The Heart of Gryffindor
by SJR0301
Part III - Chapter Forty-One
The battle spilled out of the crooked, narrow ravine where Hayden had collected his army. At times, they were able to push the invaders back toward the river, while at others, Hayden's men forced their own line through the woods. The retreating fighters stumbled as they were forced to back up uphill. Their latest rally had stalled and the left flank had turned to run in mortal fear as a fresh phalanx of Hayden's fighters stormed at them.
The attack should not have been so effective, Edgar thought. The men who fought on the left flank were regular army men who were well armed with rifles and machine guns and even a mortar or two. He pushed his way through the brush, hacking at it with his sword, which, unlike the rifle that was worthless once his store of ammunition had gone, had the virtue that it worked efficiently no matter what. He nearly tripped over a fallen man, but managed to right himself just in time to dispose of an attacker. Only a grim determination to fight to his death kept him going. They were outgunned and outnumbered and their leadership nearly non-existent. While Hayden's men were united by a single leader, the destruction of the nation's central authority, the Crown and the Parliament, meant that they were largely fighting as a convocation of dissidents. The army thought it ought to be in charge while the remnants of the intelligence forces, who knew what they were fighting, wanted to be the ones who gave the orders and directed the strategy. There had been no civilian authorities who could be assembled in time to select new leadership.
The sky was leaden and clouded with the dust of the dying land and Edgar tried not to think about the fact that simply breathing that dust might be their death sentence even if they won. He paused to scrub the dust from his face and nearly turned tail himself as he saw what had driven back their strongest fighters. Through the weeping branches of the woods, hundreds of men marched undeterred even by the explosions of the larger guns they had set up on the rise of the hill. Each of every one continued to move, though their eyes were vacant of life and many looked as though they were literally half rotten. Flesh hung off bodies, floating in the slight breeze, and some appeared to be no more than skeletons walking. Screams of terror sounded and Edgar stared in horror at the army of the dead. A blaze of bright light distracted him and he saw, surrounded by a sea of inferi, the lone man who had not run in the face of this unstoppable tide.
Harry flung a stream of fire from his glowing sword and the sea of skeletons parted before him. "Fire," he called to Edgar. "Fire and light will stop them!" His green eyes and the crimson fire from his sword were the only color there, the only evidence that they fought in a world that still held life and not upon the plains of hell itself.
Edgar forced his way forward lighting his sword with the brightest light he could. One inferi shrank before him, covering its empty sockets as though it still possessed eyes that could see, that could be blinded by the light. Heartened, he swept the light forward and met Harry at the base of the hill up which the army had retreated.
"This is a rout," he said dismally, "a disaster. We're going to lose and no one will be able to save us."
Harry shook his dead, though whether to deny the undeniable, or in sheer weariness, Edgar could not tell. He looked at his watch and Edgar felt almost like laughing. What difference did it make what the time might be, he wondered, when time had run out for good. Never again would they worry whether they were late for a meeting. Never again would it matter that traffic had jammed. Never again would they rush to catch up for the only thing they would catch up to now was something to be avoided at all costs.
"They're late," Harry muttered. "I should have timed it better. I never time things right."
The inferi were closing in on them again. Edgar swiped at the things encircling them, desperate to avoid their putrid embrace. All he could think of was that if he had to die, he hoped he would disintegrate entirely, be reduced to ashes, so that not one bone and not one molecule would be left to be raised into Hayden's gruesome army.
"Stop looking at that wretched watch, Harry!" he rasped. "You can't go back. You can't undo the past. You can only go forward and fight here and now!" He flung a stream of light at the dead things reaching for Harry and they shrank away again, though only momentarily.
Harry shook his head again, and seemed to wake to the danger they were in. He lifted the silver sword and flung another stream of fire, this one so hot that the nearest inferi began to burn. The slight wind caught the flames and the few remaining patches of grass began to burn as well. The ground about them was so dry and parched, however, that the small fires quickly sputtered and died. Edgar could not help but be horrified at the sight of the burning inferi, whose fate in death was to burn just as its fate at life's ending had been to burn.
Harry seemed to read some portion of his thoughts, for he said softly, "What burns there is only dust and ashes. His soul is long gone and entirely free." As if the thought provided its own motivation, he pointed the sword again and brought forth a fire even hotter than before. This time, however, Harry directed the fire at the earth, and it raced across the ground and grew, so that a veritable wall of flame rose, separating the retreating soldiers from the army of the dead. With a soft, nearly soundless word from Harry, the wall of flames moved forward, pushing back the charging inferi and consuming even the dying woods along with the already dead men.
"Edgar, listen," Harry said urgently. "Can you get to Bentley and tell him to rally the men? Ask them to attack this time, do anything, just don't retreat again for a bit."
"What are you going to do?" Edgar asked suspiciously. "You're not going to try to confront Hayden alone? I mean, you do realize that he won't even bother fighting you. He'll just send in his entire army of dark wizards to fight you, and all it will take is just one to get behind you while you're facing the others."
Harry gave Edgar a peculiar look, and his green eyes lit with some thought too fantastic for words. All he said, though, was simply, "I should have done that months ago." He sighed and added, "And it may come to that in the end today, but not yet. Just get to Bentley, okay?"
