148Could It Be 'The End'
"Come on, it's not that far!" Ginny cried with a tinge of something like impatience in her voice. "Pick up those feet and march! Come on!" Her voice echoed throughout the forest and mixed with the nearly uniform marching of the assembly.
The authority in her voice was surely natural, Bill noted. The trees themselves seemed to move out of her set path. Every person, no matter their prominence, increased their speed.
"There are lives to be saved!" Feet pounding rhythmically into the ground, increased ten-fold.
Not one person groaned, they knew not to tempt her explosive detonation. She had already blown up at one person, Dumbledore. If she was bold enough to yell at the Greatest Wizard of the Century for taking too long in assembling everyone, they dreaded to think of what she was capable of doing to the others.
They also knew the severity of the matter at hand. Harry's life and the life of his unborn child were on the line. Bill's memory had been replayed so that everyone could see it. Much to Bill's agony.
Harry and his unborn child, however, were not the only victims at the moment. There had been several reports of missing Ministry officials. With the inevitable involvement of the Ministry, Dumbledore made a quick report for the Aurors to meet them at an undisclosed place on his signal.
The battle would not be taken lightly. Many of those marching under Ginny's relentless command had gone to battle at one point or another, and knew its risks. They all had spent a moment or two talking to their families before they took hastily made portkeys or Apparated to the edge of the Dark Forest. Even now, some fingered objects that seemed rather simple and ordinary to Bill, but held some sort of sentimental value to each of them.
Bill's hand brushed the letter in his pocket at times during his march. He could not depart from the letter. It was his burden, and he was going to bear it.
They could not Apparate or portkey into the forest from the ancient, powerful wards placed upon the Dark Forest by preceding mages and magical beings. They made it a wonderful, and impenetrable, safe haven.
Ginny was pushing them farther and farther into the woods. The path into the forest was familiar to Bill. He would recognize a tree or a trodden pathway every now and then from his vision.
Bill would have been proud of his sister's determination and leadership, if it were not for the fact that she was leading many of the people in the small army inevitably to their deaths.
Well, maybe not, considering the 'higher powers' assisting in the 'war'.
Bill was still having trouble believing that there were Greek gods in existence. It had never been a fact that he believed or he did not believe in gods. It was always that he just never had a reason to consider it. In his profession, he was used to finding out that deities held in the mythology of many cultures had really existed. They usually had not existed in the form that the legends and the myth held them. They were usually, magical beings and people calling themselves divine.
But the ones that were to be assisting Harry, they seemed to be truly legitimate.
After he overheard a conversation between Hermione and Ginny, it was brought forth in a different light for consideration.
Flashback
"Ginny! We have to hurry! Dumbledore has called for all of the Order members, and they will be there soon-." Hermione's panic-filled voice was heard by Bill from the opposite side of the bedroom door.
"Oh, get your knickers out of a twist!" Ginny said with an explosive sigh. "I haven't received a signal from Ares…" Ares? Bill's mind had been racing with the information.
"Great!" Hermione moaned. "We have to wait for a Greek immortal who has a lifetime and more to spend doing whatever he wants."
"Harry trusts him, so-."
"I know." She sighed.
Bill had pushed harder against the door as the girls' voices went lower. He pressed himself harder and flatter against the door.
" … wait to actually see him." Bill had believed that it was Hermione speaking. Bill had been only able to catch a word every once in a while. "…read…on…subject…myths… Zeus-."
"You don't think that we might be able to meet Zeus?" They had sounded as though they could have been approaching the door.
"We might." Bill's mind had gone into a deep freeze.
"Oh, there's the signal." He had focused on any sounds within the room. There had been none. What had been the signal?
"I guess we should ge-."
"BILL!" Bill had jumped away from the door as a voice accosted him from down the hall.
End of Flash Back
"BILL! Pick up the pace!" Ginny demanded. Bill blinked his eyes, shook his head and focused on the task before him. He jumped slightly as he almost ran headlong into a rather still tree.
"Why didn't we just take the other path? You said yourself that it was quicker."
"The other entrance is on a cliff, ten feet above water." Ginny said without looking back. "It would take a lot of time and effort to get all of us over the cliff, down the sides, and then into the other cavern. It was easier for Harry and I, but forty people! I don't think so!" When it was put like that, Bill could understand why she would want them to go the way they headed. It would save a lot of strength.
