Inevitable: Chapter 77: Soul, Twisted & Chapter 78: Bokor Majeur

[mhalachaiswords]

I highly recommend that you re-read chapters 75 and 76 before you start this - chapter 75 (which I so wittily named Chekov's Gun) lays out all the plot points in these chapters.
Inevitable
A Harry Potter/Anita Blake crossover
by mhalachaiswords

Summary: A late-night run-in with werewolves in the woods outside St. Louis dumps Harry Potter into a whole new world of trouble. Now Anita Blake has to deal with a new charge as well as Death-Eaters come to town.
Disclaimer: Laurell K. Hamilton owns all things Anita Blake. J.K. Rowling owns all things Harry Potter. Only the story is my own.
Rating: PG-13
Words:
Spoilers: Spoilers for Half-Blood Prince, Incubus Dreams. Nothing beyond that.
Note: It's still Oct. 31, the longest day in Harry's life. Also I would like to point out that everything that happens in chapter 77 is a 100% legit Anita Blake Power from the books)

Previous parts here.


Seventy-seven: Soul, Twisted

I was falling in darkness.

Before I could do more than observe these two rather important points, the ground rose up to meet me, sharp rocks cutting into my hands. All around me, darkness lay overwhelming, overpowering, and a scream rose up in my throat. I hated the dark, hated being closed in with all this magic around me, and I reacted instinctively, pushing back at the dark with my own power.

Before the darkness could do more than writhe gently around me, white light exploded in my eyes. "Anita!" Harry shouted, his shape all I could make out as I blinked hard. "Are you okay?"

I tried to swallow down my rising power, but it was like trying to pacify an angry panther. "What the hell just happened?" I demanded.

"Port key," Harry said, breathing heavily. "It's a little abrupt."

I staggered to my feet, almost turning an ankle on the rocks. From the tiny light at the end of Harry's wand, I could see that we were in a huge cavern, even larger than the underground rooms in the Circus of the Damned. Jean-Claude had once threatened me over the Bokor Majuer in a cavern very like this.

But that wasn't the point. I checked my sidearm to make sure it hadn't shaken loose in the fall. I was still armed, although that did little to make me feel better. I turned to face Harry. He shut his mouth on whatever he had been about to say when he saw my expression. "I wasn't talking about the port key," I said in a surprisingly calm voice, especially considering what we had just seen in the castle. "I'm talking about the undead army and the explosions and everything! What the fuck is happening?"

"I told you!" Harry yelled, his face white. "Voldemort and the Death Eaters are attacking the castle, they have to be coming for the horcruxes! The wards are down and the castle is completely unprotected!" He waved his arms, sending the light flickering around us. In the shadows, I thought I could see something move, but when I looked closer, the illusion disappeared. "We have to destroy the horcruxes before Voldemort finds them, it's the only way!"

As Harry scrambled towards the wall, I stayed where I was, crossing my arms over my chest and curling in on myself. I was trying to contain my power, but it was a little too late for that. This night felt like it had been going on for years, and my exhaustion was only making things worse. Even as I tried to stop it, a cold wind began to move through the cavern, responding to the death magic surrounding the castle.

So I did the only thing I could. I wiped the blood from my palms on my jeans, and followed Harry over to the wall.

He tore around with a manic energy, talking to himself as he pulled things out of a niche on the wall. "Goblet, locket," he muttered, dropping a gaudy gold cup on a rock beside a similarly chunky locket. "The diary's already destroyed and so is the ring..."

The light at the end of his wand flickered and lurched, and I felt bile rising in my throat as my claustrophobia merged with vertigo. I grabbed Harry's arm. "Stop it!" I ordered, holding on when he tried to pull away. "Harry, you need to stop and tell me what you are doing!"

Harry tried to free himself, but I spent long hours in the gym so I could fight preternatural bad guys. Holding onto one teenage boy wasn't a challenge. "We don't have time for this," he insisted. "We have to destroy the horcruxes, now--"

"I get that," I said, more to placate him than out of any real understanding. Earlier that afternoon, I'd felt the soul fragment embedded in Harry's body, had touched the twisting hooks and claws binding it to Harry's own soul. If the other horcruxes were as complex, we'd never destroy them in time. "But you need to explain what you're talking about to me."

Harry took a deep breath. "These are the horcruxes we have," he said. At least he wasn't yelling anymore. "I destroyed the horcrux in the diary in second year. The ring was destroyed earlier this year. But the goblet and the locket are still horcruxes, and so is..." Harry stopped and swallowed. "So is Neville's wand." He pulled the wand out of his pocket and balanced it on the rock next to the locket. "And then there's me."

I squeezed Harry's shoulder with a reassurance I didn't feel. "Locket and wand first, then we'll deal with you, okay?"

Harry nodded miserably.

"But first, you need to either put your wand down or light something on fire, because if the shadows in here keep moving, I'm going to go crazy," I went on. I wasn't joking. The moving shadows reminded me too much of Jean-Claude's Bokor Majeur ultimatum months before.

Harry pointed his wand at a small depression in a rock and spoke a few words. A pool of tiny blue flame appeared in the indentation. He did it a few more times, until our little corner of the cave was bright enough to see without his wand.

As the little blue fires burned steadily, the shadows stopped shivering on the corners of my consciousness. The flames barely moved in the cold breeze that still trickled around the cavern.

"Thank you," I said, wiping my left hand on my jeans again. The wounds on my palms, made from falling onto the sharps rocks of the cavern floor, had finally closed. If I had to pull my gun, I wouldn't risk getting the grip slippery with blood. "Let's deal with this and get out of here, okay?"

"Okay," Harry said faintly. "And we have to hurry, everyone's up there and they're in danger--"

I couldn't take any more of this. I grabbed his shoulder, the one Richard had clawed up months before, and shook him hard. "Harry! You can only be in one place at a time! I need your head in the game!"

He shoved away from me, but at least he was angry again. When he was angry, he got focused. Sound like anyone else I knew? "I know that!"

"Then act like it!" I reached for the goblet and lifted it gingerly. I had no idea what kind of magical shielding a crazy witch might have put on the cup, I only knew that Harry had said the horcruxes were protected.

