Gateway 62

Fleur

It took Fleur a minute for the shocked terror of having the Killing curse cast at her to change into the overwhelming relief of being saved.

Her emotions warred inside of her, from the anguish and despondence from the way her life was so carelessly thrown aside—‘Kill the spare’ echoed in her mind—to the grateful joy of him appearing at the last second and saving her…

And it was him, just his voice was enough to tell her that, his presence blanketing the area and settling on her shoulders with a comfortable weight.

But she didn’t look at him, her eyes transfixed on the ominous green spell being held in front of her. That was meant for her. In any reasonable scenario Fleur could come up with, she should be dead.

She and her friends hadn’t really believed the article Ginny had shown them, instead deciding to fawn over the images of Alex. And now she saw with her own eyes him go past the impossibility of surviving the Killing curse into catching and holding it in his hand as if it were a Muggle ball.

Flleur’s eyes trailed from the spell in his hand to Alex himself, and her heart skipped a beat upon seeing how different he was from when she last saw him.

He was wearing a black Japanese kimono with a beautiful Japanese sword at his hip. His previous thin frame was now fuller, with the gap in the chest area of his kimono showing well-toned muscles. And his hair, once short and artfully messy, had grown a few inches longer, so it just laid flat on his head.

‘Not long enough,’ the thought came unbidden to her mind, and Fleur had to hold back a hysterical laugh threatening to bubble over. Here she was, just after someone tried to kill her, and she was rating Luna’s boyfriend’s looks.

As if reading her mind, Alex turned to give her a roguish smile before looking back at the pudgy, rat-faced man who tried to kill her. The man was frozen in place, his wide eyes staring at the spell Alex was holding.

“So?” Alex asked, his posture changing into something that should have given an air of nonchalance, but she could feel the suppressed power in each of his movements. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

The man squeaked, holding the bundle in his arms tighter and taking a step back.

“Wormtail…” a voice came from the bundle, raspy and faint, the same voice that ordered her death.

“M-m-master!” The man, Wormtail, fearfully exclaimed in a squeaky voice. “A-a m-man appeared, a-and h-he t-took the K-killing curse!”

Saying so, Wormtail angled the bundle so it could see Alex, and Fleur thanked Madame Maxime for advising her to only eat a small snack before the task, for what she saw in that bundle was a grotesque facsimile of a baby, its grey skin and adult-like face contrasting harshly with its stubby limbs and tiny body.

“Who are you?” The thing asked. “Have you come to prevent my return?”

Alex, who had gone unnaturally still when he saw it, snorted at the question.

“No, I came to make sure she,” he pointed at her. “Came out of this alright. Beyond that?” He shrugged. “Not my problem.”

“WHAT!?” Harry, whose presence she had forgotten, screamed in outrage.

“Sorry, man, but I have nothing to do with whatever beef you and the little abomination over there have,” Alex said, and Fleur could feel herself blush at the implication he’d had come just for her. “By the way,” he turned back to the thing. “What’s your plan? Because I can’t see you bringing the kid all the way here without one.”

That sobered Fleur up. Alex’s presence was distracting her from the fact that the people he was amicably talking to had just tried to murder her. She didn’t know what he was doing or why, but she couldn’t believe he’d let something like that go if he didn’t have a reason to.

“Today is the day of my return to my rightful power!” The thing exclaimed.

“Now I’m curious,” Alex grinned. “Do you mind two witnesses?”

Fleur heard Harry start casting something, but with a wave of his hand, Alex knocked him out.

“Well?” Alex asked, raising an eyebrow.

___

Alex

Wormtail slowly led us further inside the cemetery, one hand holding the creature and the other using his wand to float Harry’s unconscious body along.

Fleur and I followed a few steps back, and I could feel the turmoil rolling inside of her due to the situation I put her in. I didn’t want her there either, but sending her somewhere else would alarm my targets and probably get the authorities involved, and that’d jeopardize the plan.

