The Temple of Le Fay

Chapter Thirty-Five: Beneath Bow Manor

Harry watched Draco stagger backwards. It was too far to see his face clearly, but Harry could imagine the look of surprise on that would be there. Draco had been killed by his own father. Who could suspect their own father of being capable of murdering them?

"Idiot boy," Moody growled, as Draco toppled to his knees and then crashed to the dirt, limbs askew and evidently very dead.

"We should move on," Dumbledore said quietly. No one knew what to say. The pain was etched in Dumbledore's voice. He had lost a pupil in his care. Harry knew that the elderly wizard's heart had just broken.

"Alastor, Dedalus, if you would be so good?" Dumbledore said, gesturing wearily.

"Of course," Dedalus said, his usual bluster gone. "We'll give you the time you need."

"Thank you."

Moody and Diggle left the invisibility shroud far more sedately than Draco had. Moody limped along behind Dedalus, the two ex-Aurors holding their wands ready to strike out at anything that got in their way.

"I'm sorry," Dumbledore said. "Draco acted as almost any young man of his age would. I underestimated his desire to prove himself to his father, which manifested itself in this unfortunate way."

He shook his head, and appeared inexpressibly tired.

"Sir, we should go," Harry said. Dumbledore nodded.

"Quite right, Harry. Alastor and Dedalus will only be able to buy us so much time."

Dumbledore rose up to his full height. He looked impressive even when he was suffering, but when he projected the air of confidence that he was now, Dumbledore appeared invincible. Professor Skeeter marched beside him, all traces of early-morning lethargy gone. She was alert and focused, her wand held ready and trained forward.

"Should we call for more help?" Ginny asked nervously.

"Not for the time being," Dumbledore said, leading them through the deserted streets of Godric's Hollow. "There are still residents in the area, and I do not want them to be placed in the middle of a battlefield if we can possibly avoid it. Besides, the Order is not yet ready for a pitched battle with Voldemort's forces."

"And you don't let your opponent choose the battlefield," Ron muttered.

"That too, Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said. "I am glad that you listen to your own advice at the Dueling Club."

The voice was Dumbledore's, and the humour definitely belonged to the Headmaster, but there was no trace of levity in his voice. Harry shivered, realising how badly hit Dumbledore was by Draco's death.

For Harry, the loss of the Ravenclaw was painful, but there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. He had learned from watching Cedric die, and from torturing himself over it, that sometimes there was nothing that could be done.

But Dumbledore was the most powerful wizard alive. Even Voldemort was scared of him. For him to watch helplessly as one of his pupils was killed must have felt like a knife in his heart.

They approached Bow Manor from the rear. A single Death Eater stood guard beside a small door.

"I can take him from here," Skeeter said calmly, extending her wand.

"Allow me," Lockhart said.

"Gilderoy?"

"He looks like a fan," Lockhart replied. And before anyone could stop him, he stepped out from beneath the shroud and approached the Death Eater.

Harry held his breath, waiting for the Death Eater to draw his wand and strike Lockhart down. Instead, Lockhart walked right up to the man. They exchanged a few words, and then Lockhart struck, grabbing the man's jaw and cracking his head against the solid stone wall of the Manor.

"Blimey," Ron muttered.

The Death Eater slithered bonelessly to the ground. Gilderoy reached into his robes and pulled out the man's wand, snapping it over his knee as the others approached. He opened the door, and they all filed inside.

Once inside the Manor, Dumbledore dropped the invisibility shroud. Harry wondered how much concentration it had taken to shield so many people for so long, but to Dumbledore it appeared to have been no effort at all.

They fanned out, exploring the room they had entered. It was a small scullery that Harry supposed had been where the servants had spent their time. It appeared as though it had been untouched for several years. A layer of dust covered everything, apart from several sets of footprints that went from the door they had come through to another in the far wall.

"Nice of them to leave us a trail," Skeeter muttered. She walked over to the door and opened it cautiously. She peered out.

