Chapter 430: Endgame Starts
The eastern part of Hogsmeade had been decimated beyond any chances of repair to its previous state. The buildings, roads, and the residents' belongings had been turned into dust and rubble— the village that had been divided into rows of buildings and streets was now flat ground burnt, stained with black soot. The buildings were now mounds of ruin and debris, and those which miraculously standing looked like a kick from a child could send them tumbling.
Even air bombing the area with powerful explosives wouldn't have caused this much destruction. Even with magic's destructive might the surroundings wouldn't have devolved to this level with two combatants fighting each other— but Dumbledore and Voldemort were outliers, two people with enough skill and power to burn small cities into the ground on a whim. When people like the two met, whether they were working together or against each other, they could turn the place around them into living hells.
Even stepping anywhere near where they were fighting would be foolish, much less joining the fight. And there was a fool who was doing exactly doing that. Quinn cut off the wind magic, plunged toward the ground, and used Arresto Momentum to cut all momentum to land smoothly beside Dumbledore.
Dumbledore glanced at Quinn. "How are things on the other side? Is it taken care of?"
"I helped enough; they will take care of the rest on their own."
Voldemort gazed at Dumbledore and Quinn standing side by side and thinned his eyes. "This is your help, Dumbledore," he sneered. "If so, then it won't help much. The boy will die before he knows what happened."
"I will die before I know?" Quinn said, scoffing. "What I do know is that when I faced you, I stabbed you in the chest, and look at me," he spread his arms, "I'm still very much alive."
"And despite miraculously making it out alive to tell the tale, you are here again, marching yourself to death," Voldemort said mockingly. "Maybe I won't even have to kill you by my wand— my curse will take your life before that. I refuse to believe that it has already been cured; it's there, isn't it," he smiled cruelly.
Quinn felt a throb of pain in his shoulder and chest. But he laughed, "Your life had already when a one-year-old obliterated you all those years ago. Right now, you're just a dead man walking— time for you to move on to where you belong."
"And where that might be?"
"To your death," Quinn raised his hands, and a jet of purplish-black flames roared out of his palms towards Voldemort. Faster than a flash, the fire burned to intense proportion and engulfed Voldemort.
Dumbledore gasped with wide eyes as the purplish-black flames covered his vision. "What are you doing?" he said to Quinn, shocked. "Fiendfyre is a dangerous magic; it could get out of control and hurt someone!"
"There's no one on this side of the village, no one's getting injured." Quinn continued to pump his magic into the cursed flames that ate it up like a hungry beast. The purple flames grew larger, brighter, hotter. . . angrier— something reflected in Quinn's purple eyes peeking through the black mask.
'More!'
There was a disturbance in the air; the atmosphere weighed down before for a moment before the flames were bisected. A silver slash of magic tore through the fire and charged toward Quinn, who frowned and pushed him more magic, causing the fire to burst up, enveloping the silver slash. For a moment, it seemed that the silver slash won't come out, but it appeared and fought through the cloud of fire and forced it forward until it reached.
'Shit!' Quinn couldn't move or change his magic, for if he let Fiendfyre go free, it would rampage with real chances of blowing up in his face.
He jerked his head back when the silver slash reached him. Crack! The silver slash met his mask and split it down the middle. The mask pieces fell down the sides revealing Quinn's face, and with that, the silver slash disappeared, running out of magic.
The Fiendfyre that had been split into two began to shake violently— the massive flame acted like a kindling against a strong wind until it was just that— the flames went out like they weren't there at all, only leaving behind a massive plume of smoke rising up to the almost night sky.
Quinn touched his face and his nose and looked at his gloves. There was no blood. Whatever magic it was had only cut his mask. He frowned at the absence of Fiendfyre. "I thought Fiendfyre was supposed to be difficult to control," Quinn asked Dumbledore.
Dumbledore shrugged. "It still is. It seems he is just a master at it."
The smoke cleared, and Voldemort stood where he had been standing before. He looked unharmed. Fiendfyre had burnt everything around more than it already was, but the ground around Voldemort remained untouched as the cursed fire had not even had the chance to approach the air around the Dark Lord.