I stroked a finger over the metal. The cup felt unpleasantly warm. I let out my breath slowly. It must be the light or the lack of sleep, but I was letting my imagination run away with me. Human souls didn't have any physical manifestation, and certainly couldn't be warming the goblet from the inside out.

"Dumbledore told me all about the spell," Harry was saying in the background, but all my attention was on the cup. "It's really complicated and it didn't work on the locket. Actually, it completely backfired and nearly killed him but it's all I have..."

I held the cup in my left hand, letting my power slide over the curved metal, and went deeper. There was a magic here I didn't understand, lying over the metal like clumsy wrapping paper. I might not comprehend what had been done to this object, but in the end I didn't need to. My power found a tiny weakness in the metaphysical amour and slipped inside on tiny cold tendrils.

"...and I'm not certain why Dumbledore wouldn't have written the spell down if he suspected that Voldemort might show up, but then who expects Voldemort to show up at this time of year?" Harry said, nervously arranging the horcruxes on the rock. I wasn't even sure he saw what I was doing.

But that didn't matter. The dark didn't matter, the cold didn't matter, the knowledge of a magical battle being fought over our heads didn't matter. Nothing mattered except for the cup in my hands.

I might have become many things over the years: federal marshal, Nimir-Ra, one third of a vampire triumvirate. But I was born a necromancer. In the dark of that cavern, the cold power I was born to found what it was searching for. A tiny piece of a soul, nothing more than a sliver, lay bound to the goblet. Unlike the soul shard in Harry, this tiny piece of soul barely clung to the inanimate metal. Only foreign and unnatural magic was keeping the soul fragment in place.

But I was a necromancer, and souls and death were as natural to me as breathing. The tiny piece of soul responded to my seeking power, and with very little effort, I slowly withdrew my power from under the protective magic surrounding the goblet. The tiny soul shard followed me, slipping out of the opening in the protective magic.

Then it did what all souls do when their living vessel is no longer available.

It went away.

The goblet fell from my hands to the ground with a clank, cutting off Harry's rant. He put the wand back on the rock and rushed over to me. "Anita? What happened?"

I looked at him. He was glowing faintly. I could see everything in the dark now as bright as day, every rock and every pebble and every faint curl of air.

He skittered back. "Your eyes are black!" he exclaimed. "How are you doing that?"

I touched his cheek with the fingers from my left hand, distantly surprised to feel the warmth emanating from his skin. He jerked away.

"Anita, what's happening?"

I didn't trust myself to speak. It had been such an easy thing, letting my power coax the soul shard free of its unnatural prison, but that had been enough to break through the fragile barriers I'd erected. This cavern was full of an unfamiliar magic that I wasn't able to touch.

But my blood had soaked into the ground below us, and the dead walked the ground above, and that was enough.

"I'm fine," I heard myself say. "Really, Harry." I stepped over the cup on my way to the other horcruxes.

"But-- what about the cup?" Harry asked, leaning over to scoop it off the ground. "Anita?"

"Lesson one about souls, Harry," I said, lifting the locket. "They stick like glue to the living, and can't wait to get away from the dead. That includes inanimate objects."

I caressed the locket with a gust of cold power, sending the thing spinning on its chain as I found the dent in the protective magic. It took barely a thought to slip through a bend in a chain, and to guide the tiny shred of a soul out into the open air to freedom.

I handed the locket to Harry. "Give me that wand, and we'll be able to get back upstairs."

Harry stared at me, eyes wide. "But we have to destroy the horcruxes," he said faintly.

"You're a few pages back in the script," I told him, reaching for the wand myself. "Binding souls to the dead or inanimate objects can never end well. It's not in the natural order."

The soul shard in the wand wasn't quite as easy to find, as the entire object was a tangle of gleaming, fiery magic. But I managed to coax the sliver out from its hiding place and along the wooden shaft, to nothingness.

I laid the wand in Harry's hand. "Let's go."

Harry blinked. "Just like that? It's that easy?"

I glanced at the ceiling. Above us, fighting raged between magical forces, with hundreds of children caught in the crossfire. An undead army of Inferi surrounded the castle. And both Harry and I had nearly died more times than I could count, since he came into my life in the summer.

"Yeah," I said, letting the word out slow. "That easy."

"So the bits of Voldemort's soul that were in these things..." Harry dropped the goblet and locket on the rock beside the cracked ring and the ruined book. "They're gone?"

"Yes." Every part of me was cold. The necromancer didn't mind, but my beast stirred sluggishly in my chest, unhappy at the chill.

"Where did they go?" Harry asked, his voice small.

I shrugged. "They just go, that's all I know," I said. "That's all any of us can know."

"What about heaven and hell?"

I knew what he wanted to know, and I also knew I couldn't give it to him. Not even someone who raised zombies had any answers about the afterlife. "Come on, Harry, we should get back."

He scrubbed his hand through his hair, making it more of a mess than before. "We still have two problems," he informed me, shoving the former horcrux wand into an inner pocket of his robe.

"Like how we're going to get out of here?"

Harry froze. "Three problems?"

I stifled a few choice words. "You lost the magical pebble?" I demanded.

"Oh, don't worry, I can find it," he reassured me. "I meant, we still have to deal with the problem of how I'm a horcrux, and finding the seventh!"

"Seventh what?"

"The seventh horcrux!"

"Why?"

Harry got in my face, all teenage boy and angry, and this time I really did sigh. "Because otherwise we'll never be able to stop Voldemort from--"

"From coming back from the dead?" I snapped. I was starting to lose the power buzz I'd gotten from the soul shards. "Like he did the last time?"

"Yes, but--" Harry stopped dead while he mentally processed what I had said. I took the opportunity to triple-check the number of bullets in my gun. Some women check their hair as a nervous tick. I check ammunition. "Wait, do you think Voldemort used a horcrux to come back from the dead last time?"

"I do," I said, slipping the gun into the holster at the small of my back. It was the Firestar, with its shorter barrel, but it held silver bullets and that was enough to make me happy. "Which just leaves our third problem."

Harry glared, although I knew it wasn't aimed at me. "You mean me?"

"You started it," I said.

"And you can finish it," he retorted evenly.