"No one there. Come on."

They followed Skeeter through the deserted corridors of the Manor, following the footprints in the thick dust that coated everything. Harry could feel the dust tickling his sinuses and struggled not to sneeze.

After several minutes, they found what they were looking for.

They had found the main entrance hall of the Manor. It appeared as serene and undisturbed as the rest of the building, apart from a ten-foot wide hole in the middle of the floor. The edges of the hole smoked slightly as they approached.

"Burnt through," Dumbledore said superfluously, crouching down to check the hole as Harry, Ron and Skeeter kept an eye out for any hidden Death Eaters who may have been guarding the hole.

"If Tom has a weakness," Dumbledore continued, using Voldemort's birth name, "it is a tendency to be overconfident. When last he was here, he underestimated the strength of a mother's love. Now that he is so close to almost unlimited strength, he believes that he does not have to worry about anyone stopping him."

He straightened up with a sigh.

"You would think that he would learn. Better, I suppose, that he does not. If you would all follow me?"

He lowered himself into the hole, which was positioned above a drop of about fifteen feet.

"Careful, now. I'll float you down," he said from the ground below. He matched word to deed, guiding Professor Skeeter, Lockhart, Harry, Hermione, Ron and finally Ginny down to join him.

"An extensive wine cellar," he said, looking around. "Now, alas, quite empty."

"What are we looking for? A trapdoor?" Ron asked, glancing around.

"I do not know," Dumbledore admitted. "Whatever means Le Fay had of protecting the entrance to her tomb will be several hundred years old. It will not have gone undiscovered so long by being obvious, but beyond that, I have no idea what it will look like."

"I think I do," said Hermione. She was looking at the far corner of the cellar, where the stone used in the cellar's construction was missing. Instead, there was a patch of earth with a hole in it, just wide enough to admit a grown man.

"Ingenious," Dumbledore said, studying it. "Truly brilliant."

Harry wasn't sure what was brilliant about a hole in the ground. Dumbledore, seemingly sensing the question, looked up at him with a small smile.

"Le Fay protected the entrance simply by having someone pile a great deal of earth upon it. Further down, there will doubtless be charms and curses to protect the tomb, but two hundred feet of dirt would be enough to blunt the senses of all but the most powerful wizards."

"But Voldemort knew exactly what he was looking for?" Harry asked.

"Tom, as we know, has been conducting his own research into the Temple. It appears that he found out more than we did about the construction of Le Fay's tomb, if not its actual location. Well, we shall have to muddle through as best we can."

He sat on the lip of the hole, which Harry now noticed was slanted like a slide.

"It has been a very long time since I did anything like this," Dumbledore commented, before pushing off and vanishing into the hole. Skeeter followed him without hesitation, and Harry then got himself ready.

"Wish me luck," he said to the others, as they formed up behind him.

"See you at the bottom," Ron replied.

Harry glanced at Ginny, who looked extremely nervous, and Harry knew exactly why. The slide down reminded him powerfully of the way he'd got into the Chamber of Secrets in his second year. He imagined that for Ginny, it had the same effect.

"It'll be fine," he said to her.

"He's down there again," she said, smiling weakly.

"And so's Dumbledore," Harry said. "I'll be there again too, if that helps."

"It does," she said quietly.

Harry kicked off, keeping the memory of Ginny's words in his mind. He plummeted down the shaft for a few seconds before dropping, feet first, onto a cushioning charm that Professor Skeeter was focusing on the landing point.

One by one, Lockhart, Ron, Ginny and Hermione dropped out of the shaft. The seven of them stood in the middle of a corridor that curved away in both directions. Dumbledore was standing stiffly a little way away from the others, his wand held out before him and an emotionless expression on his face.

"There is so much magic here," he said eventually. "It is quite impossible to say which way Tom and his friends went. We will have to split up."

