I was glad that Dad has brought me here to the Ministry twice before, otherwise I wouldn't know where to go. I mean sure, I knew enough to go to the 9th level, and I remember something in the stories about a brain room and a circular room with rotating doors, but just trying to navigate the large building with no one in it was beyond me.
It was late in the evening now, Harry got the vision at around 6, and it took about two hours for the other Aurors to be in place and ready, so there are no regular workers here anymore. I did feel the presence of someone else in the Atrium, but it was likely just someone watching me, either a good guy or a bad guy, but either way they kept their presence hidden so I didn't call them out. I'm supposed to be Harry right now, and he wouldn't know how to sense people without magic, that's only a learned skill from experience.
I made my way through the elevators and towards the Department of Mysteries swiftly. I made glowing X marks on the doors in the circular room to mark which ones I opened, and when I found the right one, I walked into the hall of glowing orbs. I took a rock out of my pocket that I had grabbed earlier and did a complex transfiguration on it, and also added an alchemic element on the inside of it so to the naked eye it looked exactly like one of the other orbs in the room. I had to wait until I could see the prophecies myself that way I could make a decoy, knowing I would need one soon. I walked along the aisles until I found Harry's name on a prophecy orb, and looked around at my surroundings.
"Remus!" I called out, playing the distressed boy well. "Remus, where are you!?"
"Not here, I'm afraid." Lucius Malfoy says, stepping out of the shadows from where I already knew he was. I sensed over a dozen others nearby me as well, but wanted them to come out and do their monologue while waiting for my que to trap them.
I took in Lucius's appearance, he looked tired, and had a nasty scar running through his mouth and cheek that gave him a permanent grimace. The scar was of course curtesy of me, and I turned to him and suppressed a smirk as I faced him.
"Where is he?" I asked, keeping character.
"Not a clue." He responds with a short, clipped tone. "He was never here."
"It was a trap." I breathe out at him, and the other Death Eater's all approach me then. I summon and raise a blade up, not wanting them to disarm my wand from me just yet, but knowing that my blades are currently, in their eyes at least, Harry's trademark. "Why? Why get me here?"
"Take the prophecy and hand it to me, and there will be no need for you to be hurt." He says, a hint of desperation in his tone as he raises his wand. I look deep into his eyes then, and see he honestly looks like he doesn't want to be here right now. He looks thin, scared, and exhausted. "Take it now, Potter." He threatens out again when I don't respond.
"Why do I have to take it? What will happen to me?" I ask 'fearfully'.
"Only those who the prophecy are about may retrieve them. Now pick it up and hand it to me." He holds his hand out, but Bellatrix steps forward, her patience lost at the niceties.
"Bring it here, Potter!" Bellatrix shrieks at me, and then cackles breathily as I glare at her, already hating her to her very core. "The Dark Lord will reward me well for bringing him your head, and he'll reward me even better for bringing you to him alive."
"Why can't he just-" I start to complain, but Bellatrix cuts me off with a torture curse.
"Crucio!" She screams out, and since I'm at point blank range, I don't have time to dodge it. Pain, relentless and endless pain shoots through me for a long moment before Lucius makes her stop.
"Enough!" Lucius bellows out, and the curse stops, leaving me panting in agony as my muscles are screaming at me and my head is ringing. "He needs to retrieve the prophecy first. You heard the Dark Lord, he doesn't want the boy killed by one of us. That is his honor and his honor only." He scolds the psychotic woman as I pant and recover. I sensed several more people moving forward after my torture, and I hoped it was Dad and his allies in position right now. "Get the orb. Now." Lucius growls at me, and I turn obediently towards the prophecy once I've recovered enough to stand.
