The Viridian Wand Chronicles

*~CHAPTER 6 - "All Hail Me" ~* 

 

"Lumos!" pronounced Abram, and the room filled with light. "Enough of that, child. Enough." 

 

Lowell was still frightened and hyperventilating. "Yes, Listen - to - him." 

 

Abram set a large silk cushion on the very end of the bier, where there was no blood. "Sit here." 

 

The child made no response, but after a moment she climbed up on the cushion, sitting cross-legged clumsily, but with absolute dignity. She held out a hand impatiently. When nothing happened, she snapped her fingers, and continued to hold out her hand. 

 

"She wants the wand, Abram. You took it from her when she changed, remember?" Lowell said. 

 

"Are you blind? She doesn't need the Wand, she - " Abram snapped. 

 

The child snapped her fingers again. Even with her face hidden by the hood, her irritation and displeasure were quite apparent. 

 

"Give it to her." 

 

Muttering something under his breath, Abram did so. The child straightened, flicked out her wrist, and pointed her wand at the hearth. 

 

Before she did so, Abram said quietly, "Get towards the back of the room. She doesn't need us now." 

 

The child's voice, high and lilting, filled the room. The words she spoke were as old as time, though their language would be as foreign to their creators as their speaker herself.

 

"Give him breath, he who cannot breathe. Take his rotting eyes and make them see. May the blood in his veins be returned, he who once lived and is now no more. Thirst bestow on him he who soon shall sup, of blood and bone, to raise him up. Remember of his friend and foe, he shall take on up, putting the other below. When he battles, life shall be ensured, should his foe's triumph be deterred. Raise him up, from coffin and shroud; strong as once was, strong and proud. But all dead souls look the same; for identification, here is the name." 

 

"Voldemort!" 

 

At first, nothing happened. But then the earth began to quake beneath their feet, shaking clods of dirt from the ceiling overhead. The fire flickered, and the light within the wand swelled until the child thought she would be blinded by its radiance. Then the great orb of light fractured into a million pieces, forming a starry link of light into the heart of the fiery inferno. It throbbed as though it had a pulse, before the flames of the hearth roared up and swallowed it completely.  

 

The shattered fragments of light drifted out from the fire, falling like small, dazzling comets on the bier. Gradually the form of a man began to appear. As the figure became more solid and lost the flickering qualities of 1920's Muggle cinemas, it seemed to absorb the bone and blood offerings that had been so gracefully placed on the long stone table. Slowly, as the facial features gathered shape and sustenance, it became clear to the child, in a flash of surprise and growing horror, that Lowell and Abram had succeeded in their aims. 

 

Voldemort had been risen from the dead. 

 

It seemed hours, but it was a matter of minutes before he had reached his previous form. The creature who was once called Tom Marvolo Riddle was as fearsome as ever, his skin whiter than the purest white of Muggle printer paper. His mouth and eyes seemed no more than gaping wounds in that smooth flesh, for his nose was the only thing projecting from it. Voldemort's terrifying image alone could, and had, sent Cornelius Fudge in a dead faint, and he had revelled in it while he lived. 

 

As soon as it was clear that he was fully formed, Voldemort sat up with a sudden lurch, turning to face the three that had brought him back from an Inferno more tumultuous and turbulent than Dante could ever have imagined. 

 

Voldemort seized his wand, which had been buried amongst the scraps of bone, and pointed it straight at Lowell. 

 

"Hello there, my sweet," he said in a voice that appeared to have chilled even Abram to the bone. "You have done me a great favour by bringing this child into the fold, but, alas, I have no further use for you. Don't worry, you'll receive your reward; I won't make you suffer like Lloyd and Amaryllis Newman. Avada Kedavra!" 

 

A searing bolt of green light shot forth from the wand, striking Lowell down before she could utter a word. Her body lay still and lifeless in a small cloud of dust. She lay there like a limp puppet, eyes glazed and staring, limbs bent at unnatural angles, and she did not get up. 

 

The child turned her head up to his, her right hand extended holding her wand. With her left hand, she drew her hood back from her face. 

 

"Don’t move," she said quietly. "Unlike you, I do not enter a battle with my intentions masked. I am no Muggle killer, and I will kill no purebloods exclusively. Let's start out even; one half-blood to another. For that is all you are." 

 

"How dare you - " "You impudent, disgusting - " Abram and his master said simultaneously, drawing their wands. 

 

Her scream cut through all levels of consciousness. "Enough!" The child did several things at once; she rolled back the entrance’s door, spread her arms wide, her wand clutched tightly, summoning every drop of power in her. "There will be no more of your trickery here!" She barely heard them murmuring the Killing Curse, it didn't register in her consciousness.  