"Also," Dumbledore added swiftly, "The last entrance, which is in the school, is too dangerous. I sealed it myself to keep Voldemort from marching into Hogwarts, but it is understandably easy for him to be planning for us to come down that entrance. It is the only entrance that he knows, we know."
Bill nodded and did his best to keep up with the rapid, relentless pace. Bill glanced at Dumbledore and did a double-take.
Of all of the individuals in the march, Bill would have expected Dumbledore to be faring the worst. He was quite mistaken. Dumbledore seemed to be matching the speed of those thrice his junior. Even, while Bill was sweating profusely, Dumbledore wasn't even breathing hard.
They arrived at the side of the cliff with the snake markings in no time under Ginny's pacing. Dumbledore was explaining the strategy of what to do if Voldemort was expecting them, while Ginny used the magical translator to open the entrance. It seemed that when Harry put the Remembrance Spell on her, it covered her Parseltongue ability as well. The magical translator took care of the problem.
That thing was a work of great accomplishment. Bill doubted that Harry could create something so powerful at his age, though he had seen the guy do grand things. One had never been created before because of the complexity of the linguistics of other languages being funneled into an object was said to be impossible. That was why we all looked for spells and enchantments. It obviously wasn't impossible if Harry had one.
It was said to be even more so impossible when the user had no prior knowledge or understanding of the language. But I used it. The power that he felt from the object was too great to be anything of Harry's. The power just did not feel like Harry.
It had to be the Greek immortals. But how could…
He sighed, there were some things that some people were not meant to understand.
He felt a distinct sizzle in the air. Wands were out immediately, Bill's included. This was not the magical release from the opening of the entrance, it was the magical increase that occurred when many individuals cast the same spell in one area. Or Apparate. No one was claimed to have ever Apparated or portkeyed into the Dark Forest.
Then there were quite a few CRACKs as more than two dozen individuals, obviously Aurors from their apparel, Apparated into the clearance. Dumbledore halted the Order's attack on the incomers.
"The Ministry has agreed to assist in the rescue." He did not sound too pleased with that. "I invited their help."
One of the Aurors stepped forward, "We have reasons to believe that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has many key individuals from the Ministry held hostage. We know that this will not be a peaceful release of hostages, but we wish to get in and out with the mission complete, and as quickly as possible, with as many lives not wasted as possible." He sounded as if his words were the law, as if time and fate themselves would not dare to go against his will.
Bill almost snorted, this man was obviously unexperienced when dealing with Voldemort. He was probably used to missions with a preplanned goal and ideas of what will happen.
Voldemort will have a lot of surprises in store for him.
Hermione did not restrain her opinions to her mind as Bill was doing to his. "I believe, sir, that you may get one or the other, but not all of those." Most of us agreed with her. "This is war." She said simply.
The man's eye twitched in her direction, but he said nothing. He and Dumbledore talked for a brief moment. A tense silence hung over the group before Ginny brought all attention back to her, "It's open, let's go."
The moment that followed, would forever be forged into the minds of those entering the dark cave. With the cave being four to five people's lengths at the mouth, they rushed in with vigilant guards at ready in the front and Aurors in the back.
The was a deafening crack from above.
Bill looked up as a rock tumbled from the roof of the cave and nearly impaled Hestia Jones. She jumped out of the way at the last moment with a scream. She shook uncontrollably for the rest of the voyage.
Her mishap stirred a small round of confusion as everyone looked for any possible enemies. Above their heads hung hundreds of dripping stalactites, like sharp teeth waiting to descend to the receiving stalagmites adjourned at the ground around the army.
Bill's jaw dropped.
We've walked into a giant mouth!
Bill was in a state frozen shock and backed against the wall of the cave as best as he could. Others, following his eyes, noticed the impeding, dripping canines. Panic quickly gripped them. They charged towards the entrance. Bill tried to get them to stay still, but no one was paying attention to him.
The entrance appeared to be sealed. The rock of the entrance had obviously reformed, it was clearly a magical entrance as it allowed those on the inside of the cave to see out. This only agitated the group even more. They pushed, and yelled, and fought in order to protect themselves.
Bill watched in horror as hundreds of the once still stalactites began shaking. They broke off from their bases in slow motion. Those in the targeted path of the raining death stood fixated in their spots, too mortified to move, a la mort.
One had previously broken off at a odd angle, with its heavy base end tilted towards the cavern's wall. It hit the wall with a crunch and broke into two intimidating pieces, and both headed for one target, Bill.
