章 1569: 31
Chapter 31: AzkabanNotes:
Good morning everyone, here's todays chapter. I hope you'll like it. It's a bit shorter than usual, but next week's chapter will be longer than usual so that should make up for it.
I want to thank all of you for continuing to read my story and comment on it. With the last chapter we hit the 100k hits, which I never thought that would happen. So thank you all :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
On the eve of Halloween, while Harry's family was celebrating the fact that the two kids were finally an official couple, something else happened.
Two men sat foot on British soil.
Lord Nathaniel Parkinson and Thomas Marvolo Riddle, also known as Lord Voldemort, possessing the body of Gabriel Delacour.
They had used an old portkey that the Dark Lord had stashed in a safe house in northern Germany to travel back to their homeland.
Due to the age of the portkey, its destination wasn't entirely accurate and they landed a few kilometres away from Little Hangleton on top of a cliff. In the distance Tom Riddle saw the lights of the town and he laughed. Despite being in another body, it sounded just the same as back in the day, an evil laughter that would make one shudder in fear. Only Bella was more horrifying when it came to laughter, but that was rather because she was absolutely insane.
Grabbing his loyal servant's arm, the Dark Lord apparated them away from the cliff and in front of the old Riddle Manor, much to the shock of the old Frank Bryce, the caretaker. On Halloween the children of Little Hangleton always tried even harder than usual to sneak into the old Manor, and because of that he was guarding the house all night long.
The elderly man froze.
Red glowing eyes stared at him, eyes that looked rather unnatural and purely evil. This person had just appeared out of nowhere, together with another, and despite his brain telling him to run, he just froze. Not because of a curse - to be fair, Frank wouldn't even have known what a curse was - but simply because of fear.
The companion of the red-eyed man raised his hand and pointed at him with a…a wooden stick, but the evil one gestured him to stop.
"Don't, Parkinson. This new wand of mine needs to be ready when the time comes, and Delacour had been a very light wizard. I approve of your eagerness, but I need to corrupt this wand into darkness before we free our friends."
Frank saw that the companion - Parkinson, apparently - bowed his head and stepped back. And with a frightened expression on his face, the old caretaker heard the evil one speak something and the world turned green, before it was over.
" Avada Kedavra!"
While the Dark Lord began putting up his wards around the house (after making Frank an inferius, of course), Parkinson went and retrieved the bones of Thomas Riddle, the Dark Lord's father, so they could prepare the ritual before they'd free the other Death Eaters and get the blood. All the other ingredients he had already acquired on their trip back home, now they only needed the main three. His biggest hope was that Bella or someone else would be willing to sacrifice a finger, though he'd do it if necessary (it would cause him unnecessary pain during the ritual though, and the Dark Lord agreed. This would not be a time and place for mistakes). The bones he just now collected and the blood…well, they had a plan for that too.
The bones were currently soaking in a mixture of both unicorn and human blood to strengthen them further, when the Dark Lord declared the time right to make their opening move. It was November the first, in the late afternoon, when he started drawing a runic circle in the entrance hall. Yes, he would be able to apparate them into the general area of Azkaban, but that was too imprecise for him, so he used something more or less similar. It was per se still a form of apparition, but the destination came through the runes. Another hidden feature in his Dark Marks, if he'd use the right ritual then he could track every single one of them.
The Dark Lord stood in the middle of the circle and started chanting an ancient Mayan spell. The state he wanted to achieve (and that he did) was an astral projection so he could oversee all of Britain and feel the location of the Dark Marks. Once he managed that, he was surprised. The news said Severus was still at Hogwarts, but he didn't feel a mark there. Maybe he really was a traitor.
Azkaban wasn't hard to find, since most of his marked followers were there, and he locked onto that signature. Now, in a very unusual combination of Mayan and Scandinavian magic he transferred that signature, or better, its location, into the runic circle.
Now he just needed to hold the entire construct together for five minutes so that the runes could reach their peak charge, before they both would be pulled away and transported into Azkaban.
Nathaniel Parkinson, standing next to his master in the circle and wearing his Death Eater outfit, felt the familiar pull of apparition, but it was a strange feeling, because he had no control over it and that was unfamiliar.
Just moments later the Dark Lord and his obedient servant appeared in a hallway.
And the first thing they heard was a cackle.
Riddle smiled, his eyes were glowing even stronger than before now, and with a flick of his wand the door of Bella's cell shattered. The insane woman, unhealthily thin and with messy hair, fell on her knees and started kissing the Dark Lord's feet.