Harry felt Hermione tense beside him. He didn't blame her. The thought of leaving Dumbledore and making his own way through this underground tomb was worrying, to say the least. His scar was hurting, as well. It was only a light pain, but it surely meant that Voldemort was nearby.

"I could come up with any number of ways of dividing our number," Dumbledore continued. "But I think we all know which division makes the most sense."

He was right. There was only one possible way that the group could split up. Dumbledore, Skeeter and Lockhart would go one way, Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny would go the other. The four students knew each other and themselves well enough to be able to rely upon each other in a battle situation. Indeed, they had done so the year before very successfully. The adults, on the other hand, had rather weaker ties to one another, but Skeeter and Dumbledore were much more experienced at fighting, and whatever help Lockhart could give was better suited to their side.

"Harry, I think it is time for us to summon help," Dumbledore said. He and Harry reached inside their robes, took out their golden coins and said "Fawkes" together. The coins glowed brightly in their hands. Fawkes, who had been perched on Dumbledore's shoulder throughout their time in Godric's Hollow, puffed out his chest at the mention of his name.

"Order members will be alerted. In my absence, they will contact Professor McGonagall. I left a message in my office for her, so she will be able to advise them on where to go."

"You've thought of everything," Harry said.

"I very much doubt it," Dumbledore said. "Although I suppose we can hope so."

*

Professor McGonagall Flooed into Dumbledore's office. The instant she stepped from the fireplace it reignited as three heads appeared in the flames: Arthur Weasley, Remus Lupin and Kingsley Shacklebolt.

"Gentlemen," McGonagall said calmly. "I assume that you received Albus' call as well."

"We got it, Minerva," Kingsley said in his slow, deep voice. "Albus is in trouble."

"I very much doubt it," McGonagall replied, confidently. "However, he has left a note. One second, please."

She read the note through twice. Then she reached into one of Dumbledore's drawers and took out a piece of parchment that for a second reminded Remus of the Marauder's Map.

McGonagall waved her wand over the parchment.

"They have gone to Godric's Hollow," she said stiffly.

"Godric's Hollow? They?" Arthur asked. "There was a second alert, but no one knew whose it was. It's Harry, isn't it."

"Yes. And also Ron, Ginny and Hermione Granger," McGonagall said. "Professor Skeeter and Gilderoy Lockhart are with them. Alastor and Dedalus are in the area as well."

"What does Albus say?" Remus asked.

"His letter says that they have found the Temple of Le Fay. It seems that Dumbledore and the others are have gone to try and stop You Know Who. Apparently Pettigrew was here-"

There was a scuffling noise from the fireplace. Sirius' head joined Remus in the flames.

"Wormtail? The little rat. We're going after him, I presume," Sirius snarled.

"Yourself and Remus are, yes. Kingsley, will you and Tonks join them? Arthur, you and Molly-"

"Are coming too," Mr. Weasley said, his expression set as though in stone. "Bill and Charlie are here. I'll bring them along. I'm going to be having some serious words with Dumbledore when he comes back," Arthur said, radiating a cold fury as he prepared to chase his two youngest children into danger.

"Gentlemen, you know how Dumbledore has trained you. Concealment is vital."

The three heads nodded. "We know what to do," Kingsley said.

*

It was cold, dark and damp. They'd been walking in silence since leaving Dumbledore's group behind. Harry looked at Ginny, on one side of him, and Ron on the other. They seemed calm. Composed. Hermione, who was bringing up the rear, had settled down after earlier trepidation and was now focused as intently on disrupting Voldemort's plans as she usually was on her Arithmancy work.

Am I the only one who's frightened? Harry wondered. It didn't occur to him that he had the same calm look on his face that the others did, nor that they might all be wondering exactly the same thing about each other.

In addition to worrying about how worried he was, Harry was beginning to wonder about when they were going to run into the first of the traps that Le Fay would have left for the unwary to stumble across.

