Disclaimer: Story based on characters and plot owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
My thanks go to beta readers ParseltonguePhoenix, Fenraellis, and Vlad the Inhaler. And to the several readers who commented on an early draft and improved its quality.
CHAPTER 13
Capture
“Monstre!” a young child's voice shouts.
Harry opens his eyes groggily, his mouth sticky with the petroleum aftertaste of the pain potion.
The protective barrier has fallen and Harry sees a platinum-haired cannonball climb onto the platform and rush towards him. The diminutive girl slaps him, hard, across the face. And again.
“You horrible man...”
“Gabrielle?” Harry recognizes her.
“She loved you! And you did that to her. How could you?” Harry catches her hand when she tries to strike him again.
Harry is stunned and in shock from blood loss. A length of his femur juts through his thigh, a compound fracture, another scar. Madame Pomfrey is tending to Fleur across the platform and has left a decidedly less gentle healer to dress Harry's wounds. The burly man does not bother veiling his disgust at his charge.
In his daze, Harry whispers to the young veela, “Fleur is special to me, Gabrielle.” His eyes sting with pain and heartache. With his raspy throat, his words are barely audible, “I would never hurt her.” Harry releases the girl's hand and slumps to the floor on the verge of losing consciousness from shock. The young veela steps back and peers at him, surprised.
“Gabrielle!” A stern, female voice sounds.
Harry looks up to see an older veela in burgundy silk caparison approach. He can tell that her aura is stronger. Like her elegant dress and aristocratic demeanor, it is refined, severe, beauty so painful that it is at once more intoxicating and more maddeningly inaccessible than Fleur's, yet her appearance resembles the object of his affection.
“Lady Delacour,” Harry croaks, as formally as he can manage in his state.
“Monsieur Potter. Or should I say, Lord Potter?” She keeps her face neutral, though Harry shivers involuntarily when her frosty blue-grey eyes reach his.
“Just 'Harry' is fine, ma'am,” he says, absently. He misses her offended sniff as sharp pain lances through his leg as the healer resets the bone. “Madame,” he sputters, “about what you have heard...”
She spins away from him before he can finish. “Come along, Gabrielle.”
“Ma soeur, you were brilliant today! You won every match and you destroyed that horrible Harry Potter!” With a squeal, Gabrielle leaps backwards and falls into the thick duvet on her sister's bed. Save for her tiny, stockinged feet, she nearly disappears in the cream and pink folds.
“No, Gabrielle, I was an embarrassment. I cannot believe that I allowed myself to transform like that in public.” Fleur closes the door and casts a privacy ward. She slides her wand into the built-in holster of her torn, light blue dueling robes, the same robes she had worn for the competition. She remains facing away from her sister, her face in her hands. “I wish a hole in the earth had swallowed me.” She slides down the smooth wooden door frame to sit on the soft carpet, her knees tucked close to her body, her arms folded across the laces of her high boots.
Gabrielle climbs off the bed and runs over to hug her sister about the shoulders. “You were heroic, ma soeur. Nobody can say that France is soft after witnessing your bouts.” She strokes her older sister's hair affectionately and plants a kiss on her forehead.
“I hurt him so much. Harry was holding back, not wishing to harm me, yet I tried to kill him.”
The younger witch steps back and observes her older sister critically as she cries into her hands. She whispers, “he wasn't the one who did that to you, was he?”
Fleur looks at her sister, her eyes brimming with tears. She shakes her head hesitantly by a tiny amount. Pain knifes through her chest, excruciation of compulsion magic. After a few minutes, it fades. Fleur, panting, pushes herself up from the floor.
“Harry hates me now. I tried to hurt him--I wanted to so much... What am I, if not a monster?”
“Harry does not see a monster, dear sister, he sees you as special. He told me so himself.” She sits back, a dreamy look in her eyes. “You are right, though, he is beautiful, isn't he.”
“But I can never have him.” Fleur blots her eyes with her sleeve.
