Title- Last Resort

One. Two. Three. Should be easy enough.

Harry strode forward, careful not to let his cloak slip in the slightest. His fingers tightened around the handle of Godric’s sword, and the familiar feeling helped to settle the rapid beating of his heart. No matter how many times he did this, it always left him jumpy. He wouldn’t have it any other way, though. Jumpy meant you weren’t calm, and calm is how you got sloppy.

And sloppy is how you got yourself killed.

He was getting close now, the shambling figures near enough to smell. One was an adult woman in a sundress, her pale white skin a sharp contrast to her bright blond hair that was speckled with stains of red. Her emotionless face was caked in blood, though whether it was her own or not was impossible to tell. The next was a man in jeans and a white button up. The shirt was torn in three separate places, one spot giving a clear site at his ribcage while the others showed off deep scars caked in dried blood. The last was a boy that couldn’t have been older than twelve, his mousy brown hair matted and messy. He was quite a horrifying sight, given that nearly half his jaw and one of his eyes were completely absent. They had been a family, it looked like, and muggle, based off the clothes. That was a relief- it made Harry’s job much easier.

Two years ago, when the dead first clambered their way back into the world of the living, Harry had tried to remember the face of every single one he put down. He’d thought it only right that he keep their memory alive after doing what he had to. But there was only so many faces one could remember, and as the list grew and grew, he couldn’t keep up.

Nor could he find it in himself to care.

He lunged forward, whipping off his cloak and slashing his sword in a single movement. The man’s head hit the floor, severed before he could react. The other two turned and lunged, guttural growls rumbling from their throats.

But Harry was already moving.

He stepped close to the boy and shoved him backwards with his free hand. As the small figure toppled backwards, he spun on the spot, meeting the woman’s charge with another slash. The enchanted steel cut through her neck like it was air, displaying sharpness beyond any mundane sword. Before the body had even hit the ground he had spun back around to face the last of them…Only to find a lunging figure a foot from his face.

Shit!

Harry grabbed the boy’s neck desperately, just about keeping him out of biting range. His hands strained to hold the gaping mouth away from his exposed skin. Spittle sprayed his face and rancid breath assaulted his nostrils as yellow teeth came closer and closer, centimeter by centimeter.

And then the scene was gone, the boy torn away from him and hurled to the ground. Pouncing on the opportunity, Harry leapt forward and sliced his sword down. He watched the decomposing head roll away from its body and let out a tired sigh. Not his best work.

“Losing your touch a bit there, mate?”

Harry tossed his cloak over his shoulder. “I owe you one Ron.”

Ronald Weasley had changed as much in two years as Harry himself had, if not more. Physically he looked much the same- gangly and awkward with long, bright red hair. But his eyes were harder, less optimistic than they had been once. Currently, those eyes were bloodshot and sitting above bags, signs of inconsistent sleep and all too recent tears. Harry’s own probably looked much the same.

“I know I was supposed to hang back in case things went really wrong,” Ron said, tapping his wand. “But it seemed like you could use a hand, and I’m not sure casting would be a good idea here, in any circumstances.”

Harry followed his gaze to where the roof and ramparts of a castle were peeking over the top of a rolling green hill. Hogwarts. “You’re probably right. Who knows how many of them would come running.”

Ron stepped forward and draped an arm across Harry’s shoulder. “We’re back to where it all started, huh?”

“I guess we are.”

They stared at the familiar rooftops for a few minutes, bathing in memories of better times passed.

It wasn’t until Harry noticed the sun was beginning to set that he realized how late it was getting. They’d wasted enough time.

“Let’s go,” he said, shedding his friends arm and turning his back on the castle. “The others are waiting, and we’ll need all the rest we can get.”

O-O-O-O-O

There were a lot of names for them. Zombies. Walkers. The Undead.

Harry called them his mistake.

He’d had no way of knowing the ramifications of his actions. How could he when he was the first to ever do it? But that logical part of his brain was never enough to keep the guilt off his shoulders.

The resurrection stone was one of the three Deathly Hallows, a gift from death itself capable of calling the dead back to the world of the living. It had also been, for a time, a horcrux. The dark soul magic mixed and muddled the item, unbeknownst to even the horcrux’s creator. It had mutated, waiting patiently for a trigger to set that power free. It found a new owner while it waited, and then another. That second owner died, and still it waited. Then he came back, and it found its trigger.

And with that, the dead rose to action.

O-O-O-O-O

The others were sat around a small campfire when Harry and Ron returned, basking in its warmth, and the two of them wasted no time in settling down to join them. Fire was a luxury they usually refrained from, for fear the sight or smell of it would draw Walkers. But with the task looming in front of them, and the events that were looming behind them, they needed all the luxuries they could get.

“Any trouble?” Kingsley Shacklebolt asked, the firelight reflecting off his dark skin and bald head. The former auror’s often-serious face was particularly grim as he eyed them critically, checking for signs of injury.

“Do you even have to ask, Shack?” Parvati Patil leaned forward where she was sitting, resting her chin against her knees. “You know how many times they’ve done this before.”

Kingsley frowned. “Now is no time to get complacent.”

There was a hollow laugh. “When is there ever a time to be complacent these days,” muttered Dawlish. The man was gaunt, with a crazed look in his eyes that never seemed to fade anymore. “You relax, you die. I think we’ve all seen that by now.”

“Maybe,” said Kingsley, “But it doesn’t change that now is a particularly bad time.”

Dawlish snorted, brown eyes glittering in the firelight. “Right. How could I forget? We’re hurling ourselves into the goddamn epicenter, without even being told why.”

“You know why,” Ron broke in, glaring at the older man. “Harry has an idea. A way we might be able to end all of this.”

“And yet he won’t so much as tell us what it is,” said Dawlish, a bitter smile on his face. “Bloody great idea it must be then. Definitely worth throwing our lives away for.”

“No one’s keeping you here. If you want to turn tale and ditch, be my guest!”

Ron and Dawlish glared at each other. Their hands began slowly inching towards the wands sitting beside them.

“Enough.”

Harry stood as he spoke and was acutely aware of everyone’s attention shifting onto him.

“You have reservations,” he said to Dawlish. “I understand why. Even I’m not certain if my plan will work. But we have to try something…We have nothing to lose.”

He looked around at the assorted faces. Ron and Kingsley watching him with complete confidence, Parvati smiling tiredly, Dawlish staring back defiantly…and the last member of their group, her face utterly neutral.

“He’s right,” Tonks said morosely, speaking for the first time. “Look at how few of us are left.”

Long gone was the vivacious punk with flashy pink hair. These days her appearance was styled very differently- rounded face, brown eyes, and medium-length brown hair. She kept herself muted and unassuming, in both appearance and behavior, having internalized the lesson ‘sticking out bad’.

Harry couldn’t help the twinge of sympathy he felt whenever he saw her. Lupin had been one of the Walker’s first victims, and he’d fallen saving her. His death had torn her to shreds, and then when she’d returned home and found Andromeda and Teddy…Well, it was no surprise she was never the same person after that.