"Bella. My dear Bella. Get up and serve your lord well. Nathaniel, let her try one of our spare wands."
They had kept all the wands they had acquired over time and from the host bodies so they'd have a bit more firepower in Azkaban, and as insane Bella was, she was a competent fighter. She took the one working best for her and looked frighteningly determined now. The Dark Lord transfigured her inmate robes into Death Eater robes, but without the mask. She was much scarier that way.
After freeing Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, the Carrow twins, Yaxley and Macnair, the Dark Lord walked up to another cell. He could sense who was in there.
"My Lord."
The deep voice sounded strangely calm and sane, and that was no big surprise, because Augustus Rookwood had always been a strong man, both in mind and magic. As a former unspeakable he wasn't too unfamiliar with rituals and meditational techniques to defend himself against dementor influence.
Augustus was another one of those which got a wand from the Dark Lord, and he took his place next to Parkinson (the two smartest Death Eaters, together with Barty jr.) to continue tampering with the alarm wards, deflect dementors and incapacitate any prisoners that had seen them so they wouldn't raise an alarm. Sure, there were probably only half a dozen aurors here, but why take the risk of encountering them before you finished your mission.
"Rookwook."
"Parkinson. I see you did some nice work there, improved the body with runes?"
"Yes, we had a few before them, but snatching wizards unnoticed every few weeks wasn't a permanent solution."
"True, true. That the French potioneer? I think I met him once to discuss one of his experiments."
"Yep, that's him. Went to Albania to buy top ingredients and I was quicker."
"I take it that isn't your permanent solution, Nathaniel?"
"No, we're making a new body. You know, the Bones of the Father ritual. Got them soaking in unicorn and human blood."
"Smart, but I guess the blood was your idea? The Dark Lord would have probably used snake venom so the body would look more inhuman and scary. I did the Arithmancy on that once back in the day."
"Oh, that was your research? Good work, but I voted for a human approach. Less conspicuous and maybe better in the current political climate. Besides, it will be more stable."
"May I take a look at your calculations later? Out of curiosity, your work was always brilliant."
"Sure, no problem."
"Got the flesh and the blood too?"
"Not yet, but for the flesh we'll find a volunteer. Would do it myself, sure, but if we have enough willing servants then I don't see why the one performing the ritual should do it. Just increases the likelihood for mistakes. And the blood…well, that'll be a surprise."
The Dark Lord chuckled while overhearing the conversation between his two most intelligent servants. One of these days he'd discuss some of his old plans with him, maybe with Barty too (the fact that he was alive surprised Nathaniel and the Dark Lord, luckily the news on the trials even reached Albania). They were brilliant, two committed scholars.
After silencing Molly Weasley (what an annoying woman) and freeing the coward Pettigrew, they also freed Dolohov (who got a wand too, what a scary fighter). Nathaniel freed Lucius, who was just as arrogant as always, demanding Parkinson's wand to help their Lord.
"Lucius."
"My Lord. I am your servant and I'll follow you."
"Good. Then follow me by leaving Parkinson alone. He's the one that did what you all couldn't do. He's my most loyal and committed servant - maybe aside from Bella."
"But…"
"You don't want to disagree with me, Lucius, do you? Your idiocy already lost me one of my most powerful artefacts."
Nathaniel just smiled behind his mask. It was about time that someone told that idiot how annoyingly stupid he was.
In the end, Lucius finally shut up and followed silently - without a wand of course. Sure, he might be a good politician, but a horrible fighter.
Barty Crouch Jr. soon joined them too, and so did all the others of the Dark Lord's servants. Thanks to Amelia Bones' campaign against Death Eaters nearly all of them were locked up here. And sure, the new Minister of Magic had upgraded the wards and stationed at least a handful of personnel here, but the numbers of aurors was still too small overall (Snape's horrible Potions teaching and Fudge limiting her budget had slowed the growth in the department massively).
While they were continuing to check if there was anyone left they could take with them, Amycus Carrow tripped an alarm ward, and the Dark Lord just groaned.
" Crucio!"
He held the curse just for a few seconds before telling Alecto to drag her idiot brother away from the corridor. As stupid as that had been, he still didn't want to lose any Death Eater.
There were only five aurors at Azkaban when one of the alarm wards in the lower levels got triggered. That did happen on occasion, some animals were able to trigger those too, so none of them really worried. Especially since it was in the high security wing, where the wards were hyper-sensitive and the doors nearly impossible to open without the unspeakable-made magical key. Besides, no one (except from Crouch Jr., who had help from the back then DMLE-head) ever escaped from Azkaban, they had anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards, and none of those had been breached.
