Chapter 25: Confrontations and Avowal
“And what’s this?!”
“What “ oh! You weren’t supposed to see that…”
Harry dove to retrieve the glossy photograph that Katie was doubled over in laughter with, but she quickly moved it from his reach.
“This is priceless!”
Harry resigned himself to ridicule and sat back down, taking a mouthful from the tall glass of darkly coloured porter and glancing around the near desolate Leaky Cauldron to see the few inhabitants pretending that they hadn’t been watching the young couple. He then looked back to Katie, who was giggling at the brilliantly timed photography of Colin Creevey.
“Colin must have slipped that picture in when I asked him to develop my film,” Harry grumbled as he watched his photographic-self fell once again in a comical, yet surprisingly graceful thud to the common room floor.
“I’ll have to thank him personally, then,” Katie mused, as she finally moved onto the next photograph in the stack Harry had presented her with, and her grin was quickly replaced with a scowl as she laid her eyes on a picture Harry had taken with Siobhan on Halloween night.
“Tramp…” she muttered almost incomprehensibly, before clearing her throat loudly and quickly moving along. Harry felt a bemused grin took at his lips, and quickly attempted to hide it with yet another swig of his beverage.
“I suppose you like it then?” Katie grimaced.
“What, seeing you all upset over nothing?” Harry answered.
“No, being fancied, having girls fawning all over you…giving me a reason to be jealous.”
“It’s one girl, and she doesn’t fawn all over me, Katie,” Harry said impatiently. “You’ve no reason to be jealous. You know very well I don’t return her feelings.”
“Still,” Katie pouted. “As much as I trust you, I don’t exactly sit well with the thought of you being so far away, perfectly vulnerable to all those girls -” Harry opened his mouth to protest, “ “ and don’t tell me it’s only Siobhan, Harry James Potter, because you can’t possibly believe you’re not in a position to be the object of lust and adoration.”
At this Harry nearly choked on his drink.
“Lust and adoration?” he repeated, trying to contain his laughter.
“Oh, you think it’s funny do you? You’re more clueless than I thought, then,” she said, before turning to Tom, the innkeeper and requesting another serving of vanilla galliano, which he summoned quickly for her.
“You’re too possessive and worrisome for your own good, you know that?” Harry said with a yawn, still grinning at the Katie’s comment about him being the adored by the entire female population of Hogwarts.
Katie raised an entertained eyebrow as she sipped the glittering, bright yellow liquid of her glass. “It comes with the territory of being involved with you,” she replied simply.
“Yes, blame it on that,” Harry said sceptically, before taking a glance at his watch. “You know, we should probably get going. Mrs. Weasley will go mad if we’re home after dark. And you still wanted to visit the Apothecary.”
“Oh, yes, you’re right,” Katie said suddenly. “I don’t particularly fancy walking about at night, either. Not exactly safe.”
Harry helped her put her cloak on, dropped a few galleons on the bar to pay for their drinks, and stepped out the back, his arm around Katie as he tapped the bricks to reveal Diagon Alley, which was no more populated than the pub had been.
“It’s unsettling. How quiet the whole world seems,” Katie said shivering, either from the chill of the night or the eerie hush that shrouded them.
“I know,” Harry replied in a hush, dropping his voice as although he was afraid someone would hear them.
There was a small jingle of bells as tall wizard exited a nearby store, and the sound of a solitary figure’s clicking heels down the alley; the rest was silence. Upon reaching the Apothecary, Harry and Katie wasted no time in ducking in through the creaky door and out of the now darkened cobblestone street.
While Katie approached the store owner to ask where she could find Re’em blood, Harry kept his eye on the frosty glass of the storefront. It had been so long since he’d been outside Hogwarts, he wasn’t used to such lack of activity, and it disturbed him. He felt a sudden rush of gratitude to be residing inside the safety of the castle and the guarding presence of Dumbledore, but at the same time, he realised that he was perhaps living under an illusion that the situation was not as dire as it was in truth, and that it might have been preventing him from taking action. Worse still, Katie was forced to live in the harsh reality that he had been rather blissfully ignorant to, and though he was trusting in the fact that no harm would come to her, he worried what she might be forced to bear witness to, especially working at St. Mungo’s.
“Are you alright?” Katie’s concerned voice asked, withdrawing him from of his anxieties.
“Yeah, just… thinking,” Harry said with a sigh. “Did you get what you needed?”