 

She let the power flow through her. 

 

Death. 

* * * * *

Harry and Ginny were taking a short break from their attempts to guess the Magehill password. The moon was high, and it was very nearly midnight, the eve of Friday morn. The stars glittered like tiny Snitches in the sky. 

 

"Tea?" Harry queried. In the twilight, he was strangely illuminated, as she herself must be, Ginny thought. It was a strange sort of light that almost seemed to pass through her. She felt translucent. "You’re right. It's odd." 

 

"Do you ever turn off your mind-reading?" Ginny asked. 

 

"Most of the time" 

 

"I rarely use mine when I'm off duty. It's...unnerving. Like the moon. It’s awfully bright tonight." 

 

"Like the night...the night they died. The house was bathed in pearly-white light - what was left of it, that is." 

 

"Do you think of them often?" 

 

"All the time. It's what drove me out of the country. They haunt my dreams. I just keep wondering...could there have been anything I could have done to save them?"

 

 

"I wondered that for a long time. But we can help them now, Harry; if we can save their daughter. She's waiting for us. In there." 

 

As she spoke, he felt something rumble beneath them, shaking the earth. 

 

"Oh, shit," Harry said. "We have company."  

 

"Mica!" She screamed. "Mica, let us in. Please...let us help you..." 

 

Her efforts were futile. She threw her body against the rock, crying and pleading. After several minutes of this, it was clear that she was going to be bruised and sore the next day. Harry grabbed her. 

 

"For the love of Merlin, Ginny, you're not doing a - " he explained. The rock swung out from the door, and he continued weakly. "Thing." They stared at each other for a moment, then ran down the just-revealed passageway hand in hand. 

 

The first thing Ginny saw when they got to the doorway of the room was a small girl, her features distorted with fury, standing atop a large silken pillow. Belatedly, she noticed two men, one whom she knew as Abram Malfoy, Lucius's uncle, the other who was... You-Know-Who. The two men, if you could call the latter that, raised their wands as one. 

 

"Avada Kedavra!" they cried. 

 

The air sizzled with power. The static was so great you could almost hear the air crackle. An unearthly light filled the room, a glare of viridian the colour of Harry's emerald eyes by moonlight. Death, it screamed, and Ginny knew "it" was the girl. 

 

Then the light disappeared, as fast as it had come. A circle of transparent, filmy people enclosed the three. There must have been fifty people, all of them witches. A beautiful woman with raven hair stepped forward. 

 

"Lord Voldemort, this is not the first time you have dared to violate our creed, to desecrate and betray our coven," she said in a language Ginny had never heard before, but instantly understood. "Retaliation is in order. Daughters, Son," the witch gestured to Harry, much to Ginny's surprise, "Let us send these creatures home, and thoroughly enough that they may never be transported to the material world again." 

 

The ghostly witches, the tiny girl, and Harry all raised their wands. The cavern was swallowed by the fierce explosion of light and magic. When the dust settled, only the raven-haired witch was left of the spectral visitors. Malfoy and Voldemort were nowhere to be seen. 

 

"Children," she said gently. "You have shown bravery beyond that of any of your kind before you. You, Protector, have worked hard in your quest to keep safe the Wand. I give you my love and my blessing." Her last word had not echoed in the chamber before she, too, was gone. 

 

The child slid off the bench. She was exhausted, and her face was slick with tears, but Ginny knew her for what she was. Ron's milky blue eyes stared at her out of that childish face; Hermione's bushy brown hair, tamed by a few Weasley genes, framed it. Suddenly, the girl started weeping, scared, tired, and sleepy as she was. Ginny took her in her arms, smoothing her hair and patting her back. 

 

"Oh, Mica, Mica," she said, "it will be okay. I promise you." 

 

"Mum?" Asked the tearful child hopefully. 

 

"Only Aunt Ginny, dear, and Uncle Harry, but we'll always be here. We'll always take care of you, Mica." 

 

"Mica?" 

 

"That is your name," Harry said. 

 

"I have a name! I have a name!" Mica cried jubilantly, and Ginny knew exactly how she felt.  

 

"And we have you," Harry said, echoing her thoughts. She felt his arms embrace her and their niece, and she fought back tears. 

 

"A real family," she said, almost in wonder. "After all this time." 

 

They were in no state to notice Caroline's fury at Voldemort's defeat without her help when she arrived, just fifteen minutes later. Fred and George received little more attention.  

 

They were together, and it was all that mattered.