Chương 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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