“Yes, now let’s get going before Molly goes mad with worry…”
“Molly?” Harry repeated.
“Well, yes. She asked me to call her Molly… and it’s taken some getting used to,” Katie said a bit uncomfortably. “I still call her Mrs. Weasley when I’m talking to her sometimes. But she simply insists. And she’s the same with Fleur.”
“She asked the same of Hermione, once,” Harry commented. “But never of me.”
“Well, I think she sees you as a son,” Katie explained. “While, Hermione and I are more like future-daughters-in-law.”
“Not anymore,” Harry muttered miserably.
“What?” Katie asked sharply.
“Hermione. Not you,” he said, grinning in spite of himself. “Again “ you’re too worrisome for your own good.”
Katie opened her mouth to chastise him, but never got a chance, as a black cloaked figure rushed past them, and a second pushed them to the window of a nearest shop, hissing ‘Watch it!’
Quickly, Harry and Katie dropped to the ground, and the wizard followed the first one.
“What the hell - ?” Harry asked, as more cloaked witches and wizards ran past them, followed soon by hooded pursuers. A jet of green light shot through the air and there was a scream of fear before it hit one of the hooded figures, who fell quickly to the ground. Harry watched wide-eyed “ he’d just witnessed a murder in the middle of Diagon Alley.
Most of the people before them, both the cloaked and the hooded, had stopped, and were now facing each other, wands poised steadily; Harry and Katie crouched lower.
“Check the body,” growled an all too familiar voiced witch to one of her hooded allies.
“It’s Parkinson,” was the muttered response.
“She was valuable,” the witch sneered regretfully. “Now “ you must pay the price.”
Before anyone could move, or even think, another jet of green light flashed brightly, and one of the cloaked figures fell to the cold ground.
There was a roar of anger and more spells ensued, but this time everyone was prepared, and light was deflected in all directions as the two sides waged in all out battle. Katie was clinging to Harry, and she gave him a fearful look. “What are we going to do?” she mouthed, both of them pulling out their wands as they looked for some kind of escape, Harry wishing desperately he had his invisibility cloak with him.
There was no clear path to make flight from, nor was there a nearby place to take sanctuary “ but Harry knew that if they stayed in place much longer, they were bound to be hit by one of the offshoots of spells. And so he gestured to Katie that they needed to move quickly, and she nodded in understanding as they both stood up and ran.
“Halt!” a woman screeched, and a two hooded figures quickly stepped out and apprehended both Harry and Katie, ripping their hands from each other. The duelling stopped as those involved looked on in curiosity as the hooded figures took Harry and Katie's wands.
“Let them go!” shouted a man in a black cloak. “They are civilians.”
“Well, then,” taunted the familiar-voice witch again, “perhaps we shall leave it up to the noble Militia to decide their fates.”
“Leave them out of this…” said a more tremulous voice, stepping forward. “This battle is between you and us. They have done nothing.”
“Oh, really?” the witch sneered. “Perhaps you don’t recognise our guests. I recall them doing quite as much, if not more, than you and your Militia to defy of the Dark Lord.”
“I recognise them, perfectly,” the quivering voice responded. Harry saw Katie staring painfully at the man, tears threatening to spill down her face; it was her father.
“And furthermore “ for all you knew, Mr. Borgin had nothing to do with our… cause… yet you showed up in his store and murdered him mercilessly. Mr. Potter here is no more of a civilian than he was.”
“We know very well what Mr. Borgin has been up to, you wench!” protested a squat woman in a horribly girlish voice. “He deserved exactly what he got!”
“Perhaps Potter and… Katie is it?” the hooded ringleader said with contempt, “Yes, perhaps Potter and the lovely Katie are deserving of their punishment, also.”
There was a tense silence, the Sphinx Militia were staring at Harry and Katie, petrified, while the Death Eaters were gathered around the witch, waiting for her orders, wands still pointed at the cloaked enemies.
“Bella,” said one of the Death Eaters. “You know we are not to harm Potter.”
“Well, the Dark Lord prefers we don’t do any lasting damage, but surely we can have a little fun with him.”
“But, Bella…” the woman protested.
“You aren’t going soft on the boy, are you?” Bella said derisively. “Just because of that foolish act of nobility today at the Ministry?”
“No, Bella “ I just think…”
“Silence!”
The other woman heeded Bellatrix’s command.
