Chapter Twenty-Eight “ His Mother’s Eyes
It was early afternoon when Harry appeared in the middle of a quiet Muggle street. Fortunately, he had made a previous stop and collected the Invisibility Cloak from Grimmauld Place. Aside from a few birds scattering, there was no evidence of his being there.
He was relieved to find that, despite the frigid air, there was very little snowfall on the ground, not nearly enough to leave footprints. Still, he walked gingerly on his tiptoes to the cottage at Number Eight. It was impossible for one to know what spies Voldemort had at his command, and Harry determined that he had to be overly cautious. As he approached, his lurking doubt was resurfacing.
It was a small, single story house that appeared to be very run-down, when in contrast to its neighbors. It certainly didn’t look like the headquarters of the embodiment of evil. The lawn was dead, covered in scattered patches of snow, and the concrete walkway was cracked in multiple places. One of the two front windows was broken, so when Harry tried the door and discovered that it was locked, he merely raised the window frame and climbed into the house.
In the middle of what he deduced to be the main living area, Harry came upon a very confused Death Eater. He was sitting up rigidly in an armchair and staring blankly at the window that had seemingly just unfastened itself. Harry couldn’t identify him, as Death Eaters were usually clothed in masks, but he struggled not to laugh aloud at the man’s befuddled expression. He was as round as Uncle Vernon, but he wore his ruddy hair down to his shoulders, a fashion that looked absurd on an older man such as himself.
“Crabbe!” he called suddenly, startling Harry.
“What is it?” came a grunt. Another man poked his head into the room, and Harry recognized him as Vincent Crabbe’s father.
“How old is this place?”
Crabbe frowned. “How the hell should I know? What does it matter anyway?”
The first man was sucking on the inside of his chubby cheeks thoughtfully. “I think it might be… haunted.”
Harry pressed himself against the wall near the window and tried to remain absolutely still.
“Haunted, you say?” said Crabbe derisively.
“That windowpane there - just slid open all by itself.”
“Rubbish!” Crabbe replied. “Sounds like your shift has been too long. Why don’t I find someone to take over for you?”
“Who?” asked the man in the chair. “Our numbers are dwindling. There are only three of us on duty today. The Dark Lord will be furious if he’s told that I’m too tired for the job. And I’m not, by the way. Let’s just forget about the window.”
“Your prerogative,” agreed Crabbe, and then he disappeared again into the adjacent room.
Harry now knew that there was only one other Death Eater in the house, unless the man in the chair was referring to Voldemort as the third, but Harry found this unlikely. Death Eaters never seemed to count Voldemort amongst themselves, instead revering him as a higher being of some sort. Harry almost choked on the thought.
Now his task was to get out of this room without drawing any more attention to himself. The problem with this was that he wasn’t sure in what direction he would find Voldemort. Snape had said something about a cellar, but there were two areas adjoining this room “ the first concealing Crabbe and the second appearing to be a hallway.
But then it struck Harry that his best bet was going to be to incapacitate all of the Death Eaters, in order to give himself a clear shot at Voldemort.
The Death Eater in the chair was still studying the window, an look of suspicion in his flabby features. He did not make a move to close the window again, and Harry could only assume that he was hindered by his fear of ghosts. So Harry aimed his wand at the man and focused his thoughts. He had never been too successful with nonverbal spells, however, and nothing happened. He was going to have to speak, which would alert the other Death Eater to his presence. Harry hoped that the senior Crabbe was as thick as he knew his son to be.
“Petrificus Totalus,” said Harry firmly, though as quietly as he could.
“What the“” stuttered Crabbe, appearing once again in the doorway.
Ready for him, Harry shouted, “Engorgio!”
Crabbe, who was not a small man to begin with, enlarged grotesquely and became instantly lodged in the doorframe.
“Who’s there?” roared the Death Eater. “Inferi!”
“Silencio!” commanded Harry. Then, in bewilderment, “Inferi?!”
Crabbe continued to shout and writhe, but he was entirely inaudible. His bulging eyes searched the room wildly for the source of the attack, his flesh making a squeaking noise as he thrashed against the wood.
