Chapter 28 - Endgame

DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Hermione groggily opened her eyes. Coming back to consciousness was definitely unpleasant for the girl. Oh, she lay in a nice bed; she felt silken sheets; and finally she was warm. However, she had the mother of all headaches in her head; her body was protesting all the abuse it suffered; her torso felt painful to move; her groin was still ringing with lingering pain from the dark wizards' vile appendages; the once sliced open skin on her back was reminding her of torturous hours with phantom pain.

The moans of the girl alerted Brianna that the bookworm had awoken. She quickly went over to silently cast her diagnostic spells on the girl. The tests showed good progress. Some nerve damage along the skin, some bruises still had to be treated. Overall, the girl was well on her way to complete recovery.

"Lie still, Hermione. You have some bruises still on your body. I healed most of it by now, but some things will take some time. You will be mobile in about five hours and you can walk out of here tomorrow morning. If you want a detailed description of what I've done for you, you can read it here. I pilfered this from Pomfrey's files. Make sure to read the notes on you before this day. I'm sure you will find them … enlightening." Brianna even opened the file for the girl, making the decision for her. She wanted the girl to see how much she had done for the girl and how much had been done to the bookworm previously.

As the girl read the files, she wallowed in her grief, still highly unstable from the previous day. She read the prescription of all potions she was administered, the effects observed and further regimen of potions advised. At one time Hermione could have understood that the professional reports filed about a patient have to be non-emotional. The doctors could not emotionally invest in the patients they have, nor form any emotional attachments to them. However, as she read the files she was astonished to see that her life was poisoned by the nurse. A few missives were included, supposedly from the venerated headmaster himself. That made her cry out in anguish, as the figure that she not only idolised, but loved like a grandfather, was ordering her to be poisoned.

The whole regimen of four potions she was acquainted with was devastating in its efficiency. Most of the potions were forbidden in the british isles, even if the owners would be charged with a fine only. The wit-dimming and loyalty potions were mixed in with a light infatuating potion in very specific dosages. The application of three spells on the mixture made them all stable together and look and taste like a menstrual potion. She shuddered. This was the majority of the potion she had been drinking to help with her wild menstrual mood swings. It did help, in a sense. It made her all the more loyal to Dumbledore and directed her moods to his service. But the price she paid was too harsh.

Dumbledore turned her intellect to serve his needs for a time, but eventually her intellect was a threat to his position. A keen mind had the ability to see past his lies. A keen mind had the ability to undermine his position. As soon as Voldemort had been reborn, Dumbledore knew that she would be too much of a risk to stay alive, so he added the poison to eliminate her. Dumbledore simply would not have enough time to mold her correctly, while his other duties called him with more urgent and important needs. The only other alternative left - get rid of her in the most quiet possible way.

The reason the potion mixture interacted so well is because it was mixed in with a tasteless poison. This particular brand of poisons was known for its double effect. It stabilised potions and also it introduced a virus into the bloodstream of the infected.

The virus will turn her white cells against her. The virus thankfully does not reproduce quickly, only about once a month. However, it is nourished by the body, while the number of infected white blood cells in her body would increase. The clash of leucocytes in her body would occur wherever the blood contained any number of the virus organisms. In the first two years the wizard or witch would not feel anything as their body defended itself from the rogue leucocytes, but then the virus population would start hitting a critical number and sections of blood would start to have overwhelming numbers of infected cells. Throughout the two years, the magician would notice an increase in disease frequency and susceptibility. After the grace period, the blood would turn against the host and attack all tissues across the body.

She had the virus in her system for the last year and two months. She was going to die a painful death in the next two years. She was done for. There was no treatment in the wizarding world for that last poison.

Grief wallowed in the girl. It reinforced itself as she sunk deeper and deeper into depression. Her parents would not get to see her grow up. Would not get to see her bring home any sort of diploma, certificate, degree, or prize.

As she sunk deeper still into herself, she felt the paper being ripped out of her hands, a few moments later she heard some shouting by a male voice, strangely familiar. A female voice, most likely the one who treated her, said something back in a calmer voice. Some more shouting sounded and then she heard her name.