Without waiting for an answer, Harry moved suddenly. His form blurred and the bright fire still shimmering at the edges of the sword created a halo for the crimson swan-like bird that rose in the air, a thing of unearthly beauty. The phoenix soared above the grim battle ground and, as it flew, it sang. The bird's song, soft at first, grew louder. The music swelled, and Edgar could not find a proper comparison for it. The melody was almost sweet, almost joyous, yet bright, a trill like a trumpet blowing. It was a hum, humming through him, a drum, drumming, like the sound of his own heart beating, drumming the blood through his veins. A strange exhilaration possessed him as he ran over the black ashes that Harry's fire had left behind.
The retreating men had stopped and turned and a hundred voices, no, a thousand and more, raised a cheer that joined the song of the bird and a thousand feet drummed loudly down the slope of the hill as they charged once more into battle just behind the moving wall of fire and the invaders' unnatural corpses turned to ash as the fire consumed them. Edgar followed the flight of the bird and saw a flash of brilliant gold as it winked out and was lost in the thickening gloom. He paused to wipe the dust from his eyes and saw that, finally, the real men, the flesh and blood men, the living men of Hayden's army were marching forward into the fight. They carried guns and swords and some held wands, but that didn't matter. No matter what weapons they carried, at least they were real men, men who could be made to pay for their evil, for their sins.
On the day that changed everything, I was arguing with James about going to the end of year feast when Dumbledore made the announcement canceling the festivities. The old wizard seemed positively ancient. His tall body was stooped and his seamed face looked as fragile as an antique bowl whose glaze has become riddled with so many fine cracks that the merest touch might make it crumble. His voice, however, was a trumpet, its sound like that of a ram's horn blown to call us to account.
Upon his announcement, many students started to panic, voices rose in a babble of fear and confusion. What had Muggles and their troubles got to do with wizards? Why couldn't we return home on the Hogwarts Express? Why couldn't we even leave the Castle just to go outdoors or to Hogsmeade? As Headboy, I had to help the teachers and Heads of House gather in their students and we all gathered in our common rooms to listen to the announcements from the Ministry on the WWN. When I heard that St. Mungos was gone, I wished more than anything that I had stayed in the Gryffindor dormitory. It seemed somehow even more horrible that I had to endure the news alone, without my sister and brother, and a terrible fear rooted itself in my consciousness. I was sure Mum or Dad must be dead or hurt. And what about Nana Molly or Papa, or any of our cousins?
My anxiety was relieved marginally when Dumbledore called me to the Headmaster's office. Seeing him sitting there behind the Headmaster's desk gave me an even greater fright at first. I thought he must have taken over the office again because Dad had been hurt too badly to continue or even worse. Lily and James came in almost immediately and I forgot altogether that I ought to be careful with Lily. Her pale face, so like Dad's, moved me to wrap an arm about her shoulders and to ask in dread, "Dad and Mum, are they …?"
"All right," Dumbledore said, "at least physically." His blue eyes held no hint of humor as he gestured for us to sit.
"It was your father who warned me," he added. "Both Harry and your mother are safe, but they are trapped at the moment in London at your father's office."
"At the Ministry?" James asked. I filled in when Dumbledore shook his head, "The Other Ministry. The Muggle Ministry?"
"So, if they're safe," I asked, "why did you call us here?"
"To reassure you," Dumbledore replied. "Harry has asked me to resume my duties as Headmaster so he can do what he must in the days to come. He knew," the old wizard continued, "that you would assume he had been injured or killed if I resumed the office without telling you."
I looked outside and thought how unreal it all seemed. The sun was setting over the Forest and everything appeared perfectly normal. Only, I could see through the window a strange procession of animals and creatures, leaving the Forest and entering the Castle, where such creatures never came. Tall Centaurs, many fewer than you would expect actually lived in the Forest, stamped in the door, swishing their tails and tossing their wild manes of hair as if they would bolt back to the Forest. Behind them came a herd of unicorns, urged along by several Veela maidens. It was a toss-up which was the more beautiful. When the procession ended, I could see in the vanishing rays of the sun, a fine net of light rising up over the lake to encompass the Castle. I had never seen anything like it and I turned in astonishment to ask Dumbledore what it was.
"An invention of your father's," Dumbledore replied. At my questioning look, he clarified, "Harry put the enchantment in place to protect the Castle but we never thought it would really come to this."
"What does it do?" James asked. "What is it?"
"A kind of shield spell," Dumbledore answered and I recalled with a surge of terror, the dome of light Dad had erected around himself and You Know Who - my father - when they had fought.
"No one can get in," I said hoarsely, "and no one can get out."
"Yes," Dumbledore said. "More precisely, the shield completely seals off what is in inside. Not even the air from outside the shield can get through."
"But why?" James asked.
I understood finally the enormity of the disaster then. "It's the Muggle weapons. The air has been poisoned. Everything is going to die and everybody who breathes it. All the plants and all the animals …" A kind of fury possessed me and I asked, "Why didn't we see it coming? Why didn't the Ministry do anything to stop it?"
"Your father saw it," Dumbledore said quietly, "but sometimes, not even the wisest, not even the bravest of all can prevent an evil man from doing what he will. And now, it will be left to us wizards to find a way out, you see, to unite as we never have, because the one who ordered this thing was himself a wizard."
"Hayden, you mean," I said. I knew instantly why he had done it, too. "He knew he could never beat Dad in a fair fight, in a wizard fight. He knew the only way he would ever get the power he wanted was to use a weapon that no magic could stop."
Dumbledore nodded and I thought that he would simply die then and there when I added in horror, "No magic can fix this. I don't see how anything can fix this, not in fifty thousand years, or even a hundred thousand."
Dumbledore sighed and sank into his chair. "We will do what we can," he said quietly, "so long as we can."
..........To Be Continued................