“Harry, would you be so kind as to pour the wine?” The Headmaster gestures to a dusty bottle of vin rouge that has appeared on the table. Harry uses a muggle corkscrew to remove the stopper, having not yet mastered the gentle art of coaxing it out with magic without leaving crumbs of cork behind, and puts a small measure into the Headmaster's goblet. His mentor studies the wine, assessing color, bouquet, and taste. “Excellent. Tuck in, Harry.”
The dishes from the soup disappear and the main course appears on the table, roasted rack of lamb in a wine reduction, sautéed morels, and asparagus with a bechamel sauce.
He glances quickly at Harry while slicing the tender meat with his knife. “I gather you are troubled over the recent articles?”
Harry swallows, carefully places his cutlery onto his plate, and takes a sip of wine. “Yes, sir. I'm not particularly fond of everyone thinking I'm a rapist and murderer.” His tone is sad sarcasm.
“I suppose you wonder why we haven't answered the charges against you?”
Harry nods. “Yes, sir.”
“Allow me try to explain, dear boy, as I have more than a century's worth of experience in these matters. If I may be candid in my assessment of our 'peers,' though I use the term lightly, wizards are inherently lazy and, dare I say it, rather stupid.” Harry blinks at the unexpected bluntness, a side of the elderly wizard he has rarely seen. “They believe whatever they hear last, truth or no, and allow others to do their thinking for them. Few possess the strength of will to follow their convictions and to choose what is right over what is easy.”
The Headmaster reaches for his wine goblet. “In short, the wizarding world lofts on the shoulders of giants. Harry, we are the giants.” He points his finger at his apprentice, punctuating this last pronouncement, and takes a sip, adding, “as is Voldemort. Do try the mushrooms--they are excellent.”
“I am not sure I understand, sir.”
“Wizards such as we fashion reality. Let the likes of Ms. Skeeter have their say--it will fade soon, inconsequential in the larger picture, forgotten the moment Tom emerges and they beg you to rise against him. And for their weakness today, I assure you they indenture themselves to you tomorrow, a debt that we shall no doubt turn to our advantage.” He folds a slender sprig of asparagus with his fork, dips it into a bit of savory white sauce, and places it into his mouth. Swallowing, he remarks, “Like dreams, it does not do to dwell on today's gossip, Harry. Doing so diminishes you.”
Harry pauses for a long moment to consider his mentor's words. “That's easy for you to say. You've not been accused of being a rapist.” He recalls Molly's recoiling from him when they last met.
“No, but I've endured worse,” he says sadly.
Harry folds his arms in front of his chest. “With all due respect, sir, what could possibly be worse?”
The Headmaster stares at Harry for a long time and sighs. “For decades, it was 'public knowledge' that I slew my own sister, Ariana in a pique of dark magic. Depending on whom you spoke to, I did so to get into the good graces of the wizard, Grindelwald, drank her blood in a power-enhancing ritual, sacrificed her soul to demons to gain immortality, or merely fashioned her heartstrings to form the core of my wand. I can assure you that I loved my sister dearly and nothing saddens me more than the memory of her death. But I have moved on, Harry. As will you.”
“Why don't we go to the press ourselves, get our story out there? The way it is, everyone thinks the worst!”
“Calm yourself.” The Headmaster sighs and takes a long sip of wine. “What does the world need, Harry?”
“Sir?” Harry boggles at the non sequitur.
“Knowing what you do of your fellow wizards, tell me--what do you think they need?”
“I don't know, sir. I assume you're going to tell me though?”
“Yes,” the Headmaster says, amused, “though I would have preferred if you had spent half a moment thinking on the matter, as the Socratic method is rather more effective that way. The world needs masters, Harry. Benevolent or no, our colleagues lack the wisdom to manage their affairs in matters larger than they. We are the ones who must wield control. It is for the greater good after all.”
“That's all fine, sir, but what does this have to do with the press?”
“In the war ahead, we shall require leverage over public opinion to prevent The Daily Prophet and other such outlets from becoming mouthpieces for our enemies. I am using your present situation to advantage in the Wizengamut. My associates have sponsored a measure to disallow any from holding controlling interest in a press corporation.”
Harry remembers the card Xenophilius had given him.