Surely there must have been something. I wouldn't imagine it was very tricky, this close to the surface. If I were an evil, dying, twisted old hag, I'd put something simple right at the start and then start making things more difficult. And occasionally there'd be something really evil just to catch out anyone feeling over confident.

Harry shuddered slightly, realising how it easy it was to think in an evil way.

Of course, if the Death Eaters did come this way, they'll have activated all the traps before us. But there haven't been any bodies or debris or anything. Maybe Le Fay wanted to lull intruders into a false sense of security?

As if in answer to Harry's thoughts, six Death Eaters stepped out of the shadows in front of them.

Oh, Merlin...

There was a pause of several seconds' duration. The Death Eaters and the Hogwarts students faced one another calmly, as though this was a dance and each person was deciding who to ask first.

Harry used the time to study the Death Eaters' faces. Like their colleagues aboveground, they hadn't bothered with masks. Instead they were barefaced, sneering openly at Harry and the others, seemingly not anticipating much resistance from an outnumbered group of teenagers.

The first spell flew from Harry's glowing wand, a Disarming hex that threw the centremost Death Eater backwards some fifteen feet before he hit the unforgiving tunnel wall and clattered, unconscious, to the ground.

The expressions on the Death Eaters faces changed, and suddenly they were taking the fight very seriously indeed.

They lashed out at the same time, five red bolts of light blasting from their wands.

The curses crashed into Harry's Shield charm, which rang like a gong but withstood the assault. The curses ricocheted outwards, impacting on the hard walls and roof.

"Stunners when I drop the shield!" Harry barked. The others pointed their wands around him and when the shield fell three Stunning spells leapt from their wands. Ron and Ginny's Stunners caught the leftmost wizard, sending him sprawling to the floor. Hermione's was partially blocked by the wizard she had targeted, but he still staggered backwards, cracking his head on a rock jutting from the wall.

"You're outnumbered," Harry said. "You won't win. Just give up now and save us some time."

"You cannot possibly be serious?" one of the Death Eaters asked. He was a tall, skinny man with messy black hair much like Harry's own. He looked slightly familiar, but Harry couldn't place him. "Voldemort's punishment for disloyalty is endless pain, boy. What could you possibly offer us against that?"

"A leader who doesn't threaten pain as a way of motivating his allies?" Hermione suggested.

"What does your precious Dumbledore give you then?" the black haired man sneered.

He looks really familiar. Where do I know him from?

"Sugar Quills," Ron growled. "Now are you going to give up?"

"And stop trying to look like Harry's Dad!" Ginny said suddenly.

"Dad?"

Harry stepped forward, almost without realising it. The Death Eater grinned triumphantly.

"That's right, son. Come to me. I'm sorry I've been away so long."

Harry drifted forward. The world had fallen away to nothing around him.

My dad's alive! It's going to be okay...

Suddenly Harry stopped. His heart was pounding and his mouth was suddenly dry. From nowhere, he felt a great wave of fear and anxiety wash over him. His scar was throbbing now, waves of searing pain pulsing through his skull and making it hard to concentrate. But it wasn't that which had made him stop.

He looked at the man who he suddenly wasn't sure was his father.

"I've got your old map, Dad," he said quietly. "The one that you and Frank Longbottom drew up."

"That's right son. Good old Frank, my best friend. I can't wait to see him again."

Harry's eyes narrowed.

"Get out of my head, Tom," he growled.

"The master says it's easier to be in your head than to stay out," the Death Eater laughed, looking less and less like Harry's father by the second. Harry's scar throbbed and he knew that Voldemort had been manipulating his senses. He felt his cheeks flush.

"EXPELLIARMUS!"

Ron, Ginny and Hermione clapped their hands to their ears as Harry's roar echoed through the tunnel. The three conscious Death Eaters didn't protect themselves; they didn't have time. They were simply blown backwards, instantly concussed by the force of Harry's spell. Their unconscious bodies crashed painfully into the tunnel wall.

Harry winced.

"Bloody hell, Harry!" Ron exclaimed. For once Hermione didn't scold him about his language.