“I can’t promise you we’ll survive this,” Harry said firmly. “But what I can promise you, is that we won’t survive if we keep on like we have been.”

The others looked away, harsh memories bubbling up. Ron’s hand balled into a fist. Parvati glanced longingly at the empty space next to her. A few month ago they’d had 10. Go back a year and the number was well over twenty.

“We have to try something,” Harry continued, still standing. “And to do that, we follow the plan tomorrow, and make sure we rest now while we can. Any questions?”

A few heads shook and the rest just kept staring forward. No one spoke.

He took that as a yes and sat back down, trying to hide just how tired he truly felt.

Time to take his own advice.

O-O-O-O-O

For wizards, the concept of animated corpses wasn’t an alien one. Inferi had long been well-known, albeit rare, magical creations. They were mindless and magicless things with an acute weakness to fire. If Walkers were the same as Inferi, their threat would have been dealt with quickly.

They were not.

Walkers were not mindless. Unintelligent maybe, but never mindless. They possessed an animalistic sort of cunning, always using crude strategies as they hunted. Fire was nearly useless, same as most other methods of injury. They could be crippled like any other body, but there was only one way to truly end one: decapitation.

Their only visible goal was to make as many of themselves as possible, hunting down the living one by one. A single bite was all it took to turn a creature into a Walker, the change taking effect within an hour.

And yet, even with all this, they should’ve posed no threat to witches or wizards. These were people that could create explosions and teleport at the drop of a hat. Their magic should have proved an insurmountable gap. But it didn’t.

Why?

Because Walkers had magic too.

Any witch or wizard that was turned could wield their wand almost as well as they had in life. It was a lesson both sides at the Battle of Hogwarts learned harshly, as Death Eaters, aurors, and Order members alike suddenly found themselves under attack from fallen comrades and defeated enemies with no prior warning.

Before anyone truly understood what was happening the Walker’s numbers had tripled. By the end of the day they had tripled again.

O-O-O-O-O

Harry crouched at the edge of the Forbidden Forest in the shade of a tree, tapping his foot anxiously.

“It should’ve been me,” he muttered for the thousandth time, only to feel a fist cuff the back of his head.

“We’ve been over this, Harry,” Ron said, standing behind him. “You’re the only person it couldn’t have been- we need you here and healthy to get the,” He cleared his throat and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Stone.”

He was right, but that didn’t make Harry like it any better. “We could have done something differently. Come up with a different plan.”

“No, we couldn’t have, and you know it. Coming up with plans has never been our strong suit, especially without…y’know…” he trailed off, grimacing at the recent memories. “A distraction was our only shot, and Kingsley made his choice- you need to respect that.”

Harry stared sideways towards the corner of the forest, beyond which he knew Hogwarts lay. Then he looked back over his shoulder at his group- Ron standing close to him, Dawlish polishing the rusted machete he’d taken a liking to, Parvati laying on the grass looking at the sky, and Tonks sitting listlessly off to the side, staring blankly at a tree. It was hard to accept that Kingsley was risking his life for them right then, drawing the attention of as many Walkers as he could. Clearing them a path while they simply sat around and waited.

But he’d have to accept it. This was the only way forward.

“Fine,” Harry relented, looking back at Ron. “I give in. You’re right.”

“Make a habit of it,” his friend said, giving him a wink and a forced smile. “You’ll be better off in the long run.”

A boom wrang out far away, the magically amplified sound of a high-powered explosion.

“There’s the signal, people,” Harry called out, pushing himself to his feet and grabbing his sword. “Time to get this show on the road. Ron, to my left. Parvati and Tonks, you two stick on the right. Dawlish, you’re taking up the rear.”

They all slipped into their spots quickly and quietly. Ron hefted up a large club. The girls both drew long cooking knives. Dawlish gripped his machete with more purpose.

Satisfied, Harry gave a short nod and the group set off into the woods.

They clambered over mangled masses of roots, under a canopy thick enough to blot out the morning sun. The Forbidden Forest had always been ominous, but the knowledge that every wide trunk or thick bush could be sheltering a Walker brought it to a whole new level.

The first one appeared twenty minutes in, a short figure wearing torn Ravenclaw robes. She couldn’t have been older than thirteen when she died. Harry held up a hand to stop the group, pointing toward where she stood with her back turned, a hundred feet further in. He made another gesture and the others scrambled away from him, slipping in between the trees to hide themselves from sight.

Satisfied they wouldn’t been seen, Harry slipped under his cloak and began closing the distance.

At thirty steps he could make out her dirty black hair. At twenty he saw the tell-tale bite mark on the side of her neck. At ten the smell hit. At two he stepped forward and swung. She never got the chance to turn around.

Harry waved his hand in a ‘come forward’ gesture to his team and they fell back into step behind him, stepping over the now still Walker as they went.

O-O-O-O-O

Culture dictated that a wizard or witch was to be buried with their wand in hand, on land by where they were raised. There were exceptions, such as those buried somewhere special to them or those whose wands were left to a family member, but they were few and far between.

It was symbolic. The location was said to keep them grounded and remind any visitors where they came from. The wand was buried with them to show it was a part of them, as well to commemorate all they had done with it.

No one had ever guessed it would come back to bite the living.

All across the country – and indeed the world – graveyards were turned upside down, wooden coffins and layers of Earth blasted away as their occupants rose up.

The pureblood families were the first to fall, the size of their family burial grounds working against them. That nearly all their skilled combatants were away at the Battle of Hogwarts only made the process faster.

Those that ran from Hogwarts looking for refuge in their manors found only more enemies, many of them with familiar faces.

O-O-O-O-O

“Shit,” Dawlish cursed.

“Shhh!” Harry whispered harshly. “Don’t make noise- you’ll draw their attention.”

A clearing stretched out in front of them, just past the trees they were taking shelter behind. It should’ve been a welcoming sight, the green grass and sunlight a pleasant change from the dense, dark forest they’d traveled through the last few hours. Instead, the group was lurking out of sight, watching a group of figures wander aimlessly.

They were tall things, seven of them, clopping about on their four hooves. From the waist up they looked almost human, though not all of them were whole- one was missing its nose, another missing half of its fingers. All of them carried bows, a few crude arrows resting in quivers on their backs, and all of them had a visible bite mark, though each’s rested in a different spot.

Centaur Walkers, right in the path they’d been following. They had to get to the other side somehow, either around them or through them. Harry glanced at his group’s crude weapons, then back to the massive, well-armed creatures. The choice wasn’t a hard one.

“We’re going around,” he whispered. “Back away and we’ll swing around to the right.”

The others nodded and started moving. Harry lingered a moment, making absolutely certain they hadn’t been seen. The centaurs never even looked in their direction.

Then a shriek pierced the forest and Harry spun.

Parvati was on the ground, holding shaking hands in front of herself protectively, trying to fend off an attacker that was no longer here. Dawlish was standing beside her, the headless body of a squirrel at his feet, its right side showing the scar from an old, humanoid bite.

“Are you okay?” Harry asked, dropping to Parvati’s side.

“She wasn’t bitten,” said Dawlish, flicking his machete to clean the blood off. “I got it as soon as it jumped on her.”

