Chapter 37: Into the Breach
"Well, any idea as to what it says?" Ginger murmured reluctantly. The three of them stood in a row, faces lifted towards the arching, ill-fated gate.
"Yeah," Ron mused. "Do not enter. Intruders will be shot..."
"Hmmph!" Ginger couldn't help a faint snort, as Ron shifted his weight uncomfortably. Harry had his game face on, and was unmoved by Ron's theatrics. This was serious, much more than life or death. Hermione...
The ancient Runes etched into the smooth stone meant nothing to him. He needed Hermione, but she was not here - she was there, on that other side, and he was going for her. One way, or the other.
Harry moved past them, turning his focus instead to the veiled barrier that separated this side of the wharf from the docks beyond. But there was no understanding this either. It was not like the typical wards he was accustom to. What would happen if they tried to pass? What awaited them on the other side? Important questions he had no answer to. They would have to go in blind, and that was dangerous.
Harry held his breath, chancing it all on fate. There was no other way in, and there was no turning back.
"Harry?" Ron sounded as if he meant to stop him. Harry fed his hand through, and the entire thing disappeared before their eyes.
"It's the only way," Harry was undaunted. There was only forward.
Stepping through that gate was like moving through a vortex, each part of their bodies being sucked and stretched forward as they passed, to be vaulted and tossed out on the other side.
At first there was relief. There was no tolling of a gong, no alarms ringing, no surprise attack. Everything appeared just as he'd seen it before, everything except...
Harry quickly ducked, whipping his wand through the air, cloaking all three of them with a Disillusionment Charm before Ron or Ginger had time to garner their bearings, nor understand what was happening as they just as quickly vanished once again.
"H-Harry?!" Ron repeated with angst, holding out his hands in marvel as they disappeared.
"Sshh!" Harry silenced him. "There's a crate, three o'clock!" he hissed under his breath. "Move - now!"
Without questioning him further, but by trust and by faith, they moved. But while being invisible served its purposes, it had a way of making things much more difficult when trying to work as a team. Ron and Ginger tripped noisily over one another as they made a mad dash for the container car.
Harry ripped the charm off like a mask, wincing as he pulled the other two up against the crate, padding their heavy footfalls with an additional charm.
"Quiet!" Harry bit sharply over them. There was no room for error - not now.
Released from their invisibility charms, the other two bent with panted breaths from the brisk sprint, Ron rubbing at a stitch in his side. Harry eyed them scoldingly.
"What's going on?!" Ron wheezed.
"Just hold tight," Harry shook his head, moving cautiously towards the edge of the large, square container. Harry then poked his head around the corner to get a better look at what he'd only temporarily noticed before.
There were guards. A number of them. And each and all of them frozen in place, staring right at the gate the three had passed through only seconds ago.
Harry grimaced, gripping at his wand, readied for... now. For action. There would be no stopping him. His eyes darted about. A dim silhouette atop the bridge of the ship, another three beating circles about its deck, and two, four, five he rapidly ticked off, wandering variously amongst the dockyard itself. It would have to be hard, and it would have to be fast. He plotted a course, his magic rising in waves with his pulse, readied to be unleashed.
Harry was ready. His muscles flexed. He felt that zeal of adrenaline throb in his veins. He inched forward, readied to bolt out and begin the onslaught, to take advantage of what little surprise they had left, but then... he stopped.
They were all just standing there, hunched in place, wobbling like they might topple over at any moment from the rocking of the ship, or an incoming breeze from the bay. And then first one, then another, on down the line, they slowly turned back to their seemingly random wanderings about the ship and yard.
"What the..?" Harry mouthed as he watched with confusion.
They were like drones, following along some haphazard path, never bothering to venture out, never stopping to consult with one another, and never giving a second glance. It just wasn't... right. Something was odd about these wizards.
And what's more, there was some kind of strange aura about them, something eerie, something... dark. And all of it emanating out from the core of that ship. That ship that held his... Hermione.