Then, to Harry’s consternation, Crabbe’s swollen body broke free from the doorframe, the timber splitting vociferously, and the Death Eater came sailing in Harry’s direction. Harry flung himself out of the way and then scrambled to his feet, ready to battle Crabbe if the man was able to get upright.
There was another dilemma, however, for behind him, Harry heard a hideous grousing. It was not an unfamiliar sound, and he turned slowly, sick with fear.
Animated corpses were now pouring from the room, coming straight for Harry. He couldn’t count them, but it appeared that they could see right through the Cloak. The odor of decay was so overpowering that Harry found that he could no longer easily take in breath. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Crabbe attempting to crawl out of the room.
Harry swallowed the nausea rising up to the back of his throat and shot “Stupefy!” Crabbe’s inflated body ceased its squirming and went completely motionless.
Then he spun back around and managed, “Flagrate!” in the direction of all of the Inferi.
The spell ignited from Harry’s wand, and the stricken targets hissed wretchedly in reaction. A few of them were retreating, so he continued to launch the spell repeatedly. It wasn’t always a perfect shot, though, and he had managed to set fire to the rotting carpet, as well as to some of the fractured wood pieces that were dispersed upon the floor.
“Aguamenti!” he tossed at the flames around his feet. But as soon as one fire was out, he was lighting another, attempting to hold off the cadavers.
Swiftly, a vicious stinging lashed at Harry’s left arm. He wailed in pain, recognizing that the Cloak had caught fire, and dispensed water upon himself. The flames were extinguished, but the smoldering sensation remained. He bit down hard and ignored the throbbing, instead heaving more of the inferno at his aggressors.
They seemed deterred by the blaze, but there were still many of them blocking the desired hallway. Harry had to find a way to redirect them, to move them from his path. Continuing to shout, “Flagrate,” unrelentingly, he toyed with running outside, hoping they’d pursue him. But this was a Muggle street, he reminded himself, putting that plan out of the question.
Then he conceived that he could move them! “Mobilicorpus!”
The Inferi did not ascend in the slightest, and this seemed to convince them that Harry was running out of steam, so they made another strong advance, Harry all the while casting the conflagration charm against them.
But they were upon him. One of them seized him by his wand arm, and though its hand didn’t touch Harry’s skin directly, he felt his body go ice cold. He tried to shake the corpse, but it was to no avail. They were bearing down, and with their stench and their weight consuming him, Harry found himself wanting to give up, to just stop fighting, to die dutifully as he was probably meant to do in the end anyway. He struggled to grasp at the slippery strands of hope and motivation, trying to remember Luci’s spell, because it had made him feel so capable. He kicked at the Inferi, as they had now pinned him to the floor. His mind was scrolling through a list of spells, searching for something to get him out of this mess.
He decided on, “Clypeus!” and though his wand went with the Inferi, he found a solid barrier between the bodies and himself. Uplifted, he summoned his wand, and then he moved to a better position in the room, just in time for the protective bubble to dissolve.
“Wingardium Leviosa!” he chanted, when he’d gained enough ground, and the closest Inferius rose into the air. Harry had a crack at directing it back into the room, but this took too much time, and he was forced to drop the creature only a few feet into the process in order to defend himself from a new onslaught.
“Reducto!” he yelled, and then he began to use the banishing charm to send each dead body away from him, afterwards utilizing the levitation spell again, delivering them all back into the room from which they’d come. It was an extensive procedure, as many of them would wander back out once he’d gotten them in there. His solution for this was to begin to employ the binding spell, fastening them to one another.
Finally, the passageway that Harry hoped led to the cellar was relatively clear. There were still quite a few Inferi rambling through that front area, and flames licked here and there, but he couldn’t handle it anymore. His right arm was aching, his left arm blistering, his mind frazzled, his lungs constricting from the smoke. He took his chance and dashed past the adversaries and down the hall, flying through a doorway and then losing his footing, as a staircase had been awaiting him. He tumbled down it, hitting the bottom with a painful thud.
“Colloportus!” he waved breathlessly at the door above him, and it sealed itself obediently.
Harry got to his feet, pulling the Cloak back into place, and gasping for air. He bent down to retrieve his wand, which had been launched about a yard away from him. Then he straightened up to see Voldemort positioned before a large desk, in a high-backed chair, and he seemed to be penning something, his quill scratching obnoxiously in the silence.
