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Act IV - Skin In The Game
Chapter 25: Conspiracies In Action Part 5
Sirius shuddered as he climbed up the stairs that led to the fourth floor and stopped, his skin crawling. "This⦠this feels wrong. It's like the air is screaming."
He ignored the growing unease in his gut, and let the canine form fortify his mind. He was no Harry Potter or gifted with special ocular technique, but he was confident that the spell active here was draining the hostages. Not their magic, for the ritual had access to power far more than it could possibly need. No, it was devouring something far more personal, far more intricate and dangerous.
Their emotions.
It probably helped that he was intimately familiar with this feeling. Anyone that had stayed in the highest-security wing of Azkaban prison would be familiar with the same. Padfoot's presence kept the heaviness trying to engulf his mind at bay, and Sirius dug into the canine's instincts, sniffing around like a well-trained bloodhound. Within seconds, he found the source where the intensity of this feeling was greatest, and rushed forward.
The Death-saturated blade that had once been Godric Gryffindor's took care of the rest.
"Gorgons," muttered Sirius. "Just how many are there?"
He had already dealt with eight other anchors distributed throughout the hospital, and yet it seemed like there was no end to them. Hell, he had felt Harry's signature magic surge into the air as tiny black meteors struck several portions of the building all at once. Unfortunately it had neutered the enchantments placed on the building and caused several portions to crash β Sirius had to morph into Padfoot to escape that particular bit, but judging from the hollow, almost mechanical groan that shook the hallways around him right after, the runic circle looming above his head liked it even less.
The constant surging temperatures had stopped. No, they were reversing. Sirius hoped that it was because they had eliminated most of the anchors, and not a herald of something even worse.
The hit-wizard captain sighed, reached into his robes and pulled out a small pill, filled with pepper-up potion, allowing the rush of vitality flowing through him and refreshing virtually every cell in his body. He was quickly reaching his limit, both in his body's ability to operate under strenuous circumstances, what with the constant casting healing spells at the survivors, pulling them up, morphing into Padfoot and leaping through the hospital ruins to find other survivors and impaling the anchors with Gryffindor's blade.
Not exactly the stuff of movies, but those had little relevance to real life.
The good thing was that the majority of the people inside had survived. The healers had been quick to cast stasis charms on most of the bedridden patients, and the protective enchantments on the beds had done the rest. The irony was that it was the healers that stayed awake that had been most affected by the rising temperatures, with several of them dead or comatose because of it. Luckily, Harry's spell shower had severely weakened the runic circle, allowing Sirius to get most of them out to safety.
Unfortunately, the fourth-floor wasn't that lucky. Everyone inside told him horror stories of what had transpired inside the fourth-floor, leading to extensive damage to the upper floors.
Sirius exhaled. Confident that there were no attackers around, the disillusioned Hit-wizard Captain opened the entrance doors to the fourth-floor and stepped in.
The changes inside were like night and day.
The walls, the floor, the ceiling, the carpets, the wards and sections, everything.
As a Hit-wizard Captain, Sirius Black was no stranger to St. Mungo's. In fact, it was customary for every hit-wizard to get a routine check for lingering curses or wounds, physical or otherwise. While the institution was never exactly ornate, it was a far cry from what it had been on his last visit. The hospital, once a beacon of compassion and care, now lay shattered and broken, its once proud facade now a labyrinth of crumbling walls and twisted metal.
Cracked walls and paint. Splintered floor. Plasters and other masonry falling from the fractured ceiling. The front entrance on the fourth floor, once a welcoming portal for those in need of mind-healing, now yawned open like a wounded mouth, the doors torn from their hinges and scattered among debris. Inside, the reception area, where anxious families once gathered, was now a chaos of overturned chairs and shattered glass, the reception desk a splintered relic of administrative order. The MIND DAMAGE sectionβ¦.
The MIND DAMAGE ward was a gift from his godson to St. Mungo's, the expenses for it, were drawn from the profits Harry had gotten from the sale of the basilisk carcass. Why the last time he had been there, the Longbottom's had beenβ¦
Sirius went still.
β¦Shifted to the Mind Damage ward, along with Hermione Granger on Harry's personal request.
Cancelling the charm and morphing into Padfoot, Sirius rushed in.
Down the remnants of the hallway, the scene was hauntingly quiet, save for the occasional creak of exposed beams and the whisper of wind through broken windows, through which the crimson light from the ritual circle above entered the building, bathing it in its sinister sheen. Patient rooms, once sanctuaries of recovery, were now unrecognisable. Beds lay askew, their mattresses torn and springs exposed like skeletal remains of a forgotten era. IV stands leaned precariously, their bags long since drained and discarded.