"Let's get on," Harry said as an ominous rumble sounded overhead. "I don't like the sound of that."

"I think that Harry's right," Hermione said, glancing nervously upwards. "I'm certain there weren't as many cracks in this ceiling a moment ago.

Everyone looked upwards for a split-second and then began to run down the tunnel, past the fallen bodies of the first three Death Eaters and then, fifty feet further on, the bodies of the three who had borne the high-powered brunt of Harry's second Disarming spell. Harry noticed in passing that the one who had looked briefly like James Potter now bore a much closer resemblance to Macnair, the Ministry employee who had been assigned to kill Buckbeak the Hippogriff. Harry supposed that they were family.

They were twenty feet beyond the last of the Death Eaters when the roof behind them collapsed and the lake began to spill into the tunnel.

There wasn't even time for them to cry out as they were swept up in the torrent and carried through the tunnel at high speeds, flashing past traps that were triggered milliseconds after they were safe. Flames were doused by the water, poison darts were swept up by the pounding waves and quarter-ton slabs of rock dropped from the ceiling only to crash harmlessly into the surf below.

Eventually the water flooded into a deep, bowl like chamber with a deafening crash. Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione were pounded by the waves as they struggled so stay afloat. Harry was momentarily glad of his summer at the Burrow, where Ron had taken it upon himself to teach Harry to swim. As the water calmed around them, he swum feebly to the side of the cave, his wand clenched tightly between his teeth and his hair hanging in his eyes. He grasped the cave wall and sank against it, grateful to be still. His body ached all over where rocks had been swept against him and where he had crashed into the tunnel walls. His head ached, and he smiled grimly as he recognised the source of the pain. It didn't come from an injury, at least, not a new one.

Ron pulled himself panting and gasping onto the same rock as Harry. They hung breathless alongside one another for a long moment. Harry spat his wand out into his hand.

"Where's Ginny and Hermione?"

Ron gestured over his shoulder. "Other side. Saw 'em swimming-"

"Ron!"

"Harry!"

They whirled around. Harry automatically sought out Ginny's fiery mane and found her clinging to the far wall of the cavern. He looked for Hermione, but couldn't see her immediately.

"Where-"

"Hermione!"

Harry followed Ron's gaze, and saw Hermione struggling frantically. Harry belatedly realised that there was a faint current pulling at him and that the water was foaming at the far end of the cave. Hermione was being pulled in that direction, seemingly unable to break free.

"I've got to-"

Harry grabbed Ron's shoulder before he could swim to his girlfriend.

"Wait!"

"Harry! Let me go!"

His head throbbing, Harry didn't answer, instead bringing his wand around and saying "Aqua Spirare!"

The Bubblehead charm took shape atop Ron's shoulders. Unlike the uncontrolled versions used by Colin Creevey and Ron himself during study sessions earlier in the year, Harry's charm was a sleek bullet shaped helmet that would actually help improve Ron's aerodynamic profile as he swam after Hermione.

Ron paused for a second, treading water as he looked back at Harry through the distorting field of the charm. Harry was conscious of great thought taking place behind Ron's eyes, and then his friend gave him a quick thumbs-up before turning and swimming quickly after Hermione, his long legs powering him across the distance between the two of them. Just as he reached her, however, she was sucked under the water. Without hesitation, he dived under, his feet appearing above the surface of the water and kicking furiously for a second before they too disappeared.

"Ron!" Ginny shrieked, pushing off from the wall and swimming out to where her brother had dived. Harry had anticipated her response and was already on his way, grabbing her around the waist at a point where the current started to become particularly turbulent. He held her tightly, fighting her strong strokes, doing everything in his power to stop her diving after her brother and her friend.

"Stop it!" he yelled. "They're gone. Ron will save Hermione, trust me."

Slowly, eventually, her struggles slowed and she hung there in the water with him, his arms wrapped tightly around her as he kicked calmly away from the thrashing, pounding, white-foamed water.