He made no indication that he was aware of Harry’s company, even though it had been a very thunderous entrance. After a moment, however, he said without warning, “Ah, Potter,” and put down his quill.
Harry nearly jumped out of his skin.
As Voldemort turned his head to the side, Harry saw a piece of torn flesh on his neck, a lasting indication of the Sectumsempra spell.
The Cloak flew from Harry’s body. His stomach turning over, he sucked in a breath.
Voldemort rose magisterially. “Wondered when we’d be seeing you. You always did know how to make your presence known.” Then he paused. “Potter…” He sniffed delicately and turned his eyes to the staircase down which Harry had fallen. “Are you burning down my house?”
Harry gritted his teeth and disregarded the question. “If you knew I was coming, why didn’t you leave?”
The Dark Lord blinked serenely. “I desire battle with you as much as you desire battle with me. It is our destiny. I feel no need to flee from it. Come alone, have you?”
Harry’s fist was clenched around his wand, his fingernails digging into his palms. Voldemort appeared to be unarmed, giving Harry the perfect opportunity, but he felt unable to attack. He was yearning for some kind of resolution, some… answers. If he killed the Dark Lord, would there be anyone left who could give him the enlightenment that he so desperately needed?
“How’s your little dead girlfriend?” asked Voldemort balefully when Harry didn’t respond to his previous query.
Harry had to resist the urge to smile victoriously in response.
“Ah, not dead at all, I see. Interesting. Very desired skill, regeneration. Perhaps I’ll pay her a visit when we’re finished here?”
Enraged at himself for failing to at least attempt to close his mind, Harry seethed, “You touch her and I’ll“”
“You’ll what, Potter? Come back from the dead and haunt me?”
Voldemort smirked venomously. “You will be dead, you know.”
“We’ll see,” said Harry, the loathing like acid filling his gut.
“My new wand, Wormtail,” called Voldemort abruptly.
Wormtail! Harry had forgotten about him! He couldn’t recall seeing him at the Ministry when he and Luci had returned to the room. Perhaps Voldemort had valued him too much to allow him to stay in the battle.
“As you wish, Master,” said Peter Pettigrew sycophantically as he ambled into the room from a door that Harry hadn’t yet noticed until now, delivering a smooth wooden rod.
“Impedimenta!” Harry shot, striving to slow Wormtail so that he could then have time for a go at Voldemort.
But once again, he had underestimated the Dark Lord’s velocity. He had simply reached out his withered palm to obstruct the spell.
“I’ll take that,” said Voldemort, summoning Harry’s wand away from him.
Harry suffered a stab of panic.
“Hold onto this, Wormtail,” ordered Voldemort, and the servant swaddled Harry’s wand possessively.
“A new wand, Potter, to prevent any past mishaps from reoccurring, you see,” explained Voldemort disdainfully.
An insight floated into Harry’s consciousness. “You… you kidnapped Mr. Ollivander!”
Voldemort tilted his head in affirmation. “I did not kill him, however, so I’m sure you can forgive me.”
Hampered by the lack of a wand and practically melting in the heat of his own rage, Harry’s only option was to ask the questions that were pounding on the door of his mind. If nothing else, he could temporarily distract Voldemort and receive some answers before he met his end.
“That night, all those years ago, why did you offer to let my mother live?” His voice was as cold as he could make it. He refused to show any vulnerability.
The Dark Lord raised his eyebrows, interested in this turn of events. After a moment, he answered casually, “Well, you see, Wormtail here had been quite useful to me, and he fancied your pretty little mother, so I agreed to allow him to keep her for himself, assuming she didn’t get in the way. She did, of course, and it didn’t work out. Too bad, really. Wormtail has been rather lonely, haven’t you, Wormtail?”
Every muscle in Harry’s body was pulsing with anger, the new information like attrition to his heart. He turned to Peter Pettigrew. “You! You were there that night too! You let him kill her!”
“She was making things difficult for the Dark Lord. It was she who chose her fate.”
“You betrayed my mother and then you intended to imprison her? What is that “ like a love slave?”
Wormtail shrugged, a creepy sneer shadowing his features.
“They were your friends!” Harry spewed, the burning fury swelling tenaciously, and it was taking his entire strength to keep from exploding, from screaming, from violence.