Bill's wand was momentarily forgotten. Of the many times he had faced death, it was always in ways he had expected, in places that he had gone consciously. In a moment of pre-death recogitation, he remembered a tale someone had once told him.
It was about a monkey that had leapt through trees all of its life. It managed to leap over a crocodile pond every day. One day, after it had voyaged over the snapping crocodiles, it swung from the trees again only to get catapulted directly to the ground and to its death by a springy, pre-bent branch.
Oh the irony! Of all the times, of all the places that I could have died…
A boom that shook Bill to the marrow in his bones blasted through the cavern. It shook more stalactites, causing them to fall. All of the hellish arrows froze, some were merely feet away from cutting the army of near seventy in half. Bill was shaking like Hestia Jones and so was everyone and everything in the cavern. An albescent light spread over the fangs and held them in place like muggle Elmer's Glue. Then all of the fangs disappeared.
Dumbledore, who had gone off with Ginny ahead of the group for a moment to scout for the rest of the army, had returned. His wand was high over his head and his whole being just glowing with magic.
"It would be a shame," He started in a cavernous tone, "to die before the Last Battle as even taken place."
Bill, though he was trembling as the stalactite halves had been meters from his head, was in awe of the transformation Dumbledore seemed to have undergone. Never mind the amazing ability to match those thrice his junior in speed, the deep-lined wrinkles in his face had thinned out. His beard had streaks of brown and a darker gray. He seemed younger, he seemed tougher, he had morphed into a warrior.
"I guess since everyone else is gawking, I will ask the question." Ginny said. So great was the interest in Dumbledore's physical appearance that no one other than Bill and select others paid attention to her. "Why do you say, the 'Last Battle'? Surely, you don't expect to destroy all of the Death Eaters and Voldemort with only eighty people? It just isn't possible!"
"I believe," Dumbledore said while looking directly at Bill, "many things we believe to be impossible shall prove themselves to be reality."
For some reason, those words stung Bill. It was as if Dumbledore was seeing something within Bill that Bill himself did not see. There was also a sense of mystery within those words, as if Dumbledore was unsure about something and wished to figure it out.
"But nevertheless, we must progress.
With our wands held out before us, we descended deeper and deeper into the cave, and lower and lower into the earth. The air grew thick, musty, and cold around us. It felt as if death itself had precipitated and filled the air with its dreary, icy likeness.
I could feel those beside me shaking. I wanted to tell them to grow a pair, but I found my mouth dry with fear.
The person in front of me stumbled on something on the ground causing a ripple effect of falling within the line.
With those in the middle holding the light, to keep anyone expecting our arrival from seeing it too early, the cave got impossibly dark.
"Tonks!" I yelled from the ground with two or three people on top of me. "Dammit!"
A voice so unlike Tonks, morose and dead, responded. "Sorry." And she moved on.
It was right then that my nose picked up a hit of a very foul odor.
"Dear Merlin, what is that smell!" One of the female Aurors exclaimed.
"Most likely a dead animal." Hermione responded indifferently. I knew that she knew that was not the case.
No animals could wander in through that magical entrance. And according to Ginny, that was the only gateway to this entrance of the Chamber.
"Most likely a bat." I said slowly. Hermione turned, and in the wand light around them, a look of thanks passed from her to me. I understood that she did not want to discourage and horrify the group any more than they already were. And from the looks on their faces, it had pacified them.
But the smell grew more and more odoriferous in the air. I knew that many were beginning to identify the smell even if they had not observed it firsthand. It was not an animal decaying. It was blood. It was flesh. It was torture.
Burning human flesh was pungent in the air.
"Prepare yourselves." Ginny said from the beginning of the line. Her voice put something else in the air. It stirred something within me.
I clutched the letter in my hand. I took it out for one moment. I burned it suddenly, frightening those around me. I tossed the burning letter to the ground before I pushed my way to the front of the line with little resistance.
Ginny eyed me in a way that made me feel the lowest of the low. I would thank her for that look later on.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. "Let's get him."
I still do not know to whom I was referring to, who we were going to 'get', but Ginny gave me a small nod, and a mysterious smile.
"We must attack swiftly and precisely." Moody growled.
"No." Dumbledore said quickly. His head was tilted in the direction that they were heading.
"But, we must make the rescue as qu-."
"He's torturing Harry!" I said trying to keep my voice down, but emotion was always the great betrayer.
