Slowly, Harry entered the clearing on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, his wand at the ready. For all the good it’ll do, he thought to himself. After all, their wands proved absolutely useless against one another the last time he and Voldemort faced off in the cemetery before Tom Riddle’s grave. “Priori Incantatem,” were the words that Dumbledore had used that night in his office, following Harry’s safe return to the school grounds with the Triwizard Cup and a very lifeless Cedric Diggory in hand. The Reverse Spell Effect, as Sirius later referred to it, in essence explained the outcome when the two wands - each sharing the same core - had been forced to do battle with one another. Harry could still recall how his own wand forced Voldemort’s to regurgitate the previous spells it had performed. The last victims protruded from the tip of the Dark Lord’s wand in a ghostly fashion: first Cedric, then the old man, followed by Bertha Jorkins and finally Harry’s own parents. They spoke words of encouragement to Harry and in the end aided in his narrow escape.
But that was years ago, Harry reminded himself now and he cautiously looked about the forest. Before Sirius’ death and the duel at the Ministry of Magic; before Draco Malfoy’s betrayal and Dumbledore’s untimely demise at the hands of Professor Snape. Too much had transpired since that night in the cemetery for Harry to think, to even hope, that Voldemort would fight with anything as irrelevant as his wand. For Harry knew that whatever means Voldemort chose to use now, would surely be far worse.
“Ah, we’ve been expecting you Harry.”
The sound of Voldemort’s voice from behind sent a chill cascading down Harry’s spine ” as it always did. Harry stiffened at the back, cautiously looked over his right shoulder and turned to face the Dark Lord. Staring back at him were those same scarlet, slit-pupiled eyes that Harry had seen that night in the Atrium at the Ministry of Magic. They blazed beneath a pair of pale eyelids, mirthless and cold.
“We?” Harry replied, somewhat puzzled and he quickly scanned the area around them once more; there was no one else within sight.
“Why, yes…” responded Voldemort with a slight wave of his hand, as though the answer had been right in front of Harry the entire time.
And suddenly…it was. Drifting out of the shadows to Harry’s left were Ron and Hermione bound, disheveled and somewhat bloody. It was obvious that they had put up quite a fight. They stood there before Harry gagged and unable to move. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle stood silently behind them with their wands poised and annoyingly smug expressions upon their faces that Harry would have liked to remove with force. However, that was exactly what Voldemort would want him to do, to act on his emotions. No matter how disconcerting the situation was, Harry knew that the circumstances could have been far worse.
In the span of time it took Harry to breathe, he found out just how much worse, it actually could be; Ginny now stood directly in front of him. She was not bound and gagged, like the others, but enveloped by the arms of none other than Draco Malfoy. Harry felt his pulse quicken. His first instinct was to go to her, to make sure she was all right; but, he didn’t dare.
“I thought this was between us?” Harry replied and he steadied himself, as he once again addressed the Dark Lord.
“Oh, I assure you it is,” responded Voldemort.
“Then why not let them go?” Harry added and he motioned to the captives before him.
“Come now, surely you would agree that would be rather foolish on my part,” Voldemort replied with an air of delight at what he had obviously deemed a most ridiculous request. “No, they are far more valuable to me right where they are. But I give you my word, once they outlive their usefulness they will be disposed of properly.”
Hearing the implication in the Dark Lord’s voice, Ron’s eyes widened and a look of astonishment flashed across his face. Harry knew the look well, for it was the same one Ron always gave when confronted with something that unnerved him, usually followed by a loud gulping sound in the back of his throat as he swallowed. Unable to do so because of the gag lying in his mouth, Ron simply turned towards Hermione, whose steely façade only managed to slightly mask a small shudder.
“Well then, at the very least, why not release the Weasley girl?” Harry boldly pointed out. His eyes drifted towards Ginny. “After all, she has absolutely nothing to do with any of this.”
Harry prayed that he was not being as transparent as he felt. If he could only convince Voldemort of his indifference toward Ginny, then maybe, just maybe he could also convince the Dark Lord to let her go. Voldemort stared at Harry for a moment, pulling methodically at his chin as though he might actually be contemplating the request with some civility, before extending his view past Harry, to Draco Malfoy standing just beyond.
“What do you think, Draco?” asked Voldemort teasingly. “Should we release the Weasley girl, then?”
“No, I don’t suppose that we shall,” Malfoy answered and the devilish grin upon his face told Harry, in no uncertain terms, that Malfoy was not about to give Harry anything that he wanted.
“As a matter of fact, I’ve grown quite fond of this one…” Malfoy added. He held Ginny with one arm firmly around her waist. His other hand forcefully gripped her chin. She tried desperately to look away from him, recoiling from his touch as though she would sooner have spiders swarm upon her body than to allow a single fingertip of Malfoy’s to touch her.
“Even if she is a Weasley,” Malfoy scoffed. “I mean, after all, she is a Pureblood.” Giving Harry a hard, cold stare, Draco leaned in closer to Ginny’s neck and took in her scent.
“Get your damn hands off of her Malfoy!” demanded Harry. “Now!”
Harry shook with hatred and malice. He knew that he could withstand most anything, Ron and Hermione being held captive, even fighting Voldemort to the death, but not Malfoy’s hands on Ginny.
“My, my Harry,” came the cool, velvety voice of Lord Voldemort from behind. “So passionate you are about a girl that, up until this very moment…you’d have had me believe you couldn’t care less about."