“I got in with better friends,” Peter answered scathingly.
In a hot surge of rage, something broke inside of Harry and he lost control of himself. “Accio wand!” he commanded, and in an instant, his wand was back in his hands, and he had bellowed, “Avada Kedavra!”
With a disgusting plunk, Wormtail toppled backwards.
Voldemort, obviously caught off-guard by Harry’s actions, merely commented, “Pity.”
Harry growled with incense. “And you’re next!”
Then he swore aloud, realizing that he was spilling tears everywhere. He had just passed irrevocably across a line that had separated him from his former self. He had committed murder. And he would never be the same.
Voldemort was surveying him calmly. “For a moment, I thought perhaps your heart had grown cold. I almost considered asking you, once more, to join me. But it appears that you are still far too weak.”
“If I’m weak,” Harry began, trying to quell his emotion, “then why were you so afraid of me when I was nothing more than an infant? Why are you so eager to fight me now?” His stomach was writhing, and there was something repulsive clawing at the walls of his body from the inside. Was it the need for revenge?
The Dark Lord leered repressively. “Back then, I was only trying to avert events that would not be to my liking, were they to happen in the future. You mustn’t take it personally. Now…” He paused and ran his eyes over Harry, who probably looked quite an ineffectual wreck. “Well, I suppose I hoped you might someday be a worthy opponent for me, but, alas, you are still only a pathetic boy who too often succumbs to incapacitating human emotion.”
Harry felt as though his heart hit the soles of his feet and then bounced back up again. He remembered his strength, what he had to live for, who he had to live for. His human emotion was the greatest power that he could wield against the Dark Lord, or against any evil. He tried to keep this inspiration fresh in his mind.
“Is that why you haven’t taken my wand from me again?” he asked in an endeavor to sound unaffected. “You think I’m harmless?”
“Are you not?” inquired Voldemort glibly.
“I’ve been rather detrimental to you in the past, don’t you think?”
“I miscalculated your wily mother, perhaps, but you, Potter, have merely had very good fortune.”
“What makes you think that fortune has left me now?” asked Harry, in tones of outrage. He’d often had the same notion himself “ that his multiple survivals had simply been due to luck. But he couldn’t believe that, not now, not in this crucial moment.
“If fortune is on your side, she is the only one, for you are otherwise alone.”
“So are you.”
“Enough!” roared Voldemort suddenly. “I am not here to banter with you, boy! Ava“”
“Protego!” reacted Harry.
Voldemort hissed. “You’ve done it once this afternoon! Let’s see you try it again! Make your effort against the most powerful wizard the world has ever known! Or have you not the courage?”
He aimed his wand once more, but Harry threw, “Reducto!”
“Children’s spells, you imbecile!” barked the Dark Lord, rising again to his full height.
“I thought we weren’t here to banter? Caecus!”
The blinding spell Luci had taught him had hit Voldemort right between the eyes and he howled, “Curse you, Potter! What is this trickery?”
Harry grinned in triumph, but the Dark Lord seemed to suddenly morph into a different kind of being, his red pupils bleeding to the very edges of his eyelids, pushing out all of the white. Harry gaped in horror, in intrigue, forgetting the situation.
Voldemort was still fully capable of vision, apparently, for he positioned his wand firmly at Harry and snarled, “Avada Kedavra!”
Harry abruptly felt as though he was being crushed from all sides and he just knew that his head was exploding. Somewhere in the noise, he could hear screaming. Were those his own screams? He realized that his knees were aching, as he’d fallen onto them with full force. He put his hands to his head in agony.
“Her eyes!” he kept hearing. Over and over again, “Her eyes!”
White-hot pain was spreading from Harry’s scar, and he became assaulted by memories. Images paraded through his brain “ his mother, his father, the encompassing green light, the heartless laughter. A stream of faces materialized, people he’d lost, those he’d failed. He found himself fighting to keep the dark shadows of his past from smothering him, but he was being smothered. He couldn’t breathe, darkness pushing in on all sides, and there was so very, very much pain…
Eventually, some form of consciousness returned to him. He fell into a lengthy dream, wherein he was unable to see anything, but he could hear screaming, pleas for mercy, and heart wrenching sobs of infinite despair.