"There's a hole down there," Harry said, pointing down into the water. "Hermione got sucked down and Ron followed. The water in here is starting to drain out that way."

"Are we going to follow them?" Ginny asked.

"No. We're going another way," Harry said.

"Why?"

"Because I can hear him calling me," Harry said. "I can hear Voldemort calling me, and that's not the best way to get to him."

*

They scrambled onto a ledge a few feet above the slowly draining water.

"You can hear him?" Ginny asked nervously.

"Yeah. We're close, Ginny. He's... he's not calling me exactly. But he's waiting. He's..." Harry reached up and touched his scar. This close to Voldemort, it felt as though his head would split open. "Excited," he finished, his stomach churning at the sensation.

"You don't seem very worried."

"I am," he said. "I don't want to fight him, Ginny," he said slowly. "My best friends may be dead-" Harry felt numb just considering it "-Dumbledore isn't there yet, so I have to."

"But you said-"

"I have to," Harry sighed. "What choice do I have?"

"Of course you have a choice!"

"No, I don't. It's my duty to stop him. If he gets Le Fay's power, then no one will be able to stand against him. The only hope is to stop him now."

He stood up slowly, feeling somewhat dizzy as his head pounded. He wondered momentarily if his scar was glowing.

It feels like it's on fire. Maybe it looks like it as well?

He reached down to Ginny, grasping her hand and pulling her upright. She put her hand up to his forehead and he winced in anticipation of her touching the lightning bolt that zigzagged across his forehead. Instead she brushed at his fringe, sweeping it back and out of his eyes.

He took her hand in his.

"Ginny, I don't want you to come with me," he said. Before she could object he added "But you have to, I know. What Voldemort did to you, well, you can remember. This time you can help me fight him. I need you there with me. I can't fight him on my own; just being around him hurts me, and now he can get inside my head and make me see what he wants me to."

He took a deep breath.

"The bond between us confuses him," he said, knowing as he did so that it was true, and why it was true as well. "He doesn't understand what makes it so strong. I know that Dumbledore has been teaching you to close off the bond between us, but if you open it up then I'll be able to think clearly, it'll stop him getting into my head. That's why I need you there beside me. With you beside me, I can do it. I hate having to ask you this, but please, I need you to help me."

Ginny looked up at him, a myriad emotions struggling for supremacy on her face.

"As if you could stop me," she said, squeezing his hand firmly in hers.

*

They walked through the tunnels, following the echoes in Harry's mind. He wasn't sure how much Voldemort knew about the bond that he shared with Harry, but he didn't seem to be sending anything deliberately at him. All Harry was getting was bursts of emotions and jumbled thoughts that were becoming stronger and clearer as they moved deeper and deeper underground. Harry's scar throbbed under the onslaught of images, and a number of times he stumbled as a particularly strong wave of emotion swept over him.

They had been walking in near silence for nearly an hour. Voldemort had grown angrier and calmer in cycles, although Harry was not sure quite why. When he and Ginny had stumbled across the first Death Eater corpse, he suddenly realised what Voldemort's mood swings had been about. The man had been crushed to death by two heavy slabs of rock that had apparently been fired from the walls of the tunnel. Harry and Ginny had regarded the slabs and the corpse with mounting feelings of trepidation.

How much magic would you need to set up a trap like that? And for it to still be working after all these centuries? How many traps did Le Fay set in this place?

Over the next hour, they found three more dead bodies, staggered at irregular intervals. Le Fay had set the traps to catch the unwary or overconfident, and also to exploit weaknesses in an intruder's skill. As well as the slabs, there was a corpse that had been sliced in two by a blade, one that had been suffocated by a magically engorged Audrus Audrus plant - which was slowly eating the corpse from the feet up - and the fourth had fallen into a pit of spikes. Ginny had nearly thrown up on seeing the body, but had managed to control herself.