Hearing a groan, Sirius morphed back and found a person β a healer, her clothes tattered and smeared with soot, kneeling amidst a swirl of dust and rubble. Blood trickled down her face, painting a stark contrast against skin marked by smudges of ash. The air around them crackles with a dissonant symphony of sirens and distant shouts, yet her gaze remains fixed, resolute amidst the chaos.
"Healer⦠Dunbar?"
"...Black?" said the woman after a few seconds of struggle. Rushing in, Sirius cast the best healing spells he could upon her injuries, getting her to stand up. He was no dab hand at healing, but knew enough to temporarily mend surface wounds and fractures.
"Heβ¦ Potter β he β "
It wasn't Harry," said Sirius, shaking his head, helping her up. Pulling out a vial of Pepper-up, he passed it to the Healer who gratefully took it.
"Felt likeβ¦ felt odd. Heβ¦ heβ¦."
She staggered, but Sirius caught her. "He wanted to take⦠girl⦠Granger."
Sirius went stiff. Hermione Granger had been involved with the events of the DADA curse, which had led to her being shifted to the MIND DAMAGE ward of St. Mungo's. The Ministry had quickly swept the entire thing under the Official Secrets Act, making it impossible to delve any further.
But why take Granger?
"I'm β I'm rightβ all! Lady Long β Longβ"
A concussion, Sirius realised. Helping the healer slowly settle down against the wall on one side, he stood up. Nearby, another individual lay sprawled amidst twisted metal and broken glass. His body, once a canvas of ordinary existence, now bore the harsh brushstrokes of disaster. Torn clothing revealed wounds that pulse with the rhythm of agony, while hands instinctively cradle fractured limbs in a futile attempt to shield against the relentless ache.
An ornate fountain pen lay within his dead grip.
In the midst of this turmoil, a third figure staggered forward, her movement a fragile ballet of survival. Eyes wide with disbelief and hands trembling with shock, she navigated a landscape transformed into a surreal tableau of destruction. Each step she made was a testament to resilience, despite limbs that protest with every movement and lungs that struggle against the acrid smoke lingering in the air.
"Augusta!" Sirius screamed, and rushed to help the woman.
"'m fine!" said the woman, choosing to support herself using her left hand. Her right hand was bruised in several places, but the injuries were slowly mending, a healing charm in effect. "My β My Neville! And Frank! Alice! That bastard β"
Before she could finish that sentence, both of them swooned and fell to their knees, experiencing vertigo a dozen times over in a split second. By the time the world around them was comprehensive once again, Sirius noticed there was significantly less colour and energy around him. While it was already destroyed beforehand, the devastated halls and furniture now seemed sapped dry and rendered into little more than shades of grey. It all looked like it would fall into ash at the slightest disturbance.
"What was⦠that?" asked Augusta, as Sirius pushed her up.
"I don't know," he said, repairing a nearby set of chairs and helping both women sit down, while banishing the rubble around them. "All I can say is that something just guzzled through the magic pouring down from the ritual circle above faster than Buckbeak gobbles up dead ferrets."
"What runic circle?" asked the healer and Augusta Longbottom at the same time.
Sirius looked at both ladies. "Uh, it's a long story. Suffice to say that both of you need to get out of this place, and I'm here to help you get out."
"I'm not getting out without my Frank and Alice," said Augusta stubbornly. A little blood had started trickling from her temples again, something Sirius quickly corrected with an Episkey. "Where are the bloody Aurors?"
"There's a large barrier of unknown magic outside, something me and my godson are trying to break. Look, you're in no condition to stay here, so you've got to listen to me."
"If the Aurors can't get in, then how are we going to get out?"
Sirius's reply was to take out Gryffindor's blade from the conjured sheath. He noticed that the pores were forming in the leather sheath and grumbled. This was the fifth time he was forced to conjure a new sheath in the last several minutes, because the magic within the sword kept undoing his conjuration.
Both women flinched away at the site of the fabled blade.
"That'sβ" Augusta Longbottom began. "That's the Blade of Gryffindor."
"Yeah," grinned Sirius, holding the sword up. "Just holding it makes all those whippings for being sorted to Gryffindor worth it! Mother would have a conniption if she were toβ¦. see ..."
The rest of his words trailed off as he stared at the blade. At the enchantment. The deadly malice within it. The severity. The potency. The age of the power prevailing within it was disgustingly ancient. Just holding some of the books in the Black Library made him feel hollow within. And yet, he had been utterly ignorant to its nature, much less holding the artefact without being affected in the slightest.
"Look," he said at last. "This building has already been through a lot, and with my godson doing what-not and throwing heavy spellfire around, I'm not sure how long this place can sustain itself without crashing. I've cleared the stairway while coming up, so you can either sit here and be stubborn and probably even die, or you can be useful and carry Healer Dunbar with you down to the Atrium. You'll find the rest of the survivors down there, and get out."
"How?" asked Dunbar, rubbing her temples. "There'sβ barrier."