With those few words, the air changed. "There is no way," I said, letting my hands fall to my sides. "There is no way I will do that! I told you before--"

"But you're the only one!" he shouted. His voice bounced off the rocks overhead, echoing strangely in the cavern. "You did it to the other horcruxes, you can do it to me!"

"I have already told you, I can't!" I shouted back. My beast moved in my chest at the threat to one of her pack. "The last time I did this, I killed the person--"

"So? If it's for the greater good?"

"There's no greater good in killing you! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"But Voldemort--"

"Fuck Voldemort! I'll find him and put a bullet in his face, and then when he's dead we'll lock him in a box and figure out a way to keep you safe, okay?" I grabbed his robe. "Now go find that magical rock thing and get us out of here!"

Out of the darkness slithered a sibilant hiss, all dripping venom and danger. "Yes, Harry, do get us out of here."

I whirled, trying to position myself in front of Harry at the same time he tried to step in front of me. Into the circle of blue light stepped a man, only it wasn't a man at all. He was unnatural, like a half-transformed weresnake, but wrong, with slits in his face where a nose should have been, and eyes so black that they could only had been red in normal light.

Harry grabbed me and physically shoved me behind him. "Voldemort," he ground out between clenched teeth.

Well, fuck.

Voldemort stalked toward them, wand out and at the ready. Harry grabbed his wand out of his pocket to defend them, but Voldemort was too fast for him. With a quick Expelliarmus, Harry's wand was plucked from his fingertips and thrown across the cavern. He was defenseless. Taking a deep breath, Harry braced himself and tried to stand large so Voldemort wouldn't focus on Anita.

"Harry Potter," Voldemort said, his voice oozing menace. "I suppose it was inevitable that we two meet here, on this day."

"There's still time," Harry said through gritted teeth. He could feel Anita's hand on his back, a cold pressure. "For you to walk away from all this."

Voldemort let out a high-pitched laugh, nails screaming down a chalkboard. "A child to the last," he said mockingly. "Blustering about in the dark, scared of his own shadow."

The darkness behind Voldemort moved in swirls, and a tall black-robed figure stepped into the circle of light. It was Lucius Malfoy, looking gaunt and hollow. His eyes locked with Harry's for a long moment, then he looked away. The Death Eater walked over to the wall of the cavern, holding something in his arms.

"And as once before, Harry Potter brings a friend with him into the darkness," Voldemort said, pulling Harry's attention back.

Harry glanced over his shoulder. Anita had stepped out from behind him and was glaring at Voldemort. In the cold blue light from the flames, Anita looked impossibly young.

"Tell me, Harry," Voldemort went on, "How do you think I should kill your little friend? Shall it be quick, like the last one?"

Harry bit down on his exclamation, memories of Cedric Diggory's death rising hot in his head. Deep in his chest, his wolf stirred.

"Or shall it be a lingering thing?" Voldemort touched his wand to his lips. "So many choices."

"The only choice you're going to make is how to die," Harry said quickly. He glanced over at Lucius Malfoy, where the man was setting a small wooden chest against the cavern's stone wall. "Unless you turn yourself into the Aurors. Go ahead, I'll wait."

Voldemort's eyes narrowed. "Why would I turn myself in?" he asked. "When all my plans have finally come to fruition?"

"What the hell kind of plan is that?" Anita demanded. "You sent monsters into a school full of children!"

Voldemort ignored her. "Mr. Potter, tell the mudblood bitch to hold her tongue, or else I will cut it out."

Harry faltered for a moment. Voldemort had spoken like Anita was just any other Muggle-born. He hadn't used her name.

He wasn't acting like Anita was a threat. But everyone else who knew who Anita was, knew that she was dangerous. Christoff knew, Elsa knew, even Dumbledore knew.

Did Voldemort not know that Anita was Anita?

Harry's wolf growled in his head. If Voldemort didn't know Anita, then he didn't know he was facing off against one of the best necromancers in the world. He didn't know what he was up against.

Maybe they had a chance after all.

Instead, to deflect attention away from Anita, Harry jerked his chin in Lucius Malfoy's direction. "What's he doing, then?"

Lucius Malfoy stood away from the chest, his wand in his hand. Voldemort laughed again. "This is my final message to the Wizarding World. That when they stood against me, it would cost them everything! That this precious school of theirs is no protection to their children!"

"That little box can't destroy Hogwarts!" Harry protested. "Nothing can!"

Voldemort tskd. "There is one thing," he said, stepping forward over the rocks. "One thing in this world that can blast through the enchantment on Hogwarts like metal through wet paper."

"What are you talking about?" Harry demanded, but Anita squeezed his arm.

"Dragon's Breath," she breathed. "Nigel Spencer built a Dragon's Breath bomb, remember?"

Harry stared at the small wooden chest. It didn't look big enough to hold a bomb, let alone one that could destroy the entire school. "Is that what it is?" Harry demanded. "Is that a bomb?"

Voldemort was now glaring at Anita with narrowed eyes. "And how does your young mudblood know so very much about my plans?" he asked dangerously.

Anita stared back at Voldemort. "John Cassidy gave me a message to pass along to Dumbledore," she said. "That a former Death Eater named Nigel Spencer who was living in America made a Dragon's Breath bomb. Is that what that is?"

Voldemort was silent for a long minute. Then he said, "Why would an American Auror tell such things to you?"

"He knew she was coming to Hogwarts," Harry said before Anita could speak. "Is that what you're going to do? Blow up the school?"

As Harry suspected he might, Voldemort turned angrily on him. "The Wizarding World will remember what it is to fear me!" he exclaimed. "After I collect what is rightfully mine, I will destroy Hogwarts and everyone in it! After today, the entire world will know what happens if they stand against me!"

By the wall, Lucius Malfoy looked up sharply at Voldemort. "My Lord, surely not everyone," the man blurted out. "My son-"

"Your son!" Voldemort spat. "Your worthless son has failed me for the last time! You claim he is a wizard trained to follow in your family's path, but he could not even kill one old man!"

"My Lord, Dumbledore is no ordinary man-" Lucius Malfoy began, but at his words all the pieces from the school year suddenly fell into place for Harry.