"A pity that that didn't kill you. At least I got rid of that," Voldemort said calmly, pointing to his face. "Facing me while hiding your face was rude, even after I had already seen your face, Quinn West. I will make your death as painful for this slight against me."
"Your Death Eaters fight with their faces all the time," Quinn said.
"My Death Eaters can be rude; you can not."
Quinn breathed out. If it was before, he would've erupted at the taunt. Getting his mask split by Voldemort even with Fiendfyre between them cooled all of his anger to the winter. His mind felt clearer since before he had been cursed by Voldemort. He took deep breaths and gently operated his Occlumency to get into a correct state of mind for the situation.
"What is the plan?" Quinn asked Dumbledore, pulling down the neck of his muscle shirt part of the Noir gear.
"Have you calmed down finally?" Dumbledore asked
Quinn nodded.
Dumbledore's voice sounded in his ear. Quinn glanced at Dumbledore; the voice had a slight echo to it— it was transmitted into his ear through the use of magic. "Good. Let us begin then. What do you need to weaken him?" Dumbledore asked.
"Time," Quinn said, also transmitting and fabricating his voice via magic, making no lip movements. "I need some time to start the process. And I need you to keep him away from me while I do my job."
"How much time?"
"I don't know. I haven't done this before. You will have to keep away from me as long as it takes for the magic to work." People didn't deal with Horcrux on a daily basis. What Quinn was trying to do was to do was unchartered territory with no previous precedent to rely on or work upon.
"I will see to it that he doesn't get to you."
Quinn glanced at Dumbledore. It wasn't going to be easy to keep Voldemort away. Not only was the Dark Lord a dangerous opponent— fighting someone of equal caliber while protecting someone put the protector at risk. Not only did Quinn not going to provide help while he was casting his magic, but he was also going to be a major liability.
"He will feel it," Quinn said. "When the magic starts to work, he will feel the effect very clearly. I don't know if he will figure out how I'm doing it, but he will target me with animal-like ferocity. He will want whatever I'm doing to him to stop because it will feel extremely wrong." He remembered what it felt like when Alan had come close to Quinn— every fiber of his being felt threatened. When he had used the Ressurection Stone on his own soul to communicate with Harry, the pain and panic that he had felt in the initial moment had been almost unbearable— no way Voldemort was going to ignore something like that.
"But when the magic is a success, it will cause his unspeakable harm and unbearable pain," Quinn said, his eyes burning dangerously. "He will be vulnerable then; deal as much damage as you can then."
Dumbledore nodded.
Quinn cracked his neck and jumped into the air with a burst of wind magic, all the while circulating body magic through his muscles. The flood gates inside his body opened up, and a tremendous amount of magic poured out as couple hundred ice spikes formed behind him. Quinn threw his hands forward, and the ice spikes rushed past him, converging toward Voldemort.
"Is this all you know how to do?" Voldemort swiped his wand, and the ice burst into thousands and thousands of water droplets that remained suspended in the air.
Even though Quinn had his eyes trained on Voldemort, he could feel the water droplets around him. They were no longer in his control. Voldemort swiped his wand, and the water droplets all at once vibrated at an alarming pace before rushing towards him at a frightening speed. Water under high pressure could tear through a human body like a chainsaw through a sheet of paper.
'Fortunately, they're conjured,' Quinn thought as he sent out a pulse of magic, and all the droplets ceased to exist. There were two ways to create ice: Freeze the water from a source around him, which could be a water body or the moisture in the air, or the second method required conjuring water and then freezing it. Quinn utilized the second method heavily when he needed to make a lot of ice— which was the case here— and if he conjured the water, he could make it not exist as well.
Dumbledore, on the ground, moved and sent giant balls of fire toward Voldemort. The fireballs scorched the earth as they burned everything on their way to Voldemort.
"Another worthless trick," Voldemort sucked in the air before breathing out in the direction of the fireballs. And as if blowing a candle, the fireballs disappeared— leaving behind the gashes they left in the ground. "I can make Fiendfyre disappear; did you think these flames would work against me, Dumbledore!"