"Everything alright then, Harry?!" Ron betrayed alarm, sucking in air.
"No," Harry said morosely, feeling a gray, culminating cloud build over his soul as he gazed upon that ship. There was something deep and dark and foreboding on that boat, something terrible - a pit of loneliness and despair. Hermione... her name was all he had to grasp on to.
"I'm coming," his lips formed. "Hold on!"
"What do you see?" Ron asked.
"Death."
Harry, like his two compatriots, winced upon his own words. It certainly wasn't a word of encouragement, but came involuntarily, of its own volition. Ron and Ginger looked to one another, swallowing hard.
Harry took a moment to regather himself. "We've got to make it to the boat."
To the left was the pier and the waters beyond, the boat further down. There would not be any cover that way. But to the right were the docks, and the guards. Apart from the occasional rusted metal crates and rotting wooden boxes, there was very little else to use to hide behind, and while the guards did not seem very alert, Harry wanted to give them as wide a berth as possible. He did not understand them, and he did not like them. One failed step...
And then onto the ship itself? There was no rampart, only two thick ropes, one at its bow, another at the stern, holding it to port. In spite of the guards' numbers, he was unimpressed. He had no doubts as to handling them, but that wasn't what worried him. Hermione was in there, and if they got off an alarm... there could be no mistakes.
"Do you two know the Bulla-Cereum?" Harry whisped.
"The what?" Ron and Ginger both retorted in unison.
"The Bubble-Head Charm?" Harry put in simple English. "Diggory..." he hated to bring back that particular memory. "He used it in the lake during the Triwizard Tournament."
Ginger was clueless. Ron just shrugged.
"Never mind," Harry aired his frustration. "We're going to have to use the water as cover. I'll help you with the spell when we get there, just be careful getting in - no splash!" he warned them.
Ron and Ginger's eyes came together, sharing a moment. Something told them they were about to go off the deep end, both literally and figuratively. Harry had already said it. They were about to face death, and there was no denying it. They turned back to Harry and nodded. No turning back.
"We'll have to move beneath the Disillusionment, single file, to the pier's edge, there," he pointed to their left. They stepped up to get a better view of what Harry was talking about. "Ron, you first, then Ginger. I'll bring up the rear. We'll do it in order this time."
"Got it," Ron said, casting his own Disillusionment Charm. Ginger watched on, a bit impressed.
"Can someone..?" she asked sheepishly. Ron helped her disappear.
"Remember, careful getting in. No noise!"
"I'll get in at the right pole, you in the center Ginger. Harry, to the left, so we're not landing on top of one another," Ron added his own to Harry's plan.
"Brilliant," Harry said. "Now, let's move!" And they moved. Ron took off first, making a line for the Thames.
"Go," Harry said to Ginger after a bit. He counted to five before following after her, setting his path for the left pole standing above the planks of the pier.
Even though he was invisible, he moved in a crouch, watching the guards to his flank. And then as before, one after another, they began to raise their slumped heads towards him. "Dammit!" Harry cursed, quickening his step.
"Get in!" he hissed, pushing urgently at Ginger as he then carefully slipped in his own two feet, quickly followed by the rest of his body. The water was cold and biting, sending a jolting chill through each.
Harry turned in the water, peaking out above the pier. All those closest to them were looking and staring on, but they did not pursue, nor give off any overt alarm. 'What is this?'
Seeing what Harry saw, all three waited on pins and needles within the rolling waves, their jaws shivering. Was the jig up? One minute. Two. Five. It wasn't until what had to have been ten full minutes and they were nearly frozen solid, did the guards go back to their random routes, no longer concerned with what they hadn't seen.
"Alright," Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "We can lose the charms."
Harry released his own, just as the other two's heads appeared above the black water. Each was holding onto the pier with one hand, bobbing in the waves.
"That was close..." Ron whispered with obvious discomfort, hugging at his body for warmth with his free hand.