"Draco was trying to kill Dumbledore!" Harry shouted, burning with rage. "He's the one who sabotaged Reece's cage on the full moon! He's the one who told Kretcher to put poison in Dumbledore's teacup!"

It hadn't been Snape they were after, or Tonks. All the threats that year had been on Dumbledore's life. And it had been Draco all this time?

"Draco is weak!" Voldemort glared at Harry, his face contorting in anger. "He will die like the rest of the sniveling children, cowards!"

"You can't do this!" Anita exclaimed. "They're children!"

"I can do anything I want!" Voldemort shouted. "I am the Dark Lord! I am Voldemort!"

Harry, who had been about to go for his wand in a desperate attempt to stop Voldemort from setting off the bomb, saw it a moment before it happened. Lucius Malfoy was staring at Voldemort with an expression of complete devastation, of loss, of grief.

Then, in a flash, Lucius Malfoy turned on the bomb, his wand out and pointing at the wooden crate. He had barely opened his mouth when Voldemort turned on him with a scream. Voldemort was fast, but Lucius Malfoy was faster. Lucius Malfoy spoke one word, and the wooden crate glowed a strange red, lighting up the entire cavern.

"Aveda Kedavra!" Voldemort screamed. The green curse crashed into Lucius Malfoy , picking him up and throwing him across the cavern. He was dead before his body hit the cavern wall with a sickening crack.

The green curse that had killed Lucius Malfoy ricocheted off the still-glowing wooden crate. The crate imploded on one side with a muffled whump. The air was still for a heart-stopping moment, then the crate exploded in an arc, blasting into the solid rock wall. Harry dove for Anita, pushing her against the wall, just moments before a large boulder fell where they had been standing.

The shower of rocks over their heads was brief; the far wall of the cavern had taken the brunt of the explosion. The ceiling above them groaned as dust and rocks continued to fall.

"Harry!" Anita yelled as she pulled her gun. "You okay?"

Harry couldn't answer. The blue flames spilled out of their places on the rocks and were flowing in a river of liquid fire over the cavern floor. In the flickering light, Harry could see the dark shape of Voldemort stagger to its feet, wand pointed directly at them.

Anita pushed Harry to the side and held up her gun, her finger already moving on the trigger when Voldemort screamed "Crucio!"

The curse hit Anita in the chest and her shot went wide. Anita dropped the gun and fell to the ground, screaming.

Voldemort pulled back his wand a heartbeat later. Anita's screams stopped. "Do you see why I will win, no matter what you do?" Voldemort demanded. He was breathing hard. "Even if I am betrayed at every turn, I will survive! I will simply take my horcruxes and vanish! My forces overhead will succeed where the Dragon's Breath has failed!"

Harry knelt by Anita's side. She grabbed him and pulled at him so hard he thought he would overbalance, but then he realized that she was just trying to stand. Bracing himself, Harry hauled Anita upright. The woman was shaking all over.

"And now," Voldemort said, "Before I kill you, I will kill your mudblood friend."

"Wait!" Harry shouted. He was desperately trying to figure out what to do. His wand lay on the ground, too far away to get before Voldemort could stop him. Anita's gun was similarly out of reach. All he had was the woman at his side.

"Oh, do you want to say goodbye?" Voldemort asked mockingly.

Anita growled under her breath. "You sonofa-"

"Please," Harry said in Anita's ear. "You have to do it. It's the only way to stop him. You have to get rid of the horcrux in me. You have to." Breathing was getting difficult, the air hitching in his chest. The blue light and rock dust were burning his eyes. "To save everyone. It's the only way."

Anita turned to Harry, put her hand on his cheek. "Harry, there is always another way."

"Not this time," Harry said, blinking hard. He didn't want to die, but he tried to smile, to reassure Anita that it was going to be all right. "Just… Tell Damian I tried, okay?"

Anita clenched her jaw. "I'm sorry," she said, and just as Harry thought that she wasn't going to do anything, she wrapped her other hand around his neck, and pulled.

It wasn't a physical pull, but that just meant it hurt so much more. Harry's entire body was being ripped apart, torn piece by piece, muscles and tendons shriveling, his skin shrinking around him. He couldn't help screaming, as the life was pulled from his body into the frantic gale of cold wind around them; Anita's magic, her necromancy, her power of death.

There was another screaming, and flashes of light as Voldemort tried to separate them with his wand, but the curses couldn't penetrate the vortex of death magic around Anita. She never let Harry go, never looked away from him as she pulled the life from his body. Her eyes were black as the blackest night, after the moon; before the sun.

Harry screamed until he couldn't scream any more, until his vocal cords dried and his lungs froze. Then he felt something slide deep inside his body, a metaphysical hand inside his head. It hesitated, feeling, pulsating, then it gripped a shard of something embedded in him and pulled it free, let it go. The something fluttered around Harry's head like a wounded moth, battering against his skull in a frantic fury, then it was gone.

Stillness in the dark.

Was he dead? Was this what death was going to be? All alone in the dark?

Then an explosion of power as life poured back into Harry, filling him up like a waterfall into a cup. He started screaming again as his lungs filled with air, as the blood came back to his heart, as his skin filled out and he was alive.

Anita released him and staggered back, her hair whipped around her in the hurricane gale of death magic. Voldemort tried to curse her, but his magic couldn't penetrate the vortex of magic around Anita.

Harry could understand now what the Wizarding World was so afraid of necromancers - because magic could not stop them.

That was a distant thought, however, as he fell to the ground. His body was whole once again, and he felt like himself, but what had Anita done? Had she been able to release the horcrux inside Harry?

There wasn't any time. Rocks fell around them and Anita wouldn't be able to deflect Voldemort's magic for long. Harry had to stop Voldemort before he killed Anita.

Harry looked wildly around for his wand. Dust obscured the air, and he couldn't see the place where his wand had been thrown. But as he moved, the blue flames flickered over the shining metal of Anita's gun, discarded on the ground.

One of Voldemort's curses slammed into Anita, knocking her off-centre. Harry didn't stop to think as he dove towards the gun. He picked it up with shaking hands and flicked off the safety, just as Anita had shown him so many months before.

Voldemort raised his wand, readying a final curse at Anita.

"Hey!" Harry yelled. "Tom Riddle!"