"Voldemort is taunting him." Dumbledore said simply. He walked forward with caution and paused. He repeated the motion several times until he was nearly out of sight. We made to follow him, but his ever-visible eyes, warned us to stay where we were.
"What is he up to?" Ginny murmured to herself. Suddenly, Dumbledore motioned them forward. We moved as one. All were intrigued with his unusual behavior.
He was smiling. I could see that he wasn't happy, but was pleased with something. He pointed a little way off in the distance. I could see an opening and voices coming from it.
"He can't see us, nor does he know that we have come through this route." Dumbledore spoke with reassurance.
"How do you know this, sir?" Hermione asked, coming up beside Ginny.
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "I went to the opening. I listened to Tom taunt Harry. I even waved to him. He did not notice me." His eyes suddenly clouded over with an unknown emotion.
Ginny looked confused for a moment until her eyes went wide. "The openings are enchanted so that those in this cavern can see out, but no one can see in! A magnificent way to observe the enemy, without them knowing that we are here."
I was horribly enraged by this. "And we leave Harry in there with those bastards, while we analyze how they torture him!" I can hear my voice echoing in my ears.
Dumbledore observed me slowly. "He is not being tortured, at the moment." He paused as if he was hiding something and took a calming breath. "We need to find the weaken points within the Chamber, and go in with some tactic."
I checked my mouth and asked a question. "What do we do now?"
"We watch them." Ginny said resigned.
Luckily for them, the exit of the cavern was a rather large section of the one of the walls of the Chamber of Secrets. Sadly, the exit of the cavern was a rather large section of the one of the walls of the Chamber of Secrets, allowing them to see the mass of darkness within.
Ginny, herself, commented on the Chamber in shock and summed up whatever one else thought. "Holy shit!"
There were dark cloaks and white, gleaming masks as far as eye could see.
"There most be thousands of them…" Tonks murmured.
"There isn't," Dumbledore said, "black and white are illusion colors in the dark. What seems like thousands, could be hundreds."
"The key word there, 'could'!" Hermione had lost her sense of control. "How on earth are we supposed to face them all…"
"It's impossible…" Ginny contributed.
Dumbledore was angered suddenly, "It is no-."
He was cut off by a loud cold laugh. Bill shivered as the voice of Voldemort filled the chamber with an eerie lack of effort.
"Potter, you ssshall die. You ssshall die watching all thossse you love die." Another shiver.
Bill scanned the scene for any sign of Voldemort, more specifically Harry. After a moment of nothing but black cloaks and white masks, there was a parting in the masses and Voldemort with his captives hung by their wrists were terribly visible.
"Dear Merlin!" Someone cried from behind Bill. It was later that he realized that the voice belonged to the Auror Captain.
The captives were naked from head to foot, including the women. Some tried to cross their legs but nothing was hid. There were about twenty men and women chained across the wall. Their heads drooped and their bodies sagged against their chains. Scars and laceration, both open and some were closing, shown clearly on their bodies. Blood ran down their bodies in rivulets. If the army was closer, it was possible that they might have seen a large puddle of blood gathered around the feet of those poor souls.
"Harry!" A few people cried.
Before those victims stood Voldemort and his main victim. Harry was still in some of his clothes, he had that part of his dignity. Blood covered him, literally, from his head to his feet. There were tears and slashes in his clothes. Parts of his flesh were open and visible. He was hung, unlike the others, by magic from the ceiling, like a chunk of beef at the butchery. He swung slightly, from left to right. But all of the time, his eyes remained on Voldemort, he stayed defiant.
Bill was so disturbed by the sight of carnage that he had to turn his head as bile rose in his throat. He was not the only one.
"Dumbledore, we mu-."
"It's a shame Potter. You would have been a great… heir." Gasps sizzled through the air like lightening, both inside and outside the cave.
"I would rather die." Harry's voice was like gravel. Bill's head began to hurt.
"Oh, you ssshall." Voldemort casted a spell at Harry. When the spell hit Harry, his back arched in pain. But he wasn't the only one effected by the spell. Every other captive writhed or arched themselves in agony thrashing in their bindings, though it seemed in a lesser dosage than Harry.
Those in the cave were beyond earthly emotions. Their very hearts squeezed within their chests. They felt unearthly humbled, from whatever their hearts had deemed their hardships. No one could have suffered as much as those hanging by their wrists.
"Your father posssesssed the sssame defianccce." Voldemort laughed as he stalked around Harry like a vulture. "What an asssissstanccce that wasss for him."