"Hermione, Hermione, do you hear me? Look at me now." There was steel in Harry's voice as he looked her in the eye. "I'm sorry you had to go through that right now without any preparation. Now please don't flinch." Harry then quickly delved into her mind.

Unfortunately, for all of Hermione's knowledge and organization, her mind was a mess just like any other person's. Strands of memories floated around and unfinished thoughts were abound. The place was misty with an outside influence of a spell, potion or both affecting her mental facilities. Some memories were lost to the endless expanse of her mind, while others were buried under layers of magic. Significantly, someone else's magic was involved.

Harry recognised Dumbledore's signature when he analyzed the memories. He quickly broke through them all. Hermione would have to live with the knowledge that she was used by dumbledore more than once. She had been privy to a mission and been pulled along to use her mental facilities to decipher the magic surrounding a house. Another time she was used to unwittingly help the headmaster plan his next course of action regarding Harry himself. He used figurative language and broad terms, but Harry saw through them, when Hermione did not. Fortunately that was all the headmaster asked of her. Of course there were a few times when the headmaster would just rip information regarding Harry out of head, without preamble, and with an ensuing memory charm. She seemed to have insights into his character that can arise only after knowing him for a long time. She was Dumbledore's assured spy within Harry's ranks for such a long time, without Harry's or Hermione's assent.

Harry allowed Hermione to fall asleep under the sleeping spell while he went to fetch the elite of the Scorpion Army to attack Voldemort's last base of operations.

Harry called out to Blaise, who was just passing by: "Blaise, gather yourself, Xiana, Brianna, Fred, George, Bill, Ginny, Alastor, Tonks, Theo, Neville, Luna, Akima, Michael and Tiberius in the main compound within an hour. Arm your gear and bring all the weapons you have with yourself. We are going to end Voldemort today."

Blaise hurried off, talking to his mirror. The tension was now building in the air.

Harry went off in search of another smoothie and then started gearing up himself. The charging team would be at an advantage that day. They learned of a wonderful way to destroy wards. Bill came up with a counter ward that sucked the energy away from wards. Within a minute the wards around Rosier manor had fallen to this device, so Harry was positive that they would do the same about the wards around Riddle Manor in a slightly larger timescale.

Everyone on the team knew to stay back in their rooms for five minutes and review all the spells they would need during the mission. The knowledge became more instantaneous that way, and neither one of them needed a lecture on the danger of moments in battle when the fighter would be struck with indecision.

Three minutes before the hour was up, everyone gathered in the main compound. The table had Harry's magically drawn plans on it and several attack routes were drawn on them already.

"There is nothing I should really say now. We have trained so much. We gave such large parts of our lives to this. We are better trained than them now, we all know it. They ruled with fear since the beginning. We do not bend under it. Their leader made himself immortal, I will correct that. Their armies rocked against Britain, we crushed them. Let's finish it now."

AotSS

Hearing about the ransacking at the Rosier manor, Voldemort was furious, but held his anger in. The attacking team, no doubt led by the Scorpion Sorcerer himself was devastating to his forces. Of the last twenty nine people he had on his list, he had to scratch off twenty of those names. Some had been new recruits, some had been veterans. His vampire allies were supposed to come in a few weeks. He was desperate for them to join forces with him. He could not take control of the british isles if all he had to command were nine wizards of above average strength.

Assaulting the Azkaban fortress would be a hurdle that he could ill afford at the moment. Granted, he had a swarm of dementors at his beck and call, and he could take over dragons as well. However the wizards developed the ability to subdue both of those. Considering that the guards at the prison would be some of the best that the wizarding world had to offer, he was sure that the beasts would be subdued. His own intervention would turn the tide, since he knew how to apply his own powers so well, but still the equation was too balanced for him to undertake that lightly. Of course, the intervention of the blasted Scorpion Sorcerer and his forces was an almost assured fact. He did want to chance his powers against the sorcerer, but he did not want the fate of such an important mission to be at stake while they would battle. He needed the wizard otherwise occupied.