"How did they..?" Ginger rasped, her teeth rattling in the cold.
"Doesn't matter," Harry put an end to it, moving on. "There's going to be bubbles, so we need to swim fast. Let's come up on the far side of the ship, they shouldn't be as alert there," Harry instructed them.
"What - what do I do?" Ginger asked hesitantly, feeling like the weak link slowing them down. "The - the charm I mean."
"I'll cast it," Harry said. "All you have to do is breathe normally, and swim. Stay below the surface, no matter what."
Ginger nodded.
"Astricta!" Harry cast first, and both Ron and Ginger glanced down at the water as their robes tightened in around their bodies. "It'll make the swim easier," Harry explained, before casting the Bulla-Cereum on each. Readied, the three sank below the waves. The tune of the world was snuffed out, replaced instead by a depressing string of the aquatic violin.
They regathered beneath the surface, their hands and legs slowly treading, holding them in place. With their limbs numb, it wasn't easy.
All was murky and clouded by a forbidding brown-greenish hue. Harry allowed them to grow accustom to the air bubble about their faces, and adjust their breathing accordingly. With an assured nod, he set out. They followed in his wake.
It was slow going. Blacker than black, the dim water's haze blocked out what little light they had to begin with, and the tide was strong. It was a battle just to stay on course. It was inevitable, they began to separate, slowly drifting apart.
Harry was focused, his sights set dead ahead. He saw the form of another some five to seven meters to his right, frogging his way forward. The long body had to be Ron.
Ron... was it only months ago that they were daring Voldemort's wrath? Harry himself had been pushed to his breaking point. And yet, here they were, still going at it. He watched this form in a new light that was not shed. Ron too was pushing forward, not breaking, not to be beaten, damn the odds. No matter the danger, Harry was glad he was here. Some how, some way - together - they were going to do it. They hadn't failed yet. Yet...
A muffled, desperate scream, and a swirl of bubbles behind them brought them both up short.
Harry whirled around. It was Ginger. She was tossing madly back and forth within the water, fighting for her life. It was too hard to see. Harry dared casting a dim Luminos forward, and what he saw then...
"Merlin!" the bubbles erupted from his own mouth. He had erred. The guards had not left their flank open. What came into light was the form of a massive creature of the sea. Black within the shadows. Legs. Long tendrils snaking and bending every which direction, wrapping Ginger within their mighty grasp.
It was an octopus like monster that could have rivaled that of the giant squid of the Black Lake. Its many arms were coiling around the struggling, helpless girl, pulling her down into the depths of the bay, intent on crushing and drowning the life out of her.
Harry reacted on instinct, casting a strong spell. The water bled a bright red as the bead shot at the giant octopus's head, but the massive form simply rippled like gelatine, shedding it off as the spell disappeared into the blackness.
Ron suddenly shot past him with the speed of a torpedo, his wand held before him, cutting through the water as he released a barrage of spells upon the creature. Harry dove, kicking his legs furiously as he followed in hot pursuit.
"SECTUMSEMPRA!" Ron bellowed through a muffled battle cry, slicing through one of the octupus's many legs. The arm severed with a furious response from the beast, slowly floating away within a sudden cloud of bloodish ink.
The beast writhed with pain and anger, tossing the poor Ginger about savagely within its grasp. But Ron was upon it in an instant, slashing and cutting madly at anything and everything with his wand, in a desperate attempt to free his Ginger.
The monster had too many legs to contend with though, and Ron soon found himself entangled as well. It was a fierce battle of two wills, but Ron was doing damage. The water began clouding with a deep, opaque purplish hue. Harry went for its head, attempting to grasp at its slick, blubbery flesh with one hand while he stabbed at it with his wand in the other. A beam of red light pierced straight through it, coming out the other side.
The beast loosed a hideous wail, twisting and turning ever harder, ever faster, gripping Ron and Ginger ever tighter within its remaining tentacles, causing them to cry out with pain and anguish and a flood of bubbles rising to the surface.
