CHAPTER 21 – OFF TO SAVE THE DARK WITCH
Everyone gathered at the field: Jude, Rach, Prof. Snape, Prof. Lupin, Sirius Black and Harry. They made sure that they had eaten their fill before they met for today—they weren’t sure whether they will make it out alive. Everyone had their brooms ready for this occasion.
“Ready, Witches?” Prof. Snape asked.
“Just a second, sir,” Jude said as she dug through her robe sleeve and revealed a baby ankle lace made out of stars and moons. She handed it to Rach, who in turn squealed in delight.
“This is so beautiful! Are you actually letting my Talos have it?” Rach said as she marveled at the lace. “You should save it for your Kiaran!”
“Oh, never mind. My Kiaran already has my baby ankle lace, the one with bells and hearts. I got this a long time ago, and when I knew that we’re going to have kids, I owled to my Muggle parents to get it out of my jewelry box back home.”
“It’s gorgeous! Where did you get it?”
“It’s simple, really. My Muggle cousin who has a brother that has a crush on a girl next door whose boyfriend is in the swim team and has a nephew who had a 5-year-old sister who got a favourite teacher who is actually the big brother of my 19-year-old uncle whom I had an itsy-bitsy crush on. Well, he gave that to me as a birthday gift and I’ve been keeping it ever since. He still thinks I’m his little baby niece, can you imagine that?”
“I can see how complicated your family tree is,” Rach replied with a sweat drop.
“Are we ready yet?” Prof. Snape cleared his throat irritably, getting the girls’ attention. The girls nodded sheepishly.
“How would you know how to find the Dark Witch, Severus?” Prof. Lupin asked.
“By the mark,” Prof. Snape showed his Death Eater mark. “When it glows like this means that we have to gather together on a meeting. If we follow it to where the location is, we may get to see Voldemort.”
“Great! Now I can kick both Voldemort and that wretched Pettigrew’s ass!” Sirius rubbed his hands with glee. He had been waiting this moment for too long to back away now.
“Black, I don’t remember asking you to join us. But if you insist on sending yourself to suicide, I won’t stop you.”
“No way am I going to miss a good fight with that Voldemort and let you have all the fun!” Sirius snarled like a dog at Prof. Snape. “You just watch out if you don’t want to be killed by your so-called ‘Dark Lord’!”
“Alright, alright, guys, stop bickering already,” Prof. Lupin said, the girls giggling and Harry sighing in the back ground. “We have a girl and a baby to save, remember?”
So, without further ado, our heroes mounted their brooms and flew high into the sky and out of the protective boundary of Hogwarts Castle.
The group found themselves in a very dark and sinister-looking graveyard. Jude shivered and huddled behind Harry; she still didn’t like the dark although there are a lot of companions among her. Bad experience when she was a kid made her pretty phobic towards the dark.
Prof. Snape signaled everyone to hide in one corner while he waited outside and blend in with the rest of the Death Eaters, pulling the hood over his head. One by one, the Death Eaters apparated in sight. Jude saw Lucius Malfoy, who was unhooding himself, among the Death Eaters. Altogether there about 10 Death Eaters present.
“Damn! Even Crabbe and Goyle’s old men are there!” Sirius hissed in contempt. They were hiding behind the tallest, widest tree they could find. Prof. Lupin hushed him.
“Keep it down! You don’t want to blow our cover now, do you?”
No sooner he said that, than a tall, menacing figure apparated into view. It was no other than the Dark Lord Voldemort himself. Sirius growled deeply in his throat at the sight of him. Jude was awed. This was the first time she caught sight of her real father. He was obviously very evil indeed: with his eyes as red and as treacherous as a serpent (more like a Basilisk, maybe) and his not-so-human face. He had very lack of hair and his skin was quite scaly. He looked more like a mutant snake than a wizard. Jude found it hard to believe that she came from this bad seed.
Voldemort towered over his minions proudly with Pettigrew by his side and revealed Becka and her baby Henrietta in her arms from his huge robe. Jude wanted to rush up to her and save her immediately but was held back by the others just in time before any of the Death Eaters saw them.