He called in the Dementors to his last base. Just over fifty demons answered his summons. He needed his remaining death eaters to be comfortable in the presence of the minor demons. Dementors, however, were locked in the set boundaries outside his home, but within the ward range. Between the hundred of them, they feasted on two souls taken from the nearby village of Little Hangleton. All the better, since he had access to two more inferi now.

While Voldemort was enchanting the still living bodies to be his pets, he remembered the ones he buried oh so many years ago in that cave. Perhaps, the inferi would allow him a better chance at overcoming the Azkaban guard. No, they would turn the almost balanced equation in his tide. That was the invaluable ace card he needed and he would be damned if he did not use it. Tom set errand for the others in the mansion to run and left the mansion within the next ten minutes.

Opening the cave door was problematic. Apparently after rebirth, his blood did not register as such anymore. He knew it was a muddy wine-red liquid now, nothing like the human blood he used to spill after battles in the times past. Oh well, he would have to change his enchantments later to answer to his new blood.

Entering the cave system, he was happy to see that his whole army was still floating underwater. Quickly checking the integrity of the potion protecting the Slytherin's locket, he roused the eternal guardians of this chamber. Every one of them filed to the exit, while Tom floated back in his little boat. As he gave the order to grab a long piece of rope, he was enchanting it to be a portkey to his manor. Tapping his wand on the rope, he and his recently acquiesced army vanished with a blue light.

Upon his return Voldemort saw his loyal death eaters pointing their wands at him. A salvo of spells was mid-flight and connected with his inferi. Three of them burst and more of them fell apart in pieces. Enraged, he put a shield around his inferi. He spent too much time making the army for them to be slaughtered by his incompetent followers. He still dare not attack his followers without a reason. The spells must have been already launched by the time the death eaters saw, much less recognised him.

Turning around, Voldemort was presented with a very unwelcome sight. There were figured in black form hugging cloaks working with several devices. The wards were giving off gong after gong inside the mansion. By every gong, the ward strength fell by another five percent.

Voldemort saw the characteristic outlook of the Scorpion Sorcerer. So the bastard came to battle Voldemort himself, then. Alright, he would give his all. There would be no playing around. He quickly organised his eight followers into a firing line. They already had the basic setup, but this time he made them get behind some damn cover, not wait for the wards to fall and become sitting ducks. Dementors were up in the air, giving the much needed backup.

It was rather unfortunate that Voldemort could not have brought the inferi earlier. He could have set them up as an ambush. Alas, the only thing he could do now was to spread them out, so they would not group together, giving the enemy easy bombarding targets.

The wards fell, and still not one of their curses touched the blasted invaders. They were either dodged with minimal movement or blocked with known and unknown shields. The enemies were proficient at using dark magics, Voldemort found. The sorcerer himself even blocked his four Avada Kedavra shots. The inferi surged past the ward line, attempting to rip the sorcerers to shreds. One man drew a sword, of all things, and started chopping up the closest ones, while the three others concentrated on Voldemort and his allies. The rest of the team engaged dementors and inferi near them.

Harry turned to Voldemort and activated his sleeping scorpions within voldemort's followers. Sadly, only one of them was present here, but that still made a difference.

Yaxley gurgled up blood as something inside of him rose and quickly started expanding. His chest felt a brief surge of pain, when he felt his heart being chopped off by something. A shock fell over him as the magical scorpion inside started to devour his biomass within a matter of seconds. His best friend, Amycus let out a scream when one of scorpion's pincers bit heavily into his leg. A second later the stinger borrowed into his ribcage, piercing his heart and filling it with venom. The next heartbeat spread the poison throughout the whole body. He never made another noise.

Five seconds into the battle, Voldemort saw his subordinates falling like pieces. The inferi still did not touch a single body. The dementors were trying to swerve around four patroni and massive flames, rarely succeeding. The sorcerer and one other apparated away for a moment, when Voldemort felt the premonition to move back. As he leapt back, he saw a massive obsidian spike rise out of the ground

A moment later another obsidian spear impaled Alecto through her nether region, rendering her into shock. As the spike continued to rise, impacting her upper vertebrae and shattering them. Her neck's skin almost ripped with the piece. No sound escaped her lips afterwards.

