14 Chapter 14 The Boss Fight

Harry put down his tea cup and said, "Would you like me to pour you some tea?"

"Reducto!" One of the Death Eaters behind Voldemort, Bellatrix, Harry figured, fired a blasting hex at Harry's table. Harry grabbed a plate and took a step back as the table and the rest of the tea set exploded.

Harry brushed off his robes and said, "How rude. If this is how you treat your guests I can't imagine you're going to be very popular in the future."

"How dare you! Crucio!" Bellatrix cried out.

The cruciatus curse was a red beam that traveled in a relatively straight line. Harry saw where her wand was pointing and moved the plate he was holding in front of him, directly blocking the unforgivable.

Normal plates for tea sets can't block such a powerful spell without exploding of course, but this particular plate was one of Harry's masterpieces. Hidden under the decoration were intricate rune sets that rendered the plate saturated with exotic energy yet frozen in place. Bellatrix's spell was like shooting a water hose at a glacier in the hopes it would break through.

Harry shifted his gaze to Voldemort while continuing to casually block the torture curse with fine china and said, "Have you taught them how to duel? They have no proper etiquette do they."

Voldemort said, "Enough Bellatrix!"

"But Master, he-"

"Be Silent!"

Harry tossed the plate away like it wasn't worth anything and faced Voldemort. This made the man's face twitch as it went against his guess there was something special about the plate. Now however he had their attention.

Harry said, "Now did you want to talk, to duel, or play a game I had in mind."

"Oh, and what game would that be?"

"Hide and seek. All of you against me, I swear on my magic I won't leave this area until the game is over."

None of them noticed the pink mist falling from above released by the flying drones.

Harry continued to in order to keep their attention on him, "Rules are simple, after ten seconds, I'll hide. I'll have five seconds to hide. After five seconds, if you find me, you can kill me. Winner gets fabulous prizes. If no one finds me and you all give up, then since you won't have found me I'll likely be alive."

Lucius said, "What childish nonsense."

The possessed Ravenclaw said, "Is this your big plan to survive?"

Harry smiled and said, "Not exactly. It has been ten seconds by the way so now I have five seconds to hide. Three, two-"

Several explosions occurred at everyone's feet and the area was filled with a red tinted smoke.

Harry stunned the possessed Ravenclaw and summoned her wand. The cameras on the drones had filters that allowed them to see through the smoke and they all focused in on Harry as he transfigured his robe into an adult's robe and carefully lied down on the ground, seemingly faking his death.

Through the monitors the audience gasped as they saw the death eaters shift their form. Suddenly, they each looked like Harry Potter.

Several encountered each other through the smoke and spells began to fly. One camera closed in on Harry and saw him smile before going back to the others.

Dozens upon dozens of spells shot around, various shouts called back left and right that they'd found him. The audience realized that no one knew they all looked like Harry Potter.

Sirius picked up his mic and said, "This gas you see is an Aerosol type Polyjuice potion. It only lasts about five minutes but will turn anyone who breathes it in into the same person, in this case, Harry. The gas also contains a weak Befuddlement Draught and Forgetfulness Potion. Even if they shoot down a Harry, they will forget about that if they see another Harry. They are also less likely to notice they themselves are a Harry."

Spells continued to fly back and forth as the heads of many ancient magical houses were killed off. Sirius considered this and said into the mic, "For those of you wondering, neither myself nor Harry can be held responsible for these deaths. If someone dies due to your actions and they are trying to kill you, it is self defense. In other words this can be considered self defense unless someone here thinks those death eaters are not in fact trying to kill Harry Potter."

Another Harry died, and Voldemort came into the screen, "Ah, it seems old Moldybutt wasn't affected by the potion. Oh well."

Harry himself was using his energy sense to figure out what was going on around him without moving.

Voldemort seemed to have figured it out and shouted, "Everyone Stop!"

Harry used that moment to lock onto three different death eaters and cast the Slippery jinx on their wand hands while hidden through the smoke before summoning their wands from them. Wands and items possessed by another person's magic are nearly impossible to summon from them due to the interference of the other person's magic which is why he could only summon them after using the Slippery Jinx. It was a fact that Jinxes could only be cast while looking at something but Harry could get around this with his energy sense meaning he could uses Jinxes through the smoke when others could not.

