Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 109: A Destined Battle, Part 1
Harry reached the highest floor of the house and went through the window.
"Mmm…" He could still detect two signatures on this floor. Neither of them had moved the entire time.
However, he did not need to ponder for long before he concluded which one of these was the Dark Lord.
The difference was quite noticeable, as one of them appeared to be surrounded by some kind of unpleasant fog.
Harry furrowed his brows. This was one of the most extreme examples of dark magic abuse.
He walked through a long hallway, passing by the other magical signature and ignoring its presence. He felt no threat from that one.
Eventually, he arrived in front of a pair of doors leading to some kind of hall. Behind the doors was the presence he had been following.
Harry lifted his left hand to push on the handles, but before he could do so, the two doors opened completely on their own.
A soft but threatening voice was then heard. "Mister Potter…I was not expecting your visit."
Harry finally found him, sitting at the end of a long dinner table. A strange man with very pale skin, wearing black robes.
His face appeared to be deformed and inhuman...the likely result of whatever ritual he had used to bring himself back to life.
"It was not easy to find you, Mister…" Harry stopped. "What should I even call you? You-Know-Who? Lord Voldemort? Dark Lord? Although two of those aren't even names, and the other one sounds fake. What is your actual name?"
Voldemort looked displeased by the way Harry was talking to him. "My name will not be uttered from the lips of those I deem unworthy." He stood up from the chair and walked to the side of the table, his wand firmly grasped in his hand.
"You are making things very easy for me, Potter. To come all the way here and stand before me…tell me, are you too confident or too naive?"
Harry chuckled. "Arrogant and naive…that suits you better, Mister Voldemort. But let us not waste more time with useless talk. You want to kill me, isn't that right? Apparently, you and I are destined to fight because of some prophecy."
There was a clear change in the Dark Lord's expression when this was brought up.
"You know about that…I'm surprised the old man was willing to share that secret with someone else."
Harry shook his head. The Headmaster was hardly willing to share. He had to rip that piece of knowledge out of his head by sheer force.
"The prophecy is of little importance to me, but it seems very important to you. Enough to push you into taking desperate actions like ambushing my parents' house all those years ago." Harry brought forth his staff.
A satisfied smirk appeared on Voldemort's face. "Ah, yes, the Potters…I still remember them clearly, but I'm not sure which one screamed the most as I killed them....your father, or perhaps your mother?" He pretended to ponder.
Harry tapped the staff on the wooden floor.
The wood reacted to his will and came to life. Sharp wooden spears shot out at Voldemort from all sides.
However, the Dark Lord had been ready from the beginning and quickly reacted by raising a protective charm that enveloped his body.
The wooden constructions had no chance to pierce the barrier and broke apart on contact.
Harry was just warming up. He gave the staff a gentle twist, and more wooden constructions started to form.
The furniture came to life...tables and chairs blending together into a formless mass of wood that went on to encircle Voldemort, trying to trap him, along with his shield, inside a dome of living wood.
At the same time, Harry was already working on something else. When he got a bit serious, his mind was capable of multitasking, so constructing several different pieces of magic was not an issue at all.
Harry's lips moved quickly, chanting something in an ancient dead tongue while his mind formed the mental image and focused the correct amount of energy into the staff.
"Ahhh!" Voldemort roared as he expanded his barrier, breaking apart the mass of wood trying to trap him. He looked at Harry just in time to see him finish his chant.
BANG!
His staff, the Branch of Annwn, hit the floor with tremendous force. The dining hall started to shake.
However, this was very different from the previous earthquake that destroyed the arkstone...something else was happening now.
Voldemort's ears perked up. He heard some rustling sounds getting louder and louder and reinforced his protections in anticipation of the attack.
Something pierced through the floor. A dozen thick branches had made their way into the house, breaking through all the floors until they arrived here.
On the outside of Malfoy Manor, one could observe a couple of colossal trees that had appeared out of nowhere and were now hugging the house, as if trying to crush it under the weight of their branches.
Voldemort avoided some of the branches while using his barrier to protect himself from others. "I know this one…this is what you used to kill those werewolves I sent to Hogwarts!"
His loyal follower, Wormtail, had been the only survivor of that plan and had told him about this in great detail.
He said that Potter had somehow summoned a living forest to trap and kill all the werewolves, and later even shared the memories of the encounter.
The Dark Lord raised his wand into the air. "It won't work against me. I am much more resourceful than those beasts!...FIENDFYRE!"
A.N: - Remember to comment, vote, and/or leave a review if you have the time. Those things help me a lot and I would really appreciate it.
You can support me on P@treon if you like and get 20 advanced chapters. You can also find character images to view for free in Collections/Merlin Images
-patreon.com/Kriogenix
For donations and commissions, go to ko-fi.com/kriogenix