Again and again, Harry stabbed at its massive head, piercing it over and over again in an insane battle of determination and blood and ink. And then... everything stopped. It was over. Harry was panting. The monster went limp, its legs uncoiling, sinking ever so slowly downward towards the depths from which it came. Harry looked up to find pieces and chunks of severed flesh and limb drifting away in every which direction, and at the heart of all the carnage, Ron and Ginger together, engaged in a tight embrace.
Harry's eyes lingered on the two for a moment. Things were only getting harder. The two had no business here - they could get seriously hurt, or worse. They could have just met a most gruesome fate. Harry grit his jaw, but then something more came to light... as if it were emanating out from their very beings. This was... love. Something worth fighting for. Something worth dying for. Something worth living for.
His eyes trailed along, up to the surface above. The Moon's meager light broke through in wavering beams. His love was there. His love was in mortal danger. A different monster had her, and he knew what that demon was capable of. There would be hell to pay. Harry moved, and Ron and Ginger followed after him.
Harry erupted onto the surface, ready to fly to that deck and cut down any in his path... but no one was there. They had somehow gotten away with it. Ron and Ginger soon arose as well, as Harry studied and contemplated their next move.
There was obvious relief evident upon the other two, glad to have survived that cursed monster, and glad to be beneath the stars once more. But there was no relief with Harry. Only purpose.
"So, any more bright ideas?" Ron managed to find some humor in this dark hour, teasing Harry in his usual self. Harry did not laugh, nor crack a smile. Ron swam up beside him as Harry's eyes remained trained upon the edge of the ship's deck.
"Thanks..." Ron said low, so that Ginger could not hear.
"For what?" Harry was not distracted.
"For saving her..."
Harry sighed a long sigh, his eyes now falling to the water, before looking over to his oldest and best friend as they kicked to stay afloat. "You saved her."
Ron frowned, looking himself now up at that cursed ship. "Let's go. We're wasting time."
"Yes."
. . . .
"I'll go first," Ron said. Harry nodded, offering him support to climb up. Harry had opted for creating a hole in the side of the hull, a meter or so above the water line for them to climb up and into the ship. He could detect no others close by, nor any other wards to contend with.
"Come on, grab my hand," Ron reached back down to hoist Ginger up while Harry pushed. He turned to help Harry next, but the One-Who-Lived came gliding through, causing Ron to fall back over onto his arse, before Harry sealed back up the hole.
"You know, you're going to have to teach me how you do that some day!" Ron jested as Harry lit a Luminos to see by.
"Yeah, right after I teach you how to stop a quaffle from the goal," Harry released their robes. The two siphoned off the water as Harry moved towards the door, putting his palm up against it first to get a feel for what was on the other side. He added an ear for any noise.
"All clear?" Ron asked, not tempting Harry any further on his last comment.
"Think so," Harry reached for the knob. He slowly turned it, waiting for the slight click, before he pushed it open. All was silent but their faint breaths and padded foot steps. The only light was from the tip of Harry's wand. They stepped out into the hall.
"Geez, you feel that?" Ron commented, lighting his own wand.
"It's terrible," Ginger answered him, pulling her arms to her chest as she shivered from the cold.
Harry said nothing, looking first to the right. It was long, darkness pressing down upon them. The corridor was narrow, all encompassing, smothering, giving them all a shrill of claustrophobia. Harry squinted his eyes, slowly tracing them along the wall before him until they settled to their left.
"Something's not right about this ship," Ron went on, shivering just the same as Ginger.
"Feels like Dementors," she winced as she said it.
"Run," Harry said so low the other two hardly heard him.
"Huh?"
"What?"
"RUN!" he now shouted at them, pushing them to the right. "This way!"
The entire corridor began to shudder as a sudden eruption of moans and groans echoed from around the corner to their left. A horde of stumbling, scratching bodies turned the bend, stampeding as a wall of death right for them.