Voldemort shouted, "Everyone to me!"

Harry felt the exotic energy in the man build for a moment before he called forth a torrent of wind to scatter the gas and smoke.

He looked around and said, "Kneel."

Every 'Harry' knelt in place.

He said, "We have been tricked. Look at yourselves."

"What is this my lord?" came from one of them in Harry's voice.

Normal Polyjuice potions don't change the voice unless you force it. Normal polyjuice needs hair though, this one needed blood.

Voldemort glared at the Harry and said, "Where is your wand?"

Everyone knew Harry didn't have a wand. The 'Harry' looked to their empty hand and said, "No, I'm-"

"Avada Kedavra!"

And the energy Harry felt from Bellatrix Lestrange vanished from the world.

The camera shifted back to Harry who gave another smile before turning back to the group. There were only four Death Eaters left and only two had wands. Considering there were fifteen earlier, it was quite the drop in Harry's favor.

Voldemort shouted, "Everyone take out your wands!"

He saw two wands but noticed the two missing. One of them said in Harry's voice, "It's me my Lord, Goyle."

"Is that so? Tell me something only Goyle would know?"

"I, I, I've served you faithfully for years my Lord, it's me."

Sirius watching this over the monitor said, "Some people are affected by forgetfulness potions more than others."

Voldemort gritted his teeth waiting for some proof and when none came, he shouted, "Avada Kedavra," once more. He turned back to the two wands that were held out and noticed neither was Barty's. He asked the remaining man without a wand, "And you, tell me something only you would know."

"I'm Carrows my lord, you ordered me to gut the Bones woman and set her ablaze my lord."

"Ah yes, that's right. Now, all three of you go around and find any body without a wand." It was known that someone dying under polyjuice would not revert back to normal which would make this game of hide and seek very difficult.

The camera once again zoomed back on Harry holding a wand before going back to the search.

The group spread out and when the camera wasn't on Harry, he pulled his magic gun out and shot Voldemort, then the first wizard still with a wand, then the second, then the last one.

The sounds were far, far louder than a normal gun shot and even the audience watching from the monitors had to cover their ears after the first. Harry's aim was dead on and large holes formed in the torsos of all four, though when Voldemort collapsed, a moment later the hole refilled itself, healing him.

Voldemort quickly got up and fired off a half dozen spells but wasn't able to save his remaining death eaters. Harry dodged the shots and fired his gun back at the immortal dark lord who quickly dodged two shots before Harry ran out of ammo.

Harry placed the gun in his robes and said, "How's that immortality thing going for you?"

Voldemort's anger was only tempered by the satisfaction of knowing he was now truly immortal. Even he was impressed by how quickly he recovered from the lethal damage.

He spat back at Harry, "Nothing you have done here will matter. Now I will never die, nothing can stop me, and you, I will not kill you quick Harry Potter. No, I will grant you immortality as well just so I can ensure your torment lasts for all eternity."

Harry smirked at that and looked at his arm. The blood that had stained it from the knife wound earlier was fading away.

Harry said, "About that, you really shouldn't have used my blood. You should be feeling it in three, two, one."

Voldemort suddenly collapsed, his body fighting against him.

"What, what have you done?"

"Nothing, you're the one who wanted my blood. You did this to yourself. Your body is breaking down, the elixir of life is keeping you together, but just barely. In this state your body is doing everything it can to keep itself in one piece. You can't use magic and you don't have a port key. You're done Volde."

Harry didn't know the exact details of these rituals but he extrapolated enough to know what was going on with the man's body.

The Dark Lord sneered with venom and said, "So you even saw this coming, you sabotaged your own blood. It matters not. I will return. I will never die, I will-"

*meow*

Somehow a certain orange tabby cat appeared. Harry said, "Goose, what are you doing here?"

Goose conveyed back through the link, 'I'm tired of you needing to deal with this one.'

When Harry realized what was about to happen, he shouted to the cameras, "Sirius! Turn the cameras away! Now!"

Sirius realized with horror what was about to happen and used the controls to twist every drone to face away from Voldemort. The sound was still coming through though.