His mentor reads his thoughts and nods. “I believe it would be valuable, if not profitable, for you to consult with Mr. Black about purchasing a respectable interest in The Daily Prophet, Witch Weekly, and, yes, The Quibbler, all of which will be experiencing ownership changes in a week's time. Consider it an investment for the travails ahead.”
The two eat in silence for several minutes.
“Sir, after my duel with Cedric...” He tries to find a delicate way to voice his suspicions about the Headmaster's old friend.
The Headmaster smiles appreciatively at his apprentice. “Ah, you're referring to Professor Moody's eccentric behavior?” He chuckles to himself. “More eccentric than usual, that is? Yes, he is an impostor.”
“What?!”
“I've known for some time. He is Bartemius Crouch's son in disguise.”
“You knew?” Harry sits back, stunned.
“Of course I knew,” he says, a hint of irritation in his voice. “How could I not notice a Death Eater among my faculty, especially one with the audacity to masquerade as one of my old friends? However, I believe it prudent to keep him in place, though under close watch. He is our only verified link to Voldemort.” The Headmaster sips his wine. “Alastor, wherever he is, would approve.”
“Crouch put my name in the goblet?” Harry sputters.
His mentor nods.
“Why not arrest him and question him under veritaserum?”
“It would serve little purpose. He is almost certainly under one of Tom's ingenious loyalty charms. His own magic would destroy him before we could extract anything useful.”
“But why leave him here--couldn't he hurt someone in the school? And won't my staying in the tournament follow Voldemort's plans?”
“Perhaps, but I believe that being oblivious to his plans is more dangerous. This way, you must simply be mindful not to play into their machinations.”
The main course disappears in a blur and dessert appears. The Headmaster picks up a slender, silver dessert fork. “I've asked for a mixed fruit salad for pudding--I've had too much trifle of late and I haven't time to replace my wardrobe. Would you prefer a sauterne or cocktail with dessert?”
“Sauterne, please.” The two eat in silence. “Sir, in my duel with Fleur, I noticed something strange.”
“Yes?” The Headmaster spears a piece of apple on the end of his fork.
“She bears the Rosicrucian control glyph.”
His mentor looks at him for a long time. “And you are wondering who controls her?”
Harry nods.
The Headmaster pauses for a moment. “Gerard Delacour, also known as Faucon, is a loyal henchman of the Chevalier. He would never bind his daughter without authorization and providing her proper training. I suspect her fiancé.”
“Robért Dupuis,” Harry says angrily.
“An impetuous, yet exceptionally powerful young wizard. He is Faucon's protegé and I understand a member of the lesser nobility in France.”
“So Fleur isn't bound by her father?”
“Not directly, though she doubtless feels an obligation to obey him, for I'm am quite certain that her father controls her fiancé. Monsieur Delacour would have required that she acquire mastery of Occlumency first, which I know for a fact she lacks....” At Harry's inquisitive look, he continues, “We spoke at length on the eve of Yule and I was able to determine that she has no mental defenses of substance beyond her splendid aura.” He winks at Harry. “It made me feel young again. She is quite fond of you, by the way.”
Harry shakes his head bitterly. “What can we do for her?”
“Nothing.” He pops a candied raspberry into his mouth.
“But she's a slave!” Harry's fork slips from his hand and falls to the tablecloth with a muffled clatter.
“Yet there's nothing that we can do, Harry, short of killing Dupuis and transferring control to her father instead.”
“Who controls her father?”
Dumbledore chuckles, “Chevalier. You will not be ready for that fight for a very long time, well after Voldemort. Indeed, I am unsure whether I could best Chevalier. On friendly ground, perhaps....” He is lost for a moment in his thoughts. “Were it not for the prophesy, I would be tempted to persuade the Rosicrucians to chase after Tom. I still may approach them to counter his Death Eaters.”
Harry sighs and takes a swallow of the yellow, fortified wine.
“And I forbid you to spend time with Ms. Delacour. It is simply too risky, Harry.”
Harry coughs. A flash of anger passes over his face that he doesn't bother to hide. “That's rich. She hates me now, so I doubt I'll get the chance, but let's imagine that changes. I'm supposed to believe that leaving a known Death Eater teaching at Hogwarts isn't dangerous, but having a butterbeer with Fleur is?”