Sirius carefully sheathed the blade and offered the hilt-side to Augusta. "It's laced with Harry's power and can cut through any enchantment like a knife through butter. If you pierce the barrier with this, you can tear an opening. Oh, and be careful with it. Just a bare touch can kill you horribly."
Both women stared at him, dead silent.
"It's one of those days."
"Yes, I can see that," said Augusta drolly. "By any chance, do you know where my grandson is? The last thing I remember isβ¦."
Sirius exhaled. "Neville is⦠not inside this place."
"But where is he?"
"...Safe," said Sirius. "Now do what I say. We're wasting precious time."
With that, he turned and morphed into Padfoot, and sprinted further away. But even as he did, a stray thought never left his mind.
He definitely couldn't recall the potency of Death within the blade feeling so intense when Harry had handed it to him.
Harry Potter rubbed his temples to fight off the headache.
He wasn't in a good mood, frankly. He had expected Lucius Malfoy to negotiate, of course. The man was a pureblood fanatic, but he was a Slytherin to the core, and valued self-preservation over everything else and she'd be a fool not to try to get as much as he could out of the bargain. He was basically trading insider information, and giving up what according to him, was Divine power, a ludicrously valuable coup, as well as pleading to Harry's Gryffindorish chivalry and exposure to Dumbledore's principle of forgiveness. He might as well be within his rights to ask for something amazing in return, which was why Harry had entered negotiations in the first place with plenty to offer.
Silly him, for thinking that Lucius Malfoy would be satisfied with being offered freedom from certain Death, pun not intended.
Maybe he had been wrong about the Malfoy family after all?
For all his talk and grandiose gestures, Lucius Malfoy was no crusader. He wasn't the one to die for his cause, lips ripping with barbed words full of condescension and hate even as his soul left his body. Maybe even attempt to cast a Lament with his dying breath. That sort of fanaticism could be expected from the junior Malfoy, not the father. No, his dossier on the elder Malfoy painted a man that would be the first to fall down to his knees and pledge his undying fidelity to Harry should he prevail over Voldemort, going so far as to proclaim Harry Potter as his liege lord and kiss the hem of his robes.
And wouldn't that be just funny? Fudge and Umbridge would probably die of a heart attack.
So why was Lucius Malfoy digging deeper into the Abstract power of the Circle despite being wandless, with the knowledge that doing so would kill him horribly in the end?
"GAAH!" yelled Lucius. He had already fallen down to one knee, and was doing his best to control the power flooding through him. His left hand was already fractured and oozing blood from a dozen different places β a silly and unreasonable attempt to unleash a powerful physical force to crush Harry head-on. Not only had the attack missed him completely, it had left a mangled mix of shattered bone and chopped tissue with blood dripping out of it.
"Really," said Harry. "I'm not a healer, but even I can say that you really need to stop attempting that again. There's only so much Magic can fix, and just so you know, I can do this all day. At least, so long as it takes for Sirius to rescue the others. Then, I can just let you die here and walk away, with a clear conscience."
"The Dark Lord β" Lucius began frothing in the mouth.
"Oh you poor, naive thing," said Harry, shaking his head sadly. "You really think the Dark Lord will come save you? Voldemort cares for nothing except himself. The way I look at it, you have two options. Option One. You keep attempting to kill me and suffer horribly in the process. I could give you a painless death but only if I was feeling magnanimous, but it would leave you a rotting husk like the ones back at the cemetery. We both know how vain you are, so I doubt you'd want to be buried like that. Option Two?"
He looked Lucius in the eye. "You pledge undying loyalty to me."
"Undying loyalty?" spat Lucius. "I'm a Servant of the Dark Lord! His Left-Hand! It is through me he got his hands on the Dark families and β"
"Yeah, not anymore," said Harry cruelly. "I'm not sure if you've got a bad memory, or the magic's affecting you, but the Dark Alliance isn't yours any longer, is it? House Malfoy is one step away from being destitute, especially if you keep funding Voldemort. And any control you have will perish in the upcoming Wizengamot session."
His smile widened.
"And if I know this, don't you think the Dark Lord knows it too? You think Voldemort sent you here on a whim? You think he doesn't know what I can do? That there isn't a chance of me killing you with a single touch? That you'd be driven to use the Abstract magic and horribly die in the process? This is his idea of punishment, Lucius. Seriously, your belief in Tom Riddle is practically Hufflepuff-ish."
Lucius clenched his other fist tightly, and his normally pale ash complexion was marred with a vicious scowl and red from increasing pressure and agony.
"Allow me to change the question then," said Harry calmly. "Do you know how easy it is for me to destroy the Malfoy legacy?"
Other than the ominous howling of the wind that came through the fractured walls, nothing else could be heard.