Voldemort whirled around, his mouth open in a scream, and Harry shot Voldemort in the chest. Black blood spurted out as Voldemort fell backwards and hit the rocks, motionless.

Voldemort was dead.

Seventy-eight: Bokor Majeur

As the echo from the shot died away, I stared at Voldemort's body. Harry's shot had hit him in the chest, but I couldn't be sure from this distance if it had been a killing blow.

Climbing over the loose rocks to Harry's side, I hauled him upright. "Are you okay?" I asked. My voice reverberated oddly in the cavern.

"Sure," Harry said, and fell over.

I took the gun from his hand and half-led, half-hauled him to the wall. Then I walked over to the body on the ground. His eyes were half-open and he looked dead, but chest wounds can be funny things. He might just be unconscious.

I clenched my left hand into a fist. I could reach down and touch the body, pry out the soul of this evil man, hold that soul in my hand. I could make this man pay for all the evil he had done in this world.

Ma petite, Jean-Claude's voice trickled into my head, faint from so far away in St. Louis. Ma petite, are you all right?

No, I told him. No, I'm not all right.

I could make this man pay for what he had done to Harry, and I would be no better than he was.

I raised the gun, sighted down the barrel, and fired my remaining bullets into Voldemort's skull.

Harry was standing beside me by the time I finished. He looked like he was going to be sick, which was a normal reaction to seeing what six nine-millimeter bullets did to the human skull .

"Is he really gone?" Harry asked weakly.

I put the now-empty gun in my pocket. "Yes," I said. "He's dead."

"And the horcrux in me?"

A large rock fell on the far side of the cavern, and both of us flinched back. Harry dashed across the floor to grab something off the ground, then ran back to me. He whipped the wand over us, and the next rocks that fell bounced off a magical shield over our heads.

"It's gone," I told Harry as I pressed against his side, to give the rocks less of a target.

"That thing you did, was that the thing you did with Chimera? And Iz… Iz…"

"Itzpapalotl," I said shortly. The far wall of the cavern was fracturing now, large cracks appearing as the blue flames trickled like water across the floor. "I couldn't find the horcrux without pulling your life-force away, otherwise I'd have ripped your soul away too."

From around the world, Jean-Claude heard my words, and he knew what I was not telling Harry. Even though I had pushed Harry's life-force back into his body, I was still riding on the power rush, cold down to my bones.

Ma petite, you must get to safety, Jean-Claude told me.

I looked around the cavern. The power rush faded slightly as I realized exactly how dire our predicament we was. "Harry, how the hell are we going to get out of here?"

Another rock fell against the energy shield over our heads. "I don't know!" Harry exclaimed. He pulled me against the wall and used his wand to blast the next chunk of rock away. "The port key's buried, and there's other way in!"

"And you can't do that teleportation thing yet," I said, my heart sinking in my chest. Around the world, I felt Jean-Claude leap to his feet, wrap one hand around the bedpost as he felt my desperation. "There's no way out."

Underneath Jean-Claude's presence, I felt echoes, of Richard running through the Circus of the Damned to be with Jean-Claude; of Nathaniel curled up with the wereleopards, Damian awake in his coffin.

"Will they come looking for us?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"How would they know where to look in time?" Harry looked at me, his eyes dark in the blue light. "I don't even know if Dumbledore would think we came down here."

The dust in the air was like ashes in my mouth. We couldn't die, not like this. We'd been through so much, all of us, had survived so much. It wasn't fair.

I'm going to close the links, I told Jean-Claude and the others. Maybe that way, you guys will make it if I die.

Ma petite, non! Jean-Claude shouted at me, as the rock wall started to cave in with a heavy rumbling. You will not die!

I griped Harry's arm. I love you, I told my guys, Jean-Claude and Richard and Nathaniel and Damian. Just know that, okay?

Across the world, I could feel Richard's grief, Damian's despair, Nathaniel's fierce denial. Anita, you have to find a way, Nathaniel told me. You and Harry are smart, you will find a way out! Think of all the people who need you!

He shoved an image at me, one from my own head, of all the children screaming in the dining hall earlier that night when the monsters attacked.

I pushed the grief down in my head. Plenty of time to mourn my death later. "Harry, is there anything you can do to get us out of here?" I asked. "Turn us into frogs or build a magic door or summon a dragon or something?"

"Summon a dragon?" Harry asked, sending a ball of light flying up into the cavern, then another.

"Work with me!" I demanded, getting angry. And when I get angry, I keep fighting. "We did not spend the last three months together so we'd get squished by an avalanche!"

"I know!" Harry shouted.

The cavern ceiling cracked, pieces of rock falling from a height. Harry's swirling lights flew past the new crack, and one of them was buffeted around as if by wind.

"And I wish I could summon a dragon, then we'd…" Harry's voice died away. I looked at him. He was grinning.

"What?"

In response, Harry straightened up, aimed his wand at the crack in the ceiling, and shouted "Accio Firebolt!"

"What are you doing?" I demanded.

"Getting us out of here!"

"Before or after we get flattened?"

"Hopefully before!" Harry waved his wand and a glittering force-field appeared over our heads. He pulled me out away from the wall and into the middle of the cavern. We had to walk past Voldemort's body, and when we were close, Harry knelt down and pulled the wand from Voldemort's dead hand.

"What are you doing?"

Harry stared at the dead man's wand. "Me and Voldemort, the cores of our wands came from the same phoenix," he said. "I used to think that it was fitting, you know, that we'd have to kill each other with wands like that."

"You killed him with a silver nine-millimeter manufactured by normal people in Tennessee," I said, trying not to wince as pebbles fell in a steady stream onto the shield over our heads. "Nothing magical about that."

Harry's lip curled up. "He would have hated that so much."

"Fuck him," I said with feeling. "He's a murder who tried to blow up a school, no sympathy here."

Harry looked over at the body as he shoved Voldemort's wand into his robe pocket. "We'll tell Dumbledore that he's down here," Harry said. "That way, there will be a body this time."

"What about that guy?" I asked, pointing at the place where the blond wizard had been thrown by the green curse. His body was partly crushed by the falling rocks. "Why did he turn on Voldemort?"