“Bartemius Crouch Junior is dangerous, Harry, exceedingly so, but a danger we must accept. That posed by Miss Delacour is a luxury and a distraction.” The Headmaster sighs, tiredly. “You really must learn to see the big picture in things, Harry.”
The Headmaster eats more of his dessert, oblivious to the glare he is receiving from his apprentice.
He looks up. “I see that I've failed to convince you. Consider this--is it not a tad hypocritical for you to scold me for suggesting that which you were doing already on your own accord? I believe your words to Miss Delacour were, 'I just don't think it's a good idea for us to be too close.'”
Harry grips his fork tightly and his knuckles whiten. Sodding bastard.
The Headmaster says breezily, “Of the things that go on in these walls, Harry, I know more than you can imagine...” His tone sharpens, “and do not forget that you are not so progressed in your Occlumency that I cannot still read your surface thoughts, particularly when you broadcast them so....”
Dearest Harry,
I desperately need your help. Can you meet me in my room as soon as possible? Come alone, my brave knight.
Love,
Fleur
“Who's the letter from?” Hermione says, eying Harry suspiciously.
Harry hands her the letter across the table and offers the owl, a diminutive grey not much larger than Pigwidgeon, a sliver of beef gristle from his plate. He notices with annoyance that many in the Great Hall are looking at him, drawn by the uncommonness of evening mail delivery. His eyes glint to the Head Table before he remembers that Dumbledore is at the Ministry for the day.
“You're not going alone, are you?” she asks cautiously.
“Of course not--I'm not that stupid.”
She hands the parchment back to him. “I can go with you if you like.”
Harry thinks for a moment and nods. He fishes in his canvas bag for his invisibility cloak. Tossing it to the witch, he stands and walks briskly out of the Hall, his aura ablaze. Hermione jogs to keep up. She swings the silvery fabric over her shoulders.
“Keep quiet and get your wand out.”
Hermione nods and pulls the hood over her head. The two climb a pair of staircases and traverse a wide corridor with bright torches mounted in black steel sconces every few meters along the rough walls. As they approach Fleur's room, Harry motions the witch into an alcove. “Stay here and keep hidden--these people can see through invisibility cloaks.”
WIth his enhanced sight, Harry sees Hermione nod beneath the cloak. “Har...”
“Fleur's door is just up ahead. Stay out of the way unless there's trouble.”
Harry approaches the door with his wand drawn and knocks sharply. He steps back as it cracks open and Fleur appears, flinching as she sees Harry's wand on her. Her eyes are puffy and have dark rings beneath.
“Harry? Thank you for coming. Will you come inside?”
“No. We talk out here, if at all,” he says coolly.
She nods, opening the door further and stepping into the hallway. The veela is dressed in a pale pink dressing gown and her hair is pulled up in a bun. She has her slender wand in her hand, but it is pointed at the floor beneath her slippered feet.
Harry notices motion--a yellow glow that moves toward him from where Hermione was hidden. He grumbles, wondering why she has left the safety of the alcove.
“I need help, Harry.” Fleur takes a deep breath and releases it, her features hardening. “I wish to kill my fiancé.” She reaches tentatively for his hand.
Harry recoils, as if burnt. “You have some nerve. I'm the wrong guy to ask with what they're saying about me. I'm be at the top of anyone's list.”
She looks downward, disappointed, as if anticipating his answer. “You must help--I have nobody else...”
The cloaked figure steps closer, now only a handful of paces away.
“Your father maybe?” Harry says angrily. “You've got the wrong idea about what I'm willing to do for you--especially now.”
Fleur shakes her head.
Harry says with disgust, “He can't help? Or won't?”
His precognition flares and he spins, snapping his wand downward. “Expeliarmus. Accio cloak.”
Moody appears beneath a shimmering cloak, his wand flying from his right hand. His left holds a silver flask, its cap off and dangling from an attached chain. Harry hurls the invisibility cloak aside and stashes the captured wand in his pocket.
“Moody? What the hell?”
“Constant vigilance, Potter!” He screws the cap onto the flask. “I saw you pass in a hurry, figured you'd need backup. You'd be wise to practice it too--caught someone sneaking up on you already.” His artificial eye spins back in its socket toward the alcove.