After that there was nothing. They found traps that had been sprung, but no bodies. There were signs of intense magical use and Harry had a vision of Voldemort taking the lead in exasperation and simply blasting his way through the tunnels, triggering all the traps from a safe distance.

They walked on in absolute silence, hands still clasped together and walking as close as they could to one another. Neither of them wanted to lose the other. Harry tried to keep his mind clear of worry for Ron, Hermione and the others, in case Voldemort could sense the emotion and use it against him. But he found it hard not to be scared for his friends, and for himself and Ginny.

And then there was a faint light ahead of them. Where Harry and Ginny had been navigating by the light from their wands - in Harry's case he hadn't needed to cast the Lumos spell - they were now able to see without them. They lowered their wands, and edged forwards.

"Bring them," said an unnaturally high voice. Harry shuddered. He would have recognised the voice anywhere.

Two large, powerful looking Death Eaters stepped into the tunnel. One of them chuckled roughly when he saw Ginny and made a grab for her. Harry lashed out, punching the far larger man square on the nose and feeling a momentary flash of satisfaction as he felt the man's nose break.

Belatedly, Harry recognised the men. The resemblance to Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle was unmistakable; they were unmistakably the Slytherin students' fathers.

"Try and touch her again and I'll make you regret it," Harry said in as calm a voice as he could manage.

Another figure appeared in the light. Taller than Crabbe or Goyle, and painfully thin, it was a horrible sight. Thin, long fingered hands hung from the arms of its robes, a long black wand held meaningfully in one hand. The figure's head was a bleached white colour, without hair or any of the features of a normal human being. It was far more reptilian than mammalian, with a thin, lipless mouth and two tiny nostrils that sat vertically on the noseless face. There were no ears either; instead the head had small bumps on either side.

But worst of all were the eyes. They glowed a deep red, the only touch of colour on an otherwise bone-like face. The pupils were dark, vertical slits and the lids came in from either side of the eye when they blinked, instead of from above and below.

"Punishing my Death Eaters, Potter?" Lord Voldemort asked, yanking Harry and Ginny's wands from them with a single gesture. "Far better for you to kill them. As Morgan Le Fay would attest, were she still alive, my followers will die if you stab them or curse them or choke them." Voldemort's forked tongue flickered briefly over the edges of his mouth as he hissed a mirthless laugh.

"And yet you don't kill, do you Potter? You are far too noble. You would not kill Lucius last year, although he was at your mercy, and now he has risen again from captivity. I admire the man for his deep pockets, if not for his endless and annoying quest for power. Still, he has allowed me to progress further in my own quest for power. Once more I have the blood of my enemies. Take them," he added, as Goyle helped Crabbe to his feet, blood streaming down the latter man's face.

They stepped forward and grabbed Harry and Ginny's arms, a degree of trepidation on their faces.

"You see, Potter?" Voldemort said, his lipless mouth contorting into a semblance of a smirk. "They fear me far more then they do you. They know that angering me will bring them pain, or even death. Let me demonstrate."

He raised his wand and pointed it at Ginny.

"No!" Harry drove his head back as hard as he could and gasped in pain as it drove into Goyle's face. The Death Eater cried out and staggered backwards, releasing Harry who dived in front of Ginny as Voldemort said "Crucio."

The Unforgivable curse hit Harry and was almost instantly removed as Voldemort's smile faded. Harry felt as though his skin had been pierced with a thousand red-hot knives for the barest fraction of a second, but he was still standing. He hadn't even had time to scream.

"Risking your life for one girl, Potter? How very like you."

Voldemort moved closer to Ginny, who was glaring at him defiantly.

"She looks very much like your mother, Potter," he said. "And you look like your father, of course. Fitting. I shall enjoy killing you today, Harry, in this place. And this time there will be no mistakes."

Voldemort turned away and slipped the three wands into one of the deep pockets on his robes. Goyle grabbed Harry tightly again and Harry didn't resist, reasoning that the two Death Eaters could probably kill himself and Ginny if they struggled too much.