“My faithful servants, I am glad that you are all present,” Voldemort’s hissing menacing voice sent shivers to anyone who heard it. “Here I have before you The One that was prophesied to bring down our little organization: The Dark Witch and her heir, the seed from which came from The Boy Who Lived!”
The Death Eaters muttered disapprovingly at Becka and her baby. Becka cowered towards Cedric, who was standing right behind her. Cedric wrapped his hands around her, consoling her through her ear softly. Harry had a good look and was as shocked as the grown-ups to see Cedric alive, with a completely different eye colour than the last time he seen him.
“Oh Merlin, Cedric’s alive! He’s actually alive!” Harry tried to suppress his excited voice.
“You’re damn right!” Sirius replied. “That old git actually excelled in magic, that I got to admit.”
“What are we gonna do?” Rach asked in panic. “If we don’t go out there now, that creep is going to turn Becka and her baby into barbecue sauce! Or toads, if he’s kind enough.”
“Severus will give us the signal,” Prof. Lupin replied. “Don’t worry, girls, he knows what he’s doing.”
“Yeah, right. If he doesn’t pitch in on us!” Sirius said grudgingly. “You can never trust an ex-Death Eater like him.”
“My faithful servants, it is now time to do what is necessary to do in order to keep our group alive,” Voldemort announced as he took a dagger that was handed to him automatically by Pettigrew. “I have a spy working for me in the grounds of Hogwarts. He proved to be worthy and faithful, but unfortunately he hadn’t had the guts to kill my daughter and her child, my grandson,” he spat that word out, “so to speak. He failed when he had the chance. Now we would like to see if any of you have the guts to cast the first blow. Severus,” he handed the dagger to Prof. Snape, “would you do the honours?”
Prof. Snape took the dagger and advanced towards Becka who was cowering in Cedric’s arms. ‘Why did he specifically choose me?’ he thought. ‘I may be his most favoured follower in the past but…this was going too easy…’ As he raised his dagger high above his head and was ready to strike, he became hesitant. Should he continue and really stab her so that Voldemort would continue to trust him and that he would be able to continue becoming both Dumbledore and Voldemort’s spy? Or could he just cut Becka a little bit so that Jude will not be angry and blame him, or even end up killing him? He didn’t know what to do. He just kept his dagger raised above his head.
“Why are you hesitant, Severus?” Voldemort’s voice hit him icily on his ear and through his thumping heart. “Are you afraid that you will hurt your pretty Black Witch’s heart?”
So saying, he swished his wand towards the tree the gang was hiding and zapped it, burning it into dust in an instant. The gang gasped in horror that their cover was revealed. They brandished their wands, ready to fight. Voldemort chuckled deep in his throat.
“I knew all along that you people are behind there! You think I wouldn’t come here unprepared now, do I? Death Eaters, my faithful servants! Get them! Bring the Witches to me, alive!”
Soon, there was a lot of zapping and swishing of wands and struggling between them as the grown-ups, and a little help from the kids, try to get at the Death Eaters’ throats. Harry, Jude and Rach made a dash towards Voldemort. Voldemort smirked and hissed at his two henchmen, “Get them, my servants. Destroy them!”
“With pleasure, My Lord,” Cedric and Pettigrew said in unison. Cedric brandished his wand at Harry while Pettigrew swished his sliver hand at Jude and Rach. They were horrified as they found out that everything Pettigrew touched with his silver right hand turned to dust in an instant.
“This is not good, Rach!” Jude exclaimed as she ducked away from Pettigrew’s incoming hand.
“Obviously not!” Rach replied with a ‘Duh’ tone.
“Any ideas, genius?”
“Not this time around, man!”
“So are we gonna attack him the old-fashion way or the new way?”
“Definitely a little bit of both!”
Jude and Rach used their wands and used the levitation spell to levitate him in the air, and then used their wandless powers to knock the shit out of him. They ran over to help Harry battle Cedric. Sparks and fireworks rained around them and sounds of zapping and voices of spells chanted filled the entire graveyard. It really was like war: Hogwarts vs Voldemort.