As another obsidian spear was rising out of the ground, its intended target leapt forward to charge the enemy with his physical brute force and skill. Yes, Fenrir and his werewolves made for a great attack force. They drew the enemy's attention and let the death eaters do their thing, not to mention their own deadliness as a pack. The last of the trinity of enemy wizards who was actively attacking them, tuned his his wand on the lone charging werewolf and unleashed a number of flaming spears from the wand, simultaneously. The werewolf was caught in his hind leg, making him stumble. A moment later he was awash with another set of spikes that pierced him throughout, and embedded into the ground beneath him.

Voldemort knew the spell from the ancient norse tomes he had pilfered from Borgin's. He used it in retaliation against the Scorpion Sorcerer fighting against him, but the wizard brought up the expected wall of stone. Many had underestimated the curse and raised metal walls, but the spears always burn through metal like it's not there. Stone is the most energy conserving method of stopping the spheres. However, stone is brittle, and exploding it in the wizard's face was a necessity.

As the spell left his wand, Voldemort heard a barely audible pop to his side and engaged the sorcerer again. The man definitely had skill, even if his speed could use some work. The accuracy displayed was infuriating, but nowhere better than Voldemort's. It was the power, however that was forcing voldemort back. His spells were being deflected. His vast knowledge of the dark arts was matched by his opponent. His spells, which were recognised as some of the strongest in human history, paled in comparison to what the enemy was putting out with his metallic wand.

Voldemort saw his most loyal follower struggle against her own opponent, a spry cloaked figure who was lugging heavy spells at her just as effectively as the Sorcerer was doing to himself.

Lugging spells at each other, the two major players on this field matched each other. Sorcerer had the superior strength, but Voldemort had better casting speed. Unfortunately, while Voldemort's casting speed was marginally better than the younger man's, the young wizard had a far better advantage in his spell strength. The blasts that the wizard took to lugging at Voldemort's feet made footwork very hazardous for him, since the craters formed were deep and falling into them would be bad.

That's when Voldemort heard the battle quieting down. He noticed that Bellatrix had her chest cavity wide open, his death eaters were decimated, the inferi lay in chopped pieces. The Dementors were within some sort of a bubble with fiendfyre chasing them, one of the few ways of destroying the ancient demons. Quickly he sent a penetrating curse at the bubble, to set the dementors free, but he knew it was a moot point. He was too occupied with the spry sorcerer to help them anymore. Dementors would be captured again within a few moments, he only hoped they did enough damage to give him time to overcome the threats.

Then, in his lapse of attention the wizard did something completely unexpected, he invaded Voldemort's mind. The pressure was not too crushing, even if it was done in a unique style. Voldemort felt pressure in every corner of his mind from an almost flooding mind probe. Quickly raising his dragons to sear through the sorcerer's attack, he fortified his castle with his own magic.

Multitasking a duel on wands and a duel in minds, was taxing both parties. Both were now slower, outwardly calmer, focusing only on each other and nothing else. Both now only launched a single curse at each other - the killing curse.

Voldemort was feeling reassured when he felt the dragon's flight brought them close to the encroaching tide of water. The enemies of fire and water would clash, going into a stalemate. While his opponent would be distracted, he would land that killing curse. To his utter shock, he found the dragons turning around just before they reached their anathema and flew at his mind, leading the crushing wave of water.

As soon as fire reached his walls, voldemort made a critical mistake, he stepped into one of the deep gouges he was surrounded by. As he fell quite ungracefully onto the floor, he noticed the wizard sending another heavy hitter to the site he would arrive in.

Apparating away, Voldemort was almost overcome by the stress of fighting a four pronged battle. However he was not known as the dark lord for nothing. He faced odds as bad as these and came out on top. He had faced three other dark lord wannabees and beat every one of them. One of those was his most loyal servant up until a minute ago. Some of Bellatrix's crimes would go forever unknown to history.

However apparating while being assaulted by your own mental defences as well as someone else's mental attack, all the time tracking a spell coming at you with a great speed was taxing the dark lord's mind too much. Even if apparating was second nature to him, the stress made him leave a crucial part of his body.

Now without his bottom body Voldemort appeared inside his bedchambers in his mansion. The pain had yet to come, but Voldemort knew that it was imminent. He quickly summoned summoned his legs to reverse the splinching.