Harry gave him a nod. “Good work.”

He grunted and looked away.

“Uh, Harry?”

Harry looked at Ron and found him staring toward the clearing, eyes wide.

With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Harry twisted back around. Through the trees he could just about see it. All the centaurs had stopped…

And they were looking right at them.

O-O-O-O-O

In the days after the Walkers first rose up, the survivors began to spread out. They’d seen what happened to those that got caught and wanted no part of it. They fled to the countryside, looking to buy themselves time by running.

Unfortunately for them, they didn’t yet understand the Walker’s.

O-O-O-O-O

A low branch scratched his cheek as he ran, drawing a thin line of blood. Harry didn’t stop.

Ron was beside him, pulling Parvati along as she did her best to keep up. Ahead of them were Dawlish and Tonks, and Harry stepped up the pace to draw alongside them, the sound of thundering hooves in the background.

“We need to find somewhere they can’t follow us,” Harry said to them between breaths. “They aren’t going to get tired like us.”

“Easier…said…than…done!” Dawlish huffed irritably. Beads of sweat were already running down his forehead, and his shirt was beginning to stick to him.

Harry tried desperately to think of a place for the group to take shelter, but it was a losing effort. He’d spent time in the forest, but he was no Hagrid; the only reason he knew the way to their ultimate destination was how memorable it was for him. For the rest of the forest, he was damn near lost.

There was a thwack behind him, and Ron let out a yelp. An arrow had lodged in the tree just to his right. The group sped up, but Harry could hear how labored Dawlish and Parvati’s breathing was getting. They couldn’t keep this pace up much longer.

Suddenly, a figure stepped out from between the trees, only a few feet in front of them. It was a middle-aged brown-haired Walker, the left half of his face a torn and bloody mess. Something about him seemed familiar to Harry, but his attention was quickly occupied by the Walker’s already raised wand, and the cutting curse that came flying from it after a guttural incantation.

Dawlish, the only one in the spells path, was forced to hurl himself to the ground, and Harry darted around him, closing the distance before the Walker could cast again. Behind him, he was distantly aware of Tonks sliding to a stop, her mouth dropping open.

The gap was too great for Harry’s sword to reach the Walker’s neck, but that wasn’t his target. Instead he lashed out at the still-raised wand, cleaving it in two. The wand parts separated with a hissing pop, their magic fading, and Harry stepped forward and swung his sword back around, eager to cleave the now-defenseless Walker’s neck.

What happened next was a blur. He saw the white of the Walker’s remaining eye and finally recognized who it had once been, just as his sword sliced through its neck. He heard Tonks’ voice shriek “Expeliarmus!” with fervent desperation. And then he felt his body launch forward, his sword flying from his hand and spinning in the opposite direction.

He landed with a thud against a large clump of roots, the impact jarring him into a daze. There was a moment of stillness as everyone processed what happened, the only sound coming from the hooves of their not-so-distant pursuers.

He looked back at Tonks, ready to tear into her over just what she thought she was doing. He froze.

Somehow, she was still standing, wand in her hand and blank eyes fixed on the severed head of the Walker. Of Remus Lupin. Embedded in her stomach, blade sticking clear out the other side, was Harry’s sword. It felt like slow-motion when she fell, an eternity between when she first toppled forward and when she finally landed, face down, beside the body of her husband. Her wand slipped from now-loose fingers to rest on the ground.

And in the distance, it started.

A slight shaking of the ground and a distant rumbling. The signs of hundreds of legs sprinting in the same direction as fast as they could.

The Walkers around Hogwarts were on the move. All of them.

And they were heading right for Harry’s group.

O-O-O-O-O

Harry wasn’t sure who’d first figured it out. Hermione, maybe, or even Padma. All he knew was it took two weeks and far too many deaths to get there.

They’d been the largest group of survivors to escape the Battle of Hogwarts, a ragtag combination of aurors, Order members, and students that managed to flee into the Scottish countryside. But no matter how far they ran, they could never seem to get away.

When they conjured tents, the Walkers found them. When they engorged food, the Walkers found them. Even apparition only bought so much time, Walkers tracking them down in a matter of hours.

It was magic, they’d eventually realized. Walkers could sense magic.

Whether it was an unforgiveable or a coloring charm, if you cast it near a Walker, the Walker would know and come running. Magic made them easier to fend off, but from the moment you gave in and used it, they wouldn’t stop coming.

So the group had to improvise. Magic was used as sparingly as possible, only as a last resort. They found themselves makeshift weapons, blades and clubs they could scavenge up to deal with muggle Walkers. Harry took up Godric Gryffindor’s sword once more, pulling it from Neville’s loose fingers with a heavy heart. They learned how to raid supermarkets and take shelter in abandoned buildings. How to get by without the magic they were so used to.

But it still wasn’t enough.

O-O-O-O-O

Time seemed to be standing still.

No one was moving, and Harry couldn’t take his eyes off Tonks. He’d lost friends before. Too many times to count. But this had happened so suddenly. So unexpectedly.

His own sword had done it.

“Goddamn it, Potter! Move!” Dawlish screamed, have risen to his feet.

He kept staring. Her appearance didn’t change or shift. The forgettable face and boring brown hair would be immortalized, the pink punk look gone forever. It was all so wrong.

“I. Said. Move!”

Harry found himself hauled roughly to his feet. Two hands rested on his shoulders and shook him.

“If you don’t get your head out of your ass right now, you’re getting left behind.”

Harry blinked, his eyes finally focusing on the furious face of Dawlish hovering in front of him. He shook his head and pushed the thoughts down. There would be a time for all that later.

If they were lucky, that was.

“Right,” said Harry, forcing himself back into his leadership role. “Wands out, everyone! No point in avoiding magic now. That ship has sailed.”

He aimed his wand at the path they’d come from, just as the centaurs came into sight.

“Ron. Shield.” The redhead waved his wand and a shining blue shape shimmered into existence, repelling the arrows that were sent towards them. “Diffindo. Incendio.”

Harry’s first spell sliced through the truck of a thick tree in the centaurs’ path while his second set it ablaze. In the tightly packed forest, the fire wasted no time in spreading.

Harry ran over to Tonks’ body and, with a wince, pulled his sword free. “All right people, time to run like our lives depend on it!” He pointed toward where the Walker horde could be heard and tried for a smile, only managing a grimace. “Because they do.”

O-O-O-O-O

The group’s rate of losses slowed significantly after avoiding magic. Rather than a casualty a day, it became a casualty a week. Then one every month. But no matter how much it slowed, it never stopped.

Something would always go wrong. Proudfoot didn’t see the Walker in the second-story window until it jumped out on him, mouth first. Emmeline Vance tried to summon her picture of her father after losing it and couldn’t escape the mob that formed. Lavender Brown couldn’t take the state they’d had to live in, so she took the only way out she could see.

Harry could name more. So, so many more. Then there was what happened in Barnes, on the outskirts of London.

That was the final straw.

O-O-O-O-O

Roots blurred by under his feet as Harry sprinted at the head of the group, his 15-inch wand clutched at the ready in his hand.

