Who'll Fill a Coward's Grave? ↣ Harmione

Chapter Twelve

Chapter 12 - Ambushed

Harry recognised his new environment at once, it would be hard for him not to. He'd fought Quirrell to the death in the real version of this chamber at the end of his Hogwarts first year. That unfortunately was an event permanently burned like scar tissue into his brain. He was going to have to face up to Voldemort for the second time this summer. This time though it would be Tom who was the one startled and surprised, after being unceremoniously ripped away from whatever he was doing.

A quick glance at the Mirror of Erised was like a tankard of the strongest pepper-up potion for Harry. His parents were of course there again, but now joined by Dan and Emma. Sirius and Remus were there too, though no surprise that Hermione was front and centre - and leading the cheering section. Dan giving Harry a double thumbs up while his dad patted Hermione's father on the back was all the reminder Harry needed of just what was at stake in this fight.

With a rather loud crack, a bewildered Voldemort then appeared. He seemed to be in great pain and was already down on one knee. His gaze immediately locked onto Harry.

"Potter, what's going on here? What Magic is this? What have you done to me?"

During training Mad-Eye, Amelia and Shack had hammered into them that there was a time to talk, and a time to fight. Harry had come here specifically for the second reason. This wasn't going to be a duel with rules and bows beforehand, rather a fight where you got down and dirty. Needing every advantage he could get, Harry had cast a burst of three spells at a totally shocked Voldemort before the Dark Lord had even finished speaking.

One second he'd been about to sack Azkaban, and was enjoying imagining all those fools in the Ministry of Magic shitting themselves. Next second he was here - wherever here was - and also in so much pain he couldn't actually stand. The Dark Lord had no idea if this was even real, he'd never heard of any type of magic that could do this. Real or not, he thought it best to try and avoid those curses while drawing his wand.

With only rolling to one side currently available to Voldemort as an option to dodge, that's what he did. While this manoeuvre saw him avoiding the blasting curse, the cutting curse slashed agonisingly across his torso. The piercing curse that punched into his hip was also particularly painful, and saw Voldemort's angry scream carry more than a hint of agony in its tone. Having no time to actually figure out what was happening here the Dark Lord was left with no other option but to try and fight back. Whether this was real or not was now immaterial, curses still hurt so he had to react to the whelp's attack. A few dark curses left his wand in Potter's direction, all of which would have ended this as a fight if they'd hit. The boy however was moving like quicksilver, while he was reduced to holding onto one of the walls in an attempt to get back on his feet.

The brat kept moving while firing blasting curses after blasting curse. Voldemort thought the boy's aim was way off, with panic probably accounting for him missing so often, that was until he remembered what had happened on those docks. Whoever had trained the boy certainly took that tactic into account as those blasting curses had shards of stone flying in his direction from the floor, ceiling and walls. While the wounds caused weren't exactly threatening as such, those multiple superficial cuts still had him losing a bit of blood.

As if to emphasise the deliberateness of Potter's blasting curse tactics, a barrage of slashing and piercing curses once more were very accurately heading in his direction. This was not a situation that would usually trouble the Dark Lord but something was seriously off here - wherever here actually was. His magic just didn't feel right, and a now terrified Voldemort could actually sense it draining away - like someone had pulled the plug on a bath.

As a few of those curses actually penetrated his defences, the Dark Lord knew it was way past time to end this. The angry green flashes of the killing curse were all that spat from his wand now.