I internally smirk to myself, and perform a combination of my natural shadow magic and some regular good old sleight of hand. I know they will disarm me instantly if they see my wand out, so I use my natural wandless magic to blanket the real prophecy in a thick shadow and pull the fake one out of my sleeve at the same moment, all while using my other hand in a submissive gesture for them to back off, the Death Eater's attention all going to that hand for the brief moment as I hold it up to them while I make the exchange. I hold the fake orb out to them fearfully, and pause right before putting it in Lucius's hand.
"Voldemort really should have come to get this himself. It would have actually been effective then." I openly smirk at them, and they look at me in confusion. "Now!" I call out, and immediately stunning spells are shot out from all their surroundings as I drop down in a crouch to avoid them.
"It's a trap!" Lucius calls out angrily, and I take him on in a duel since he's the closest, Bellatrix and the others all going to the incoming Aurors.
I shoot out spells at Malfoy, but he is already backing away from me quickly in fear of being trapped, so I chase to pursue him. I hear an explosion behind me and start to run faster as I see hundreds of orbs falling down above my head. I cast a protection shield above me as I run, and push through a door that Malfoy just ran through. He throws a curse at me as I round the corner, and it throws me into the wall before I could defend myself.
As I'm recovering and getting back up, I get hit by a curse from behind me that causes all the oxygen to leave my lungs rapidly, and I wheeze and gag before performing a wind spell on myself and forcibly inflating my lungs once again. It was extremely painful, but it just saved my life. I had dropped to the ground as it happened, and Lucius had managed to grab the fake prophecy from my hand and started to run away. I didn't care about getting the fake back, but I didn't want him to get away.
"Impedimenta!" I curse him and he freezes in his movements. I'm alone with him at the moment, but the sounds of the battle are approaching us. I walk over to him quickly, and smirk evilly down at him from where he's frozen in a crouched position. "How the mighty have fallen, Malfoy. A shame you chose the losing side in this war. I wonder, how will Voldy react when you bring him a fake prophecy?" I finish my taunting with a dangerous whisper, and his eyes widen in realization as he looks at the fake orb.
"When?!" He manages to breathe out.
"Wizards, so focused on wands they fail to see Muggle magic." I taunt him more. "You should be thanking me, if I had let you go to your precious Dark Lord with that, he would have killed you instantly. Why serve a monster like that?" I ask him sincerely.
"I have no choice." He grits out fearfully. "He will win, he always wins. I have a family I must think about. He will kill me and then them."
"It's not the Dark Lord you should fear killing you." I say with an edge, hearing the sound of approaching footsteps. "You're a smart man and a cockroach, you can spot a losing side when you see one. You are a survivor, that's how you stayed out of Azkaban for so long. Run, Malfoy. Take your family and run, leave the country, go into hiding. This is your one chance to really save your family. Leave Voldemort to me." I offer up to him in a whisper, noticing the spell holding him is wearing off. The door bursts open behind me and I take the chance and spin around and send out a flash attack that blinds the new Death Eater who joined us. "Go." I order out to Lucius, and he nods and Disapparates away, leaving the fake prophecy behind.
Several more Death Eaters are running into the room now, ones who weren't in the hall previously, and they are being chased by Aurors and Order members. I spot Tonks and Remus both fighting together as they chase the bad guys, and I turn tail and run since in this small room I'm outnumbered and there's no space for my attacks, not with the good guys piling in. Also, my father isn't in this room, and that's turning my anxiety and fear up to ten that I can't see him, and I feel foolish for having wasted time on Malfoy.
I hear a familiar cackling voice through a door to my left, so I stab a Death Eater with my blade to get him out of my way as I run towards that room. I burst through to the next room, running headlong into it and notice a few battles going on in the room. I come to a pause though, fear in my eyes as I spot the arched veil.
I can hear the whispers from the veil, the painfully familiar whispers, but that's not what has me freezing in fear. It's Dad, fighting Bellatrix, in the exact same room where he dies in the story. My fear takes on a whole new level, my mind tearing apart and not being able to identify things correctly anymore.