It was only a matter of time until he’d need it. The sounds from the Walkers had only been getting louder, even as his group ran as quickly as they could- which wasn’t all that fast. Dawlish and Parvati had already been forced to slow to a jog, and he and Ron had matched their pace, unwilling to leave half their group behind.

Two days ago he’d seen the Hogwarts grounds, scouting it with Kingsley from a nearby hill. Either most of the Walkers had never left after the original battle, or more had been drawn there in the time since because the area had been dripping with the things. There were hundreds, at least.

Trying to fight them had been, and still was, a lost cause. Against that many opponents they’d be overwhelmed before you could say stupefy. It was why Kingsley had proposed his role.

He’d separated from the group that morning, trekked to the opposite side of the school, and started casting. He’d promised to only do a few spells before running for the ward line and apparating away. It was the only way Harry would agree to it.

But none of that mattered now. Their whole plan had revolved around avoiding all magic. Sneak in, get the stone, sneak out. That was off the table.

The only chance Harry saw for them was getting to the stone, and him figuring out how to reverse whatever it had done all that time ago…And he would have to do it in a few minutes at best.

Did he like those odds? Not in the slightest. But anything was better than zero.

Behind him Dawlish cursed and tumbled to the ground.

“Cramp,” He gasped, squeezing his calf and trying to get back to his feet. He hobbled a few steps before dropping again, hissing in pain.

“Wingardium Leviosa.” Ron said, and Dawlish floated up off the ground.

He glared at the redhead. “I could’ve made it work, Weasley.”

But he also didn’t fight to be put down. They started moving again.

“Once the first ones get to us,” said Harry. “They aren’t going to stop coming. If we stop to fight we’ll be swarmed. We have to keep moving at all costs.”

He pondered what the best spells would be to delay the Walkers. Fiendfyre would burn them to ash, but it would consume his group just as quickly. Severing charms could work on a few targets, but the area of effect was too small. Blasting curses, maybe?

A green spell flashed across his path, missing by a few yards but providing a warning. He looked right and caught sight of the first of the Walkers, a death eater with mask still on its head, even as its robes were torn and ripped. He snapped a curse off at it and noted with satisfaction that it hit, the thing’s head exploding in a gory mess.

The satisfaction dissipated when three more immediately took its place.

“Change of plans!” Harry yelled. He waved his wand and Parvati rose into the air with a startled squeak. He and Ron made eye contact, exchanged nods, and sped up, pushing their bodies as fast as they could go.

Spells flew haphazardly across their path, but their moving frames were proving difficult targets. A piercing curse brushed Harry’s back and drew a wince. An exploding charm struck a tree spraying him with slivers of wood.

Harry wished he had a broom. He’d be faster on a broom. At this pace they weren’t going to make it.

More spells rained down. His left hand was struck, and he heard a crack as pain flared up. Behind him, Ron cried out but didn’t fall. They kept running.

Harry’s breath was coming in bursting pants now. His chest was burning almost as much as his hand. A Walker leapt into their path but was sent careening away by a banisher from Parvati. He put his head down and forced himself to go faster.

A thud, and a curse. Ron had been hit, knocked to the ground. He wasn’t moving. Dawlish was on his feet, but still limping. Harry jerked his wand and both of them rose into the air.

He couldn’t slow down.

The triple levitation required focus. The pain of running made focus hard. Somehow, he was doing both.

But it wasn’t enough.

Walkers were appearing.

The spells were increasing.

A bludgeoner hit his stomach. He felt a rib crack.

He kept going.

Something was looming ahead of him now, a brown blob that was slowly growing bigger. Was it more roots? A fallen tree?

It was getting closer, and so were the Walkers. No, Harry was getting closer to it, and the Walkers were getting closer to him. That was it.

He tripped but managed to keep his feet. The smell of decay was all around him, filling his nostrils with every desperate breath.

The shape was close now, close enough to recognize as a…fence? Small wooden posts running together, the kind you’d see around a garden.

Harry didn’t have long to process the information. A blasting curse struck near his feet, close enough to send him flying forward.

He crashed straight through the fence, landing on his side and skidding across the ground of a small meadow. Around him, he could hear a succession of impacts, the sounds of the others hitting the ground like he had.

He could barely think. His ears were ringing, and his head hurt as much as the rest of him. All he could manage was one repeating thought.

This is it.

Slowly, he staggered to his feet. He would fight, and he would lose. But that was better than lying down and accepting death. He tried to drop into a dueling stance, but only managed to bend a little lower and grip his wand a little tighter. He waited.

The strongest blasting curse he knew was poised on the tip of his tongue, ready to spring out at a moment’s notice. As soon as the first Walker appeared he’d reduce it to goddamn mist. The first one…

He was still waiting. He shouldn’t have been.

For some reason, the Walkers weren’t coming.

With the realization he felt his adrenaline fade. Before he could even think about questioning just why they weren’t coming, his body gave out. With a final groan, he fell backward into unconsciousness.

O-O-O-O-O

Barnes was a quiet, unassuming place. A sleepy suburb nestled between Fulham and Brentford with nearly nothing remarkable to its name. That was why they’d picked it.

London was at once dangerous and safe for Harry’s group. It was crawling with muggle Walkers, filling the streets and clogging the buildings. But aside from a select few areas, there were almost no wizards or magic creatures.

It was also the most reliable place to find supplies. As time dragged on, more and more food had spoiled or been used up. It had reached to the point where urban centers were the only places with enough grocery stores to have anything left for scavenging.

Once a month, the group would head somewhere into the city and collect as much as they could carry. It was a task they’d done time and again, and one they were thoroughly accustomed to. The only thing that changed was the suburb they’d hit.

Barnes was the last one they ever did.

It was dangerous, but not overly so. Harry’s cloak allowed him to scout ahead and clear a path for the others. They’d follow after the way was ready, and he’d do it all over again to get them out.

The final run had started out the same way; Harry didn’t even know something was wrong until he finished his part.

When he came back to say the way was clear, he found half as many people as he’d left.

O-O-O-O-O

When Harry awoke it was to the smell of food and the sound of voices. He was lying on something…not soft, but softer than the ground. His eyes opened blearily, and he tried to make sense of his surroundings.

“So then your brothers look at me, and they have the bollocks to say, ‘It wasn’t us, sir’.”

There was a round of chuckles.

“Those twins were something. Never let me get a moments-” The voice cut off. “Oh, Mr. Potter! Back to the land of the living so soon?”

Harry tried to place the strangely familiar voice as his vision came into focus and his brain back online.

“Here, need a hand there lad?”

An arm gripped his shoulder and helped him into a sitting position, leaning his back against a wall. He looked up at his helper and found an aged, wrinkled face with a terribly receding hairline.

“Much better. Now, Weasley, your brothers may’ve been the worst, but this little gremlin wasn’t too far off. Lost count of how many times I’d find him skulking around. Though I don’t need to tell you that- you were always right there at his side!”