But still, protocol was protocol, so they sent off a note to the DMLE via a protean-charmed notebook and three of them went down there to check.
Little did they know that Lord Voldemort had a ritual, similar though not identical to apparition and was magically strong enough to blast open the locked doors, so in search of a mouse or rat they ran into a death trap.
Dolohov, who was already expecting them, got two of them thanks to the element of surprise with a variation of the cutting curse while Crouch Jr. transfigured the third one, who was just beginning to react, into a wooded branch and snapped it. He really was skilled and not really a fan of making a mess but rather showing off.
Some of the wandless Death Eaters dove for the wands, but Nathaniel threw an overpowered stinging jinx at all of them. The Dark Lord trusted him and gave him the command while he was getting them a very special prisoner.
"Lucius! Crabbe! And you, Avery! Stop it. I'll hand out the wands. Alecto, take that one and keep your idiot brother under control. Macnair, you give us cover if there are more incoming. And…, no, still not you, Lucius, stop being so pathetic. You, Nott, you're still a competent ward breaker, are you. Assist Augustus."
Yes, the Parkinson family had never been the most wealthy one, but Nathaniel was brilliant, and he worked hard for the spot of the Dark Lord's right hand. Though, to be completely honest, blood purity was never his true motive, for him it was all about knowledge and power. The Dark Lord could give him both, so he had Nathaniel's obedience.
And while the Death Eaters were looking for more people they could free, the Dark Lord himself went to another wing of the prison, a solitary confinement cell far off from all the other prisoners. In there was the man he was looking for.
"Dumbledore. How is prison so far?"
Albus Dumbledore looked up, and once he saw the red glowing eyes he knew it. Tom Riddle had come for him.
"Tom. I don't think you should…"
Through the bars Riddle threw an overpowered ancient celtic stunning spell before tying up Dumbledore and levitating him out of the cell. He would be vital to his plans.
The two remaining aurors and the warden at Azkaban didn't even have the time to look for their missing colleagues, because after capturing Dumbledore, the Dark Lord ordered Crouch and Macnair to kill them. And since Barty was very familiar with ministry procedure, especially DMLE procedure (that's the benefit of living with the head of the DMLE for years), he sent another message to the department, stating that it was just a mouse tripping the alarm, nothing more, and he made that message sound authentic, using the proper phrasings and "code words" the aurors had. Thank god they never changed those.
And so no one realised that the breakout had even happened, at least for another three days, when the replacements arrived via boat in the afternoon.
The ministry was obviously in chaos after hearing about the outbreak and according to some people Amelia was swearing all afternoon, cursing the lack of aurors thanks to the previous administration. She was trying her best to find out as much as possible, and with the help of unspeakables and mind healers they managed to break some of the obliviations to see Voldemort breaking out his servants.
Obviously Amelia relayed that info to Harry and Hermione as soon as possible, anything concerning Voldemort was concerning them too.
When the communication mirror started buzzing, Harry opened his eyes, frustrated about his lack of success in finding out his animagus form. Mione had managed that pretty quickly (an eagle…come on, she was afraid of flying and it took her two timelines to overcome that fear…seriously?), but he didn't manage to catch a glimpse of the animal. At least the meditation had helped him with the shadow travel. The basic theory behind that, written down in the Peverell Grimoire, wasn't that hard, but to actually feel the magical energy of a shadow was much more complicated than one could imagine. He was still far away from actually doing any travelling, but he slowly got more comfortable and used to the very strange feelings shadows had.
He grabbed the mirror and accepted the incoming message.
"Amelia? Is everything alright?"
"No, Harry. Nothing's alright. Voldemort is back, and he somehow apparated undetected into Azkaban, freed all Death Eaters and killed the personnel. And we just found out now."
"Wait what? When did that happen?"
"On the evening of the first they recorded an alarm in the wards, but they later gave the all-clear and said that it was a mouse. Our best guess is that Crouch Jr. or another Death Eater familiar with DMLE procedure wrote that reply to make it sound absolutely authentic."
"Damn. That's…you know he'll come for us then. He'll make his move soon."
"Yes, I know. And even worse, you two were right. He's using Gabriel Delacour's body, the memories we saw suggest that they banished his conscience completely and strengthened it via runes before they do the bones of the father ritual."
"So they'll try going after me next for the blood. And I really thought we'd have a chance to take a breath."