"Lucius Malfoy," Harry said, coughing on the dust. "He only tried to stop the bomb once Voldemort said that Draco was going to die with the rest of them."

"His son."

"So that makes it okay? He'd blow the school up if Draco wasn't there?"

I flinched closer to Harry as a large pillar of rock toppled towards us, and we stumbled out of the way just as an enormous bolder fell to the ground. "He tried to stop the bomb, and that's what matters!" I shouted. "When is this stupid plan of yours going to work?"

"Come on!" Harry yelled, pulling me along with him as rocks fell all round us. In my head, I could feel Jean-Claude and Damien feeding, to give me power, to give me strength. I ran as fast as I could, giving grim thanks that I had kept up the jogging with the wereleopeards. "Almost here!"

"Almost where?" I demanded, when something flew out of the darkness towards us. I nearly choked on my own words as a goddamned flying broom came to a stop just in front of Harry.

"Get on!" he shouted as he straddled the broom and held out his hands for me. "If the broom could get in here, there's a hole in the rocks big enough for us to get out!"

I froze in my tracks. "Get on a flying broom, are you crazy?"

Anita! Jean-Claude screamed in my head, echoed by Damien and Nathaniel and Richard. I dove at Harry and climbed on the broom behind him, my arms barely around his waist when he leaned forward and the broom shot into the air.

Flying on a broom was nothing like flying on an aircraft. On a broom, I could feel the air whipping at my face, the sharp rocks ripping into my skin as we flew past them. My feet dangled and the only solid thing in the world was Harry. I buried my face in his shoulder and held on as tight as I could without squeezing him to death, as the broom rose and fell and darted side to side.

It felt like we were gathering speed. Harry shouted, "Keep your head down and your legs up!" and I didn't even have a chance to ask him what the hell he meant when we were squeezing through a narrow opening in the rock, so narrow that my elbows scraped along the rock on either side of us, and then we were up and out into the cold night air.

Nathaniel was cheering in my head, and I could feel the relief of all of my guys. Still holding tight to Harry's waist, I peeked over his shoulder as the broom came to a halt mid-air. What I saw ripped away all my relief.

Hogwarts was in flames.

Walls were down, holes blasted in the stones. Fire flowed like a river across the castle grounds, and down, far below, came flashes of light as people battled with wands.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

A sea of white empty faces milled around aimlessly, zombies without a master, hundreds of them. I felt the bile rise in my throat when I realized what had happened. Voldemort had raised these zombies as Inferi, and when he died, their ties had been cut.

"I'm going to land!" Harry shouted, and dipped the broom so we were falling to earth. I let out a moan of terror, trying to swallow so I didn't throw up all over Harry's back.

He pulled the broom handle up just before we crashed onto a stone balcony. I fell off the broom and landed on my knees. My stomach heaved, and I puked up my dinner onto the cobblestones.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked.

I spat onto the rocks. "No." My stomach heaved again, but noting came up. Wiping my mouth with my sleeve, I pulled myself up so I could look out over the balcony.

The fighting and the magic meant nothing to me; all I could think about were the zombies below. They still were confused, but soon, one or more of them would feel the hunger, would start to lash out, and the rest would follow mindlessly. If it had been one zombie, or maybe two, I could try to stop them, but attempting to gain control over a rogue zombie was difficult at the best of times, even when one had the proper supplies and had time to prepare.

A crack whipped through the air. Harry spun around, wand in his hand, at Elsa materializing out of the night. She held a wand in each hand, blood on her face, and she was breathing heavily. "Where have you been?" she demanded.

"Killing Voldemort," Harry said, lowering his wand. "What's going on?"

Elsa snarled. "What do you think, idiot child?"

"Shut up," I demanded, looking back out at the zombies. A few were starting to walk towards the castle with purpose. As I watched, two of them picked up the body of a masked man, and ripped the man limb from limb.

With the renewal of blood, more zombies began to move.

"Nothing can stop them," I said distantly. "It doesn't matter what kind of magic you have, you can't stop a zombie army."

"But you can," Harry said. "That's what you said can happen with Bokor Majeur, you can control an army of zombies!"

Elsa let out a hiss, and Jean-Claude's voice was suddenly loud in my head. Ma petite, you cannot!

What choice do I have? I wondered distantly. More zombies were moving toward the castle now. There were hundreds of them, and even if the first wave was destroyed by the wizards, they could never stop them all.

And all those children inside the castle.

"I have to," I said, to Jean-Claude as much as Harry. "There's no other way."

Ma petite, stop! Anita!

"I have to stop them," I said as I pulled off my jacket and pushed up my shirtsleeves. "I'm the only one who can do it."

I held up my arms, hands towards me, forearms bare. I let out a breath, took one in, and held it.

It was hard to explain what I was doing in words. All I knew was that as a necromancer, I knew death. As the human servant of a Master vampire, I knew what death felt like in my bones. And in this place, as I lowered my arms, I lowered every single shield I ever had around my powers.

I reached out on a cold wind, brushing past the recently dead lying on the ground, their blood still warm. I didn't want them.

When I reached the first of the zombies, they faltered, feeling my touch. The death lay on my tongue as I breathed in, past the smoke on the air, past the living. I kept reaching out, touching all of the dead, wrapping my power around them, but it only lay on the surface. They were not my zombies.

And then I did the unforgivable. I did what I had always been cautioned against, by my grandmother, by the men who had trained me.

I called those zombies to me, and when I had their attention, I made them mine.

It wasn't as simple as it sounded. I didn't just take their power into me; I stole everything they were. I made them mine, not like you'd say with a pet or a child, but mine. They were mine, I possessed them, controlled them, as one might say, these hands are mine.

Gashes opened up along my forearms, the pressure of the magic too much for my body to contain. My blood dripped down to the stones of the castle, my power spreading to the very ground below us.

The Inferi were mine. I could do whatever I wanted; destroy this castle, lay waste to the countryside beyond.

Their power was in my hands.

Anita, please, Jean-Claude begged, a whisper. Do not forget who you are.

Who I was. What was that? I raised the dead, what was what I was.

But then I returned them to their rest.

Raise with one hand and lay to rest with the other, my grandmother had said so many years before. Servir a deux mains, serve with both hands. Good and evil in all of us, and you must remember to keep the balance in everything you do, Anita.