Harry reached up and rubbed his eyes, wondering if he wasn’t still asleep and dreaming. But when vision returned the scene hadn’t changed a whit. It was clearly Argus Filch, the grouchy squib that had been Hogwarts’ caretaker, standing alive and well, and chatting amicably. Harry wasn’t sure which was more surprising. He was even smiling for Merlin’s sake!

They were in a small room with a dirt floor and walls of plain wood. There was a solitary window, dusty aged class letting in a bit of sunlight. The door was closed but still showed slivers of the outside around its edges, signs it didn’t quite fit right.

Harry himself was lying on an old bed, its aged mattress stained stiff. A few crude wooden chairs dotted the room, edges rough and corners clumsy. Ron was sat in one, leaning back and rubbing a nasty purple bruise that covered his left cheek. When he saw Harry, he broke into a grin.

“You had me worried there for a bit, lying there not moving. Good to see sleeping beauty’s still with us.”

From the corner she was leaning against, Parvati rolled her eyes. “Do you have to tease him first thing after he wakes up?”

“Have to? No. Want to? Hell yes.”

Harry felt a weight he hadn’t even noticed lift from his shoulders. He was alive, and, more importantly, the others were too.

“How are you feeling?” Filch asked him.

Harry thought about it for a moment. “My head hurts and I can’t use my left hand. So better than I expected.” He glanced around the room expectantly. “Where’s Dawlish? Is he back on his feet already?”

Parvati looked away. Ron’s smile faded.

“Dawlish…didn’t make it Harry,” Parvati said softly.

Harry stared at them. “What? But we escaped! The Walkers stopped coming after us, how could he have…”

“It’s true,” Filch said gravely. “By the time I found you he was already gone. One of the spells got him.”

Harry reeled. Dawlish may’ve been unpleasant, but he had always been reliable. He’d saved Harry himself multiple times, and others in their group a whole lot more. Harry’s good hand clenched into a fist, and he felt tears well up. “Both Dawlish and Tonks in one day.” The hand lashed backwards and struck the wall. “Damn it.”

Filch looked between the three of them before turning and making for the door.

“I’ll give you all some space,” he said over his shoulder. “Feel free to come get me if you need anything.” He started to slip outside but stopped halfway and looked back at Harry. “The other one you lost, was it close to here?”

Harry blinked. “No. No not really. Why?”

“No reason, just thought there might be a body to bury.”

And he swung the door shut with one more commiserating smile.

Silence hung in the air for a few moments, none of them knowing what to say. This was everyone that was left. The realization struck Harry like a hammer. Maybe they could find Kingsley, but the odds were slim. Who knew where he’d had to run to. No, for all intents and purposes, Harry’s group was now a party of three.

He didn’t want to think about that, so he changed the subject.

“Is that really Filch?”

“Has to be, right?” said Ron. “I mean you saw him. A little gaunter, a little paler, but other than that he’s a spitting image.”

Harry frowned. “I know he looks like him. He just doesn’t act like him. I didn’t see him smile like that once in six years, let alone chat and joke!”

Parvati smiled sadly. “Everyone’s changed Harry. The ones that couldn’t…they’re not here anymore.”

“But how is he here,” Harry wondered. “Even if he can’t cast magic there’s no way he avoided every Walker for two years. And how are we here, for that matter? Where did the Walkers go?”

“Oh,” Ron said. “That, you’ve got to see.”

///

“Whoa,” Harry murmured.

Ron nodded beside him. “It’s a real sight, isn’t it? Damn creepy…”

They were stood outside Filch’s shack, back in the meadow they’d been blasted into. All along the tree line’s edge were Walkers, tons of them, standing utterly still, shoulder to shoulder. The only movement they showed was their eyes, which moved slowly to follow whatever person was closest to them. Harry stepped first right, then left, and watched ten of the things track his progress without missing a beat.

“Yea,” Harry agreed with a shiver. “But I’ll take creepy over dead.”

There was a slight pause. Then Ron said, “Yea! I feel you mate!”

The redhead picked up a small stone and chucked it at a Walker in auror robes. The projectile collided with its forehead, leaving a slight dent and eliciting absolutely no reaction.

“The only time they react is if you try and cut their head off,” he said to Harry. “Don’t know how the creepy buggers can tell the difference, but the one time I tried a cutting curse they had a shield up in seconds.”

Harry stared the figures in silence. Then he turned to his friend, grin spreading across his face.

“We did it!” He shouted. “This is it; this is what we were after!”

Ron looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “The stone is…here?”

“Has to be. I didn’t recognize it at first because a bunch of the trees were gone and rocks removed, but this is the clearing. And the stone must still be here! What else could be keeping the Walkers away?”

Hesitantly, a smile started to spread across Ron’s face. “We could actually finish everything?”

Harry nodded. “Damn straight.”

Of course, what he didn’t say was that he wasn’t entirely sure what he would do with the stone once he found it. Make it do the opposite of what it had years ago, he supposed, but just how to manage that was…still up in the air.

But making it up on the fly had always been his style, and most of the time it worked out well. He would figure something out.

“What are you to knuckleheads plotting over here?”

Parvati strolled up to them, a three-foot slice of tomato with a few bites out of it clutched in her hands. She smiled playfully as she came to a stop right in front of them.

“On second thought, I don’t think I want to know.”

“Where’d you get that?” Harry asked, staring at the fruit in her hands.

She pointed toward the opposite side of the shack. “Filch’s garden, over there. It’s not particularly big, but nothing some good Engorgement charms won’t fix. Want some?”

Harry waved the offer away. “Filch has a garden here?”

She shrugged. “Well, yea. He can’t leave the clearing and he has to eat something.”

“It’s just strange,” Harry said. “The ground here isn’t very fertile- it’s too hard and dry. Plus, a lot of it seems rocky.”

Parvati stared at him. “Didn’t take you for a gardener. Thought you’d have too much on your plate to go picking up hobbies.”

Harry just smiled weakly, memories of pulling weeds and tending plants in front of number 4 Privet Drive flashing through his head.

“Come on, I’ll show you it,” Parvati said, turning and walking back the other direction. The other two fell into step beside her.

“It’s strange,” she said through a mouthful of tomato. “Just walking around, casting magic without a second though- It feels too good to be true.”

“Soon, everywhere will be like that,” Ron said confidently. “We’re close now.”

Parvati bit her lip nervously. “About that…”

“What is it?” Harry asked.

“I know the plan is supposed to be all super-secret, and that you two love to whisper about whatever it is we came here for when you think nobodies looking – Oh don’t look so surprised, you aren’t nearly as sneaky as you think you are – and I was wondering if you could, well, tell me?” Her voice cracked at the end, a pleading note leaking in. “We lost half of our group in a single day. For the second time! The first time it ended with me having to cut my twins head off. Is it so much to ask to be let in on what’s waiting at the end of this one?”

Harry and Ron exchanged a look, coming to an eye-contact consensus.

“Yea,” Harry sighed. “Yea, ok.”

He took a deep breath and tried to figure out where to start while Parvati stared expectantly.

“Have you ever heard of the Deathly Hallows?”

///

Harry stared down at the dinner in front of him- leafy lettuce, carrots, and tomatoes mixed into a conjured bowl. It was a better meal than he’d had in months, if not longer.