Harry's eyes glowed with an ethereal light. "But he was alone…" Ginny suddenly began to move. She quickly opened the entrance to the Chamber as Harry stared directly at them. "I am not alone."
Voldemort halted in his stalking. Seizing the moment, the army behind Ginny descended upon the dark masses with such a vengeance and with such a cry that the statue of Salazar Slytherin's face crumbled to the ground from the vibrations.
Bill had one thing on his mind: Harry. That was his goal, and each and every one of the Death Eaters before him posed as an obstacle. Spells flew at such a velocity from his wand that the wood was burning his hand. He did not pause to consider his spells, only one remained in his head. He didn't care if he was sent to Azkaban for using it. He didn't care if he was given the Dementor's Kiss for casting it. He only wanted to get to Harry, he wanted to tell Harry so much.
His heart pounded dreadfully hard. He killed a man and jumped over his body to the next. A spell hit him in the back, but it only propelled him forward. He flew with force into the approached Death Eaters. Not wasting a moment of time, Bill threw an Explosion Enchantment a few meters ahead of him.
The result was deafening. The ground shook, the very Chamber shook. There was a sound of cracking, a thunderous noise. Bill looked up briefly to see that stalactites were once again falling.
He kneelled and covered his head. When there was no impact, and he had been sure that at least three of the stalactites had been heading for him, he looked up again. The white spell that Dumbledore had cast earlier was still working for their people. The numbers of the Death Eaters had been taken down in droves. But they still outnumbered Dumbledore's army five to one.
There had been an accumulation of dust. With this cloak of luck, the army threw themselves on the Death Eaters with fierce spells and enchantments.
Voldemort was ready for them. "Ussse the clothe color detecting ssspellsss!" He hissed. It took a moment for Bill to realize what was being said.
BOOM
Bill was blown off his feet. The landed a few feet back in the blood of someone. He was still the closest to the captives and Voldemort. He could practically feel the dark power flowing from the Dark Lord.
A great wind passed overhead. It nearly swept Bill off of his feet. He could see some members of both armies being tossed in the vortex caused by the wind.
Voldemort had yet to enter the battle. Bill was only a few lengths away from the Dark Lord. He fought harder. His torso, his arms, and his legs hurt from the effort, from the jumping and running, from the mere exertion.
He was cutting such a path through the Dark Mass that the army could use to broaden the attack. The Death Eaters before him grew more and more ferocious. He could see the experience in their movements. They took more out of him than the others had, but they had yet to touch him.
He was able to look around him. He could see the magnitude of his fighting. It was astounding. He had forged a path like fire through ice. He turned, breathing hard. He saw Harry screaming and the captives behind Harry screaming. Voldemort and a few of his Death Eaters had taken up punishing the captives.
The scream that Harry sounded tore through Bill with such an impact that his eyes filled with tears.
And I caused it...
"HARRY!" He yelled. Heads turned in his direction including Voldemort's.
Bill threw the Killing Curse at the Death Eaters before him. He could fell his own power extending, destroying Death Eaters near him without him having to curse them. Dumbledore's army avoided his proximity. His magic was knowing no bounds. It was washing over his surrounding enemies, killing them instantly. He was feet away from the platform that Voldemort, Harry, and the other victims were standing upon.
Suddenly, Harry turned his head and looked directly at him. Green met blue. Bill could his blood run cold at the tears in Harry's eyes. It was last of innumerable times he put tears in Harry's eyes. His strength, his power, his vigor betrayed him under Harry's gaze. He was nearing a collapse. Suddenly, Harry's mouth moved silently.
"I still love you." Bill was once again rejuvenated, though Harry's nearly whispered words hurt him emotionally as much as they helped him physically.
"I l-." A strange chanting suddenly filled the hall.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the battle that had just reached its apex, went into a ceasefire, a unearthly lull. Bill even lowered his wand at the strong emotions resonated through the death-filled chamber. His magic retreated back into him.
"Sattercifia stinatia yonkishia thantisa staitrousa ducissa kontka thaksita faksia warakia ragha querta wasissa lalaskila."
The chanting was coming from one source. A glowing figure chanted rapidly in the same space that…
Harry
Bill was stunned stiff. Voldemort had backed away from the figure, his wand was held high. Harry continued to chant in the language that only he seemed to understand. "Sattercifia stinatia yonkishia thantisa staitrousa ducissa kontka thaksita faksia warakia ragha querta wasissa lalaskila." The force behind the words were evident.