Bellatrix starts to cackle maniacally when she's fighting him, and suddenly, it stops being her laughter.
It becomes his laughter. The Joker's laughter. And all I know then is that my family is too close to him.
I start to see red as I scream in rage, pulling all focus in the room to me. I cast a dome of wind around me, spiraling and sending out razer sharp gusts to all the Death Eaters in the room, and unfortunately in my blind rage, it's also attacking my allies, but it's effectively ending all of the fights.
Bellatrix tries to take my distraction to her advantage and lands a stunning spell on my dad, and he gets launched backwards, and almost hits the veil. I react with lightning fast speed and precision. Using the grappling hook spell, I latch onto him and fling him back towards Remus behind me who catches him and they both land roughly.
While I was doing that, Bellatrix throws a knife at me, and I catch in the wind dome and have it circle around me, gaining speed and moment. My tunnel vision sees my target alone, my family away from her, my focus sharpening even more. I can start to see black wisps of shadows appear in my dome, I recognize them as my own magic, but I know I didn't cast them. I allowed the shadows to happen, they must be feeding off my darkness right now, but they are adding to my intimidation as I can see fear on Bellatrix's face as I slowly approach her, step by excruciatingly slow step, where she's trapped in a corner. She raised her wand to curse me, but I raised my own wand faster.
"Expelliarmus!" I bellow out in a growl, and watched in satisfaction as her wand flew away into my dome. I grabbed it out of the swirls and held it delicately in my fingertips. "You wizards and your wands." I say softly, only her being within hearing range now, my dome pressing everyone else back away from me. "And your little knife here." I point to the rapidly swirling blade, channeling more magic to make it more controlled in its rotations, the blade consistently pointed forward now instead of spinning around. "I bet you don't even know the first rule of knife fighting." I chuckle darkly at her, the dark shadows spreading farther, and now completely encompassing my wind dome, leaving only a gap of visibility in front of me so I can clearly see my cowering target.
"Always have a spare knife." She replies sadistically, gaining confidence once again, pulling out a second blade from her robes. She aimed her hand back to throw at me, and I tilted my head tauntingly to her.
"Never let your own blade be used against you." I grin evilly at her, and launched her stolen blade at a blinding fast speed as she threw her own. I caught her new dagger by the handle before it could hit my head, she wasn't as skillful as I am. The blade I launched at her pierced into her chest by her heart, and she screamed out in agony.
I felt the Polyjuice potion wearing off then, and took off Harry's glasses as my vision returned to normal while I sauntered over to her and held her own wand pointing at her.
"No, you?" She breathes out in realization as I returned fully back to myself. She had already fallen to the ground, blood pouring steadily out of her mortal wound. I heard the fighting resume behind me, and someone screaming that Voldemort was nearing us, but I needed to make sure she was dead first. The shadows still kept everyone from seeing it was me right now, so all my actions currently are unknown to everyone else.
"Me." I smirk darkly at her. "And here you wanted me so badly when I was a child. Well, here I am, Bellatrix. Your killer. How did I do? Did I rise to your expectations of evil?" I taunt to her as I raised her own wand to attack her. "Same rule applies for the wand as for the knife. Never let it be used against you." I chuckle evilly, then performed a final curse with her own wand. "Avada Kedavra." I say calmly, feeling nothing but hatred and spite in my bones as the flash of green left her wand and struck her in the chest. Curiously, the green killing curse also had wisps of black around the edges of the green. She was already dying, but I wanted her own precious wand to be what killed her, as a final stab in the back for her almost killing my father.
For a moment, I was consumed again by the feeling of using the Dark Arts. I felt unstoppable, more powerful then ever before. Voldemort was here now, I could kill him, or better yet, capture him and torture him. I would love to hear his screams fill the Chamber of Secrets right now, to watch the life leave his eyes but never grant him the mercy of death.
