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Chapter title inspired by Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) in the 1995 film Schindler's List: "Power is when we have every justification to kill, but we do not." One of my favourite quotes from that movie, incidentally.
Chapter 13: Power
The sun dawned on the morning of 28 September to find Harry Potter pushing everything he had into training that morning. The duel had been scheduled for midday, and Harry was making it his single-minded goal to learn enough at the last minute to destroy Zabini. Whether he meant that literally or metaphorically, not even he knew any longer. This drive had so consumed him for the past hour-and-a-half that he had allowed no one to penetrate him; not even Hermione, the woman he loved more than life itself. Not once did he stop to think how that was hurting her, how she was in a fragile state and needed security he was not providing. He did not do this on purpose, but it was an unavoidable side-effect of ensuring that the thing that has caused her pain never did so again.
If anyone else noticed his unusual resolve, be it through intense focus during magical stamina training or practicing wand movements at breakfast or muttering incantations under his breath in the corridors, they did not comment.
A very small voice in the back of Harry's mind wondered what was wrong with him. It was not like him to do this, to cut himself off from his friends; and it certainly wasn't like him to ignore Hermione. And what about all this anger? It was almost obscene how angry he was. Not even wandless magic practice, which was normally excellent for dealing with such things, failed to calm him. Had this little voice been just a little bit stronger, Harry might have woken up to smell the roses. So to speak. Unfortunately, the voice of reason was greatly overshadowed by the voice that declared this was for Hermione's benefit. He was protecting the woman he loved from that monster, Zabini. The question, the little voice asked, is whether or not he could protect her form himself.
***
McGonagall had made the announcement the previous night at dinner. In front of the entire congregation of young wizards that there was to be a duel of honour on the Quidditch pitch between Harry Potter and Blaise Zabini. This duel, she stressed, was a result of a very old law that could only be enacted on the direst of circumstances. "Any student," she had surveyed the students with a severe look that brooked no argument. "Requesting a duel for frivolous reasons will be severely disciplined." She wasn't joking.
For Harry, this announcement had meant little, other than the vast majority of students giving him a wide berth. It didn't bother him, he was well used to it. Honestly, it suited him just fine to be left alone. He had barricaded himself in the Room of Requirement, where he was logging some last-minute practice on conjured dummies. After one particularly intense session, which had ended with him incapacitating a ring of seven dummies in a matter of seconds, he became aware of Hermione standing at the door, watching him. Sparing only a second to wipe the sweat from his brow, he reconfigured the room to produce some moving targets for accuracy training.
"You should take a break." A small voice behind him; Hermione. "You're going to wear yourself out."
He turned to face her; she didn't look good. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she was looking at him with something approaching fear. "I'll be fine." He responded gruffly, turning back to the target.
Her voice stopped him. "What's gotten into you?" He turned back. "You've said barely ten words to Ron and me since the meeting with McGonagall yesterday." Her arms snaked around his waist. He revelled in her touch, remembering how much he had missed it, even for a few short hours. "Talk to me."
He sighed heavily. "I just need to win this. For your sake. It would kill me if that bastard went free, after what he did." His jaw was clenched angrily. Just thinking about it was enough to set him off.
"What he almost did." She stressed the implication, trying to sooth with her words. "But I know." She pulled away, moving towards the door. "You do what you need to do. But don't shut me out Harry, okay?" He nodded. So did she. "If you want to talk, you know where to find me." And she was gone. Harry turned back to the target. He had a lot of practicing to do.
***
Mid-day found Harry, accompanied by Mad-Eye, on one end of the Quidditch pitch, with Zabini and Slughorn at the other. Harry had pulled out the dragonhide armour given to him by Charlie, and for the first time noticed the rusted fastenings, and the blood stains. He tried hard not to think about where they had come from. Special bleacher had been erected on one side of the pitch so that the staff and students could watch from a safe distance. Closer to the action, a dais had been constructed on which Hermione sat, flanked by McGonagall and Iain, as well as Scrimgeour, a few select members of the Wizengamot, and a contingent of Magical Law Enforcement agents. Professor Flitwick, looking even shorter than usual in the enormous surroundings, stood at the center of the pitch.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMAN," His magically-enhanced voice squeaked. "YOU ARE HERE TO WITNESS THE TRIAL-BY-COMBAT OF BLAISE ZABINI," The chorus of boos from the non-Slytherin students was immediately silenced with a sharp look from McGonagall, "FOR THE CRIMES OF ASSAULT, BATTERY, AND USE OF AN UNFORGIVEABLE CURSE. DEFENDING THE VICTIM IS HARRY POTTER," The boos from the Sytherin section were silenced in kind. "WOULD THE DUELLISTS PLEASE JOIN ME AT THE CENTER OF THE PITCH." Harry did so, striding forward from his end, and Zabini did the same. As the neared each other, he noticed that his opponent had also donned dragonhide armour: black, with glistening silver clasps. It made Harry feel more than slightly self-conscious.