“Hermione? What did you do to her?”
“Just a stunner; she'll be fine,” he grumbles. His eye spins and looks Harry up and down. “So I was right about you, boy? Doing a spot of killin' now, eh?”
“Sod off, Moody. And keep your hands where I can see them!” He glances at the witch, who has raised her wand halfway. “You too, Fleur.”
“Harry?”
“Do it! I'm not in a position to trust either of you.” Fleur lowers her wand.
Harry's precognition flares again and he instinctively ducks. Moody's left wrist flicks and a wand appears from a hidden holster. He lowers it with an angular stroke and expels a jagged, black and crimson ribbon, a dark cutting curse. Harry rolls and comes up in a crouch, a silent bludgeoning curse sputtering from his wand that crashes into Moody's shield. The auror switches the wand to his right hand. Fleur slashes hers downward and hooks it, as blue lightning sprays from the tip. Moody deflects the curse into the nearby wall, where it leaves a hand-sized scorch.
Harry makes a twisting motion with his wand and a strong gale blows around Moody that tears at his robes and causes him to stumble. The auror's return fire, a stunner, veers wide and Harry doesn't even dodge. Fleur mutters a long incantation and points her wand at Moody's feet, where the floor shimmers translucent white. Moody falls onto his side on the now-slippery surface. He sits up quickly and whips a blasting curse back at Fleur, who blocks the thick, yellow cable, its impact exploding onto her shield and hurtling her backwards through the doorway.
Harry summons a hand-and-a-half blade from the buffed suit of armor behind Moody and opens his left hand to catch the hilt. Oblivious, Moody straightens and the pommel strikes him in the back of the head with a muffled “thump.” He lurches forward, unconscious, and falls onto the floor where Harry binds him with incarcerous ropes.
Harry stands, shaking from nerves, and walks toward Fleur, who has stepped out into the hallway. Their eyes meet and he reaches out with a brush of Legilimency. Her breath hitches as she feels the intrusion. She bites her lip, nodding. Harry carefully places one hand behind her neck and tilts her chin upward with the other as he lifts her thoughts from her consciousness. After a short descent into cottony warmth, he senses the affection she feels for him, her regret for hurting him, her genuine sorrow that he will never be hers.
Her veela aura throbs at the last and Harry, shrouded as he is, finds his mind open and more susceptible to her magic. Reckless, he starts to push harder as he roots for her feelings for his rival. She gasps as he grinds against her consciousness and pulls them into a reliving of her recent trauma. Bitter minutes pass.
Blinking, he pulls his mind back and notices that she has been pounding on his chest with her fists. “Stop!” she shouts, putting her face in her hands. “Why, Harry?”
He blinks, stunned and horrified at what he's done. “I- I didn't know that would happen... I never mean to hurt you.” He looks away, ashamed. “You've been hurt so much already.”
She slaps him across the face. “Bastard!” Her hands ball into fists. “I don't want your pity.”
A long pause.
“What do you want?”
“For you to help me.” Her features soften as her fury abates. “Hold me, Harry.”
She steps toward Harry and he pulls her into a tentative embrace. Tense, she allows his arms to circle her. They stand together, awkward, and she starts to weep silently on his shoulder, her hands snaking up behind his neck. He feels her ring, cold platinum, press across this skin.
“I'm so sorry, Harry,” she whispers.
It warms and a sharp pull tugs within his abdomen.
Harry pushes Fleur away from him as his disorientation fades. He finds himself outside the castle in a forest clearing. Budding deciduous trees surround him and lights in the distance makes him think he may be somewhere in the Forbidden Forest near Hogsmeade. He tries to Apparate, but is not surprised to find his egress blocked.
“Monsieur Potter, drop your wand.” The deep, heavily accented voice emanates from a tall man with long, dark hair and a muscular build. He ghosts in shadow in the moonlit clearing, his wand remaining pointed at Harry's head. His face becomes visible. Robért Dupuis. Harry reaches into his robes slowly and takes his wand from its folds. It drops onto the gravel.