Quinn pushed forward with wind magic and turned into a bullet. He covered himself in a spherical force field and threw himself in Voldemort's direction. The Dark Lord looked like he was no problem facing two opponents as he raised a hand towards Quinn and slowed him down to stop. He pulled his hand back, and Quinn, still inside his force field, was sucked towards Voldemort.
"I got you now," Voldemort said as he touched the force field with his palm. "You have been a pest for so long. I don't care about your grandfather anymore; time to die—"
Voldemort let go of Quinn for a moment and turned his gaze to Dumbledore. Quinn took advantage of the distraction and narrowed his eyes to launch an intense Legilimency attack on Voldemort.
"Aargh," Voldemort gripped his head with one hand and raised his other (with wand) toward Dumbledore— but he was too late as a spell hit him in the shoulder.
Voldemort groaned painfully, but this time there was anger in his grunts. He pointed his wand towards Quinn and swung it for Quinn to go flying into the ruins of a building that immediately collapsed on him. Voldemort quickly followed by shooting multiple explosions into the ruin, creating a small mushroom cloud.
"An anti-apparition jinx, Dumbledore?" Voldemort said, removing his hand from his head, but his expression still showed pain.
"I want to put an end to you today, Tom," Dumbledore said, "and because of that, I can not have you escaping from here."
Voldemort laughed angrily. "I am immortal, Dumbledorere. You keeping me here won't change anything. As a matter of fact, you will not be leaving here today."
Dumbledore raised his wand, and the rubble around rose into the air, converging into five points to form troll-sized golems. "Not if I have something to say about it."
Voldemort glanced at the smoking rubble where he had thrown Quinn. "Not checking up on your companion? How cold-hearted of you," Voldemort laughed mockingly. "What would others say if they Kind Headmaster Dumbledore act this way. . . ignoring his injured student."
Dumbledore shrugged. "He knew what he was getting into when he joined our battle." He pointed his wand at Voldemort, and the golems moved forward, stomping ahead, making artificial mini earthquakes with each step.
. . .
Inside the rubble, Quinn sat beneath a force field, holding up the wreckage. He had the Ressurection Stone in one hand and Hufflepuff's Cup in the other.
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Quinn West - MC - It's Endgame now.
Voldemort - Dark Lord - Shit, migraine! Give me an aspirin, quick!
Albus Dumbledore - Elder Wand User - No one is going home today!
FictionOnlyReader - Author - I will be retiring the end-credit section(this thing) with AMJ. Let's see if I can come up with something else.
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Chapter 431: Risk & Provocations
Looking at the Resurrection Stone in one hand and the Hufflepuff's Cup in the other, Quinn wondered if this would work. It had never been done before. Yes, he had his research, and the little testing he had done had given him positive outlooks— but that wasn't how magic was supposed to be found and developed.
'This is more like how people die,' Quinn thought. He recalled the case near him: Pandora Lovegood, Luna's mother— the woman had died in an accident while experimenting with magic when Luna was just nine-years-old. The risk was very real, and the possibility of the magic backfiring on Quinn loomed quite near.
'There is another risk— much less risky— that you could take,' said a voice in Quinn's mind. Instead of trying to weaken Voldemort through the Horcrux and soul magic, Quinn could simply destroy them, making Voldemort mortal, and then try killing him as he was, hoping that the combined might of Quinn and Dumbledore would be enough to kill Voldemort.
It was a matter of which risk to take.
Quinn closed his eyes for a moment before opening them with a determined light flashing in the stone greys. He felt the pain in his shoulder from Voldemort's curse as he recalled everything he had risked and sacrificed for the past half-year.
'I have to break myself away from these chains— for myself and no one else,' Quinn thought as he injected his magic into the items in his hands.
The Horcrux trembled in Quinn's hand and let out a low shriek that he immediately forced down— it was too early for Voldemort to find out what he was doing. He buckled down and let the Resurrection Stone use his soul and magic to draw power to do his bidding against the piece of foul soul protected inside the Hufflepuff's Cup.