I put my right hand on the small of her back to at least give her some measure of comfort that everything would be fine. Her soft gasp of surprise and embarrassed flush when I did it told me she was still spooked by the situation, but I saw her shoulders relaxing, and I felt her leaning back a little into my hand. She’d be fine.

As for my left hand still holding the Killing curse? I just let them forget about it by keeping my hand behind my back. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ was much more powerful than people gave it credit for, especially when it came to impossibilities like catching an unblockable spell and holding on to it.

And what a marvelous spell it was! Being able to take a close look at it told me a lot more than just reading about it, and damn if it didn’t seem like a Kido spell translated into wizarding magic. The spell itself was designed to cut the connection between soul and living body from the body’s end. Essentially, it harmed this world’s equivalent of the Chain of Fate. The reason it was unblockable was because, as an attack on the connection between soul and body, physical or magical defenses would be detached from their ‘soul’ and break down.

Well, that was my theory at least, and I was mostly going with Soul Society’s notion that everything in creation had its own soul, even inanimate objects.

Another thing that I discovered looking into the spell, was that Severus had probably never cast it.

Severus was quite clear in his journal that the emotion you needed to cast it was a desire to murder, but looking at it, I could tell it didn’t really care about the reason you wanted someone dead, just that you did.

This was an important distinction because it meant the Killing curse didn’t necessarily need negative emotions to work. The desire to end someone’s suffering was just as valid to it as the desire to cause the most amount of suffering.

I left those thoughts fade to the back of my mind as we reached the area where the ritual would take place.

With a wave of his wand, Wormtail restrained Harry to a towering marble grave marker in the form of the Angel of Death, and then he set out to make whatever preparations were left for the ritual.

While he did that, I conjured a simple plush sofa with a wave of my hand and settled down with Fleur on my right side. Being careful to put my arms behind the sofa so the spell in my hand was kept out of sight.

I made it a sofa because I thought Fleur would want at least some distance from me due to the whole ‘make her watch the wizard who just tried to murder her cast a dark ritual’ thing, but instead, she decided to sit close enough that I had no space for my own arm if I decided to take it from behind the sofa. 

“Sorry about this,” I whispered in her ear as Wormtail pushed a cauldron big enough that I could use it as a bathtub atop an unlit fire pit.

“I don’t mind,” she said, then shook her head. “No, I do mind, but not as much as I think I should,” she shrugged. “I know you well enough to guess why you want to see it, and I can’t say I’m opposed to learning it too.”

Her ability to read my motives that well stumped me for a moment, because she was right. I could have easily discarded Severus’ plan in favor of finishing things quickly, but I wanted to see the ritual up close and learn everything I could from it. It made sense she’d figure it out, though. She was part of the research group at the start of the year, and knowing Luna, she’d have talked all about our mutual love for learning new and interesting magic to her friends.

The fact that Severus had probably used that same knowledge to make his plan was a given. As I said, the dude was vicious when he wanted to.

A spark flew from Wormtail’s wand, and the fire was lit, the water in the cauldron coming to an instant boil from the strength of the flames.

He woke Harry up, the boy thrashing in his attempts to free himself, until he saw us, that is.

“Alex! Fleur! What the hell are you doing!?” He screamed in confusion. “He’s going to bring Voldemort back! You have to stop him!”

“Why?” I asked, leaning back as a conflicted look came upon Fleur’s face.

“He’s gonna kill us! And then he’ll go back to terrorizing the wizarding world!”

“And that’s my problem, how?” I made a confused expression. “It’s not like he has the power to harm me, and I can just tell him who is under my protection,” I draped my arm across Fleur’s shoulders, holding her back from standing up when I saw the hand holding her wand go white.

Harry looked incredulously at us, right in time for Wormtail to come with the bundled creature and drop it into the boiling water.

Turning to Harry, he pointed his wand at the grave at Harry’s feet, and with a jerking motion, tore a bone out of it and floated it over the cauldron.