I'll wait for the opportune moment. But I need my wand!

Voldemort paused and looked over his shoulder at Harry.

"Yes, Potter, I imagine you'd like your wand back, much good would it do you."

"Scared to fight me?" Harry asked, trying to ignore his general tiredness and the aches from his scar, the back of his head and the knuckle he had split open on Crabbe's nose.

I have to delay things. Where's Dumbledore? He could take out Voldemort. I need to make time.

"Hardly."

"Then give me back my wand and face me like a..."

"Man? Potter, haven't you realised yet that I am far more than a man? I am everything that Morgan Le Fay could ever have hoped to be. I am everything that Salazar Slytherin strove to be. I am everything that Grindelwald tried to be, until I betrayed him and took his place. I am everything that Merlin feared becoming, and that Dumbledore has never dared dream of. And when I have Le Fay's power, then I shall be all this and so much more as well."

"And will you be too scared to fight me then as well?"

"Be grateful that I do not strike you down now, Potter. I will fight you, as I fought your father. I bested him, as well. It did not take long. I doubt that you will provide much more of a challenge."

He turned away again and led the way down the brightly-lit tunnel. After several hours underground, Harry was dazzled by the brightness, but it didn't seem to faze Voldemort or his Death Eaters at all.

They arrived in a grand chamber, and Harry understood why Voldemort and the others weren't fazed by the brightness of the tunnel. If the light in the tunnel had been bright, then this room was lit with the brilliance of thousand chandeliers. The light was so bright that Harry could hardly see anything more than a few feet from his face. Voldemort, in his jet-black robes, seemed to absorb the light, however, and stood as though defying the brightness of the room.

"Le Fay's final test," he said. "I can see that you are almost blinded by the light. One simple spell is all it takes to see beyond the light. Let me show you, Potter."

Voldemort drew his wand from his pocket and aimed at Harry's face. "Lumos Retardare!"

Harry blinked, the light suddenly dimming to normal levels.

"A fine idea by Le Fay," Voldemort hissed approvingly. "Most wizards would try immensely complicated magic once they got this far. But by requiring such a simple spell, Le Fay ensured that those who knew how and when to use power would be the ones to achieve it."

Harry grimaced as he looked around the room. On a raised platform twenty feet above the cavern floor were dozens of Death Eaters, surrounding them on all sides. Clearly Voldemort's efforts to recruit new followers over the last two years had been successful.

"My loyal followers," Voldemort said, following Harry's gaze. "Any one of them would kill you if I gave the word. But I don't want you dead yet, Potter. I have other uses for you."

"You need my blood again," Harry said. "I know."

"Your blood?" Voldemort laughed, a horrible, high-pitched chuckle that sent a shiver down Harry's spine. "No, not this time, Potter. I did need blood to begin the ritual, but it did not need to be yours. Lucius Malfoy was happy to supply me with enemies for me to take blood from. Look behind you, Potter."

Harry didn't want to turn around. A horrible feeling squirmed in his stomach as he began to suspect what he would see. But he had little choice as Goyle forced him to turn.

Harry looked up, fearing what he would see. Voldemort began to laugh as Harry retched at the sight before him, bile rising unbidden in his throat as he looked upon the prone forms of Mad-Eye Moody and Dedalus Diggle.

They were chained to the wall of the cavern, their clothes ripped open and long, deep gashes running the lengths of their arms and legs, and across their chests and necks.

Their blood was draining from the cuts into a hollow in the rock below them, mixing with the water in the hollow. The pool, which was deep enough for a man to be submerged in, was glowing brightly.

Harry forced himself to look away from the pool and back up at Moody and Diggle. He stared intently at them as Crabbe and Goyle's dull, grunting laughs belatedly joined that of their master. He sought out any signs of life, any movement, any breath or twitch.

But there was none.

Moody and Diggle were dead.

To be continued...