From the monitors everyone heard Voldemort's voice, "What is this? What? Oh Merlin! What is that thing?! No! Get it away! No! Get it off me! What is this monster?! No! Oh Merlin No! Not like this! I am Voldemort, I cannot be! NO! Please! PLEASE! NOT! LIKE! THIS!"

After another moment of terrified screaming, silence resumed. Harry said, "Ok, it's over."

The cameras turned back to where Harry and Voldemort were. Except Voldemort was nowhere to be seen and the cat seemed to be casually walking away.

Sirius felt bad he hadn't turned the sound off as many would be emotionally scarred for life, but at least they didn't have to see it. He noticed something odd and the camera focused on the downed Ravenclaw everyone heard was possessed by a diary. The Diary itself seemed to be turning black and a moment later, it dissolved into ash.

Dumbledore had been watching this part with interest. He was of course initially terrified for Harry at first, but once Harry started pouring tea for himself, Dumbledore realized the boy seemed to have things under control. Dumbledore had many suspicions about that diary, but the fact that it dissolved with Voldemort's vanishing was beyond anything he could comprehend. He was tempted to ask what had occurred, but his own wisdom told him with no uncertainty that some things were better left unknown and unsaid.

Harry said to the sky, "I think I'm in Little Hangleton so you can send backup. Oh, and for anyone wanting to know where I got my toys, I figured this would happen so I asked Sirius to set a timed port key to bring them to me. Sirius, you can pack up now."

Sirius took that as his cue and turned off the monitor. He figured the real reason Harry wanted it off and didn't intend to argue.

Harry equipped a basilisk envenomed goblin steel dagger Sirius had gifted him and went from survivor to survivor cutting each and healing the wound. Many of the death eaters had only been stunned or knocked out in the fight and Harry's energy sense could tell the survivors from the corpses.

Harry also noticed that when the diary had dissolved, for some reason and the Ravenclaw's stolen life force had returned. She wouldn't be out and about for a while, but she'd live. Harry hoped to rescue her earlier which was why he stunned her before the spells started flying and was glad it worked out.

As he went around slicing and healing, some part of him thought killing defenseless humans would feel different, that making a choice he probably had no right to make would make him feel ill or unclean. But deep down, to him, it was just another monster to kill like the thousands he had slain in the tutorial and during battle mediation. He wouldn't bother justifying it. They had taken actions to kill him and though he had a choice to leave them alive, he had no intention of doing so. Especially when he could get away with it. He may like saving people but that was more of a hobby than a calling. He wouldn't go out of his way to save someone who he didn't feel like saving or spar someone who wasn't likely to repent.

Something about the battle was still nagging him. Sure, it was anticlimactic, he only had to use plans C, G, and M and got lucky on the rest. Had Voldemort used Cedric's or anyone else's blood Harry would have been kinda screwed as the Dark Lord's healing factor exceeded Harry's damage threshold so he'd lose if they tried trading blows. Harry got a cold shiver just remembering how that melon sized hole in Voldemort's gut close like it was nothing at all.

Harry looked through his inventory as all his other plans and contingencies came to mind and he considered how differently that could have gone down. The reason he didn't use the Basilisk Envenomed Grenade for example was because he figured that couldn't be justified as self defense. If things got worse, he still would have used it but it wasn't worth it if there was a better option. He also couldn't take out his Reality Bomb which would likely break every law of physics within a hundred miles as the town of Little Hangleton was just too close.

If enough death eaters hadn't killed each other he might have needed plan K where he would equip two daggers and weave himself through the smoke slicing every death eater around. If every death eater fired survivable spells at him simultaneously before he could start his 'game plan' he would have had to use plan E to equip the magical mirror shield he made and gotten out his grenades right away.

Not too long after the last survivor succumbed to the basilisk venom, a group of a dozen in Auror robes led by Amelia Bones apparated in.

She had her wand at the ready and took a few looks around before settling on Harry. "What happened here Mr. Potter?"

Harry felt the build up of magic from seven sources and jumped back. Amelia and four other Aurors dropped to nonverbal stunners while Harry dodged the other two cast at him.

