Chapter 76: Granted!
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Ever so slowly, Harry moved his hand to his ear, pressing a button on his earpiece. "Hawk, do you have eyes on?"
"Eyes on," Hawk, leader of one of the four teams the mercenaries had split into, answered. "Permission—"
"Permission granted."
A second later one of the Death Eaters fell. His friend turned to him, and after a moment found herself matching his position, a matching bullet hole in her chest.
With how far away Hawk had been, Harry had barely heard the crack of his suppressed rifle, and the subsonic ammunition hadn't broken the sound barrier.
With a slight grimace, Dumbledore set to work, his wand carving intricate patterns into the air as his brow creased in concentration.
Harry marvelled at the sight. His knowledge of wards was…limited, to say the least. He wouldn't have had a chance at breaking those of a wizard as powerful as Voldemort.
That said, Dumbledore didn't seem to be having an easy time with it, either. Sweat had begun to trickle down his forehead.
After doing this, Harry didn't think the elderly wizard would be able to match Voldemort in a fair fight. It was a good thing that Harry didn't fight fairly, then.
Ten minutes passed. A few more muffled gunshots cracked through the night, only just able to be picked up by Harry's enhanced hearing. He didn't see most of the victims.
Everyone was tense. The cars carrying the mercenaries who were to come in with them had pulled up long ago.
And then Dumbledore finally slumped on his broom, breathing deeply. "It is done," he practically gasped.
The wizards moved forward, through where the ward had been and touched down gently on the grass, ditching their broomsticks.
Ten armed men moved up behind them, the rest of them spread about on rooftops with high-powered rifles, ready to take out anyone in a black robe who decided to flee.
Dumbledore reached into his satchel and produced a wardstone, a slab of rock, smooth but for the matrix of runes carved into it.
They were weaker than wards, more expensive to produce and far easier to destroy—you just had to damage the stone—but they were far easier to erect hastily, and Voldemort had probably already sensed something was wrong.
The runes of the stone glowed with a gentle blue light as it activated, and Harry felt a barrier form, stopping him from any attempts at apparition or Portkeying.
As soon as it was up, yelling started within the mansion. The fighters took that as their cue.
They moved forward, the mafia, the Order and the mercenaries each forming their own groups, instead of sticking together like they were supposed to.
Harry and Dumbledore lagged behind.
"Are you going to be able to fight him?" Harry asked.
Sweat gleamed on Dumbledore's face under the pale moonlight. He nodded. "I should be able to…for a while, at least. I sincerely hope that will be long enough for you to do what you must."
A few more suppressed gunshots sounded again, undoubtedly picking off any Death Eaters who had dared step outside.
The fighters ahead began to mutter spells, disintegrating the wall—and then one of them was caught in the chest by a beam of sickly purple that tore straight through him.
Harry let the yew wand slip into his right hand, and his left found the replacement sword sheathed invisibly at his hip. Excitement mingled with nervousness and tingled its way up his spine.
The battle had begun.
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As the battle began to rage, explosive spells tearing into walls and bodies alike, Harry charged into the mansion, sword in one hand and Voldemort's wand in the other.
He moved forward, sending a few quick spells towards some Death Eaters duelling beside him before evaporating a wall and moving through; he needed to find Voldemort.
A black-robed man ran towards him, raising a shield: he probably recognised it was Harry, the one had single-handedly slain fourteen Death Eaters at once.
His shield did not help him as Harry narrowed his eyes in concentration for a few seconds, before waving his wand and instantly condensing and then freezing the water vapour behind the Death Eater into an icicle, and then driving it through his spine.
The man collapsed, shield flickering from existence and wand dropping from his hand to clatter against the stone.
Harry smiled. It had been a while since he had fought anyone one on one, and he had picked up quite a few tricks during his preparation for the tournament.
His senses screamed and he stepped backwards, narrowly dodging between twin beams of orange light. He turned and found himself facing two men, so similar looking they were probably brothers—cousins, too, knowing these purebloods.
"Infriga," Harry hissed, sending fourth a beam of light blue as he dodged to the side of a third spell.
His spell splashed against a shield as the second brother stepped forward to launch another spell. Whatever words were upon his lips, they faded as two bursts of gunfire roared, catching him and his accomplice in the torso and flinging them to the ground.
Harry nodded to the gunman before taking off at a sprint again, looking for Lord Voldemort.
He froze a wall and then shoulder barged through it, charging into a courtyard with a fountain in the middle. Two Death Eaters—they had been heading towards the battle—turned to face him a bit too late. Each caught an icicle through the throat and dropped like puppets with cut strings.
Harry spun and raised a shield, his enhanced hearing picking up the sounds of footsteps even over the raging battle.
The shield caught two spells before breaking and he stepped aside the third, catching sight of the two Death Eaters attacking him—why, oh, why did they all have to travel in pairs? It made his job marginally harder.
Concentrating as hard as he could, he dodged two other spells, and dragged his wand towards the Death Eaters.
A shield shimmered into existence in front of each, but that didn't help them as the water from the fountain surged up to smash into them from the side.
Both were thrown to the cobblestones, half-screaming, half-drowning. Both processes promptly ended as the water that had made its way into their lungs solidified into jagged ice.
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