Chapter 310: Strained Family
If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
I would like to thank my beta, Awdyr, for his help in this chapter.
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4 January 1995, Durmstrang
He walked towards the sword, seeing if he would be able to pull it out, only for his Arcane Hearing to warn him just in time to shield against an incoming spell. From the shadows, a familiar woman emerged with a sad look on her face. He gasped as he recognized her, "Lily…"
"I'm sorry, Harry, but I can't let you do this…"
Harry gave her an incredulous look, "Are you seriously doing this? After all the talk about me wasting my talents, about using Dumbledore, here you still are, doing his bidding…"
Instead of being angry at him, she seemed to be prouder for some reason, "Oh, look at you… You figured out that Dumbledore was using broken prophecies for his ritual… You definitely got that from me. James would have never figured that out even after a thousand years… You also figured out which prophecy it would be and beat the vampires fighting them… You were so good, Harry… Absolutely spectacular… It really is a shame that I have to stop this…"
Harry couldn't help but get his temper to rise, "Why then? Why do you have to stop this?"
"Because you don't know what you're messing with and Dumbledore is actually in the right, for once…"
"How is he in the right then?"
The older woman hesitated for a second before answering calmly, "All of this, is a giant ritual, one that both Dumbledore and Grindelwald are setting up… Something spooked them, enough for Dumbledore to abandon his designs for Britain, for Grindelwald to put aside his conquest… They worked together on this… Do you seriously think that they don't have any backups for one of the prophecies failing? You're fighting something that was at least decades in the making… You're not going to win… Not this time…"
Harry snorted, "Is that it? Dumbledore and Grindelwald are preparing for some great danger by using a ritual on a scale the world has never seen, with enough energy and magic to blow up a continent. And you're not questioning any of it… I know you; you wouldn't have cared about any of this… What made you join Dumbledore…"
"I never joined him or Grindelwald. And you're right, I don't give a damn about his stupid ritual. My only deal with Dumbledore was that I would stop you from interfering in his plans, in exchange for him not trying to kill you… You really haven't made things easy; you know… I tried to remove traces of the girl's disappearance, try to keep you off the trail of Dumbledore's messes… But you're like a blood-chasing hound when it comes to that man… You're so obsessed with Dumbledore's motives that you forget the most important thing… It's not about you… It was never about you… So, please, leave this place, go watch the task or something… Enjoy yourself… I couldn't be there as your mother when you grew up… At least, let me help you with this…"
Harry lowered his wand for a fraction of a second only for his Arcane Hearing to warn him. He ducked underneath a bright blue spell that was coming from behind him. He conjured a quick shield to see where it was coming from… Only to barely block a giant beam of darkness from Lily…
Of course, this was going to happen… That woman was really like him… It was what he liked doing as well… Talking while preparing an assault to take the enemy off-guard was essentially his signature move at this point. Harry quickly raised his hand and transmuted the beam into a ball of pure darkness which exploded between them, sending the both of them flying back, slightly.
Harry landed on a magic circle he conjured, and Lily just landed on her feet. She followed up with a volley of spells that Harry weaved through easily enough. For the first time since the duel started, he decided to take the initiative.
He conjured spikes of ice at his opponent who skillfully weaved through them. Funnily enough, she was running towards him, and it was only then that Harry noticed that her hand was bleeding.
Right as he was prepared to banish her, a red glowing sword materialized in front of her. He was barely able to dodge at the blade's edge extended suddenly like a whip, but the platform he was on wasn't so lucky. The blade cut through the magic circle as if it wasn't there and Harry warped space to avoid being hit with the following slash…
She ran forward with some very unnatural speed and Harry barely dodged once more. He conjured a large shield to protect himself, from the following attack, but that blade of hers broke it in a single hit.
Instinctively, Harry conjured an ice sword while channelling the resurrection stone and tried to use it to block the next attack. When the two swords met, there was this unnatural loud high-pitched noise, as if the world itself was screaming at the unnaturalness of it all. However, it seemed like the ice sword held up enough against Lily's blade.
He relished the look of shock on the woman's face before he wandlessly sent her flying back, giving him enough space to think ever since the fight began…
First thing first, this was definitely some kind of blood magic involved. Lily was faster, far faster than it was humanly possible… She was also stronger; his arms still hurt from blocking her attack. Her sword had some kind of anti-magic property, considering that it cut through magic… So, physical enhancements and a magic sword, and that was probably just the tip of the iceberg…
It was probably the best 'mage killer' equipment. The enhanced speed and strength to get close while the sword would cut through most shields and spells. Lily could also fight normally in case it didn't work, but there was no reason it wouldn't.
Now, how to deal with it?
Magic circles were out… They were too fragile for something like Lily's weapon… He probably wouldn't beat her hand to hand… He didn't have the sword skills and while he could try to match her with his magic, it wouldn't do to fight her on her own terms…
No, he would do it on his own…
He knew his advantages and it was time he leveraged them…
Right as Lily was coming at him with her blade raised, he prepared and waited for her. He conjured a portal in front of her, trying to send her as far away as he could… Unfortunately, she swung her blade at the edge of the portal, destroying it.
