse at the dome, only to have Draco blast it back with a counter curse of his own. Several more times Hermione tried various spells to get into the dome, and more of them were met with counters from Draco. Angry, Hermione turned her focus to the pale-skinned youth. Their curses began bouncing off one another in a well-timed verse of light and color. Hermione quickly analyzed the situation, noticing that Draco seemed to have fallen back on his old standby of simply using spells, and not utilizing footwork. As she began to dodge and weave around him, firing fewer spells while Draco began to magically exhaust himself from all the missed shots.
"Losing your grip Malfoy?" she goaded, but surprisingly not getting the intended reaction of Draco's anger getting the best of him. Instead Draco adapted, moving closer in time with Hermione's movements. Hermione still dodged more, being the quicker of the two, but Draco's shots began to miss by mere centimeters
Hermione finally began to fire off more curses of her own, finally catching Draco with a stunner that sent him spinning down to the ground, his wand clattering to the ground next to him. He slowly stood up, rubbing the dust off of his robes and picking up his wand, staring at Hermione as he did so.
"Nice try," he said, charging at her with reckless abandon. Hermione through up her guard, only to be blind sided with a sharp slashing motion with Draco's wand, cutting a deep gash in her left upper arm. She retaliated physically, landing a sharp jab to his abdomen and driving him back with a roundhouse kick to his chest, knocking the wind out of him. Draco flew backwards and ricocheted off the dome,
"You don't understand," he whispered, "This is all I have left. This is my last chance at finding my true family." He glared deeply at her. "I appreciate everything you did for me, but you were living a lie."
Hermione cocked her head to the side, "How much of it was a lie…and how much are you unwilling to admit was the truth?" Draco didn't answer. "Whatever he did…it wasn't completely recreating Colin. That was still you in there." She paused before she added, "She said yes, by the way. Ginny said yes."
Draco was floored as he felt a sudden wave of peace come over his being, which was quickly drowned out by abject fear and frustration at his choice. In fury he fired a massive curse towards Hermione, allowing all of his self-anger to boil to the surface. "Sectumsempra!"
/ - / - / - /
Caliban skidded across the ground like a stone across a pond as a rather powerful blasting curse hit the ground in front of him, causing him to repel backwards from the sheer reflective force. He regained his footing and jumped to his feet, a mixture of a smile and a snarl on his face as he both enjoyed the challenge and was frustrated by Potter's growing advantage over him. "I must admit," he said between breaths, "You're better than I thought." He dodged out of the way of a jagged yellow curse that could have severed his head clean off. Caliban stopped and stood, focusing his mind. "But I'm afraid the fun ends here." Harry tilted his head slightly, and stood in amazement as several clones of Caliban seemingly appeared out of nowhere. "Let's see if you can find your way through this!" The various Caliban clones began firing several shots at Harry, who dodged and weaved as best he could, deflecting the rest of the shots with a materialized shield with the four founders crests carved onto its silver lining. Still, he knew he couldn't maintain this forever. He had to do something to gain an offensive upper hand. He reached out with his mind and tried to find where the real Caliban was. Around him he felt the tendrils of legilimency everywhere, so much so that it threatened to overwhelm his senses. Off to the corner though he felt a tinge of emotion, anger and hatred, and he focused himself there, firing as strong a curse as he could manage. "Pecturis Subsisto!" He yelled, and Caliban barely had time to move before the heart-stopping hex hit him squarely in the chest, instead nicking him in the foot. He fell to the ground, clutching his chest in extreme pain, and frantically muttering a counter curse to the spell, causing his astral clones to dissipate. Harry didn't hesitate, firing five spells at once to try and finish off Caliban. Caliban dodged two, the other three hitting him in various places and causing him extreme pain and gashes to form all along his body. He once more slid against the dirt, picking up speed till he slammed full bore into his own dome. He fell forward, sitting on all fours, his breath labored and his mind practically spent.
"It's over," Harry said quietly, his wand shaking from his own anger at this man as he pointed it straight at him. Surprisingly Caliban looked at him with almost a hint of triumph in his eyes.
"So it is Potter," he said in a voice nearly gleaming with pride, "So it is. The question is, do you have what it takes to do what is necessary?"
"You saw what I did to Crabbe and Goyle," Harry answered back, his gaze never wavering.