“Potter will remain relatively unharmed “ but of course, we will be bringing him with us when we leave, and then the Dark Lord can do with him what he pleases. As for dearest Katie, I’m sure our master will not mind what is done with her.”
“No, please “” Mr. Bell begged.
“I have had quite enough from you!” Bellatrix snarled, whipping her wand out at him and hissing the incantation for the Cruciatus Curse. “Crucio!”
Katie screamed as her father yelled in anguish, twitching on the ground while Bellatrix tortured him relentlessly. It seemed to go on for an age, and Harry’s heart was torn as he listened to Katie’s sobs. Finally, Bellatrix relaxed her wand, leaving Mr. Bell to breathe heavily on the cold ground.
“And now. Katie. I do believe it’s your turn.”
Bellatrix removed her hood, and Harry saw her gaunt face smiling mirthlessly at the pair of them.
“My foolish brother-in-law “” she began coldly, and there was a sound of grievance from the hooded woman who had shown remonstrance only moments before ““ allowed this one to get away last time, when he was in the perfect position to finish her off. All because he trusted that weakling of a son to do his dirty work. She will not be so lucky this time.”
The black haired woman walked with a prowl, and a few of her allies laughed cruelly as she finally lifted her wand to Katie, who stared defiantly back at her; Harry steeled himself for what was to come.
“Crucio!”
Katie closed her eyes bracingly, but when screams of pain echoed through the quiet night, they did not come from her, but from Harry.
Bellatrix quickly lifted her wand, her eyes widened in shock, causing her to look even more skull-like than usual. There was a murmur of bewilderment issuing through all the onlookers, Death Eaters and Militia alike.
“Bella “ you said we were not going to harm him!”
“I did not mean it!” Bella sputtered angrily. She stepped closer to Katie, and pointed her wand directly at her and uttered the horrible word again, “Crucio!”
Again, Harry howled in the excruciating sensation that tore at his body, and again, Bellatrix relented, more livid than before.
“What in the name of Salazar…?” she whispered dangerously.
Narrowing her grey eyes and pocketing her wand, she approached Katie, grabbed her ruthlessly by the hair and struck her hard across the face. Harry felt his own head jerked, as though his hairs were being pulled straight from his scalp, and he let out a gasp as he felt a heavy blow to his right cheek. Bellatrix eyed him in rage, and then ripped her nails along Katie’s skin “ Harry winced as he felt his own skin tear, blood spilling from the wounds and falling with a splash to the stone below him.
“Bellatrix!” objected the woman Harry had decided must be Narcissa Malfoy. “Clearly you are doing nothing but harming Potter! Stop this foolishness at once!”
“You can’t touch her.” Harry said solidly. “There’s nothing you can do to hurt her.”
“SILENCE, POTTER!” Bellatrix yelled in fury. “You think you are so clever. But you are now inches from the grasp of the Dark Lord “ we will see the end to the ‘great hero’ very soon.”
“You are not going anywhere with him,” protested a Militia member, stepping forward with his wand. “You’ll have to leave the Alley before you can even Apparate “ and we are not about to allow you passage.”
“Very well then,” growled Bellatrix confidently, and she turned to the men that held Harry and Katie. "If either one of you let go of them, you'll answer to the Dark Lord himself."
They nodded and Harry felt the grip on his body increase. He turned to see Katie, and found her looking at him in, confounded. "What just happened?" she asked breathlessly, her face tear-stained.
"I promise to tell you later," he said firmly, before giving her a look that told her to be ready for what was about to happen. She nodded almost imperceptibly, and Harry thought carefully about his wand. As the battle resumed, Harry saw figures falling to the ground - dead or stunned, he could not know - and he quickly took his chance. "Stupefy!" he yelled, and a jet of light issued from his wand, though it was held by another Death Eater, and hit the man that held Katie. He fell stunned to the ground and Katie was free.
She grabbed her wand and Harry repeated the incantation, and hit his own captor, who also fell unconscious. Harry took his wand and told Katie to run.
"But, Harry -”
"If you're hit, I'll only take the blow - we're both safer if you run!"
She looked at him reluctantly but quickly fled, shooting spells at all those in her way - Death Eaters and Militia members alike. Harry, however, did not move to follow her. Instead he moved towards Bellatrix, feeling all his loathing for her boil closer to his surface. This was for Ginny; for Sirius. She saw him approach and turned to face him, a manic grin on her face.
"Potter wants to play?" she said sardonically. "How brave you must be, knowing full and well I am not to harm you."