"Okay boys, make it a clean duel," Flitwick instructed, in an unamplified voice, when the teens were standing on either side of him, glaring at one another. "No Unforgivables, and do try not to kill each other." The diminutive professor gave each duellist a pointed look. Harry made no promises, and he knew that neither did Zabini. Flitwick sighed. "Well, it was worth a try. Not much point in having you bow, I suppose. To your corners, then, and may the best wizard win."
Harry only turned when he saw that his opponent was turning as well, and stalked back to his corner. As he turned back to face Zabini, on the other end of the pitch, he felt a weight on his shoulder and the low voice of Moody growling in his ear. "Don't worry about words, lad, the words aren't worth shit. Visualize, and let your magic take care of the rest." Harry nodded his understanding and, after a highly uncharacteristic pat and a whispered "Good luck," Moody was gone, and Flitwick had fired blue sparks into the air. The duel had begun.
Harry immediately had to spin out of the way of a powerful curse, but he was quick in counter-attacking. At no point was his mind conscious of what spell he was casting, or what he was defending against; his one thought, the one that he held above all others at this moment, was his desire to inflict as much pain on Blaise Zabini as he possibly could.
Both of them were casting as fast as they were able, trading jets of light at lightning speeds, with little regard for defence. Harry was dimly aware of an injury on his arm where some manner of curse had grazed him, but he paid no attention. Only when a particularly dark curse was flung his way did he summon the presence of mind to throw up his shield, but he was forced to dive out of the way when the curse shattered his shield and kept going. He dove just in time, as it happened, for the curse to connect with the weak spot of his armour at the knee joint. Harry went down, to the collective gasp of the audience, as the sharp bolt of white-hot pain penetrated his mind.
His leg was on fire. Whatever Zabini had hit him with, it certainly wasn't a curse he learnt at Hogwarts. He was going to have to step up his game, but right now his first priority was getting back on his feet. His first attempt sent another bolt of pain shooting through his body, and found him on the ground again. His second attempt, not much better. On his third attempt, however, setting his jaw against the pain, only to find himself on his back a second later, to another mass gasp from the direction of the bleachers.
While Harry had been struggling to his feet, Zabini had closed the gap between them and, right as he had finally managed to stand under his own power, had tripped him. Harry looked up to a smug-looking Zabini with his wand pointed at him, but Zabini took his time to revel in the moment instead of finishing it, and Harry took advantage. His hand shot out and grabbed Zabini's outstretched arm, as his leg came from behind and took out his knees. He pulled hard on Zabini's arm, dragging his enemy to the ground even as he pulled himself up and brought his wand around.
In the span of five seconds between pointing his wand directly at Zabini's face and uttering the last incantation of the duel, one large and crucial thought passed through his head, glowing and flashing as though it was a bright neon sign: Kill The Bastard. The words of the fatal curse were on the tip of his tongue when he remembered what exactly he was fighting for. The miserable slime beneath him, held in pace with Harry's boot on his chest, deserved to die. There was no doubt about that. But he, Harry, was fighting for a higher purpose: a woman. Her face flashed through his mind and he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he would be letting her down if he did it.
"Expelliarmus." He spoke the word softly, so only Zabini could hear, and know that he had been beaten by the most basic spell in the book. Harry stepped back as the MLE agents came forward to arrest the officially guilty Zabini, and he turned his back on the scene as he limped towards the dais where Hermione sat as he holstered his wand. As such, he didn't see Zabini pull a second wand out of a hidden pocket and cast one last curse at his retreating back, before the magical police would wrestle it away from him.
He didn't see it, or hear it, but he felt it. He felt the shadow of a whisper of a disturbance in the air, the suggestion of a ripple in the magical equilibrium. There was no time to think, only to react. With no opportunity to draw his wand, Harry spun around and, acting on the most basic instincts, held out his hand to defend himself. As the adrenaline kicked in, Harry felt time slow down. He was dimly aware of a female voice, probably Hermione, crying out his name, and equally dimly aware of a masculine voice, Iain, demanding that she stop. But all that was his imagination; the only real thing in the universe was the jet of pure energy, darkly purplish-black, streaking towards him. As his hand stretched out, as if to catch it, he could see it slowing, drawing into itself as it became less of a jet and more of a sphere. He drew his arm slowly back, feeling the rippling waves of energy, and then launched it forwards again, deflecting the vile curse back at its source.