"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!”

The bone burst into flames after the chant, then fell into the water, which turned a dull red color, with a few red lights flowing through it.

“Relax,” I whispered to Fleur. "There’s no plan to let them get out of here alive.”

I felt her relax under my arm, leaning further into me, and with a glance at her, I noticed she was sporting a small smile on her face.

When I looked back at the ritual, I saw that Wormtail had traded his wand for a silver knife, his left hand over the cauldron.

“Flesh of the servant,” he whimpered, raising his right hand holding the knife over the left. “willingly given, you will revive your master.”

And with a harsh motion, the knife descended, and his left hand plopped into the cauldron.

The potion turned a bright blue, the shining lights inside of it doubling as Wormtail cried out in pain.

At my side, Fleur gasped, her hands covering her mouth as she paled. I pressed her further into me, trying to give her what comfort I could before the real show started.

Wormtail then advanced on Harry like a man possessed in desperation at finishing the ritual as fast as possible.

I wasn’t worried. I knew that Harry would come out of this just fine. But Fleur didn’t, and she was already shaken enough by Wormtail’s self-mutilation that I didn’t think she’d be able to handle whatever he’d do to Harry.

“Don’t look,” I whispered, making Fleur tense. “Harry will come out of this alright, but you don’t have to see it.”

“I’ll be the judge of that!” Fleur harshly whispered back, and when I looked at her, I saw her glaring at me.

With a sigh, I turned back to see Wormtail with the knife poised to stab Harry’s arm.

“Blood of the enemy,” he pressed the knife inside Harry’s arm, making him groan in pain. “Forcibly taken,” he turned quickly back to the cauldron. “You will resurrect your foe!"

Flicking the knife at the cauldron, the blood fell into it, turning the potion bright white, the lights shimmering like diamonds.

Then, the fire stopped. The lights from the potion winked out, and large quantities of mist started pouring out of the cauldron.

A few moments later, a figure stepped out of the cauldron.

“Wormtail, robe me,” he commanded, and Wormtail dutifully did so with a black robe.

The man, if you could even call him that, had a skull-like face with pale skin, red eyes with cat-like slit pupils, and a flat nose with snake-like slits for nostrils. He was skeletally thin, with no hair or lips, and possessed long, thin fingers with unnaturally long fingers.

“Well?” He said, stepping closer to us. “Are you satisfied with your… witnessing?”

Fleur, who had frozen at the sight of him, opened her mouth. I didn’t know if she was going to respond or scream, but I couldn’t take my chances either way, so with a flick of my finger, I cast a Silencing spell on her.

“More than that!” I exclaimed, smiling widely at him. “But you’re not done, are you? It’d be a shame for such a glorious return to be left at this point!”

“Right you are,” Voldemort replied with a malevolent smile and extended his hand. “My wand, Wormtail.”

I held in a laugh as Wormtail delivered him his wand. He was trying to give the impression that he was in control, but I could see how worried he was about my presence. His eyes flickering to me at every slight movement I made, never turning away from me, and once he got his wand back, keeping it pointed in my direction.

“Hold out your arm for me.” I raised an eyebrow as Wormtail extended his wounded arm to his master. Was he really going to… “The other arm, Wormtail,” …Apparently not.

Voldemort settled the tip of his wand on Wormtail’s forearm, and suddenly, the cracks and pops of apparition filled the cemetery. A little over a dozen cultists were present for the rebirth of their ‘master’, over double of Harry’s original telling.

I breathed a sigh of relief: Lucius had come through on his part of the plan.

As Voldemort started monologing to his followers, I pulled one of the gloves Urahara had given me out of my pocket and handed it to Fleur.

“Put this on my hand,” I commanded. At her inquisitive look, I shrugged. “My other hand is busy.” Fleur’s eyes widened in realization before she quickly put the red, fingerless glove on my hand.