“My dear, it took you longer than I had expected.” The man speaks in heavily accented English.
Harry glares, first at Fleur, then Robért, his voice bitter. “Albus said you couldn't be trusted, Fleur, that I was a fool for thinking otherwise. I should have listened to the old man.”
A tear, silver in the moonlight, trickles down her cheek. “I swear, Harry, I didn't know...”
“Shut up,” he spits.
“Fleur, my love, decapitate Mr. Potter please.”
Harry meets her eyes. Her wand tip trembles as she raises it to his Adam's apple. Breathing heavily, her left arm clutches across her chest. She fights, her tears, twin rivers.
“Just two little words, dearest, and the pain will go. Say them now.” Robért's voice is hypnotic, seductive. Her lower lip quivers and her wand hand starts to shake uncontrollably. She looks into Harry's eyes, finding knowledge that he is about to die and courage to face his end proudly.
“No!” she screams, spinning toward Robért and firing a severing hex. As he dodges, rolling and rising to his feet, she collapses, screaming, with arms clutched tightly over her chest, her wand dropped in the dust. Powerful waves of agony wash over her. Her fiancé also doubles in pain before recovering.
Harry leaps to the side as his precognitive senses roar. He sidesteps a yellow bolt--a bludgeoning curse--and then a vibrant blue severing curse. He rolls to avoid a third that he doesn't recognize--blue-green lightning that scores the ground with a crackling sound. Lunging for his wand, he ducks a jet of orange flame, which streaks past his head and singes his hair. He returns fire with a powerful stunner, the red bolt missing, angling upwards into the trees.
Fleur curls into a foetal position as racking pains consume her. Harry sees her writhe, her compulsion rune now blood red, its glow visible through her robes as it burns in awful retribution. Her breath comes in ragged, shuddering gasps. Before his mind can register the danger, Harry finds himself subconsciously throwing up a protego that deflects a silent, invisible blasting curse from the older wizard. With detached appreciation, he notes just how much faster and more powerful Robért is than his usual sparring partners, how this battle carries some of the one-sided feel of the times he and Albus had sparred.
Harry struggles to his feet while dodging and deflecting an onslaught of powerful cutting curses, the jets of yellow crashing off his shield and ploughing the ground. The air takes on the tannin stink of scorched bracken. He manages to make it to one knee before an ugly, crimson bolt knifes through his shield and heaves him onto his back. His nerves flare with a familiar, all-consuming burn before his mind registers the incantation, “Crucio.”
Harry bites through his tongue and a salty, coppery tang fills his mouth. Fighting the pain, he slowly raises his wand and thinks, “sectumsempra” as he makes a jagged slashing motion. His adversary drops the torture curse as a ribbon of yellow streaks from Harry's wand and rips a deep rent in the man's thigh. Blood spurts. Robért grunts in frustration as he first tries to close the wound and, finding that he cannot, cauterizes it with a flame spell. Harry staggers to his feet as his adversary hobbles into the woods.
Harry's limbs shake from the after-effects of the torture curse. Fleur, beside him, desperately gasps for breath and Harry knows that he has little time to counteract or block the effects of her rune. He could send her to the infirmary with his emergency portkey, but if Robért were to get away, she would surely perish. He grits his teeth and jogs stiffly in the direction the man had fled.
Several paces into the woods, Harry stops at the edge of another clearing. He is unable to spot his opponent, yet foreboding presses on his mind. He casts a visum flare, hoping to spot the other man or his runes. To his surprise, he sees no sign of his opponent. Did he portkey? He couldn't have run away so quickly....
Harry subconsciously brings his left arm above his head as a large jaguar drops from the tree above. He rams his forearm into its maw as it falls onto him and drives him downward. The bones in his forearm shatter, but his armor prevents teeth from tearing into his flesh and ripping his arm from his body. The beast's left forepaw tears deep gouges in Harry's face from nose to right ear. He lets out a pained grunt as his back strikes the turf, his left shoulder dislocating with a loud “thwup.”