"Oh - but you are allowed to stop me," Harry replied. "Though I doubt you'll be able to."
"Don't be so -”
"Vigil Tenebrae!" Harry spat, focusing all his energy on Bellatrix's twisted mind.
She stopped mid-sentence, and stumbled forward, as though she could see only darkness.
"How does it feel, Bellatrix?" Harry said angrily. "To be blinded by your own fear?"
"What have you done to me, Potter?" she asked, unable to hide the tremor in her voice.
"What are you seeing, Bellatrix? Do you see what I see when I'm afraid? Memories of my loved ones being murdered?!" Animosity was taking control of him, and he fought back tears of rage and frustration. "Do you hear their screams? The sound of their lifeless bodies hitting the ground?!"
Bellatrix was now trembling in her fear, though her features carried creases of fury - Harry knew he didn't care what it was she was seeing or feeling, he just wanted her to know the pain and terror he had known for so long. Finally he decided she had had enough, and released his grip on her mind. As though she had been suffocating, Bellatrix drew in a sharp breath at finally being freed, and turned her grey eyes on Harry in a deadly glare.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
"Protego!"
The spell was deflected in plenty of time, and Bellatrix grew rigid with her growing aggravation.
"Would you rather I just finish this now, Bellatrix?" Harry offered. "Or would you rather I continue to allow you to make a fool of yourself."
"You think you have the power to kill me?" she scoffed.
"No, I don't need to kill you. I'll just make sure you're handed over to the authorities. Whatever I decide to do with you Bellatrix, you're no longer a free woman."
"Rather confident, aren't you? Just as much as your foolish father and my beloved cousin -”
"SILENCIO Harry roared, and Bellatrix could say no more; then, with another wave of his wand he uttered "Incarcerous."
Bellatrix was bound in ropes, her arms flattened against her side, her wand almost useless - and yet, Harry thought he saw a glimmer of a smile on her face as her eyes rested just past his shoulder. Quickly realising what this meant, Harry turned - "Chaos Protectum!"
Death Eaters had been charging towards him, preceded by a number of different coloured jets of light, but his powerful shield swallowed the spells whole, and caught the Death Eaters in it's gravitating hold, pulling them to him and swallowing them in it's darkness. The fell at his feet, knocked out, and he returned his attention to Bellatrix.
"Say goodbye to your freedom," Harry said finally, and he felt a sense of closure as he uttered his final spell against Bellatrix Lestrange. "Alsius Flamare!"
Bellatrix was consumed in blue flames, which turned her to living ice as she lay helpless on the street of the alley. Harry looked upon her in satisfaction just as Order members and Ministry officials gathered on the scene. Harry felt a trembling hand take his, and turned to see Katie beside him, looking at the unmoving body of Bellatrix.
"It's less than she deserves," he muttered.
"I don't think so," Katie said quietly. "You avenged Sirius and Ginny - and now she'll spend the rest of her life paying for her crimes. I say the longer she lives, the better."
Harry silently agreed, and Katie pulled her wand and waved it across his face in one quick motion. It was a moment before Harry realised she was healing the cuts that Bellatrix had left on his face.
“Harry “ what happened?” she asked as ran her hand over his now smooth skin. “Why “”
Harry took her hand, and ran his finger over the smooth diamond that was set in her engagement ring.
“When I gave this to you “ I promised that no harm would come to you as long as I remain alive “ the ring is charmed to help me fulfill my promise to you.”
“Harry…” Katie said unsteadily, her bottom lip trembling. “You can’t… that’s unfair to you…”
“You’re safe. That’s all that matters to me. Promise me you’ll keep the ring on.”
“I can’t…”
“Please, Katie. I won’t be able to sleep at night knowing you could be in pain. Promise me.”
He looked at her pleadingly, and she gazed back at him, defeated.
“On one condition.”
“Anything.”
“You have to promise that you’ll still be around to marry me when all of this is over.”
“I promise you,” Harry said, wiping the tears that now poured from her hazel eyes.
“Then… I promise to keep the ring on,” she said in a quivering voice.
The two left for the back alley of the Leaky Cauldron, from where they Apparated with a pop to Grimmauld Place and were greeted a frantic Mrs. Weasley.
“Oh, I’ve been out of my mind with worry! Are the two of you alright?!”
“Yes, Mrs. Weasley,” Harry said in complete honestly, thinking of the frozen Bellatrix and his vow to Katie. “Everything is absolutely fine.”