There was no denying it now, thought Harry and he looked at Ginny almost as if to say how truly sorry he was for not being stronger, for not having the better sense to keep his mouth shut and his feelings in check. Now, everything he had done in the last year to protect her: breaking off their relationship, keeping her at arms length, refusing her help; it was all for nothing.
“Down, Draco,” Voldemort playfully commanded as Malfoy sneered the same self-satisfied expression as his two brainless counterparts, Crabbe and Goyle, had done earlier.
“All in good time,” the Dark Lord added indicating that he fully intended on letting Malfoy do whatever he wanted with Ginny when the time was right.
“Is that fear I sense in you, Harry?” The words dripped off of Voldemort’s tongue like venom. “You would be wise to be fearful,” he added circling Harry now like a shark to its prey.
Harry tried to remain steady on his feet. He did his best to maintain a safe distance between himself and Voldemort, but kept a close eye as well; dawn was breaking in the sky above.
“Don’t you know by now, foolish boy, that you can never beat me?” Voldemort mused with a hint of laughter. “You have no idea the lengths I have gone through to obtain immortality.”
“Don’t I?” Harry heard himself respond. He knew only too well indeed, for he had just spent the last year of his life seeking out and destroying each of those lengths, one by one. “You’re speaking of your precious Horcruxes.”
“Very good,” Voldemort replied with mock admiration. “I see you’ve been doing your homework,” he added, amusedly.
“Oh, I’ve been doing more than that,” replied Harry in his own glib, self-serving way. “And if you had done yours,” he quickly pointed out, “you would already know that they’ve all been destroyed.”
Surely, Harry thought, this news would come as a nasty shock to Voldemort. It would infuriate him, maybe even drive him further into madness. But instead, the Dark Lord just stood there looking at him as though he were slightly more interested in choosing his words carefully.
“Have you?” Voldemort finally replied quite calmly, much to Harry’s surprise. “You’re sure of that, are you?”
The Dark Lord’s cold, calculating eyes penetrated directly into Harry’s own as he spoke, causing Harry to slightly flinch with his own thoughts of self-doubt. Of course he was, thought Harry. All of them had been found and destroyed either by himself or someone else. Or had they?
Harry felt a sense of dread overwhelm his insides. He questioned what he had assumed all along to be the truth. Is it possible that they missed something? he wondered. No, they couldn’t have, Harry thought, quickly shaking the notion from his head. After all, they had taken painstaking measures to ensure that they had accurately located and effectively destroyed all of them. It seemed inconceivable to him now that they may have missed one.
Harry strengthened his resolve.
This is just Voldemort’s way of trying to throw me off, he assumed. But still, if I’m right, why wasn’t Voldemort furious or even, at the very least, desperate to protect the only portion of his soul left ” that which resided within himself.
“Suddenly, you’re not so sure,” mimicked the Dark Lord as though he had clearly read Harry’s mind. “Are you?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you Voldemort?” retorted Harry, “for me to doubt myself?”
“I daresay, you would be much too proud to admit it,” Voldemort scolded. “Even if it were true. So, I’ll tell you what we’ll do Harry,” the Dark Lord spoke as if he was always inclined to do the young wizard a favor. “Let’s retrace your steps, shall we?”
With his intensely white skull held high, Lord Voldemort strutted before Harry and his flowing black robe trailed obediently at his feet.
“As I am sure you are already aware,” the Dark Lord noted, “I successfully split my soul seven ways and concealed them in seven different objects or Horcruxes as you have already referred to them.”
Taking a slight breath more for affect than anything else, Voldemort carried on.
“The first object was of course…”
“The diary,” Harry spouted, cutting off the Dark Lord.
“Correct,” replied Voldemort without as much as a look in Harry’s general direction. “Yes, the diary. The place where I had perfectly preserved my sixteen year old self for nearly fifty years. That is,” he added bitingly, “until you saw fit to drive the basilisk’s tooth through it, utterly destroying the diary and one-seventh of my soul in the process.”
Harry couldn’t help but take a bit of pride in that particular triumph. He recalled the details in his mind.
“Which, by the way,” admitted Voldemort and he came to a halt in front of the young wizard, “was most painful to hear about. I don’t think I ever properly paid you back for that one, Harry.”
And before Harry even had a chance to react, Voldemort cast his first curse; silent and unexpected, he simply raised his wand. But instead of hitting Harry squarely in the chest, the curse sailed directly over his right shoulder striking Ron.
Ron’s body writhed and contorted with pain, his muffled screams barely audible behind the wad of material that had been shoved deeply into his mouth. Harry watched as Ron’s knees buckled. He dropped to the ground, and the bindings wrapped around his body constricted his every move.
He's nothing more than a sitting duck, thought Harry, just lying there waiting for the next strike and praying that it would never come.
Hermione’s eyes widened in disbelief. Harry was sure that she too had screamed out at the horror in front of her - her voice equally stifled by the gag sitting in her own mouth.
Behind him, Harry heard Ginny screaming Ron’s name repeatedly with some effort as she fought against Malfoy’s stronghold. Harry quickly raised his wand to retaliate, but as he turned back to the place where Voldemort had been standing, he found that the Dark Lord had now moved to within inches of Ginny. His pale, white, bony finger gently caressed her cheek.
“I would rethink that, if I were you,” cautioned the Dark Lord.
Harry lowered his wand.
Footnote:
“Priori Incantatem” ** Page 697, Goblet of Fire