She made her way towards him, only for Harry to slow down time for him. With unnatural speed, he took her off-guard by breaking her rhythm. She was barely able to conjure a small shield to protect herself from being impaled, which ended up breaking by the impact… His sword was able to make a small cut near her cheek.
Lily touched her cheek, looked at the blood and smiled very widely. For the first time in months, Harry could finally see the madness in her eyes… It reminded him of the ones that were on Sirius Black's face… It was madness born of obsession and loneliness… It was a madness born of loss…
Of course, that was when she started giggling like a madwoman, "That was a very clever trick, Harry… So, so, clever…"
"Lily, please just stop…"
She didn't seem to listen to him, "To think I would actually be hurt... After all this time… You're proving to me that I was right to come here… I need this… It's funny, I had my doubts before this… You only just made me sure that I'm on the right path… Thank you, for that…"
Harry didn't have time to digest what she said, the redhead was already leaping at him with her unnatural speed, and he was barely able to morph space to avoid the blow. He sent a ball of concentrated space, which she cut through with her damn sword somehow.
For the first time since the start of the fight, Harry truly used his Arcane Hearing on the sword… It was unlike anything he had ever seen before… Because it wasn't really a sword. It wasn't a magical weapon. He didn't know how he instinctively knew that, but it was something else… A weapon created by the world itself, a shard of life force given form, that imposed its will on the world around it… Was this because it was crafted purely using blood magic?
Before thinking of a way to exploit this, Harry had to dodge once more, and followed up by carving quick runes on the ground which would petrify whoever stepped in it… The sword carved through it easily enough, but it wasn't able to react to the destruction clause, which released the stored magic as an explosion if the rune was destroyed…
It was definitely not a good thing to put in a normal rune, but he couldn't deny that it was effective. Lily was taken off-guard by the explosion and tried to conjure a shield to no avail…
When the explosion settled down, Harry noticed a humanoid figure walking towards him. She was burned to bits, to say the least, but she was weirdly regenerating… He wanted to watch the scene; it fascinated him to no end how she did that, but he used the distraction to run towards Gram and tried to lift it.
The sword simply would not budge…
He tried again and again, and it just wasn't working…
Damn it! So much for an easy way to fulfil the prophecy… The damn thing didn't choose him.
He didn't even have time to study the artefact to figure something out… Damn it…
Harry heard something attacking him using his Arcane Hearing and conjured a space pulse, which sent Lily back, but she landed gracefully on her feet. When he finally took a look at her, he was stunned by the lack of injuries… She had recovered from everything… Except for that cut on the cheek he had given her before…
So, the resurrection stone stopped her regeneration somehow…
She conjured spears of darkness and sent them at him. He was able to meet them with spears of ice. He channelled the resurrection stone and conjured an ice blade to meet Lily's own once more, stopping it, only to conjure another one in his left hand, stabbing it into her right leg…
She winced at the injury and Harry finally channeled his family crest into the blade once more. The ice blade started to darken, and the room grew colder… Lily tried to swing her sword at him, only for her sword to smash into pieces as it touched Harry's own. To be fair, so did Harry's for that matter…
The two swords shattering created a violent pulse of magic that sent them both flying back. Harry had ended up hitting his head on the cave walls, disorienting him slightly…
When he stumbled up, he tried to walk and stun Lily somehow, maybe even make a portal away. Only to see a bright red shield appear in front of him. Lily walked towards him, her arms dripping once more. He tried to get a portal to get away, but it didn't work…
She gave him a dry look, "It's no use, trying to get out… I'm sorry, it came to this… But I can't allow anyone to stop me… Not even you, Harry. Maybe one day, you'll understand…"
Lily knelt towards the charged ritual dagger, only for it to break down when she touched it.
She had a confused look on her face for a fraction of a second before she snarled at him. He had rolled into it in the middle of the confrontation, getting it to stumble into his pocket while conjuring an illusion of the copy that would radiate a similar magical aura… It was logical to secure the artefact that could destroy the damn sword, even if it came with some pretty severe drawbacks. For example, he couldn't exactly make a portal out; he remembered what happened to his portal back in Rome. Really, fighting with unknown variables was really annoying.
Harry quickly took out the dagger and used the dagger to stab the shield, destroying it, before giving her a wide grin, "You were saying?"
Right as he said that the dagger started to heat up and burned him. Before he could react, a white pulse of magic sent him flying to the other side of the cave. Damn it, Dumbledore must have put some kind of safeguard to stop Harry from stealing the dagger… He really should have seen this coming… Harry thought he was an idiot for not considering this…
He didn't have time to contemplate this little fact as Lily was quickly running towards the dagger, which had fallen from Harry's hand. She grabbed it and ran towards the impaled sword.
"Lily! No!" he yelled out.
But she gave him a tearful look, "I'm sorry…"
As she swung her sword, Harry channelled his family crest, asking it for anything to stop the dagger. A beam of pure darkness, pure entropy, flew towards Lily and hit her dagger right as she was swinging it. Unfortunately, it was too late, the dagger hit Gram and shattered it to pieces…
And in response, the world screamed…
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AN: Alright, that was pretty hard to write. I rewrote this like twice and I hope it landed like I wanted to. I don't mind rewriting it again if you guys don't like it, because I had a blast coming up with the fight sequence. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions...
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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.