HP/LOTM: Visionary - 387

Chapter 387: Return, The Battle of the Astronomy Tower, and Bait and Switch

"Cough, cough!"

After the blast, Harry flailed his arms and clawed his way out from the rubble.

"Professor Dumbledore!" He looked frantically for Dumbledore.

"Water." A weak voice rose from the ruins.

Harry sprinted toward it and found Dumbledore, battered from head to toe.

"Aguamenti!" Harry cast, conjuring a globe of clear water and tipping it gently to Dumbledore’s lips.

"Do not worry, Harry. Tom will not be coming back. Help me out of here."

Dumbledore was chalk-white and spent, and the archway in the entrance had vanished again. This time, Harry would not hear of Dumbledore using his blood.

"Everything will be fine, sir..." Harry had never seen Dumbledore this frail. The silence between them only made his worry worse. "We are almost there. I can Apparate us both back... do not worry..."

He supported Dumbledore back into the freezing sea.

Suddenly, Dumbledore rallied a fraction. Out of Harry’s line of sight, he slid a hand into his own chest. From within, he drew a red orb wrapped in chains woven of white threads and slipped it quietly into Harry’s body.

"I am not worried. I am with you," Dumbledore said, a thread of blood staining the corner of his mouth.

From that moment, Dumbledore placed the work of destroying Horcruxes and standing against the Deep Realm on the shoulders of a seventeen-year-old.

They swam back to the rock where they had arrived. With a twist, they Apparated away.

......

"I hate this. I wonder how Harry and Dumbledore are doing," Ron said, looking up at Hermione as the two of them led D.A. members through the castle.

"Do not jinx it. They will be fine," Hermione said, poking Ron with her wand.

They split a small measure of Felix Felicis, and its tug made one thing clear: Malfoy was in the Room of Requirement.

They divided quickly. Ron, Ginny, and Neville kept watch by the door. Hermione and Luna went down to the dungeons to keep an eye on Snape.

Inside the Room of Requirement, six or seven Death Eaters slipped into Hogwarts through the Vanishing Cabinet. Bellatrix, the Carrow siblings, Yaxley, Rowle, Gibbon—and Fenrir II, the new radical pack leader missing a hand—stood in a line.

They conferred briefly and decided to first mark the Astronomy Tower with the Dark Mark and then go to assassinate Dumbledore.

Draco froze at that.

"Well done, Draco. Cissy’s child, through and through. I will speak well of you to the Dark Lord," Bellatrix said, ruffling her nephew’s hair.

"Fine. Let us get on with it," Draco sighed.

He lifted the Hand of Glory and slipped into the corridor, then tossed a Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder pellet he had bought from Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.

The corridor went pitch black at once. The D.A. squad plunged into the darkness, too, and even brushed shoulders with several Death Eaters, but no one cast a spell. In the absolute dark, they were as likely to hit their own as their foes.

The D.A. fighters burst out of the gloom and sprinted to report the intrusion to Professor McGonagall.

A red flare shot into the sky from McGonagall’s wand.

Malfoy faltered when he saw it. He had not expected to be exposed so quickly.

Their smoke pellets were spent. The battle erupted in the corridor by the Astronomy Tower.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Gibbon broke away, sprinted up to the tower, and cast the Dark Mark.

He turned to run back and help his comrades—and Remus Lupin, half-transformed into his werewolf state, drove a blade-hand straight through his heart.

Fenrir II spotted Lupin. The two pack leaders glared at each other like sworn enemies. He lunged to bite, hoping to infect Lupin with his curse and drag him down again.

In the mêlée, McGonagall shouted over her shoulder, "Filius, go to the fourth floor and bring Severus!"

"Right!"

Professor Flitwick broke away, sprinted to Snape’s office—

"Sev—" "Stupefy."

He never expected to meet a Stunner at the door.

Snape stepped out, saw Luna and Hermione, and said, "Professor Flitwick is injured and unconscious. See to him," pointing toward the office.

Sent by Harry to watch Snape, they had no reason to doubt him—and obeyed at once.

On the main front, the Death Eaters unleashed everything they had. Sickly green Killing Curses flooded the corridor. Lupin kicked Fenrir II away to avoid one such curse—but as he was hurled back, his claws raked Bill’s face.

"Ugh!" Bill clutched his cheek. Ron pulled him behind cover, then fired off two ordinary attack spells at Fenrir II and blasted off his other hand.

With Order reinforcements pressing in, the Death Eaters saw the tide turning. Firing as they fell back, they pushed toward the Astronomy Tower. There, they combined their strength to cast a cursed barrier that sealed off the way forward for the Order and D.A.

Green curses flew over the barrier, forcing the defenders to scramble and giving them no time to devise a way to break it.

Just then, Snape came around the corner and walked straight through the cursed barrier.

Believing Snape knew how to break it and was going ahead to pursue the Death Eaters, the Order and the D.A. stopped firing and turned to researching a counter-curse.

......

At the edge of Hogsmeade, Harry helped Dumbledore into the Hog’s Head.

A girl behind the bar was polishing a glass. She took Dumbledore from Harry’s arms. The girl—the Queen—snapped her fingers, and he slid fully into unconsciousness.

"Thank you," Harry said to her.

"You are welcome," the girl said with a sweet smile. "He is badly hurt. I will take him upstairs to rest."

"That would be perfect," Harry said, swaying a little, his head gone foggy.

Upstairs, Arthursi set Dumbledore on the bed. She looked up at the Headmaster standing beside her.

"So this is another of your avatars?" Arthursi arched a brow.

"I cannot very well send the teacher himself to die," the Headmaster said with a grin.

His body rippled and twisted into the scarred Dumbledore Harry had brought in.

A commotion outside snapped Harry’s attention to the window. A vast green Dark Mark stained the sky with fear.

Clang!

A heavy thump sounded from above. The battered Dumbledore dashed back downstairs.

"Professor!" Harry reached to steady him, but Dumbledore pushed him away.

"Notify the Ministry," "Dumbledore" said over his shoulder to Arthursi.

She frowned, then turned and left.

"What should we do, Professor?" Harry asked.

"Back to Hogwarts," Dumbledore said weakly.

"Accio!" Harry summoned two broomsticks. They mounted and sped for the Astronomy Tower.