"INFERI!" Ginger screamed bloody murder as she tripped over her own two feet in retreat. Ron hauled her back up as they scrambled in the opposite direction, moving with a purpose.
"I KNOW!" Harry shouted back as he flourished his wand, sending a pillar of flame to greet the walking dead. "GO!" he pushed them. They ran.
It was a maze. They ran, and they ran, as fast as their legs could carry them, the deads' groans beating off the metal halls in their ears, Ginger's pitched shrieks cutting over them with each new turn. Left, then right. Right again. Up, down. Through hatches and out of them, Ron guided them aimlessly along the never ending, near pitch black corridors, running for their lives, gripping Ginger's hand in his as he pulled her along. Harry brought up the rear, his eyes dancing wildly along the ceiling and walls, trying for some guidance, occasionally pausing to send another wall of fire slamming back down the passageway behind them.
It was faint, but it was there. She was there. She was here. She was still alive, and he could sense her. He had to get to her, and now!
"Right!" Harry began directing their path. They could still hear the awful groaning reverberating up from behind them, drawing ever closer, as Harry turned to shoot off the random flame. "Left! Up here! This way!" they scrambled their way through the haunted labyrinth.
"Ron, look out!" Ginger shrieked as three red curses came hurdling towards them from ahead.
A white mist swooshed past them. And then Harry was there, in front of them. He cast his wand, shielding them. The spells collided, bowing out the cramped walls with a terrible, percussive thunder.
"RAAH!" Harry roared as he sent his own strong spell doubled back on them. The three wizards were blasted back against the parallel wall of the intersecting hall, falling limp to the ground. The horde of dead still tight on their heels, they each took a step forward to flee, but then stopped as a second mob rounded the corner ahead, the dead, ghastly moaning booming down upon them from each direction.
"RON?!"
"HARRY?!"
Harry slashed his wand, opening a wound in the metal of the wall beside them. He ripped it open, "Through here, HURRY!" They fell through, Harry sealing it up upon jumping through himself. The terrible groans converged across the other side, their talon like nails screeching as they clawed against the rusted metal.
Ron and Ginger bent with their hands on their knees in a frantic pant to catch their breaths. They both looked up in alarm as Harry crashed his shoulder through the door, aiming his wand from side to side, readied for any threat.
"They're coming! This way!" be beckoned them, and they moved again.
"How many can there be?!" Ron spun around a corner at Harry's orders, firing off his own spells at the newest mob sprinting for them from down that hall.
"Come on!" they retreated to the right.
Harry cut walls, crashed through doors. They wound themselves right and left, up stairs and down them, into new hatches out out of them, all in a mad dash, but always there were more dead, hot on their trail.
"She's there!" Harry was going mad as they spun around the last corner. "Just ahead!" they ran with wild abandon, only to find the hall blocked with more inferi.
"Harry?!" Ron yelled. They were trapped once again.
And then Harry was there ahead of them. There was no retreating now. His path was dead ahead, and pity those who stood in his way.
But there would be no pity for these foul creatures. Harry lit the corridor with licking flame and fire as they charged forward. All three loosed a deep battle cry as they lept and jumped over ash, and burning and writhing corpses. The metal of the walls glowed like heated embers. And Harry crashed through those double doors, blowing them right from their hinges as if they were paper machete confronting a tornado.
. . . .
Everything came to a screeching halt on the other side. The room opened up. A narrow platform ringed the round walls. Stone bleachers collapsed down to a flat stage at its center. The room was enormous, but Harry saw naught but what was there in the heart of it all, and it tore his own straight from his chest.
"Aughh!" Harry let out something close to the wail of a wounded animal, a guttural groan issued from his very soul. Ron and Ginger pulled up at his flanks.
"Hello, Boy-Who-Lived!" Lestrange sneered back with loathing. "You're just in time to watch her die!" A green beam of light was already lit at the tip of his wand. He turned to fell his prey.
Hermione...