"I can keep them still," I said, my mouth dry. I wasn't just on the balcony with Harry and Elsa; I was in that field, looking at the castle. I was all. "I don't know how to lay them to rest."

"You don't have to," Elsa said. She circled around me to where Harry had dropped his broom. "Keep them still and don't let them move!"

"What are you going to do?" Harry yelled after her, but Elsa was already gone, zipping off into the air. "Anita?"

My hands were shaking. "I can't lay them down," I said again. When I spoke, the zombies mouthed along with me. They were mine. "I don't know how to stop this."

Elsa came to a halt high above the zombie mob. I looked at her, with my eyes and the eyes of every zombie. I could see her raise her wand, and through the noise of the fires, of the lingering destruction, I faintly heard Elsa shout, "Incendio!"

The enormous fireball hit the edge of the mob and I was on fire, burning. I screamed, falling to my knees, but I held on, held my hands still.

Another wave of fire washed over me, and another. I kept screaming as I burned, as my flesh charred, as my skin split open, as my bones roasted. Distantly, I felt Harry, hugging me, his face pressed against my neck, speaking words I couldn't hear over the flames.

And I wasn't alone. Jean-Claude and Richard, Nathaniel and Damian, I could feel their presence as close as if they were on that balcony with me, supporting me, taking the pain, giving me the strength I had to keep hold of the zombies as Elsa set them on fire.

I would not let the zombies move. I would not let them loose. I would not let them harm anyone else.

When the zombies crumbled to ash under Elsa's magical flames, I felt their loss. One by one, they were torn from me by the flames, and I understood now why a necromancer would do anything to keep their zombies tied to them with Bokor Majeur; I was losing parts of myself.

Eventually, my screams tapered off. Harry rocked me as I sobbed, but still I held my hands to the sky, my arms offering blood in sacrifice.

Serve with both hands, they call it. One hand to take power, and the other hand to release it.

When the last zombie crumbled to ash, I collapsed. Harry went down with me. He was growling deep in his chest, a familiar wolfy rumble. My beast moved unhappily in my chest; she hadn't liked the cold or the flames, but she was quieted as Harry held me.

A soft whoosh, and someone was kneeling by my side. I opened my eyes to see Elsa leaning over me.

"What you did was forbidden magic," she said in my ear. "The Council could rip you and your precious vampire to shreds for it."

I just looked at her, my breath hitching in my throat. I ached all over, with physical and metaphysical agony still gripping me.

"What are you going to do?" Harry asked over my shoulder.

Elsa bent over me, and licked my cheek. She came away with blood on her lips. "You saved those children from the flames when the magical world would not," she whispered, and stood up. "Can you walk?" she asked in her normal voice.

Harry helped me to my feet. I wobbled; my legs didn't feel like my own. "Now what?" I asked, my voice rough from screaming.

"Most of Voldemort's forces ran away when they saw the Inferi burning," Elsa said.

"Where did they go?" Harry asked, his arm around my waist as we walked towards the balcony door.

"Some went into the Dark Forest," Elsa said. She propped Harry's broom over her shoulder and walked at my side. "Some went north. Moroven will have them."

I stumbled. Harry was the only thing that kept me upright. "So it's over?"

"It appears to be." Elsa reached into her pocket and pulled out her other wand. She held both in one hand, the other keeping the broom steady.

"Do we know how many people died?" Harry asked.

"Many," Elsa said. "But far less than would have, if Voldemort had his way."

"Any kids?" I managed to ask.

Elsa looked straight ahead. "A few," she said after a minute.

Harry's hand tightened on my hip. "Is there anything else we can do?"

Elsa moved away from us. "Get Anita some help," she called over her shoulder. "Sleep. Be ready for tomorrow."

And with that, Elsa hopped onto the broom and flew away down the corridor.

"Where are we going?" I asked. My world had narrowed down to limping along in the corridor, Harry at my side.

Harry slowed us, and looked up at a painting. "Where is everyone?" he asked the painting.

A small painted head poked around a tree. "The wounded are in the Great Hall," the cherub said. "Most of the fighting is over now."

"Come on," Harry said to me, and we started moving again. "Let's get to the Great Hall."

"I need to find Jason," I mumbled. "Make sure he's okay."

"He'll be in the Great Hall," Harry told me. "He'll be okay, you know him."

"You're a bad liar," I said.

"I know."

Somehow, we managed to get to the Great Hall. Some of the corridors were reduced to rubble, but most were still passable. Here and there, bodies were visible, but we kept walking.

The doors to the Great Hall had been blasted to splinters. Inside, the room was a bustle of activity. The tables were gone, and in their place makeshift cots had been set up.

Harry and I limped in to no fanfare. I looked around for Jason, but I couldn't see him.

An older woman stopped Harry in the middle of the hall. "Mr. Potter," she said, touching his head, feeling along his arms. "Are you in one piece?"

"Yes, Madam Pomfrey," Harry said. "What about my friends? Hermione and Ron, Ginny and Luna?"

"Luna is up in the hospital wing, she'll be right as rain in a few days. I haven't heard about the others, dear, but…" She looked over her shoulder at the corner. "It's Remus Lupin. You should go be with him."

Harry went still. "Be with him? Why, what happened?"

Madam Pomfrey shook her head. "He was attacked by Peter Pettigrew," she said quietly. "Auror Tonks managed to kill Pettigrew, but, well, with Pettigrew's silver hand and what he did…" She patted Harry's arm. "There may not be a lot of time left."

Harry looked down at me, panic on his face. "Go," I said, stepping away from him. "I'll be right behind you."

Harry took off at a run, darting around people sitting on the ground. I followed as quickly as I could.

Remus Lupin, Harry's werewolf friend, lay on a mat in the corner of the hall, a wide space around him. A young woman with dropping purple hair was a this side, holding his hand. She had been crying.

What I had at first thought was a fur rug along Remus's side moved at Harry's approach. A young werewolf, fully shifted, looked at us. The young wolf lifted his head and let out a keening howl as Harry rushed over.

"Remus!" Harry gasped, falling to his knees beside the mat. "What happened? Reece, get off!"

