HP/LOTM: Visionary - 428

Chapter 428: The Raid, Deep Realm Eruption, Eleanor Taken

Just as planned, Voldemort and his followers smashed through the Ministry’s defences and into its depths.

"Spread death. Buy me time," Voldemort said, heading straight for the Brain Room.

According to Rookwood, that was where the Department of Mysteries maintained its access to the Deep Realm.

Death Eaters poured out of the chamber where the Silent Tablets were kept. The Unspeakables froze for a heartbeat at the sudden attack. By then, waves of Killing Curses were already roaring toward them.

They threw up a defence at once, sealing sections of the corridor with Transfiguration to block the curses. Makeshift cover sprang up all along the passage as both sides hurled spells over and around it.

Voldemort used the chaos to reach the Brain Room. There he thrust the shard of Chaos into the great tank, forcing open the road to the Sixth Layer.

Up on Level Eight’s antechamber, Rookwood burst into the Director’s office.

"Director, Deep Realm incursion. Voldemort and his Death Eaters have broken into the Brain Room. They are opening a path to the Sixth Layer," he said.

The Director was already in full kit. Magic rolled off him, so dense that the air around him seemed to warp.

"Let us go and see," he said calmly.

Rookwood, hearing the tone under that calm, could feel the killing intent.

They went through the Planet Room and the Love Chamber and out into the corridor where the Unspeakables were still fighting.

"Director!" one of the young witches cried when she saw him. Morale soared at once.

"Open me a path. I am going through," he said.

"But they will not stop firing Killing Curses," she said, biting her lip.

"Obey," the Director said, voice like ice.

Their chief had spoken. The Unspeakables opened a gap in their barricade. The Director stepped into the hail of curses.

The Death Eaters redoubled their fire as soon as they saw someone walking toward them. It made no difference. Magic thickened around the Director, a black, baleful aura wrapping him like a cloak.

Every spell unraveled before it could touch him.

It felt as if a forest of white bone had sprung up between them, a wind like the breath of graves licking their faces, inviting them to join the feast.

"Each Silent Tablet is linked to a power. Do you know what power lies behind Britain’s Tablet?" the Director asked, almost conversational.

A heartbeat later, his body burst apart into a flurry of black feathers. They blew across the corridor and drifted down over the Death Eaters.

The Director reappeared behind them, a pair of ink-dark wings unfurling like shadows at his back.

"Death," he said. "Sadly, no one guessed. So your punishment is… death."

His words became law.

Powered by the world’s blood, magic, and the vast mind-force granted by the Protocol, they rewrote reality. Fate’s strings shuddered, and the Death Eaters met a death none of them could escape.

"Tch. And this is all it takes to come crashing into the Department of Mysteries," the Director said, smiling faintly.

He turned and walked toward the Brain Room.

Inside, the opened path to the Sixth Layer, the City of No Return, and Voldemort’s Chaos shard together had sent the Sixth Layer’s power surging upward in a violent eruption.

Eleanor, arriving at the Department, felt the Deep Realm’s swell at once. She broke into a run and reached the guarded corridor.

"What is happening inside?" she demanded.

"The Director has gone in. The Dark Lord seems to have used the Brain Room’s array to open the way to the Sixth Layer," Rookwood answered quickly, seizing the lead.

"Open the way. I am going in too," Eleanor said.

"You cannot. The Deep Realm will already be bleeding through. Forcing your way in will get you killed," one of the Unspeakables said, grabbing her arm.

"Yes. The Deep Realm protection systems are sealed in with the Brain Room. Only the Director can cross that boundary now," another said urgently.

"No. I can go in."

Eleanor had no time left for secrecy. She could not let the Director face that alone. If he fell before a new bearer for the Silent Tablet appeared, all of Britain would lie under the Deep Realm’s shadow. Her son would be swallowed up by it.

"I have something like a Tablet in my body. I can cross. Stand aside," she said again.

Her earrings glimmered. Mind‑force spilled out around her, forming a faint shield.

Eleanor stepped into the Deep-Realm-tainted air.

No one noticed the greed rolling behind Rookwood’s eyes. None of them saw him slip after her under a Disillusionment Charm, wrapped in his own protective device.

In the Brain Room, the Director, wielding the Tablet’s power, was locked in combat with Voldemort.

Death was a treacherous force to harness. Voldemort, using Chaos, could only just hold the line.

Both men were peak dark wizards in their own right, built for destruction and killing. With the Protocol and the Chaos shard in play, their magic hit so hard that a single clean strike could end the other. It was like duelling on the edge of razors.

Green lightning chains and black brilliance collided again and again. The pressure of the stray magic was already warping the alchemical apparatus around them.

The glass jars that held the brains creaked, straining.

For the first time, both duelists wore the same expression: urgency.

Why is she not here yet? they each thought.

"Scatter. Return."

The clear, ringing voice echoed through the Brain Room.

Chaos shuddered and bowed, like a lesser beast before a higher king.

"She is here," Voldemort said, eyes lighting with grim delight.

"Delight," the old Director thought, reading him in a heartbeat.

"Eleanor, get out of here!" he shouted.

Too late.

"Stupefy!"

Red light shot in from behind and slammed into Eleanor, hurling her across the floor.

A man’s silhouette rippled into view out of the air. Using Eleanor as a focus, he triggered his Portkey and vanished.

Rookwood.

"Hahahaha. Got her," Voldemort said, activating his own Portkey.

"Eleanor!"

The Director let his magic explode outward. Death gathered into a hair-thin black line and scythed through Voldemort’s Chaos-wreathed body, severing a portion of the Chaos core forever.

"What—"

Voldemort’s eyes widened. The Portkey still tore him away.

"Damn…"

The Director’s outburst had cost him dearly. Death was not a force that yielded lightly to mortal hands. He had no strength left for a second chase. He collapsed amid the shattered equipment of the Brain Room.

At least that last strike had shattered the Chaos core. The path Voldemort had prised open with it snapped shut. Without that, the Deep Realm’s eruption would have gone on, and all Britain might have been dragged down into the Sixth Layer.