Hermione, or what was left of her, was his target. Vicious chains shackled her wrists and ankles, holding her spread eagle, upright within the air. The ends of the chains disappeared into nothing. Her head was slumped, unconscious. Her brown, matted locks covered her sad face. Frayed tethers of blood stained clothe, barely covering anything of her bruised and cut, most delicate flesh were all that remained of her robes. Lestrange loosed the final, lethal blow.
The curse went nowhere. The dark wizard's eyes lit with pain and fear. The splitting of buckling stone beneath their feet masked the breaking of bone within Lestrange's out-held arm. Harry had him by the wrist, a thin, nasty smoke wafting up from his grasp about the searing flesh of Lestrange's wrist.
He cried a thousand cries as he fell to his knees in total and complete agony before the Boy-Who-Won. He wailed until his lungs had nothing left to give, his mouth left agape, begging to cry some more.
"LOOK AT ME!" Harry screamed with a murderous fury, clenching him about his jaw with his other hand to force him to look up. Their eyes met, Harry's filled with a raging inferno, Lestrange's with pure white fear, his whole body trembling beneath Harry.
"YOU DIE!" Harry screamed with insanity, slowly bending the wizard's arm that held his wand, and the still lingering Avada Kedavra at its tip. "DEATH. EATER." Harry fed the small bead of green light into Lestrange's open mouth, before forcing it closed about it. Leastrange's eyes lit a lucent green, the light shining through his cheek, out his nostrils, piercing all. Lestrange shuddered violently, before he departed this world with a final, ghastly convulsion. And then there was silence once more.
It was not to last. Harry felt a curse swelling behind him. He spun, whipping out his wand. A white bolt of lightening collided and exploded with the killing curse delivered from Rookwood. Harry was blown backwards with the force of it, right of his feet. There was another flash of green, but the curse never came.
Rookwood instead was now the target, and Harry looked just in time to see the Death Eater take it in the chest. He was sent tumbling backwards before coming to a rest some ten meters away, limp and dead.
Ron's eyes were wide with a mixture of fear and rage and surprise. And then as everything seemed to dawn on him, he hardened once more.
"For Fred! You Son-Of-A-Bitch!" Ron hawked, and spit upon the ground, his chest heaving, same as Harry's. Harry stared upon him with wonder. Their eyes met, Harry's slightly stunned, Ron's determined and without remorse. Harry offered his friend a slight nod of recognition. Ron returned it.
Hermione!
Harry forgot all else as he kicked himself back up to his feet. He blasted the chains binding her into nothingness, catching her gently in his arms as she fell, lowering her tenderly to the floor.
"Hermione!" he wretched, brushing the blood soaked locks out of her face. She had been through more than he dared think upon right now. "No! No, no, no!" tears swelled in his eyes as he looked over her wounds, his wand already going to work. "Stay with me!" her breath was labored - but she was breathing.
"HARRY!" Ron and Ginger came backing down the stairs, both of them firing off spell after spell. "We've got company!"
The disturbance was all background noise to him. His entire world was focused in on this most beautiful girl laid before him, hanging on by a thread. As his wand worked frantically, he ripped his pouch off from about his neck, spilling its contents out onto the ground beside him.
Vial upon vial clinked out onto the stone. All at once, he prayed and he thanked his Potion's Professor for these, swearing everything and all that he would attend every party here-after if only they worked.
He slinked along side her, bracing her head in his arm as he uncorked the first. He tenderly brought it to her lips, feeding it to her, one right after the other, until he had depleted them all. He was completely oblivious to the fierce battle raging about them as he rocked her, comforting her, the tears falling, hoping and praying, the spirit of his heart reaching right out and touching her. He could not go on without her. He could not leave her, ever again. He could not live without her, he knew now. "Hermione, I love you. Don't leave me!" he wept.
"HARRY!" Ron's frantic voice pleaded as the terrible battle ensued. "A little help?!" Ron was working his wand like a true warlock, falling one after the other, Ginger right behind him, but there were just too many, and inferi were not done in so easily.
