Cast Aside

Success and Steep Costs

A/N Some of this might be gross to read so, fair warning. 

Chapter 40

Stepping through the doors into the ballroom was like stepping through a portal to hell. The smell... The smell alone was horrific. Thankful it wasn't close to a full moon, George had to cast a bubble head charm just to stand in the room. People lay everywhere, writhing and moaning in agony, the floor beneath them a shallow pool of bodily fluids. The shining gilded finery of the room stood in stark contrast to the gore that now coated everything.

A string of unintelligible expletives left the mouth of the Georgian wizard beside George, though the meaning was clear enough. "I was under the impression there were fewer than thirty expected. What is this?"

George swallowed down the urge to vomit. "Snape said, he said there were only around twenty marked Death Eaters. From what he could tell, anyone who openly supported the Dark Lord was here. With the time release on the ward, there wasn't time to change the plan. God, this is horrific. We can't... Ambrosi, we can't allow this many people to languish like this until they die."

"No." He looked around, spat beside his shoes and strode forward. "No, we can not. Let's find this Dark Lord. Ensure he and his horcrux are destroyed. Then we need to get out of here and decide what to do."

On the far side of the room was the dais that Snape had mentioned and what once might have been a beautiful throne. Now, it was covered with gore, sloughed off the man that lay across it.

'Man' hardly seemed an apt word to describe what was left of Voldemort. He had looked better, more human, when George had seen him during the final battle the first and last time he'd seen him.

There was no skin left to speak of. Red, twisted flesh covered his body, holding in the now liquified viscera. Any hair he may have had was gone and his eyes were like that of a dead fish, filmed over and staring at nothing. On his chest, what might have been Slytherin's locket was melted into his sternum, the chain no longer visible.

"He looks dead. That horcrux certainly is." George swore and turned away, the sight certain to haunt his nightmares for years.

Humming, Ambrosi drew his wand and waved it over the former Dark Lord. "You are right. He is dead. Lucky, by the looks of it." He stepped back and glanced around. "I think my calculations may have been a bit off. I anticipated him lingering for a few days." Squinting down at the corpse, he shrugged. "Then again, he was holding it in his hands."

George nodded but did not look back, choosing instead to inspect the nearest bodies, all in similar states. "I don't know if anyone else is dead yet." He cast the same spell Ambrosi had a few times to be sure. "Maybe one or two. Do you have any bright ideas to quickly and... humanely end the rest of them?"

Ambrosi sniffed. "Perhaps. Come, let's get out of here. I do not care to risk overtaxing the protective charm. And your wife needs you. Your uncle too, I think, although he did not ask as she did."

He grit his teeth against the sorrow that wanted to pull him under again. Not yet. Not now.

Safely back outside the wards, they gathered up a still shaken James and traumatized Snape and apparated back to the tent. The trip seemed to have shaken James awake and he was immediately demanding to be allowed to leave. When he asked to go to Dumbledore, George nearly kicked him in the mouth. Only reminding himself that it wasn't his fault, not really, saved the younger man.

They settled for binding him and using a sticking charm to keep him in place just outside the tent. Snape, not wanting to go inside, volunteered to sit and watch him. Claiming to let the family have privacy, Ambrosi stayed with them.