Ah, now Harry knew what had been nagging him. The ping notifying him of the end of the quest hadn't shown up yet and he hadn't gotten any energy from the kills yet. This was hell mode. After the boss fight was the second, even harder boss fight. What could be more obvious right?

"Quick reflexes kid," said one of the 'Aurors.'

Another of the seven pointed his wand into the air and it glowed with a black light. The swarm of Dementors which Harry had kinda forgotten about came down and destroyed Harry's drones.

Harry felt that although each of these men was below Sirius in power, it wasn't by that much. The strongest one seemed to be able to give his godfather a run for his money. What was not normal was that each of them was more powerful than Flitwick or McGonagall. That level of wizard was not common and other than Bellatrix, Voldemort's followers were mostly far weaker than he was. At least the ones he'd heard of.

Bellatrix, Flitwick, McGonagall, and Sirius. Besides Dumbledore and Voldemort himself, these four were the strongest in Britain with a wide margin between them and the next strongest. Yet this group was stronger than them all combined. And since they fired simultaneously, that meant they trained to work together. Not good.

Harry said, "I don't mean to be rude, but who exactly are you. I'm Harry by the way."

The man smiled back, "Hello Harry. I'm Vinny, captain of the Knights of Walpurgis. I guess you can say we're the true Death Eaters, the original in fact."

"Umm, so who are they?" Harry motioned to the corpses which mostly killed each other earlier.

"Trainees mostly. Distractions, muscle, grunts, disposable pawns. You get the idea. Only the true elite join the Knights."

One of the so called knights said, "What has happened to our Lord?"

Harry turned to notice that Goose was gone. No idea where. Then again he had no idea how she arrived either. He very much doubted the 'my cat ate your dark lord' excuse would fly with these men.

Harry said, "No idea. I think he said something about Tahiti and a chair by the pool with his name on it."

The man frowned and said, "It isn't polite to be stubborn Potter."

"""Crucio!""" Harry felt their magic build up at the word 'polite' and the three knights cast at Harry and the space to the left and right of him when the man said 'Potter.'

Harry tried to leap further than the spell to his left to dodge but it struck him and lit his nerves ablaze.

At this point Harry realized a few things. First, the men's coordination was based on verbal cues. Like 'cast the torture curse' when he used the word 'polite' and cast it when he said 'Potter.' Second, Harry realized that the torture curse, the worse pain anyone could possibly experience as the spell itself literally forced the person to experience the max level of pain, still didn't compare to dying and reviving.

As an intellectual, Harry understood it. Death while alive was like having every sense he possessed experience every possible sensation at the same time without any of them drowning out the others. In life, people can only truly experience one sense at a time. This was not true in death, and there were far more than just a single type of pain. The sensation of burning under the hottest brand while freezing in the most biting of ice while being electrocuted and stretched and crushed all simultaneously. That was dying while alive.

Birth was somehow worse. It was going from having no sensation to having living sensation which was like going from 0 to a hundred in no time at all. No matter the type, pain is something that one can get used to. However, when a person is born, they have no tolerance for pain in the slightest. If max pain when under the torture curse is a ten, the pain of death was ten plus ten plus ten ect. The pain of birth however was pretty much infinity as there was no cap due to zero pain tolerance.

Yeah, the torture curse sucked. Yes, he was crying and screaming. But no, not the worst he'd ever felt.

The man stopped the spell and the one from before raised his wand in the air and black light shined out once more. Several Dementors descended. He said, "How about this. Every time I ask a question and you don't answer truthfully, I'll have a Dementor eat one of their souls." He pointed at the unconscious Aurors.

Harry asked, "I thought only Voldemort could control Dementors."

"No you silly boy. He was willing to teach his most loyal and most skilled knights that treasured skill. We were the ones who removed the wards from Azkaban after receiving contact from the child possessed by our Lord."

Harry asked, "You work for the ministry?"

The men all seemed to chuckle. One answered, "For? No. We worked in the Ministry. Unmarked and unknown. Aurors, Unspeakables, file clerks. It was only today we all took the guise of an Auror to find you to learn of what happened to our lord."

At least now this answered the question of why Voldemort's most skilled servant was a mad woman. The other skilled ones got a raise and hid themselves. Bellatrix probably didn't qualify for a promotion due to the whole insanity thing she had going for her.