“Good enough for you, lad?”

Harry looked up to find Filch standing in front of him, a bowl of his own held casually in his hands.

“I know it isn’t exactly a feast fit for a celebrity-”

“No, no,” Harry interrupted. “This is more than enough. And I’m no celebrity anymore. No one is.”

Filch settled in beside him with a chuckle. “Suppose you’re right.”

They were outside, Harry haven taken his meal to where he could keep an eye on the Walkers. It was cold in the clearing, the sun having completely set, and the others had argued there was no need. They were right – if the Walkers attacked now, they would be dead with or without a warning from him – but guard duty was an old habit that wouldn’t easily die.

“I noticed you didn’t try the dressing.”

Harry shook himself from his thoughts. “You noticed that?”

Filch nodded. “I did. Any reason?”

“No, no reason at all.”

The truth was, luxury was something Harry had forgotten how to enjoy. His first six years at Hogwarts had been wonderful but three years on the run, one hunting horcruxes and two escaping Walkers, had washed all that away. Somewhere along the way his taste had reverted back to that of a scrawny ten-year-old who celebrated getting the leftovers of food he’d cooked. Luxury was a scarce commodity these days, after all. Which reminded him…

“Where in the world did you even get dressing?”

“Hm?” Filch raised an eyebrow. “I made it, from my garden.”

Harry glanced over his shoulder at said garden, a well-tended plot of land with a variety of plants growing on it. “But where did you get the garden?”

Filch laughed. “Not sure I’m following your question, lad. Get the garden? I made it. These old hands have to be good for something.”

There was a row of corn, a few tomato bushes, some carrots growing in the corner, and some scattered lettuce and herbs. “But that’s what I don’t follow. The garden is too big, and it’s doing too well.”

“Is this about the dinner?” Filch asked. “I know it’s a bit over the top, but I got carried away having wizards around to quintuple my stock. I don’t always eat this well, as you can probably see!” He chuckled and tapped a finger against a rib, showing off how thin the layer of skin there was.

Harry was silent for a moment. Maybe the man was telling the truth, but Harry couldn’t shake a feeling of uneasiness.

“How’d you come to be here?” Harry asked, changing the subject.

Filch let out a long exhale through his nose. “that’s not a happy story, lad.”

“No one’s is these days.”

“Suppose you’re right about that.” Filch leaned back, tilting his head toward the sky. He was silent for a few minutes, before finally continuing. “How much do you remember about the first day? When the Walkers first appeared?”

A barrage of memories flashed through Harry’s head: stepping into this very forest, a flash of green, a train station, a battle…Walkers, cutting down familiar faces. So, so much death. Sometimes he felt like death had gripped his life that day and refused to let go since.

“Too much.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Filch murmured. “I was there, you know. In the Great Hall when Voldemort carted you in.”

Harry nodded. “I saw you.”

“Did you? Well, I was right there, right in the thick of things when the first ones sprung up. McGonagall was on my right, Sprout on the left. It was luck that the Walkers went for them first. Nothing more than luck.”

He shook his head ruefully. “They came after us from behind, two of them. Sprout managed to fight hers off, get rid of it, but not before it bit her. McGonagall though? The Walker had been one of her lions. She hesitated when she saw the face, and it got her with a body bind. After that it was on her in seconds.”

They lapsed into a moment of silence, Harry staring blankly at the ground. It wasn’t that he’d expected his head of house to be alive, but it was different hearing the exact story.

“What happened next?”

Filch let out a sigh. “We ran. What else was there to do? Me, Sprout, and a pair of upper years. Took everything we could and did anything we could to survive. Somewhere along the way, we ended up in this forest.”

He paused suddenly and held the dressing bottle out to Harry once more.

“Afraid that’s all you’ll get for free. Now, if you were to say, try some of the dressing, that might change things,” Filch said with a wink. “It’s my pride and joy these days- I just can’t pass on the chance to see someone new try it.”

Harry frowned but took the bottle in his hands. Its weathered glass blurred the sight of the murky liquid inside it, and he twisted its cap off with a pop and smelled the contents. It had an earthy, fresh aroma.

“What’s in this?” Harry asked curiously.

“Again with the questions?” said Filch. “You’re trying to wring an old man for his trade secrets here, lad. Just go on and try some, the unknown always tastes better!”

Harry tilted the bottle over his salad, hovering at an angle just barely too steep for the contents to pour out. He hesitated a moment, then another…

“No, I think I’m okay.”

Filch chuckled tightly. “Really now, there’s no need to be stubborn.”

He reached out and grabbed the bottle, still in Harry’s hands, and tried to tilt it forcefully. Instead, Harry jerked it free from his hands and held it straight up.

“I said, I’m okay.”

Filch stared at him, and for a second Harry felt like they’d stepped back in time, because the former caretaker’s eyes held the same venom they’d always had when he caught a student breaking a rule. Then, it was gone, replaced once more by a friendly smile.

“Of course, of course,” Filch said, pushing himself to his feet. “Sorry about that, I’m afraid I can get a bit overzealous when it comes to the things I’ve made. But, sorry or not, a deal is a deal. The rest of my story stays with me, for now.”

The man turned and trudged back to his shack, whistling as he went.

///

The stars really were bright these days, Harry thought as he lay on his back, a conjured mattress beneath him.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?”

Harry rolled his head to the side, looking towards where Ron lay a few feet away on a mattress of his own. “Hm?”

“We’re still here. After everything that’s gone on, risking our lives over and over and over again, we’re still here. It’s strange.”

Harry looked back at the sky. “I guess it is.”

The two of them had opted to spend the night outside under the stars, rather than the cramped interior of the small shack where Parvati was taking the floor and Filch the aged bed.

“Do you ever wonder why?” Ron asked. “Why you? Why us?”

“Not really,” Harry said casually. “I just try and make the most of the chance it gives me.”

“You don’t see a reason? Some grand purpose you have to survive for?”

“My purpose is to help as many people survive this mess as I can. If I can save even one person, it makes my surviving worth it, you know?”

“And if that purpose stopped mattering to you?” Ron asked slowly.

“I’d find a new one.”

A brisk wind brushed through the clearing, stirring the long grass around them with a soft hiss. Even with a warming charm active, Harry felt a few goosebumps crop up along his arms.

He’d spent the afternoon and evening searching the clearing for the resurrection stone, sifting through the grass as quickly as he could, but came up empty handed. He was certain it was here somewhere – it had to be – but it was remaining elusive.

It shouldn’t have been important; they should’ve had plenty of time. But Harry had a strange feeling egging him on, like he was working against the clock.

“Ron, what do you think of Filch?”

“Huh? Now, or in general?”

“Now.”

“Seems nice enough. He helped us recover, fed us, told some great stories- he’s been a solid enough bloke.”

Harry pursed his lips. “You haven’t noticed anything weird about him?”

“Nope.”

“Nothing at all?”

Ron sighed. “Give it a rest mate, he’s been fine.”

“I can’t shake this feeling though!” Harry insisted. “There’s something more going on here. Something’s up with him. When was the last time someone helped us like this, without getting something in return?”