A small wind kicked up. The glowing Harry chanted once more, his voice boomed. "Sattercifia stinatia yonkishia thantisa staitrousa ducissa kontka thaksita faksia warakia ragha querta wasissa lalaskila!"
With the last of the his long chant, a great wind built up. A vortex appeared. It whipped at those in the Chamber. Bill could feel his feet and his body being lifted off of the ground. The vortex of wind and rock, and persons, gathered in the middle of the hall.
BOOM
With the force of a thousand Impedimentias, a great gaping hole was blown in the ceiling. The vortex was sucked upward along with the rocks that began to fall with the opening of the ceiling.
A brilliant red light beamed from the large opening. A voice so great, so powerful filled the hall in a chant similar to that of Harry's.
"Shononiti foilitilitia theritonia loreomia calidnam malelai."
A grand figure, decked in Greek warrior armor ascended from the ceiling with a godlike appearance. Bill knew it had to be a Greek god, but to see it in person. And to see it up close!
The being floated near the ceiling. Bill turned to look at Harry to see him no longer tied up to magical cords. He was no longer hanging. Bill noticed for the first time that there were no captives held behind Harry.
Harry responded to the deity in English. "I shall use myself to destroy those in this room. Gods remember my place and my plea."
The deity looked towards the opening in the ceiling. There was a majestic, powerful, conversation taking place between Ares, who Bill believed it to be, and some other gods.
Harry had at this moment turned to the army. His lips never moved. His eyes portrayed the significance of his words that flashed through their minds and not their ears.
"You all need to leave. There will be a great massacre. The enemy is frozen at the moment. The lake will flood this cave, as the Chamber is directly beneath it. Ares' power is the only thing keeping the water from flowing through the ceiling. You all need to go."
Ginny was the only one able to speak after the shock of Harry speaking in their minds. "What about you?"
"I," Harry paused looking towards the deity, who was still conversing with unseen hosts. "YOU are in danger, leave!" Harry suddenly commanded. His voice pounded into their heads. "And take those who have fallen, dead or wounded. Take only the wounded from the opposing army, for questioning."
Ginny looked torn for a moment. Bill turned to face Harry. He had waited so long to say what he needed to say to Harry. And now was his chance. He opened his mouth.
"Harry, I'm s-."
"COME ON EVERYONE, WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!" Ginny bellowed.
Hermione, Dumbledore, and a few Aurors began to gather the wounded or dead and make a hasty retreat out of the cave. They exited through a different exit, one in which Ginny had opened.
Bill turned to Harry to see him hovering in air with his arms extended to his sides. His eyes were closed and his head was thrown back. Power poured of him and covered those frozen in the Chamber.
Fawkes, making his first appearance, brought forth a heart-wrenching song. Bill noticed that the deity Ares looked at Harry with sad eyes, tears were visible.
Bill was suddenly being yanked from behind, rather forcibly. He bumped into several frozen Death Eaters, but was looking at Harry the entire time. Suddenly, the Chamber was receding from view. Bill found himself turning around and running automatically next to his sister. He looked before him and saw a wall waiting to meet them.
"Ginny, we can't run through walls!"
"Sometimes, sometimes I wonder Bill, what it is like in that mind of yours?" She tripped him and he sailed into the wall. He never collided with it.
He felt the transportation of a portkey, or the likes of which, kick in. After a moment or two of awkward spinning and twirling, he landed flat on his backside.
He immediately engaged himself with the surrounding. He recognized it instantly as the lake that ran on the Hogwarts campus. It was tossing water onto its banks with tremendous force.
Behind him, there was a bustle of movement. The Ministry had arrived and was taking the Death Eater captives and questioning them. The press was there, recording every detail of the battle from Hermione. She was the only person willing to speak. Almost everyone else looked tired, bloodied, and sick.
"It is unbelievable that we managed to get out of there with the minimum amount of lives lost as we did and as quickly as we did." Bill wouldn't have laughed at the irony of that statement to her earlier verbal altercation with the Auror Captian, if it was not for the sky above the lake.
A red beam was visible from his position on the bank. In the slight blue darkness of the evening, and the waning orange of the sun, Bill was able to see a mass of immaculate clouds. There was such power in the clouds that they churned thickly. They held a godly presence, the likes of which Bill had never seen before. They swirled above the lake and the banks.