Another of the knights said, "No more questions. You will answer our questions now."

Harry smirked back and said, "Unless you have the ability to know when I'm telling the truth, even if I did you wouldn't believe me."

One of them pulled out a vial and said, "If you insist, you'll have to drink this."

Harry easily figured what it was and said, "Fine, give it here."

The man didn't approach and just tossed it to Harry. Harry paused in that instant and looked back over his inventory to decide on a plan. He had downed friendlies in the field so no grenades, explosives, or poisons. All drones were destroyed in the air and somehow the Dementors ate the magic of the potions a few had been carrying so those wouldn't help.

Although a few of these elites looked up a fraction to see the flying vial, they still had their guard up and were prepared for Harry to do anything. A blinding light might work on a few but not all. Harry did exaggerate a little during the torture to make it look like he couldn't move, but he could if need be. Though he'd still prefer not to get hit with that again.

At the moment Harry had a dagger and a second gun in his robes. However from what Harry could see these men were faster on the spell draw than Harry was on the gun draw. He didn't doubt they'd be able to dodge and his gun only had six shots. Unless he caught them off guard like the Death Eaters he'd need to rely on magic but there wasn't a single spell capable of taking on seven cooperative Sirius level opponents. He didn't mind dying, but the souls of Amelia Bones and her Aurors were on the line.

He needed them distracted or off kilter, but these guys were professionals. They wouldn't get distracted by amateur stuff. He couldn't think of.. Wait. Didn't they just throw him a truth potion? Would that work?

Time to try some luck.

Harry unpaused and caught the vial. "How much do I drink?"

"Just drink the whole thing. There's no lethal dose."

Harry knew that but he couldn't show he knew it so he had to ask. Harry opened the vial and before the whole group downed the Veritaserum.

*Ping*

[No Lies Debuff added, unable to tell a lie or remain silent for a question while Debuff remains active.]

Harry tossed the vial away and said, "Well?"

"Where is Lord Voldemort?" one asked.

"He got eaten by a Flerken."

"Eaten?!" One of them shouted.

It was technically a question so Harry answered, "Yes, he was eaten by a Goose." Not a lie, just addressing her by her name.

"Wait, a goose?!"

Still technically a question, so he answered, "Yes, he was eaten by the cat I am the pet of." Harry was still not sure what a Flerken was but he could honestly answer he thought it was just a very special breed of cat. Probably wrong but he didn't know that.

One of them said, "What's your worst fear?" Probably trying a baseline question they figured Harry wouldn't answer normally.

Harry answered honestly, "Dying one hundred and fifteen consecutive times." Harry wondered what a boggart would look like to him. A pile of dead Harry Potters? No, there was one of those behind him and he didn't mind in the least.

Another of the knights asked, "Do you think you're going to leave here alive?"

Harry said, "I've accepted I'm going to die and I don't plan on leaving here."

He certainly wasn't going to run away and it was true he'd accepted he was going to die at some point. Wouldn't be the first time.

The one who asked said back to the others, "He's telling the truth, or at least he thinks he is."

"So our master got eaten by a Furby, a goose, and a cat?!"

"I think he said Flerken though I'm not familiar with the term."

Another knight asked, "What is a Flerken?"

Harry shrugged and said, "I don't know." He didn't, not for certain anyways.

"Is he crazy or immune to Veritaserum? Or was that a bad batch?"

"Are you questioning my brewing skills? His pupils, tone of voice, and speech rhythms match that of Veritaserum usage. Unless you believe a first year child can fake those flawlessly enough to deceive me."

"Now see here!"

It was time. Harry paused and opened the settings. He turned the Dialogue sound off and changed the brightness settings. He unpaused and cast a Lumos Maxima that could put ignited white phosphorus to shame. The group of professionals had been so thrown off by a taste of the truth that they dropped the guard they had kept up the whole time.

It didn't stop four of them from near instantly casting stunners at Harry. But unlike the prior attacks these lacked perfect coordination and since Harry could see and they couldn't, Harry was able to slip between the spells to successfully dodge.

Harry then cast an obscure charm that made an illusionary copy of himself next to where he stood and last he silently apparated to the other side of the graveyard.

Now the game could begin.