“Exactly,” said Ron. “We’re overdue.”

“But-”

“I’m going to sleep, Harry, my eyes are already drooping. If you really want to, we can talk about it in the morning.”

Harry heard his friend yawn and turn over, followed shortly by snoring. It took a lot longer before sleep came to him, too.

///

Harry was in a field, a barren expanse of featureless dirt that stretched as far as the eye could see. Everywhere he looked, anywhere he turned, he could make out nothing else. Somewhere, a voice faded in.

“Heeeeelllllllpppp.”

It was a faint, wailing sort of call, but the message was clear all the same.

“Heeeeeeeellllllllppppp.”

“Who is it?” Harry called out into the wasteland. “What’s wrong?”

“Heeeeeeeeeeeelllllllllllpppppp…”

“Me!”

Harry flinched and fell backwards as a massive face taller than him flashed into existence with empty, hollow eye sockets locked onto him, bushy brown hair flowing out behind it.

“Hermione,” Harry choked out. “I’m sorry! I should’ve been there! I should’ve-”

“Heelllllppp…Us!”

Suddenly it wasn’t just one face, more and more appeared until there were five of them, all very familiar.

“Heeeeeelllllllppppppp us…” they all said in unison, voices melding together.

Harry wanted to yell at them. To apologize again. To say it was all his fault, that he should’ve been more careful, checked Barnes more careful.

That he should’ve realized Padma had been bitten.

Then the others wouldn’t have been caught off guard. Then Hermione wouldn’t be dead, attacked by what had been one of her closest friends without ever seeing it coming. Then Parvati wouldn’t have had to put down her own sister, slicing off a head that looked identical to her own.

But he couldn’t say any of this. All he could manage was to move his jaw up and down, no sound coming out, the faces closing in, closer and closer, until they were just about to touch him…

He bolted upright, lungs desperately pulling in air. His heart was beating like crazy, and he stared down at shaking hands.

A dream. It had been a dream.

He shoved his way to his feet, trying to burn off the nervous energy flooding his system. It was still dark in the clearing, the moon and stars shedding the only shreds of light present.

It was coming up on six weeks since Barnes, and he could still barely close his eyes without the echoes plaguing him. He wasn’t sure if he pitied Ron and Parvati for actually having been there, or envied them for not having to shoulder the guilt of not being able to help.

He took a deep breath and allowed a long-ignored reflex to spring to life, flicking his wand and muttering “Lumos.”

The light that blinked into existence brightened the clearing, illuminating the ground around him and shining menacingly off the eyes of the still-present walkers lining the tree line.

Still in an unsettled mood, Harry sent a silent, half-formed cutting curse at them. Just as Ron had said, they raised a shield just before it struck, rendering the spell useless. Oh well.

Speaking of Ron, Harry glanced over at him to make sure his spell hadn’t woken him. He was still sound asleep, eyes shut tight and skin…pale?

Harry strode over to get a closer look, his light following him, and scrunched his eyebrows at what he found.

His friend’s naturally pasty complexion seemed to have ratcheted up a notch, freckles standing out against skin as white as a sheet. His eyes were indeed shut but not peacefully as they’d first looked, instead twitching wildly. His face shone, a sheen of sweat catching the light and reflecting it.

“Ron,” Harry said, dropping to a knee and shaking him. “Ron, wake up!”

It took a few seconds, but the redhead did stir, much to Harry’s relief.

“Whu izzit,” Ron slurred, eyes drifting open.

“You feeling okay?” Harry asked him. “You look like shit.”

Ron blinked at him. “Yea, well, you look…blurry.”

Harry stared at his unfocused eyes and felt worry settle in. “Right. Let’s get you back inside.”

He looped Ron’s arm over his shoulder and stood up, supporting his taller friend as best he could. Awkwardly, they stumbled back to the shack.

Harry yanked the door open with his good hand. “Filch, Parvati! Somethings up with Ron!”

They stepped into the room and Harry raised his wand, shedding the light at its tip onto the room. Filch’s cot and Parvati’s conjured matt were both empty. There was no one in sight.

“The fuck,” Harry muttered. “Where are they. Filch! Parvati!”

There was no answer.

Cursing, Harry helped Ron to sit down on an empty chair.

“Does it hurt anywhere?” Harry asked his friend.

“Hurt? Oh, uh my chest. Stomach too. And arms,” Ron said, voice lethargic. His mouth hung open, muscles in his face loose. “I don’t…feel too hot.”

Harry ran through his repertoire of healing magic and cursed at how short the list was. Somehow, it didn’t seem like spells for closing small cuts or healing bruises were going to be helpful here.

Which just gave him another reason to find Parvati.

“I’ll be right back mate, just hang in there.”

“Yeah,” Ron muttered. “I’ll…do that.”

The first place Harry checked was outside, slipping back through the door and running a quick lap of the clearing. It turned up nothing, so he ducked back inside.

Somehow, Ron already looked paler than when he’d left, which only boosted his motivation. He scurried from chair to chair, bent down to check Parvati’s matt, looked for a clue on the walls, and still came up completely emptyhanded.

“Where are they!” Harry snapped, his frustration getting the better of him, and lashed out a foot at Filch’s bed. Instead of providing a relatively soft target for his irritation, it felt like kicking a wall.

“Ow,” Harry groaned, hobbling on one foot while clutching his now throbbing ankle. “What in the world is in this thi-”

He cut off as he looked back at the bed, noticing something strange. It had shifted a few inches to the left, and through that small gap he could a hole. Quickly, he scurried down and set to work shoving the bed further forward, revealing more and more of the space beneath it, until he’d created a gap large enough to slip through.

A worn latter traversed a ten-foot gap down into what looked a basement more sizeable than the shack itself. A lone candle sat on the floor near a tall, closed wooden door.

“What in the world,” said Harry. “Ron, did Filch mention a cellar to you while I was out?”

Ron groaned. “Cellar? Don’t…think so.”

He was breathing heavily now, his eyes bloodshot, and Harry shivered at the rate he was worsening. At this point, he was scared to leave Ron alone for even a few minutes.

“Brace yourself,” Harry told his friend, gently floating him into the air with his wand before clambering down the ladder. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he guided Ron down after him, careful not to bump or jostle him in the descent.

The walls and floor were made up of plastered stones. A wooden roof coated the wide but empty room’s top, crisscrossing beams holding up everything above them. Harry lowered Ron to the ground and carefully leaned his back against the wall before straightening and closing in on the shut door.

The hinges squeaked in protest as Harry yanked the old handle, and a much better lit room greeted his eyes, its horrifying scene illuminated in great detail.

The room itself couldn’t have been more than a 20 feet across and wide, but it was packed to the brim with shelves along the walls and a huge table in the middle. All around the room, coating every empty space, were human body parts. Legs lay next to fingers next to toes, all spaced out and in varying states of decay.

But the part that really made Harry’s blood run cold was the center table. Strapped down tightly, eyes open but blank, was Parvati. Leaning above her, holding a blood-stained knife, was Filch, who looked up at the sound of the door opening.