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Dumbledore and Voldemort exchanged spells doing more and more damage to their surroundings but failed to do any real harm to their opponents. Their duel was supernatural enough that even those who had lived their entire lives with magic would be startled to see what magic could accomplish— being forced to wonder if the magic in their possession was the same as that wielded by the likes of Dumbledore and Voldemort.
Voldemort shot a hazy spell towards Dumbledore, who deflected it to the sky. The spell climbed up to the sky, leaving a smoke trail in its wake. Voldemort didn't seem dissatisfied as he grinned and shot another spell, but this time not toward Dumbledore but at the spell that had been deflected. A stark white zap of magic hit the head of the smoke trail, and a loud explosion was heard as dark clouds burst out from the intersection of the spells, slowly puffing out to cover the sky above.
Voldemort waved his wand and muttered a spell under his breath. "I find my view of you change quite significantly today, Dumbledore," he said as heavy gusts began to blow. "I always thought of you to be a sentimental sort— but here I see you without a lick of grief or anger on your face. Do you feel nothing about the boy's death? I heard you two shared a relationship akin to a grandfather-grandson's. But here you are, facing his murderer, and not a single word of resentment has been said to me." He laughed loudly, "You even teamed up with the man who delivered the boy to me! How unfeeling of you, Dumbledore!"
The sky above rumbled as a white glow illuminated across behind the dark clouds, flashing them momentarily in a dim white.
Dumbledore waved his wand above his head in a circle as if building momentum to throw a looped rope. The dust and dirt around him rose in circles as a wide tornado built around him until the spiraling dust broke forward and formed a horse-like apparition of dust that charged toward Voldemort, leaving behind a dusty trail that obstructed vision all around.
Not waiting even for a second to observe his spell was worked against Voldemort, Dumbledore turned to the ruins of the building under which Quinn hid and shot a chain of spells all over the wreckage. Neither did it explode, nor did the building seem to move back in time and fix itself— the spell's purpose was simple: strengthen the broken wreckage through transfiguration and make them stick together so they could withstand pressure from outside better.
Dumbledore couldn't have Quinn worrying about the roof falling over his head when he was concentrating on something much more important. 'I will protect you, so please. . . don't fail,' Dumbledore thought as he returned to face Voldemort.
The three-story high horse was immediately ripped apart, and the dust was pushed away to the sides, making everything visible again. Voldemort looked unharmed. "Is that the best you could do as the Master of the Elder Wand? If so, I'm disappointed I did not face you for as long as I did."
"I pity what you become, Tom." Dumbledore decided to engage Voldemort in conversation— he needed to preserve his magic for later. "And, I blame myself for not helping you when you came to me. I failed you, my student. I fear that I'm the reason for everything that has happened to you and, in turn, this country. I fear. . . I'm who made you this way."
Then Dumbledore waited. He didn't need to wait long. It took Voldemort only a few seconds to blow up like a kettle on a high flame.
"YOU ARE NOT WHO MADE ME!" Voldemort screamed, and the earth shook with him. "You are not the reason for who I am! You have nothing to do with me! I am the master of my own destiny! I am the immortal Dark Lord! You didn't make me; I made myself!"
'It worked,' Dumbledore thought pleasantly. Dumbledore knew that even the mere mention that he had a hand in Voldemort being what he was today would infuriate the man so much that it would shatter all sense of control Voldemort thought he had in the situation. Dumbledore could tell that all previous thoughts had left Voldemort, replaced by what he had just said.
Dumbledore decided to poke a little more. "I do not think so. What if you were allowed to stay at Hogwarts as you had asked for during summer breaks? If you were not forced to go back to the horrible orphanage— maybe you would've been kinder, more compassionate. . . a better person. I take the blame for pushing you down the dark path. . . . Forgive me," there was a feeling of sorrow in his voice.
The battlefield went silent. The sound of thunderclouds in the sky echoed loudly. The sound of explosions from the other part of the villages traveled wide— but only for so long as an earthshattering quake broke out beneath Dumbledore's feet. Terrible cracks and crevices broke out on the ground, marring the surface with ugly scars.