“Hey, Cedric, stop fighting against us!” Harry exclaimed as he dodged a disarming spell. “You don’t want to do this! You don’t want to hurt Becka!”
“I’ve waited too long for this moment to destroy you!” Cedric snarled, his silver eyes gleaming with hate. “I died because of you, and I had to be what I wouldn’t want to be—a Death Eater—because of you! I hate you enough to kill you!”
“That’s one grudge you don’t see everyday,” Jude muttered as she aimed a Body-Bind curse on him, which missed him at about a few inches.
“I am going to kill you to pay for what you have caused me if it’s the last thing I’ll do!” Cedric laid a Body-Bind curse on all of them and waved his wand high above the air and chanted, “Avada keda…”
“STOP!! Don’t do this, Cedric!”
Cedric gasped when he saw Becka standing right in front of her friends with the baby in her arms, glaring at him warningly. How did she get out of Voldemort’s grasp, they had no idea. The fact is she was there and she was in danger of becoming a dead witch.
“Get out of the way, Rebecca. This is my fight! I have to settle this!” Cedric snarled, the wand dangerously between her eyes. Becka refused to budge.
“Don’t do this, Cedric. You know perfectly well that if you kill Harry, the whole world will be in turmoil.”
“I don’t care! The world is none of my concern. I’m settling the score he owed me last year. This is between him and me, Rebecca! Now back off!”
“Then you have to kill me first,” Becka said determinedly.
“Have you gone mad?! Get out of there, Becka! Get out of the way!” the three who were bound under the Body-Bind spell yelled almost in unison.
“You were never angry at Harry and you never will be,” Becka took a step closer towards Cedric. “You know it’s not Harry’s fault you died. You know perfectly well that your death has nothing to do with Harry. It’s Voldemort you want, not Harry. You know all that.”
Cedric’s hand began to tremble as he struggled in whether to fulfill his revenge and sacrifice his love or not do it at all. Harry was there, right in front of him, ready for him to kill, ready for him to blast with the Avada Kedavra curse he had died upon. Slowly, he realized that there’s no reason for revenge at all. Why was he taking revenge on Harry? What was there to kill for? He remembered being revived by the Dark Lord and being told again and again that Harry was the cause of his death. Was it really anything to do with Harry? He had no reason to hate him at all, not one bit. They have been friends in Hogwarts enough to trust each other deeply. Why would he want to kill his friend?
Slowly, Cedric dropped his wand and buried his face in his hands. Becka chanted a counter-curse on Harry and her girlfriends before rushing towards Cedric.
“What have I done? What monster have I become?” Cedric muttered in horror. “I am so sorry, Harry. I’m so sorry…”
“It’s alright, you’ve been misled, that’s all,” Harry replied, patting his shoulder.
Out of the blue, Voldemort glided towards them and snarled, “Traitor! Now you will all die!”
Voldemort swiped Becka and her wailing baby with one hand and, with the other hand, sent Harry, Cedric and the rest of the Witches flying a few feet away from him with just one swish of his wand. Jude regained composure immediately and ran towards Voldemort to save Becka and her baby, only to be stopped in her tracks by one of Voldemort’s spell.
“Cut the crap, Voldemort!” Jude growled, the colour of her eyes began to glow in anger. “Let Becka go!”
Without warning, Jude found herself shoved at the navel and, the next minute, lying on her back with Voldemort’s foot pressing painfully on her chest. Her breasts hurt badly; she was new to the mother’s milk issue and it kinda ached to the touch. Voldemort let out a low chuckle.
“Now is that the way to speak to your father? After all, I’m still kin, you know.”
“You…don’t deserve to be…my father!” Jude struggled to speak under his pressurizing foot.
“Is that how Tanya disciplines you? I think I’d better change that.”
Jude was quite nervous when Voldemort took out his wand and pointed it directly at her forehead.
“Say your prayers, my precious daughter. You’re going to need it!”
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