From his position flat on his back, Harry mutters, “tromero fotia mastigio” and flings his right arm over his chest to flail at the jaguar with an expanding whip of green light. The lash digs deeply into its back and snakes about its shoulder, the tip smiting a deep furrow into its right forepaw. Harry twists his wand and pours a torrent of magic into the spell to intensify the blaze. Humming loudly, it smolders with the acrid stink of burnt flesh and fur. The jaguar releases Harry's arm and bounds away, limping.
The great cat roars in fury, transforming back into a man. Staggering to his feet, Harry notices that his enemy's right hand is mangled and unable to hold his wand. Robért switches his wand to his left and transfigures a nearby stump into a brown bear. Dodging a string of poorly aimed hexes from Robért, Harry lashes at the bear with his whip and directs a powerful reducto spell at its head. It collapses and bleeds out onto the forest floor.
Harry turns to his opponent, again a great cat who regards him with cold menace, not the feral look of a wild thing. Intense pain lances through Harry's ruined shoulder, aggravated by his recent motion, and he raises his wand as the limping cat bounds toward him. “Confringo.” The blasting curse explodes between them and Harry is blown backwards by the shock wave. The jaguar slams into the ground several meters away, its back twisted horribly.
The animagus transforms slowly back into human form. Robért lies still, his spine broken, his breath rattling, labored. Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth as his eyes stare glassily at the stars.
Harry is consumed by rage. Adrenaline coursing through him, he ambles to the man, his wand trained on him. Robért's eyes focus for a brief moment on Harry, yet the rest of his body remains unmoved.
“Don't die yet, you bloody bastard! I'm not through talking to you!” He grabs the man's robes with his good arm. “You had the most beautiful, wonderful woman in the world and you tried to destroy her! If there's a hell, I swear I'll hunt you down in the afterlife and kill you all over again for that!” He throws the older man's body down in disgust and sees Robért's eyes roll back in his head, his breath leaving him in a long, tired hiss. Somewhere in the back of his mind it registers that Harry has just killed another man.
Runes start to glow on the man's face, livid, scarlet stains on forehead, cheeks, chin. With horror, Harry recognizes a few of them--Sumerian pain and torture runes bound within an angular agglutination of the Egyptian glyph of death.... Oh shit! Robért breathes a last, faint breath and the glow intensifies. The whites of the man's eyes glow metallic red.
Harry is too spent to flee, so he banishes the body across the clearing. From the distance, the violet aura shrouding the corpse glows progressively brighter. Desperate, Harry throws up a transhield and he just manages to snap a protego charm in place before his world explodes in light and thunder. A solitary bolt of blue-black arcs from the dead man's body toward Harry. It pulverizes the marble slab and shreds his shield before it connects with Harry's chest. His body burns with invisible flame.
After a first, terrible scream, he finds himself unable to draw breath. He suffers in silence until his world turns black.
The pain in her chest fades as she hears thunder and feels the ground shake. A strong gust of wind blows through the trees. Fleur takes several deep breaths as the fog in her mind clears.
After long minutes, she hears voices speaking her native tongue, “...came from over here... ...dead and the boy is dying... ” Harry!
The witch crawls in the dust to reach her wand, her body complaining at the sudden movement, and she heads in the direction where she had last seen Harry and Robért. Staggering, she trips into a blackened clearing. At the far end is a charred skeleton, human-sized, consumed by an inferno. She steps closer, her gorge rising.
A soft moan to her left brings her attention to Harry, who is almost unrecognizable with his face a shredded mask of blood. His left arm hangs nearly detached from his body and his right is in a death grip about his wand.
She looks up as a man's voice sounds. “Fleur!” Her father strides into the clearing flanked by two impeccably dressed wizards. The three raise their wands and point them at Harry.
“Father?”
“Ma petite, this does not concern you.” His voice carries warning and anger.
“No!” she screams, and dives onto Harry, shielding his body with hers.
Gerard Delacour fires a powerful stunner at her, but she brings up a shield charm in time to protect them. The two men step closer, one on each side of the prone pair, each flinging red bolts that crackle and discharge as they dance over her force shield. Her charm starts to buckle and she numbs as lightning seeps through.
“Fleur,” Harry whispers, barely audible over the din, “take my hand.” She does and feels a cold, hard object slip within.
“Beam me up.”