"But I have enough left in reserve to keep going if you use pedestrian curses like that. We both know there's only one thing that will stop me for good." Harry didn't notice the sleight of hand as Caliban pulled a small object from his belt. "Certainly you inherited enough of Slytherin's heritage to be able to cast the spell. So why don't you get your revenge here and now? I'm willing to bet you can't. That you're just as weak as your parents and godfather before you." Harry's anger spiked. "We both know you're merely delaying the inevitable. If you can't utter those two little words and really mean it…then you'll never win in the end. And everything…and everyone you care for will be nothing but a memory!" Harry willed his hatred forward.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Harry watched the green jet soar out of his wand, but instantly felt a draining sensation out of his body as Caliban stood up and blocked the killing curse with a small gem. Caliban laughed madly as the curse was stopped dead in its tracks, and Harry felt his strength quickly ebbing away from the maintained connection. Frantically he tried to break the spell, but found himself unable to move his arm, the connection a fully established, nearly unbreakable link.
"Poor Harry," Caliban said, his maniacal laughing fading away as Harry fell to one knee, "Giving in to hatred the one time you shouldn't have. Such is irony…" Harry grimaced and forced himself back to his feet, suddenly getting an idea from the back of his mind. "What are you doing?" Caliban asked, his eyes going a bit wider at the change of events. Harry's yelled as pain wracked his body and he forced his way forward. Caliban held his ground, still trying to keep the gem fully intact; feeling it begin to shake from the overwhelming amount of power it was absorbing. He howled as the he heard a small crack, and then a loud boom as the gem was overloaded with power and exploded into a thousand pieces, sending both Harry and Caliban flying sky-high. The dome surrounding them crackled with energy and shattered just as the gem had, and both Harry and Caliban landed with a thud.
Draco turned and looked at the both of them, as did Hermione from her position on the ground as she lay, wrapped in chains, blood lying in a pool from a wound on her leg. She screamed, "Harry!" as she saw him fly skywards and land several meters away. Draco merely remained stoic as he watched the two figures, waiting to see which one had emerged the victor.
It was Caliban who stood up first, barely scraping himself to his feet. His black tunic had been completely burned away, exposing a muscular yet scarred chest that had fresh wounds dotting all around it. He held his left arm to the side, completely broken and barely hanging from the strands of flesh that left it connected to his shoulder. Limping forward with one eye swollen shut from blood, he moved towards Draco, offering a jagged-toothed smile. "Well done young dragon," he croaked, coughing up a bit of blood and spitting out a broken tooth. He looked down at Hermione, who glared at him through her blinding pain, trying to will him to die on the spot. Caliban merely lifted his right hand and wand and shot her with a stunner, knocking her partially unconscious for the moment. He then turned towards Harry, who was beginning to stir, his own shirt ripped in two and his body covered in mud and gravel, but not nearly as broken as Caliban's. Caliban lifted his arm and forced Harry to be drug through the ground towards his feet, making sure to take his wand from him after he did so.
"That was a one of a kind artifact," he spat at Harry, glaring down at him. "But it served its purpose, you'll be no better than a squib for a few hours." He turned towards Hermione, and back at Potter, flipping him up to his back, causing him to scream in pain. He then turned to Draco. "You have done well Draco, and you have fulfilled your part of the bargain….however." Draco stared up at him. "The Dark Lord's instructions were to bring back Potter alive; he said nothing about the mudblood."
"HERMIONE!" Harry yelled, causing Caliban to kick him in the ribs to try and shut him up. Caliban forced his mind on Harry, effectively pinning him down with unseen force. He turned back to Draco.
"Kill her," he ordered… "Kill her now." Draco stared back down at Hermione, who was beginning to come too. He extended his wand, letting it sit fixed on Hermione for a long while as Harry tried to think of anyway he could get Hermione out of this, his body held down firmly by Caliban's unseen mental weight on his chest and his magic failing him for the moment. "What's the matter," Caliban asked, "It's the only way you'll ever see your mother again half-blood! Now kill her! I know you remember the words…"
Draco continued to stare at Hermione, a tear leaking out of his eye. "Yes…" he whispered, "I do." As quick as he could Draco turned and pointed his wand at Caliban. "AVADA KEDAVRA!" For the second time in his life, Caliban didn't expect a spell of this magnitude, and failed to dodge it in time. The killing curse nailed him square in the chest, causing him to spin in the air repeatedly as he was driven back. He landed with his face pointed skywards, lifeless blue orbs staring up at the azure blue sky.
A/N: The final chapter of this arc is entitled "Fallout" and will set the stage for the second part of the trilogy. If I'm feeling really creative, I'll give you a taste of things to come at the conclusion of the final chapter of "Heir of the Founders."