The werewolf licked Harry's jaw before curling up again at the man's side. Remus was as pale as paper, but he tried to smile at Harry. "You all right?" he breathed.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Voldemort's dead," Harry blurted out. "What happened to you?"

"Pettigrew tried to rip out Remus's heart with his silver hand," the young woman said, bitter through her tears. "The medics said with the silver poisoning, there's nothing they can do."

The young wolf lay his head on Remus's stomach, just below the blood-soaked bandages covering the man's chest.

"It's all right," Remus breathed. "I never thought… I'd be… the last to… go."

"Shut it," the woman said fiercely. "You're not going anywhere."

Behind us, a few gasps sounded. I turned around to see one of the professors escorting Jason in his man-wolf form through the Hall.

"Does this belong to you?" the professor asked.

Jason gave a snarl as he bounded over to me, crouching at my feet. "You smell like blood," he said, his voice low in this form.

"I've had a shit day," I told him, putting my arm around his shoulder and leaning against him. "You?"

"I hate this place," Jason grumbled.

In the meantime, Harry had turned to me, a beseeching look on his face. "You saved Jason before," he said in a hurry. "Please, Remus is the only one left, you have to save him!"

"How?" I asked, letting more of my weight rest on Jason's shoulder. He licked at the blood on my arm, and I was too tired to tell him to stop.

"However you saved Jason!"

"The munin doesn't work like that," I said. "I can't just turn it on."

"Anita, please." Harry gripped at my hand, desperation on his face.

Jason turned his head up to look at me. "You can feed off me."

"That's not-" I shook my head, and looked down at the injured werewolf. "Do you know what we're talking about?"

The man blinked at me, too exhausted to nod. "Animal magic," he said quietly. "Don't want it."

"Hang on," the woman said. "There's magic that can save him? Werewolf magic?"

"Yes," Harry said, just as I said, "Probably." We glared at each other for a moment. "It's possible," I said. "He may be too far gone, but the munin is wolf magic, it calls to lycanthropes."

The woman looked down at Remus. "Listen to me," she said fiercely. "I want you to live and I know that you want to live too. We've been through too much for it to end like this!"

Remus smiled faintly at her. "My dear Tonks," he said. "It may be… for the best."

"Bollocks! If it was me lying on this cot and you up here holding my hand, would you still be saying it was 'for the best'? Of course not!"

"Remus," Harry said urgently. "Please!"

Remus turned his head to look at me. "Would you do this for me?" he asked. "After all I did?"

"Jason's the one you hurt, not me," I said. "If he wants to help you, then I will."

"I do," Jason said. He shifted over to Remus's side, beside Reece. "Too many people are dead."

"What do I do?" the woman, Tonks, asked.

"You can hold his hand if you like, just don't get in my way." Grimly, I sat on the floor beside the man, my hpp pressed against his chest. "All right, Jason, you wanted this, pony up."

A world away, I could feel Jean-Claude roll his eyes as he summoned Stephen to him to feed. I got a flash of Nathaniel curling up with Zane and Cherry, all of them suddenly naked. You're going to need to feed the ardeur if you want to raise the munin to heal Harry's werewolf, Nathaniel told me bluntly as he watched Zane lick his way down Cherry's body. This works for everyone.

It's weird.

Zane and Cherry like Jason and they like Harry and they like you most of all. Go. And I was out of Nathaniel's head, back in the Great Hall with the injured. Jason had wrapped his arms around my legs and his face was pressed against me, the line of his muzzle nuzzling my belly.

It had been a very long day and the echoes of power still gripped at me. Raising the munin so soon after death magic was probably a really bad idea, but I was too tired to focus on that too much.

I felt the twin surges of feeding energy flow into me from across the planet; Stephen's blood hot in Jean-Claude's mouth, Nathaniel feeding on the sexual energy from Cherry and Zane. I gasped, and felt Jason's teeth on my belly as he bit down, his sharp teeth pressing against my skin.

With the wolves around me, riding the edge of death magic, the munin rose easily. Closing my eyes, I pulled away the bandages on Remus's chest and pressed my palms directly over the open wound.

Jason growled and Reece let out an answering yip, licking at my bloodied hands. The beast inside my chest uncurled, reaching out. Remus was new and interesting to the munin; with all the lycanthrope energy surrounding me, I gathered the power up into my hands and shoved it into Remus's chest, pushing through his body, pushing the silver poisoning him out through his blood, through his skin, out to the air and away.

His back arched as he bit back a scream. I opened my eyes, pulled my hands back from his chest. Blood still covered his skin, but the wound was looking more healed. With werewolf healing, he would be good as new in a day.

The energy left me and I slumped over, nearly collapsing on Remus. Harry and Jason caught me and helped me around to Reece's side.

Tonks was pulling blankets over Remus. "He needs to stay warm," I said, the words thick in my mouth. "Hot, almost."

"Heating charms are my specialty," Tonks said grimly.

Jason settled down beside Reece, the two of them curling against Remus's side like little furry peas in a pod. "I'll keep watch," he said.

"I can do it," Harry said. He clutched at his robe, where I knew he had put Voldemort's wand.

"You're falling over," Jason pointed out. He licked his muzzle as I curled up against him, grateful for his warmth. "Sleep."

Reece pressed his head against Remus's side and let out a small bark. Harry smiled vacantly and stroked Reece's head.

Tonks bent over Remus, her forehead touching his as she whispered to him. She held his hand tightly all the while.

I reached over Jason's body to put a hand on Harry's shoulder. I squeezed in reassurance as I fell closer to sleep.

There was something I needed to pay attention to, something important. I roused somewhat when I remembered Elsa. Elsa knew what I had done to stop the zombie army. Was there something I needed to do about Elsa?

Hush, ma petite, Jean-Claude told me, his thoughts surrounding me like a warm blanket. I will handle Elsa, you rest now. You have been so strong today.

I can't lose you, I told him. Not you, not any of you.

And you will not. I felt a phantom kiss against my cheek. Rest, ma petite. You must be strong in the morning.

With the noise of the Great Hall in my ears, the rise and fall of Jason's chest as he breathed against me, I let sleep take me.

Continue to chapters 79 & 80