As time returned to her regular flow, Harry watched the curse speed back at a dumbstruck Zabini, hitting him square in the neck. The Slytherin fell, moving no more, even as Harry turned and was enveloped in a bone-crushing hug from a certain bushy-haired witch. "Harry! Are you alright?" He could practically taste the fear coming off of her.
He nodded dumbly, only barely registering what he had just done. "I'm fine. What just happened?"
"You performed some very advanced wandless magic." Iain had approached behind Hermione, and he looked extremely pleased. "Excellent duel Mister Potter."
Harry heard himself mumble his thanks for the compliment but was only barely conscious of it. All of a sudden, the adrenaline rush was gone. He was very tired. Sleep would be good.
Suddenly, Hermione pulled back. He missed her warmth. "Harry!" She screeched, concerned. He looked at her robotically, no energy to do any more. "You're bleeding!" And so he was. The first curse that Zabini had grazed him with had opened up a nasty gash on his arm, which was quite animatedly oozing blood. She slipped around to his side, supporting him with his arm over her shoulder. "Let's get you to the hospital wing." Her soothing voice was doing little to help Harry cling to consciousness, but he appreciated it nonetheless.
"Good idea." He mumbled, semi-incoherently. He felt another hand grasp his other arm to help in holding him up, which fortunately happened to coincide with his body deciding to shut down and drift off into the sweet bliss of unconsciousness.
***
He dreamt of the Tower again. The steep ebony spire was becoming a freakishly familiar sight to him. The vision it showed him this time was slightly different to the ones it had shown in pervious dreams; instead of some vision of another world, Harry was treated to the riveting view of a stretch of blank stone wall. Judging by the mould creeping into the mortar, it was in a little-visited section of the Hogwarts dungeons. A vague and deeply disturbing hiss was heard from somewhere beyond Harry's sight and at that cue, two of the bricks melted away. Behind them were two engravings: a lion rampant and an eagle rising, respectively. In the center of the lion was a small, diamond-shaped hole, about two inches long; in the center of the eagle was a round hole of about one inch diameter. Inexplicably, the entire wall shuddered and swung outwards, releasing a dark and malevolent shade rushing towards Harry, shadowy teeth bared and shadowy claws slicing the air.
Harry sat bolt upright in his bed, scaring the living daylights out of poor Hermione, scribbling away beside the hospital bed where, until very recently, Harry had been asleep. After a few second furiously apologizing to each other, Harry described his dream and Hermione filled him in on what had happened since he'd fallen unconscious. Zabini had died instantly when Harry redirected the curse back to him, and a small funeral was planned, although according to the Hogwarts grapevine few people were planning on attending. More importantly, Hermione herself had solved the problem she had started working on in the library that day. Excitedly spreading the Marauder's Map on Harry's lap, and activating it with the requisite password, she explained.
"The ring Bill gave you was enchanted with a dark-magic detection charm, but it had limited range; only a few meters," She explained. "The map is enchanted with a wide-area location-detecting charm, which is how it constantly shows the correct layout of Hogwarts." Harry thought back to his first year, when it felt like the rooms moved around an awful lot. "The castle's layout is always changing," She elaborated, reading his mind, "So the Map has to constantly update to show correct locations. Assuming my arithmancy is right, the detection charm should piggy-back on the location charm, and update the location of any particularly dark objects within the Map's boundaries." She hovered her wand over the map. Harry reached for her other hand, clutching it; moment of truth. "Novercalum revelio." She tapped the map.
Instantly, a small red dot pulsed on the second floor. In a highly uncharacteristic move, Hermione whooped in joy and flung herself at Harry, who happily received her in his arms and kissed her soundly. "How could you ever doubt yourself?" He asked when they came up for air. She coloured faintly, but didn't respond. Sharing another quick kiss, just for good measure, they turned back to the Map and more closely examined the location of the pulsating dot: Second floor, girl's bathroom.
"The Chamber of Secrets."
Shocker, I know.
Some housekeeping things: I haven't forgotten about how they're going to destroy the horcruxes; that'll be coming up. Also, I'm not necessarily sticking to JKR's list. In fact, I'll tell you right off the bat that I think her counting is stupid. Tom made five of them when he was "killed" by baby Harry (which somehow made his soul accidentally embed part of itself in him; excuse me, what?), and then he made a sixth one shortly before his reincarnation. So, in all, he had an eight-part soul. I thought making so many was supposed to be dangerous? Apparently not.
Whatever; I'm not going to have that many. And Harry IS NOT a horcrux in my story. Just so we have no misconceptions.
R&R, pl0x