“You’re not supposed be here,” the man said, staring at Harry unblinkingly. “Not yet.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Harry growled.

“Not yet. Not Yet!”

“Answer my question,” Harry yelled at the man. “And get away from her!”

“This is all because you,” Filch jabbed a finger at Harry, “wouldn’t be reasonable and eat the dressing. All three of you would have gone to sleep, none of you would wake up, and I’d get what I needed. But no, you had to be stubborn and ruin everything!”

Harry didn’t even think at that point, his wand moving practically on its own as it banished the older man against the back wall with a crack. He quickly rushed to the table and pressed a finger to Parvati’s throat. There was no pulse.

“What have you done!” Harry roared at Filch.

“What I had to,” the man bit back, stumbling to his feet. “What should I care if a few rotten wizards and witches had to die, after what’s happened to my precious Mrs. Norris!”

He jerked his arm to the far corner that had been obstructed from Harry’s view by the table. It was filled by a small cage and prowling in said cage was a very familiar feline with a large bight across its side.

“You all were always too good for me, always looking down on the stupid squib. So why shouldn’t you become sacrifices for such an amazing creature!”

“You have until the count of ten,” Harry said dangerously, “to give me the antidote for whatever poison you used, or I’ll take it from you.”

“Antidote?” Filch barked out a laugh. “Why would I make an antidote?”

“One.” Harry pointed his wand at him.

“What are you going to do to me with that? Make me give you what doesn’t exist?”

“Two.”

“It’s sad, watching you stumble around so desperately.”

“Three.” Harry shifted his wand away from filch and towards the cage.

“What are you- Don’t you dare!”

“Give me the antidote, then. Four.”

“I can’t. Haven’t you been listening, it doesn’t exist!”

“Five.”

“Stop.”

“Six.”

“Stop!”

“Seven.”

“Stop or you’ll never see the antidote!”

“I thought it didn’t exist. Eight.”

“I’m giving you your last warning.”

“So am I. Nine.”

“Fine,” Filch yelled. “Take the stupid thing, just don’t hurt her!”

He pulled a small vial from his pocket, making a show of holding it up.

“A few drops of this and your friend will be fine.”

Harry levitated the glass from the man’s hand, flicking his wand and letting it fly to hover in front of him. “Wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Filch glared at the floor. “Just get out of here.”

“I will,” said Harry. “But I’ll be back for you. We’re not done here.”

He turned and started walking out the door when his eyes locked on a jar by the door, two eyes floating in liquid inside it. Two familiar, brown eyes.

“Dawlish wasn’t hit by a spell, was he.”

“What,” said Filch. “Has that just dawned on you? Of course I killed him. Slit his throat and passed it off on a Walker. Only thing I regret is not getting the rest of you before that bitch woke up,” he gestured to Parvati’s body. “I felt sick having to chat with you lot, but I had my revenge in the end.”

He tilted his head back and laughed, only for it to cut off abruptly.

The cutting curse had been a reflexive, emotional decision, but Harry couldn’t find it in him to regret it, even as he watched Filch’s head roll off his shoulders. Part of him was horrified at what he’d so casually done, but the rest was just glad to be done with the psychotic man.

Besides, he didn’t have time to waste.

Harry stumbled back into the room and found Ron exactly where he’d left him, chest moving shallowly.

“Ron!” he called, stumbling up and crouching next to him with the vial in hand. “Drink this, quickly! It’ll fix you.”

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” Ron said weakly. “I just feel numb. It’s…nice.”

“Hey mate, none of that now. Just drink this and it’ll be better.”

“But this is better,” Ron protested. “I- I think I’m dying.”

“You are! That’s why you have to-”

“I don’t want to change that.”

Harry stopped short. “What? Come on, is your brain going?”

“I’m tired of it all. The running. The fighting. The losing people. I think I wanna move on.”

“No. No, no, no! Are you listening to yourself right now! What would Hermione say.”

“That’s…what I want to hear,” Ron muttered, lips flicking into a sad smile. “I want her to say it to me.”

Harry felt tears begin to fall, striking the stone floor. “What about me?”

“You’ll manage,” Ron said, managing to meet his eyes. “You’re the one that can find a new purpose, remember?”

And his head lulled down bonelessly, chin resting against his chest.

Mechanically, Harry rose to his feet and climbed out of the cellar. His movements were stiff as he stumbled back from the shack into the clearing, a single goal in mind.

///

It took him hours. Or maybe days. It was difficult to tell with nothing to judge time by. He barely knew what he was doing or why, just that he had to find the stone. And find it he did.

The small stone had been covered by dirt and buried in the grass just to the left of the shack. Harry found it, wiped it clean as best he could, and watched the sun glint off its surface.

All he could do was sit there, staring at the object.

He’d found what he was after, and lost the reason it mattered in the process.

 

https://forums.darklordpotter.net/threads/q3-2021-dlp-writing-competition.40126/

Voting thru November 21

 

Spoiler

One of the first things I notice is a lot of "was" being used, so passive voice. Story starts off well enough but I think you could edit that and make it even stronger.

Examples:
He was getting close now, the shambling figures near enough to smell. One was an adult woman in a sundress, her pale white skin a sharp contrast to her bright blond hair that was speckled with stains of red. Her emotionless face was caked in blood, though whether it was her own or not was impossible to tell. The next was a man in jeans and a white button up. The shirt was torn in three separate places, one spot giving a clear site at his ribcage while the others showed off deep scars caked in dried blood. The last was a boy that couldn’t have been older than twelve, his mousy brown hair matted and messy. He was quite a horrifying sight, given that nearly half his jaw and one of his eyes were completely absent. They had been a family, it looked like, and muggle, based off the clothes. That was a relief- it made Harry’s job much easier.

The content of that paragraph is fascinating, but it's very passive and feels like telling instead of showing, despite how hard you are trying to show us what's going on. The issue continues later into the story as well, to the point that I think the best thing you could do in edits is replace half of your passive verbs for active ones and see if you like it or not.

Story set up is great. You start with a cool scene that ends in a fight, THEN go back to discuss what they're called and what's happening. Kudos for structure.

Hmm, Harry not sharing details of his plan, eh? Fair enough, but I expect a reason that will make sense in this scenario.

Great line here:
Before anyone truly understood what was happening the Walker’s numbers had tripled. By the end of the day they had tripled again.

I like the bits of culture you added in, about being buried with your wand, etc.

More suggestions with word choice:

Time seemed to be standing still.
No one was moving, and Harry couldn’t take his eyes off Tonks. He’d lost friends before. Too many times to count. But this had happened so suddenly.

Time stood still.
No one moved. Harry couldn't take his eyes off Tonks. He'd lost friends before, too many times to count. But this happened so suddenly.
​

Get rid of words like "seemed" and "was" ffs and this will stand stronger. Same for that "had" there.

The story idea is great, I'll give it that. But the prose kept encouraging me to skim through. It's possible that I missed a great reason why Harry had to keep this plan secret, so I can't say it's absolutely not there, but it felt like he could have shared his plan with Shack, etc. They were supposed to sneak in and get the stone and sneak out, right?

Good ending.

 

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