"Mind your words, Dumbledore," Voldemort said in a deep voice, a grave warning flashing in his tone. "You are treading a dangerous line here."
"Dangerous line? I'm already in danger, Tom. You said so yourself that you plan to kill me today, just like I plan to do so to you. What difference does it make if I say anything that displeases you? I am simply speaking the truth, and you can't stop me from doing so."
". . . I have decided to make the last moments of your life as painful as possible," Voldemort said, snarling.
"Don't you think my words anger you so much because you see the truth in them?" Dumbledore asked, continuing to throw words he knew would get a response from Voldemort.
In his effort to defeat Voldemort, Dumbledore studied every point of Voldemort's life. He knew whatever there was to know about Voldemort's life except for the ten years gap of absence in which Voldemort had left the country to travel the world. He knew enough to make every word hit where he wanted to.
Voldemort raised his wand to the sky, and the rumbles of thunder became louder and brighter as the clouds turned darker and more menacing than a deep rainforest.
'I think this is enough,' Dumbledore looked up at the sky. He glanced at the wreckage that he had reinforced. 'I hope this is enough,' he couldn't provoke more— if he did more, Voldemort's magic would begin to wreak havoc everywhere instead of just focusing upon him. Emotion was closely tied to magic. The former powered latter. But it also could affect it at a really deep level. Dumbledore had purposefully provoked Voldemort because he wanted to disrupt his internals in hopes that it would, by chance, work in favor of Quinn, who was trying to work with soul magic which yet again deeply connected with emotions.
"Die, Dumbledore," Voldemort lowered his wand until he pointed it at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore didn't look anywhere other than Voldemort, but his instincts told him what was about to happen. He immediately funneled magic through the Elder Wand, and a dome appeared overhead just in time for a white flash of thunder to strike him from the clouds. Even if it was for a split second, the air heated up until it burned.
'That was close,' thought Dumbledore— if he had waited to react to the magic, he wouldn't have been able to block a literal thunderbolt coming down on him.
"I thought you wanted to kill me painfully. That would've killed me instantly," Dumbledore chuckled.
Voldemort raised both of his hands towards Dumbledore. The cloud rumbled, and a flash of thunder descended again, but this time over Voldemort, but instead of electrocuting him, the lightning pooled around him— something impossible without magic. He jutted his arm forward, and the lightning pooled behind him brightened, and two small lightning streams bolted toward Dumbledore, slammed into his dome, and acted like drills trying to pierce through.
Dumbledore stabbed his wand into the dome, and the lightning at the impact point broke down into small electric spark streams. Dumbledore stood back and simply let his magic consistently dissipate the harmful magic into harmful sparks.
Voldemort grunted as he finally stopped the seemingly endless supply of lightning. He spat. "I am the only one responsible for what I am today. The blood of Slytherin runs through my veins— I was destined for greatness. Your only contribution to my greatness shall be by dying by my hand and making the people realize that—" Voldemort froze in his spot and began to shake as his already pale skin turned paler than a white Vampire's. His hand went to his heart as he looked around with a panicky look.
"W-What i-is th-i-is?" he stuttered and fisted his robes.
Suddenly, a golden beam shot out of his chest that ended up at the wreckage where Quinn had been thrown into.
Voldemort's eyes shrunk. He errantly waved his hand, and the wreckage rose up in the air and floated there in a strange sense of static. It revealed Quinn kneeling on the ground with the Hufflepuff's Cup in his hand, which was the other end of the golden beam that connected it to Voldemort.
Quinn opened his eyes which were now glowing a deep purple with a shimmer of golden glowing in them like a burning flame. He looked directly at Voldemort. "Peace does not dwell in outward things but within the soul. . . and when you destroy the soul," he grinned, "chaos ensues. . ."
Dumbledore looked between Voldemort and Quinn and stood up straight. He readied his magic. . . the real battle was about to start now.
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Quinn West - MC - Linko Starto!
Voldemort - Dark Lord - About to realize what is happening
Albus Dumbledore - Defender - You shall not pass!
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