Voldemort was glad that the legilimency attack by the sorcerer had been stopped, but the mental dragons were still hammering his defences. While the legs were in the process of flying to him, he started quickly targeting the dragons by his lesser defences. Then, unexpectedly, the attack by the wizard was renewed from inside his mind. The damn connection to Potter was wide open now and the wizard somehow took control of that in order to attack him. Even with full might of his Occlumency, Voldemort buckled under the pressure when the pain finally hit. The front gate of his mental defences caved in, letting in a dragon followed by the tidal wave.

The wizard was not there to learn his vast stores of knowledge. Voldemort felt the sorcerer gain his location from within his mind and apparate into the room. Behind the wizard, the bloodied pulp that was his legs also arrived. It seemed that the spell the wizard had sent to his falling location was an exploding hex.

In impotent rage and in great fear of the inevitable outcome he foresaw, Voldemort launched Killing curse after Killing curse at the man, feeding his rage to the magic. The stores of his knowledge were crumbling and Voldemort was still fighting a losing battle now within the confines of his mind. Three more dragons entered his mind to wreak havoc. The tidal wave was washing away his knowledge of magic.

Then one moment, he did the correct movement of the wand, but in the middle of incantation, his knowledge of how to cast the killing curse was swept away. Three minutes later, all the vast stores of Voldemort's magic were gone from inside his once frightening castle.

Harry looked at the vegetable of a man in front of him. Calling his friends to come to him, he quickly cauterised all the damage to Voldemort's body, burning it with a bit of a relish. Putting out the ensuing fires on the bed and hearing the soft pops of his friends' arrival, he presented them with half of a body of the wizard feared throughout all of Britain. The congratulations and bravo's spread quickly throughout the room. Not many of them yet knew what exactly happened to Voldemort, but they all trusted Harry to have disabled the man completely.

Harry would need Voldemort's body for its magical core. The spirit of Voldemort was still present inside and the thalamus in the brain was healthy as ever. The magical core would be used to make another Philosopher's Stone.

The notes Dumbledore left on the creation process of a Philosopher's Stone would be used by Harry whenever he would defeat a major wizard enemy to humanity. The reason for there being only one Philosopher's Stone before Dumbledore, was due to two factors.

First, the creation of the stone had the requirement to consume a magical core above a certain strength. The minimum strength of the magical core put the unfortunate wizard in the upper quarter of of the 99th percentile among wizards and witches.

Second, the moral implication of sacrificing another person for personal gain was not acceptable to Nicholas. In his time, Nicholas was a healer alchemist working during the reign of terror of their resident dark lord. After the man had been defeated, Nicholas was the head of the ward, which housed the stump of said dark lord. Their one lost both his legs and one of his hands in the fight that brought him down. Using the dark lord's magical core had been the brilliant innovation that allowed Nicholas to make the first inroad into the production of the first ever philosopher's stone.

The ancient man saw the danger in sharing the knowledge with others, since everyone was so very self centered. Albus had impressed Nicholas with his altruism, magical power and insightfulness concerning magic. Flamel then shared his most treasured secret with the man. As it turned out, Albus did not turn out to be the belligerent man he claimed to be, but at least Flamel's spirit passed on with the assurance that he made no critical mistake in trusting the young (to him) man.

However at that moment, Harry wanted to go back to his Lair and announce his victory. He had seen Neville strike down his personal demon in the face of Bellatrix, he had seen a castration hex heading for Voldemort when he was falling. Ginny finally overcame her own demon in Tom Marvolo result on a splinched part of the body had been quite bloody. His own explosive one had finished off the legs into a bloody pulp right before they were summoned away.

His forces would celebrate this victory and then move on to Magical Britain as a whole. He would be victorious, even if he could see many struggles ahead. The magical world would be his one day, he knew that. There was no other outcome that would satisfy him. If the muggle world would cooperate, he would move the world forward. The old views would be swept away by the younger generation. There might never be a utopia, but he damn sure would bring something close to it.

For Xiana and his Children.

PS: The last 2 chapters were made by Scorpion.Sorcerer7.