I turned to assess the rest of the room then, dropping my wind and shadow done, spotting Dad already up and making his way over to me. He engulfed me in a tight hug as soon as he made his way to me, and in that moment I felt my thoughts return to normal. Thoughts of Voldemort's torture being pushed away completely as I hold my dad in my arms tightly.
"I'm sorry you had to do that. But thank you, Princess. You saved my life, Moony just told me." Dad breathes out at me.
"Thank me later, the battle isn't over yet." I smile slightly at him, but nod my head to where we can now see Voldemort battling four different Aurors in the next room over. "Let's get him on the run." I smirk at Dad, and he returns it. We both charged into the fight as several of the remaining Death Eaters were running away now, fleeing as they realized it was a losing battle at this point.
"Cowards!" Voldemort screams out at his departing allies, his attention then spinning to face Dumbledore who just entered the room as the same time as we did. I stopped Dad in his pursuit, wanting the old wizard to fight this battle. "Where is Potter!?" Voldemort adds with a screech, doing a circle and not seeing the boy anywhere.
"I have removed him safely away from you, Tom." Dumbledore responds calmly, holding the Elder wand in his hands ready to attack. "You will never get the prophecy now, it was destroyed in the battle. You have lost again, Tom. Surrender."
"No." Voldemort responds in a whisper. "Never. I will never surrender to you, Dumbledore. I will live forever, your greatest mistake, and I will be your end." He says more loudly, for all of us to hear. "Until we meet again. And we will meet once more, and it will be the last time you breathe." He adds to the old wizard before vanishing on the spot.
I look around to make sure everyone I know is alright. I spot Remus helping heal a wound on Tonks's shoulder, Dad helping Kingsley stand up. I nod once to Moody, the real one, who nods skeptically at me in return. There are a few Aurors who are down with larger injuries though, with others standing somberly over a few others. The consolation is, there are several more Death Eaters down, either dead, wounded, or captured.
"You are a far way from school, Ms. Black." Dumbledore says, approaching me and giving me a knowing look. "And out of bed after hours." He adds with almost amusement in his tone.
"Sleep walking?" I shrug with a smirk, rotating my shoulder to loosen it up after the one bigger hit I took earlier in the battle. It wasn't injured badly, but it was sore. My lungs also still ached and burned after the air attack I took, and now that the adrenaline is fading, it's progressive hurting more to breath. "We'll just call it right place at the right time, shall we?"
"As you often seem to be." He says lightly to me. "Are you injured?"
"Nah, just sore. Took some weird spell that took my breath away, literally." I chuckle at him weakly. "Good thing I practiced so much with wind magic, right? I could counter it effectively enough, even if it burned like a bi-, like a banshee." I stop myself from swearing in front of the Headmaster. I may not like him, but I can still respect him enough to keep my manners in place.
"Let's get you back to school then, Poppy can heal that up right away for you." He says, nodding to someone behind me. I turn and see Dad there, looking at me proudly. "See to it this student is back safe, Professor Black."
"I will. Might have to give her a detention for giving me a heart attack. Or a 100 points for saving my life. We'll see how I feel in the morning." Dad grins at me as I chuckle lightly, the burning in my lungs now becoming the forefront of my attention as the adrenaline is gone.
Dad and I made our back, but not before I hugged Remus tightly and did the same to Tonks, though more lightly since she had a wound. Once we got through the fire, I changed quickly out of Harry's clothes and back into my own before going to the Hospital wing. By the time we got there, I couldn't speak anymore since the burn had travelled up my throat and each breath was causing blinding pain. Pomphrey made me take a potion once I could mime out what had happened to me, and she ordered me into a bed. I hopped into it happily, leaving Dad to deal with Harry once he woke up.
I drifted off to sleep easily, beyond satisfied in the fact that Dad was alive and his would-be killer was dead. I'd worry about all the rest in the morning, like that sadistic and cruel train of thought that happened after using the dark magic. That's a problem for tomorrow's Abigail.