Be that as it may, it was not Ron's pleas that brought Harry back, but a cold, booming laugh from high above. He knew that laugh. He knew the rotting, yellow teeth that accompanied it. The sneering, chapped lips curled about them. The empty, black, beady eyes set above them. That demon in the depths of his dreams, reaching out to cut him with its claws.
Everything happening so rapidly seemed to grind to a halt as Harry's eyes fell closed. The room trembled with the looming volcano. Dust lifted from the cracks of the stone, starting a broad circle about them at the center.
"Rest," he whispered in her ear. "You are safe now," he placed a gently kiss on her forehead.
"Ginger!" he then called, louder now.
"Huh?! Harry!" she backed her way to him, shooting off futile curse after futile curse as the dead closed in.
"Hold her for me," he said calmly - too calm.
"Harry?!" she repeated, looking frantically back and forth. If Harry didn't do something, they were all about to be done for!
"HARRY!" Ron cried, backing towards them as well. The room was now filled with hundreds of inferi, completely encircling the four at its center. "TAKE HER!" Ron shouted at Ginger. Ginger finally lept to action, dropping to her knees to take hold of Hermione's head for him. Harry passed her over oh so carefully. The tension was too much for Ginger to bear, and she sobbed aloud, expecting the dead to grab hold of her at any moment.
Harry arose in such a way... it just wasn't natural. Too smooth. Ron, too close to him, suddenly fell to his knees before him. Ron caught hold of Harry's eyes, and what he saw there... he'd seen before. The memory came forth from the well of his memories. It took him back several years, back to the battle of the Department of Mysteries, back to the arrival of Dumbledore. Fire. It was about to be unleashed. Ron cowed before the awesomeness.
Harry looked past all the dead mobbing about them, up to the top of the room where he would find the eyes he sought. And he found them.
What happened next was too fast for Ron or Ginger to follow. They saw Harry move. He flourished his wand, ripping it about his head in a wide arch. Fire so bright, they had to shield their eyes erupted in a ring about them. Harry drew his wand about again, as a long rope took hold of the flame, and wielding it like a whip, Harry lashed out, cracking it, and the volcano exploded.
Ron fell over Hermione, helping Ginger protect her from the intense heat. They were forced to squeeze their eyes closed, it was just too bright. They could not see, but they felt Harry's presence leave.
Ron couldn't take it. He dared to open his eyes once more to see what was happening, using his hand to shield them.
It was like they had been delivered into hell. Everything was on fire and brimstone. The inferi were a mass of flame. And then he spotted Harry up above with that devil pinned against the wall, green eyes locked into black. The curse of Harry's wand was thrust through its stomach, readied to rip and spill its guts upon the floor. The sneer upon that demon's face was gone.
"HARRY, WATCH OUT!" Ron was not sure the pitch of his voice could carry over the roar of the flame as he watched on with helpless horror. The demon was not alone. There were two others.
Harry caught it. He slashed his left arm through the air, now holding a second, unknown wand. Hary deflected away the out held wand of the charging wizard. These... Ron could not understand what they were facing. These three looked little more alive than the inferi.
With the second wizard's arm cast away, Harry ripped his other out of the belly of the first, stabbing at and piercing the second through the neck, who loosed a pitiful, choked cry of pain.
Just as fast, Harry slashed his wand back at the first, his spell blasting through and splintering the stone of an empty wall. He'd meant to sever the head of the first, but the wizard was already gone. Harry spun out of the way as two terrible spells darted for him, blowing out a good chunk of the wall as they missed their target.
"Haven't you learned by now, boy, that you cannot kill me?!" Ron heard one of them shriek with anger.
But Harry was too busy to pay him any mind. He flicked one wand, pulling out the legs of the stunned wizard he'd just stabbed, before wielding his second like a hammer, dropping a hard spell right down on top of him, slamming him into the stone. The crunch of bone and pavement could be heard even by Ron.