I watched as Voldemort admonished his ‘followers’, his focus on Lucius' lack of effort and Lucius arguing back against him, and then Wormtail pretending he was the only truly loyal, only for Voldemort to call him a coward but still acknowledge his help by giving him a new, silver hand.

Then he turned to Harry.

“Would you like to know why you survived the Killing curse all those years ago?” He said, standing close enough to Harry that I was getting uncomfortable. “Love.”

I sat up at that. I hadn’t gotten any clue about what had connected Luna and me together ever since my talk with Urahara, so to hear Voldmort talk about it made me pay attention.

“You see,” He took a few steps back and waved his hand grandly. “When Lily Potter gave up her life for you, she provided the ultimate protection,” His eyes flicked to me before settling back on Harry. “I couldn’t touch you… It was old magic, something that I should have foreseen… But things have changed.”

He approached Harry again, his hand slowly approaching Harry’s head.

“I. Can. Touch. You. Now!” And then he pressed a finger on Harry’s scar, making him scream.

I rolled my shoulders and stood up, keeping my hands behind my back as I made my approach.

“Now, that’s enough of that,” I said casually, making Voldemort step back as if he had been burned.

“So, you’ll finally reveal your reason for being here…” Voldemort said, still trying to project power and confidence.

“Yeah, I just came to watch you put on a show,” I smirked. “And it was entertaining for a bit. But seeing a weakling like you gloating about having power when you’re so much lesser than anything I’ve ever seen before kinda killed it for me.”

“YOU DARE!?” He roared, pointing his wand at me before quickly calming down. “Then come,” he said in the soft voice of those beyond rage. “Let’s see who is the most powerful.”

“There aren’t enough drawbacks in existence that make this a fair fight for you,” I snorted. “Instead, how about I check under the hood to see what’s really going on?”

I didn’t let him respond, Flash Stepping in front of him and pushing his soul out of his body with the glove.

“What the fuck?” I muttered when I saw what came out. I had sensed something wrong with his soul from the moment I arrived at the cemetery, but I thought the ritual would fix it. When it didn’t, I decided to see it for myself. But nothing had prepared me for the result.

In the ground beside his toppled body, there was a small, dessicated thing in a fetal position, with its face being the only thing that made it recognizable as Voldemort. But what interested me more were the strings.

Those were the local equivalent of the Chain of Fate from Soul Society’s world, but instead of only one, he had several. One attaching him to his body, one attaching him to Harry through his scar, five others leading to other, far-off places, and one attaching Harry to him.

Figuring out which way the connection went was as simple as noticing the knots. As an inherent part of the soul, the string came out naturally out of the ectoplasmic body and tied itself to the living world.

Looking around at Voldermot’s frozen supporters, I came to a decision. Lucius might have turned against Voldemort to follow me, but no one else here had ever even met me. They were following Lucius' lead, and nothing else. It was time to change that.

“As you see here,” I said, adopting a lecturing tone and waving at Voldemort’s pitiful excuse for a soul. “This, is your master’s soul,” a ripple passed through the gathered cultists. They hadn’t realized what it was because it didn’t look like a ghost, but ghosts were just imprints, leftovers from the real soul that stayed behind. If they weren’t, they’d already have formed their own version of the Gotei or at least started exploring the power the soul could bring to bear.

“This string here,” I pointed at the string attaching him to his body. “Is the one keeping his body alive. So, how about we do a little experiment?” I smiled winningly at them, taking my left hand from behind my back and showing them the spell I had been holding on to. “This,” I waved the ball of green light for them to see. “Is the Killing curse,” some of them gasped, with Lucius taking a step forward and looking curiously at me. “Let’s see what it does, shall we?”

I held it over Voldemort’s body and let it fall.

___

A/N: And that’s that.

God, this chapter got way too big. My plan was for it to end after this entire situation was dealt with, but it just kept going, and now I have to split it in half because I’ll have zero time to work on it today and tomorrow. Sorry about that.

As always, thank you all for your support! See you again next week.