"If I know you right, you have an alibi outside right now, just to keep the DMLE from pointing fingers at you later. But it also means that I can kill you right now, and nobody can prosecute me over it. Your only son has made enemies out of Apolline Delacour. Surely you know what she is capable of? Your wife is just inches away from being excommunicated from the Black family. All the DMLE needs is one evidence against your wife, and she'll be packing her bags for Azkaban to join her sister. Your son will lie somewhere in an unknown ditch, and just like that, the Malfoy name will be gone."
If looks were murder, then Harry should have been dead several times by now. Lucius opened his mouth to yell something β
"If you swear to me, then I can help you get rid of the Dark Mark."
The look on the man's face was priceless. He looked at the mangled remains of his arm, and asked. "You β you can do that?"
Harry took a step forward, his eyes morphing into putrid yellow. Lucius attacking him wasn't even a concern right now. Even if Lucius was fanatic enough to sacrifice his life like that, and he doubted the man was that stupid, Harry could still save himself by employing the power of Summer.
Silently, he drew several runes with his wand, crafting the decryption spell he had learnt from Fleur and casting it at Lucius's arm, or more precisely, at his Dark Mark. In response, a large array of runes manifested in the air around it. Harry was not surprised to note that the majority of it wasn't Elder Futhark, but Phoenician, the kind that could operate within the realm of Hecate's Principles while working within the domain of standardised magic.
Not that there was anything standard about the Dark Mark in the first place.
"I see. It operates on the principle of Contagion, and directly connects with your soul."
"My soul?"
"Well, your source of magic, if we're being precise. A two-way connection that only serves toβ¦."
The rest of his words died as Harry registered what it was he was seeing. The Dark Mark wasn't just a mark of fealty, it was an anchor on Lucius's magical core, for lack of a better term, and his identity. Much like the way the old gods drew power from the faith of his worshippers, Lucius could theoretically draw power from the Dark Lord through the Mark, assuming he knew how.
The Mark wasn't just a symbol of his devotion in the Dark Lord, it was a contract that both parties had to agree to in order to activate, if the sheer number of times Ansuz, the rune of Communication was invoked was any clue. It was a small and seemingly pointless addition in the grand scheme of things for the only things the Mark could be used was to transmit one's location to the Dark Lord, it allowed them to get around certain things that normal curses or wards couldn't.
Such as natural resistances to invasive magic.
No wonder one could not be forced to take a Mark willingly, or that the Department of Mysteries had never been able to decipher the intricacies of the Dark Mark despite all this time.
It was the same reason why an ant couldn't perceive the person holding the magnifying glass between them and the sun.
"I can⦠get rid of the Dark Mark," he said softly. "But I'm afraid it's gonna cost you this arm."
Lucius looked horrified. "My arm β"
" If it helps," said Harry. "Your arm is already damaged beyond repair. Advanced healing might help restore some of it, but it will never be the same. And the threads connecting the Dark Mark are maximum in this arm, so any attempt to destroy the Mark will kill your arm either way."
He took a step back. "So, choose. And make it fast. Or else you might not even have a body."
"Get β get rid of it!" begged the man.
"Finally," said Harry with a grin. "I love it when people can settle matters peacefully." With a sudden and sharp movement, he slashed his wand, and a tendril of darkness severed through the arm, right below the shoulder, leaving behind a cauterised, blackened stump. The Death Eater screamed in agony as his mangled arm fell off, only for Harry to summon a pair of bandages and wrap the bloodied thing off, before putting it into his mokeskin pouch.
"What β what will β do?" Lucius gasped.
"Why, study it, of course," said Harry, a little affronted. "Your hand was just exposed to a tremendous amount of raw magic from the Abstract. I'm reliably certain it will stay alive for at least two to three days. Enough time for me to look deeper into the secrets that the Mark is hiding."
He quickly conjured the runic schema for Vulnera Sanentur, one of the strongest healing charms in existence. In fact, Severus Snape believed that it could even counter the effects of his absolutely lethal Sectumsempra, if applied thrice-fold. The only issue was that this particular healing charm extracted all the magic it needed to function from the victim, which made it less ideal to use unless the patient was stable, or had plenty of magic to spare.
And right there, connected to the runic Circle, Lucius had that particular benefit.
At least until the magical influx poisoned him completely.
"Well then Lucius, I am all ears. Go on, tell me every last detail. What is Voldemort planning? Why set up all this? What does he really want, and what has it got to do with me?"
Lucius let out a soft moan of agony, before his shoulders drooped.
"Thisβ¦ All of this was a trap and a distraction, Potter. For you and Dumbledore so that the Dark Lord could visit the Department ofβ Mysteries himself, without being spotted or hindered. He wants to get β get the Prophecy made in 1980. The one that marked you as the one to vanquish him, and the reason why you're the Boy-Who-Lived."
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