The lake drew his attention suddenly. The vortex from earlier came to mind as a whirlpool had surrounded the red beam.
"Lord Dumbledore, what is it doing?" Someone who was assisting with the healing of the captives asked Dumbledore who was also assisting as best as he could in interrogating and healing.
Dumbledore took a while to answer, even then it was in an evasive statement. "He is making the ultimate sacrifice."
It took Ginny's straight-forward abruptness to get the truth from him. Bill had never been more grateful for his sister's 'no-messing around' attitude.
"Dumbledore, I have seen too much crap today to sit here and listen to riddles."
"Harry is going to sacrifice himself in order to destroy the Death Eaters and Voldemort."
There was a collective gasp. The pens of the press which were moving as fast as they could, stopped. Bill felt himself sink slowly to the bank. Even though Bill should have believed it, he just could not.
The baby.
Bill kept that question to himself as the clouds in the sky turned a dreadful red. Lightening flashed, though there was no rain. Thunder boomed intimidatingly.
Suddenly, a tremendous bolt of lightening ran from the cloud to the lake, and to the Chamber. The ground itself seemed to cry as it rumbled and the lake gurgled and the water level lessened considerably. The red light disappeared.
The middle of the lake seemed to have caved in dramatically. Then suddenly in a sprouting motion, a giant gush of water mingled with bodies, blood, rocks, and black cloaks shot skyward. The water sloshed along the banks like tidal waves. The press could not take enough pictures to capture the moment. There was a blast of wind that knocked the papers out of the hands of those with them present.
Bill's stomach cramped so strongly he vomited all over the ground in front of him. Ginny soon took pity on him and cleaned him and helped him up. He just knew Harry was gone, there was no denying it. Just which one of the many bodies floating the lake was Harry, was the question on Bill's mind now.
The ground continued to groan, the sky rained down tears of sadness. The red water diffused into the whole lake, turning it pink, and it washed onto the banks. Bill remembered the scene from the garden after he removed the black box from the pillar. The landscape went dreary. The sadness of the Last Battle seemed to fill the whole scene. The trees drooped, several of them let their leaves fall. The water went still, even though it carried the blood of the enemy. The evening sky went gray.
A beam of red light struck the ground near Bill from the oddly churning clouds above them. Bill instinctively moved away from it. A voice spoke. Bill was sure that it belonged to Ares.
"To discover the truth in past, remember the spell that was cast.
Remember the words and remember the tale that was chanted in the Chamber as well.
Remember the caster with powers divine to bring tears into the never compassionate eyes that are mine.
Remember the prophecies new and old, and tell the truth to his figure of gold.
Eyes of emeralds, tongue of snake: Gods of lesser and greater will tremble in his wake.
He, with the wondrous and terrible life, tell the vixen to speak the truth.
My work here is done, but remember my words: Bring back my godling from that which is hell."
The beam thundered this once more before retracting back into the clouds. The press tried to get down the speech but for some reason their pens would not write. The magnificent clouds churned once more before dispersing into regular ones.
Bill's mind barely had time to wrap around the prophetic riddle, before two wands washed up onto the bank near his feet. They seemed to be connected.
He called Dumbledore over, attracting the attention of everyone else to the identical wands that he held up. Fawkes gave a mournful cry as he saw the wands.
Dumbledore approached Bill slowly. His cloak was shredded in places and covered in ash. He looked and moved as one would expect of someone his age. He peered at the wands.
"You have found one of the most extraordinary phenomena of our age. Two wands of completely different wizards with nearly identical backgrounds. Two very powerful wizards, both great in their own ways." He held them up. A strange glow appeared around them.
He spoke in an authoritative voice. Bill realized that Dumbledore was giving the Rites of Death to the owners of the wands.
"The wand of the infamous Dark Lord Voldemort of Slytherin." A gasp rose up. Voldemort not having his wand put the final sign on his existence. But Dumbledore was not finished. "And the wand of the grand Light Lord Harry Potter of Gryffindor."
There it was. Bill felt cold all over. The confirmation like none other
A cry like none other, wrenched itself from the beak of Fawkes as he swooped down and clasped the wands in his claws, out of Dumbledore's outstretched hand. The wands suddenly fell away from each other. With one in each claw, and with his cry still piercing their hearts, Fawkes took flight, soaring off towards the mountains until he was finally out of sight.
That Could It Be 'The End'...
But Of Course It Isn't!
Just so everyone knows, there is a sequel. The Return, check it out