"Hate to break it to you, but they took Dumbledore too. How high is the chance that they'll use his blood?"
"They did WHAT? FUCK. That means he could by now be out there, striking every second now. By now his followers should be rested and he certainly has a way to get them new wands. That's…a disaster."
Amelia nodded. She herself was afraid too, because now Voldemort had as strong an army as back in the day, and they had nowhere near as many aurors as then. This situation had the potential to end in a catastrophe.
"Harry, do you have any idea where he could hide? We're trying to put up monitoring charms at all the Death Eaters' homes, but we don't have the manpower for that."
"Uhm, maybe his father's place. The one in…FUCK. That just gets worse and worse. I can't remember, that bastard must have put up a Fidelius. I've got to go and talk to Mione. Maybe she has some input."
"Do that."
"Thanks Amelia."
"You're welcome."
Harry rushed down into the library, where Mione was sitting with Neville, Daphne, Susan and Hannah. She immediately saw that something was up.
"Harry? What's going on?"
"Amy just called. Riddle broke into Azkaban and freed all his followers. And that three days ago, he did it very sneakily and only the replacement shift discovered it."
The first one to react to that statement was Neville, who jumped up and got visibly angry.
"The bitch is free too?"
"Sorry Nev, but yes. Bella's gone as well."
Nev stormed off, with Daphne going after him. She knew what Bella Lestrange had done to her boyfriend's parents (they had visited Frank and Alice during the summer holidays at St. Mungo's together) and now had to try her best at calming him down again.
Susan, clearly seeing that Harry had to discuss some things with Hermione, then left and took Hannah with her, claiming that she needed to talk to her aunt. Sure, she'd do that too, but she did it for Harry, who was becoming something like a brother to her. Well, with the basically unavoidable marriage between Amy and Sirius they were bound to be close, but they got along damn well too.
"What else is there, Harry?"
"He…he really has Gabriel's body, just like we expected. And even worse, he took the old meddler too."
"Wait…you don't think he'll use his blood for the ritual. Then he still can't touch you."
"But Dumbles' unbound core is bigger than mine last time around. We'll need to run through the numbers together, but that could make him even stronger. And with Parkinson he has someone much smarter than the rat, who knows what he can do."
"Oh god, I don't even want to think about that. And even worse, he's got Rookwood and Crouch too now. They are supposed to be brilliant."
All in all, things really did seem to get worse and worse this time around. If Riddle already got his new - and probably stronger - body, and if his Death Eaters were ready to attack then a lot of bad things were bound to happen. They could probably attack several families at once, or try taking over Diagon Alley, all of which would lead to significant casualties. But now, with a Fidelius over Riddle Manor they were basically out of possibilities. Sure, strengthening wards and defences were possible, but leading an offensive attack without having any target at all was simply not possible.
Neville was sitting in Greenhouse Four, in a secluded corner, and he was angry. Angry at the world, angry at the ministry, angry at Voldemort, and most of all angry at Bellatrix Lestrange.
When he felt the familiar feel of his girlfriend's hand on his shoulder, he looked up to her and tried his best at smiling. Safe to say that this was not really successful. Daphne sat down next to him and put her arm around him.
And so they sat there, despite the fact that curfew was approaching quickly, and they were just silent. Saying anything would have been unnecessary either way, they both knew what the other thought and meant to say.
The two of them would have probably continued sitting there for the duration of the night, but then suddenly something happened. Neville felt a soft tingle in his hand, getting stronger and stronger every second, then his hand started glowing softly. For a few seconds both teenagers just stared at it, wondering what it might be, when it started burning for a second.
What he then saw, made him yelp. He knew what that meant.
Without explanation he jumped up and ran towards Gryffindor tower, hoping that at least Harry and Hermione would be there. He'd need their help.
At the same time, Harry and Hermione were sitting in Minnie's office, together with Minnie herself, Severus and Professor Vector. Even though the latter had no idea at what precisely she was looking now, they were calculating what the change of the blood donor in the ritual might have on the outcome. Preliminary results suggested an increase in magical power and a heightened stability of the ritual, because Dumbledore's core was already fully grown and stable.
When Harry's mirror started buzzing a second time this evening, he was already fearing to answer it. And that rightfully, because Sirius was unfortunately a bearer of bad news.
"Sorry pup, but there's been some Death Eater activity."
"What happened, Sirius?"
Notes:
That's it for this week, I hope you liked it. Any guesses what drove Neville so crazy?
Looking forward to your comments, see ya all next week.
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