Born From Madness (Harry Potter Fanfic)

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Hermione and Harry turned around to see Voldemort standing behind them. They held out their wands while Voldemort began circling them. 

"So you smashed my prophecy?" Voldemort said, shaking his head while staring at them with his horrible red eyes as he slowly paced towards them, "Months of preparation, months of effort... and my Death Eaters have let Harry Potter and Hermione Granger to thwart me again..." 

"Master, I am sorry!" Bellatrix sobbed, "I was fighting--"

"Be quiet, Bella!" Voldemort ordered her, "I shall deal with you in a moment." 

"But sir, he is here!" Bellatrix told him, but Voldemort didn't pay her any mind. 

"I have nothing more to say to you, Potter... and Granger, I have grown tired of your antics as well! Since you so clearly have displayed no interest in joining my cause, you can join your friend! AVADA KEDAVRA!" 

Before Harry or Hermione could deflect the spell away, a golden statue of the wizard in the fountain shot its hand out and blocked it away from them. 

"What?!" Voldemort shouted then gazed behind Harry and Hermione and breathed, "Dumbledore!" 

Hermione turned to see Dumbledore rushing forward. He waved his wand around, causing the other statues to come alive. The witch statue went straight for Bellatrix, who began casting spells that shot off the witches' chest. The goblin and house elf set off towards the fireplaces while the centaur charged at Voldemort, who quickly vanished and reappeared on beside the pool. The wizard statue nudged the two of them backwards while Dumbledore advanced on Voldemort with the centaur circling around them. 

"It was foolish to come here tonight, Tom," Dumbledore said, calmly, "The aurors are on their way--" 

"By which time I shall be gone, and you dead!" Voldemort told him. He sent out another killing curse but missed him by a hair. Then Dumbledore began shooting out spells towards Voldemort, who quickly shielded himself. As the fight began to get heat, a bone-chilling roar caused everyone to stop what they were doing while their attention shifted towards the back of the hall. For a moment, Hermione couldn't see anything until a burst of flames shot forward directly at Voldemort and Dumbledore. 

Dumbledore quickly ducked for cover while Voldemort was engulfed in the flame. Or so Hermione thought, but she couldn't see if he had produced a shield or had vanished from the ground. When the flames died down, she saw Voldemort had indeed vanish. Hermione turned to see the dragon that flew her here crawling down the corridor with its wings tightly pressed to its side. 

"What the--" Harry started while the dragon shot its gaze towards them. 

"A friend of yours, Miss Granger?" Dumbledore asked while he climbed up to his feet. 

"In a way," Hermione said as she reached up and gently petted the dragon's muzzle. The moment of triumph was short-lived when Harry suddenly fell to the floor, shaking as if he had been left outside in the cold for hours. 

"HARRY!" Hermione screamed, rushing over and cradling him into her arms. Suddenly, his eyes shot opened and instead of seeing his usual green eyes were replaced with piercing red ones. 

"Kill me now, Dumbledore," Voldemort's words spewed from Harry's lips, "If you are so keen on winning, then kill the boy, Dumbledore!" 

"Harry! Harry, fight him!" Hermione pleaded with him as she gently brushed his hair from his face. For a moment, Hermione could have sworn she saw the real Harry staring back, but it had been for a second. 

"Miss Granger, keep talking to him." Dumbledore ordered her.

 "You have to fight, Harry! You can't let him win! Not after what he has done to you! Not after what he has taken from you!"  Hermione told him, "He took your parents, he tried to kill Ron and me, he killed Cedric, and his follower Bellatrix had taken away Sirius! You cannot let them get away with that!" 

Harry squirmed within her grasp until his body gone limp. Hermione felt tears dripping down her face as horrible thoughts began circling within her head. 

"You're a fool, Harry and Hermione." 

Hermione turned around to see Voldemort standing behind her. Dumbledore held his arm outstretched in front of her with his wand aimed towards him. The dragon loomed above the three of them with its jaws opened ajar, prepared to shoot another wave of fire at him if need be. 

"And you will lose... everything." He told them with a sinister smirk. However, it wasn't long before his smirk vanished at the sound of the flames echoing behind them. Hermione watched as aurors began flooding the room with Minister Fudge leading them. They all paused when their eyes landed directly on Voldemort who was in the midst of disapparation. 

"It's him! It was You-Know-Who!" one of the aurors shouted. 

"I know! I saw him too!" Fudge gibbered, "Merlin's beard! He's back!" 

"If you proceed downstairs into the Department of Mysteries, Cornelius," Dumbledore shouted at them, "You would find several escaped Death Eaters contained in the Death Chamber awaiting your decision as to what to do with them." 

"Dumbledore!" Fudge called out, completely surprised at seeing him, "You-- here!?" He then turned towards his aurors, "Seize him!" 

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" Hermione found herself screaming at him, "you saw with your own eyes Voldemort is back and you're still trying to imprison Dumbledore? For a whole year, Dumbledore has been telling you the truth and you kept insisting chasing the wrong men for twelve months! You need to now listen to sense for once in your life!" 

"How dare--" Fudge started when Dumbledore cut him off. 

"Cornelius! I am ready to fight your men and win again if you keep blinding yourself from the truth. Miss Granger is right. You have seen tonight Voldemort in the flesh. You cannot run from the truth now so I suggest you send your men down and deal with the Death Eaters that are still here instead of wasting more time and effort on the wrong people." Dumbledore ordered him. Fudge was left speechless for a moment until he ordered a couple of Aurors to go down and see to the Death Eaters. 

"Dumbledore.... tell me exactly-- The Fountain of Magical Brethren! What happened?" Fudge shouted while his eyes darted at the statues scattered around. 

"We will discuss this later." Dumbledore told him while he and Hermione began nudging Harry to his feet, "Hermione, I must ask you to take this dragon and bring Harry to Hogwarts straight to Madam Pomfrey." 

"Harry Potter? Dragon?" Fudge shrieked, "What the devil is all this about?" 

"I shall explain once Hermione and Harry are back at Hogwarts." Dumbledore said while he helped Harry and Hermione up on the back of the dragon. 

"Now see here! These kids cannot go off without giving their statements! And the dragon must be sent straight back to--" Fudge started until Dumbledore gave him a heated glare that hushed him. 

"You will give the order to remove Dolores Umbridge from Hogwarts." Dumbledore told him, "You will tell your aurors to stop searching Hagrid so he may return to work and I will give you half an hour of my time tonight where I shall able to cover the important points of what has happened here. After that, i shall need to return to my school. If you need more help from me you are, of course, more than welcome to contact me at Hogwarts. Letters addressed to the headmaster will find me." 

While Fudge goggled a bit, Dumbledore turned to Hermione. 

"I trust you can handle this dragon?" Dumbledore asked her. 

"Yes, sir." She assured him. 

"Then I trust you in returning him to Hogwarts." Dumbledore told her before walking away. After she wrapped her arms tightly around Harry, she nudged for the dragon to take off. It reared back before shooting upwards, phasing through the ministry walls and out the roof and headed straight to Hogwarts.