"CADMUS!" the third, a witch screamed insanely as she charged Harry like a woman possessed.
But Harry was ready for her. He sprinted right back at her, deflecting her spells and then her wand itself as they closed on each other. Seemingly passing her by, Harry fired a spell that matched the one coming at him from the first wizard. They collided mid-air, exploding in a blinding light, as he caught the witch about her neck with another spell. Yanking, he sent her crashing, choked to the ground. Ron watched her kick and writhe upon the stone, clenching at her neck as the invisible noose strangled the life out of her.
Ron heard Ginger scream beside him. The devil was there, grasping her by her hair, hoisting her to her feet in agony. Ron did not have the time to react. He watched the wizards arm fall, severed just above the elbow. He looked just to the right. Harry had done it. One final blow, and the wizard was sent spiraling across the room in a heap.
No one could have survived that, but Harry did not leave it be. Sprinting after him, Harry wielded his two wands, cutting and cursing what was left of the wizard until there was nothing recognizable left. He was intent on destroying it utterly.
Ginger collapsed, crying, back to the ground. Ron watched his best friend with utter bewilderment. When had this all happened? When had Harry changed so?
Harry Potter's name had always been famous. He was the first to ever survive the killing curse, and at the hands of Voldemort no less. He'd been the one, as only an infant, to vanquish him first. Harry had always been one level above the rest, but this... It had only been a few months since the end, and he had a hard time of understanding this new Harry.
What he'd faced in India. What he'd been doing since he returned. Harry had ascended. A compulsory thought struck Ron. The Deathly Hallows. All three. Harry was their master now. He'd never really thought upon it before, but now he was witnessing it with his own two eyes. Could it be..? He'd never felt so close, and yet, so very far away from his best friend.
A loud crack! caught their attention. With his back and attention turned, what Ron and Ginger could see, and what Harry could not as he engaged the last wizard, was the arrival of two sad looking house elfs. Each had a terrified human in tow, just over the previously fallen witch and wizard. Ron and Ginger watched in disbelief as the black spirits left their destroyed bodies, and entered that of the newly arrived humans. Their eyes turned black. Their skin shriveled and folded. Their hair deadened.
"HARRY!" Ron cried with fear.
Harry caught it just in time, whipping around to blunt the two, strong spells aimed for his back side. Ron and Ginger ducked out of the way, Ginger rolling over to protect Hermione. The spells held with a crackling line of electricity, locking the three in place. A third elf arrived to the aid of the third fallen wizard. As Harry was distracted, that wizard recouped in a new body.
"A vita ad mortem transitum,
De morte, et revertamur," it raised his hands in the air, going into a trance like state.
Harry heard him from behind as he struggled to push back the spells of the other two, but there was little he could do about it at the moment.
"Harry!" Ron jumped up, firing his own spells, but to little effect.
"Per sanguinem nostrum semen,
Per Magister mortis."
Harry felt something grip him, hold him. He tried to push, but it just wasn't enough.
"Vobis mittimus ad inferos,
Ubi eritis aperirent fores,
Et libera nos!"
A ringing filled his ears. Ron finally hit one dead on, sending the wizard tripping backwards. Harry, twisted, holding the witch's spell at bay as he took out her feet with the sweeping of his other wand.
But then... laughter. Mad, cackling laughter. A green aura began spreading about the center of the room, about a circle drawn in green chalk around them, about a set of odd statues he had not noticed before, lining this circle.
"It's a Witching Circle..." he heard Ginger whisper faintly.
"Hold on!" Ron and Ginger felt a strong spell suck them together. Harry aimed his wand at the floor, issuing another spell that smashed against the stone floor, cracking it.
"Et libera nos!" the three demons repeated together. The green haze closed in on them. Ron fell out of no where. Ginger slumped over.
Harry struck the floor again. It gave way. They all fell, but the spell of the three followed them. There was a strong suction, drawing, pulling at his core, and then all was gone, consumed by the darkness.