Arcturus Black

*** Duelling Club

Lockhart seemed exceedingly nervous from the battles but smiled shakily.

"We're running a bit short of time, but I'll do as many of the duels as I can…" Lockhart said, sounding like he was concerned about them getting back to bed and not his own reputation, "Let's have young Harry up here first!"

Harry smiled politely and came up to the stage.

Harry inclined his head elegantly, Lockhart bowed comically deep and flung his arm into the air, sending the first spell, a weak expelliarmus which went way over Harry's head.

Harry didn't even move from his spot as Lockhart sent spells flying into the walls.

One came sort of close to Harry and he caught the spell on his wand and flung it back, hitting Lockhart in the nose and having his wand fall out of his hand.

Harry threw his best combo at Lockhart, sending Lockhart flying, giving him a red nose, a black eye, several painful stinging hexes, tripping him in mid-air, forcing him to summersault and sending his regained wand flying into Harry's hand the way powerful disarming curses did.

Lockhart landed with a thud and a groan and Harry could have sworn he saw Snape smile.

"Oh, Professor Lockhart! You didn't have to go THAT easy on me… I really want to improve, how about another one where you don't hold back, I want you to be brutally honest about my skill." Harry said earnestly, in a way that wouldn't allow Lockhart to slip through.

A trickle of blood seeped through Lockhart's lips from the impact but he smiled jitterily.

"Sure my boy, but go easy on me, these injuries might slow me down a bit."

Harry nodded deferentially and took his stance, which Lockhart clumsily reciprocated.

"Stupefy!" Lockhart went for the simple (enough for him to understand) but efficient strategy and sending a weak stunner in the approximate direction of Harry, following it up with a Petrificus Totalus, which Harry had to actually block with a shield.

Lockhart briefly let the triumph of getting a shot near his target take over his face, and this time, Harry sent a knockback hex right at the unnaturally white grin that Lockhart possessed.

Lockhart's front two teeth cracked, marring his smile and getting a wail of dismay and tears welling up in his eyes from that.

Harry feigned concern while the student populace sniggered at the expense of their defence professor.

Snape dismissed the class, after it was ascertained that Lockhart was inconsolable.

Harry left the class and was heading to dinner when he heard the voice.

~Rip… Tear… KILL!~

With extremely ironic foresight, Harry slipped on his invisibility cloak, following the voice as it moved through the walls, leading him down to the second floor girl's bathroom just in time to come across a cat, hanging dead, or petrified his mind corrected, on the wall.

Harry was horrorstruck, especially by the message in the background.

MUDBLOODS BEWARE!

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED!

Harry heard people coming up behind him and deigned to get out of there before someone bumped into him, implicating him for the crime as he was under his invisibility cloak.

*** Inside a very specific diary…

Tom Riddle laughed with glee, his possession had gone much smoother than expected.

The silly blonde Ravenclaw was the perfect target, losing her mother had made her weak and malleable, the bullying by other ravenclaws only exacerbated the issue.

Tom had an almost perfect grasp on her only a few months into the school year.

Today, he had his first kill… well petrification… and a cat, but still, baby steps…

She was a prisoner inside her own mind, not only for the short periods that Tom had been able to previously control her for but almost all the time, she only gained brief moments of lucidity.

It would only be days… weeks at most before he gained complete control…

Then the great Lord Voldemort would finally return!

*** Black Manor

The century old Black Lord awoke with a hacking cough.

Arcturus Black's wrinkled skin stretched across his hardened face as he yawned making him look almost youthful for a second.

He got out of his elegant bed with surprising ease for a man of 114 years, cracking the old joints of his body, held together largely by magic.

He headed to the large duelling room that the manor of his family believed, beginning to go through his katas, one by one, going through his morning routine that kept him fit and agile at his 114 years of age.

Contrary to what his modern relatives believed, the original motto of the Blacks was "Pure of Magic" and not "Pure of Blood" as his insane daughter Walburga and his insane granddaughter Bellatrix had perverted it.

Every day, he regretted the choice he had made to hand family affairs down to his daughter Walburga and her husband who ended up being basically her puppet.

The old man allowed himself to reminisce in memories of when he was younger, fitter, stronger…

He had been one of the leading generals of the war for England, against Grindelwald, alongside his long-time friend Charlus Potter and Albus Dumbledore.

Around the peak of the first war against Voldemort, in the 1970s, he himself was approaching his hundredth year of life, and wasn't keeping up with his age as well as the great Hogwarts Headmaster.

Still, since the death of his friend Charlus, he and his old colleague Albus were the only ones capable of facing off against Voldemort, and Dumbledore utilised a hands off espionage strategy that didn't lead to much fight back.

Unfortunately, the Voldemort war was much closer to home and had hit the British Ministry much harder than thought possible, they had lost dozens of their best fighting Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

After Harris Bones' untimely death, Bagnold's reign over the ministry had been a nightmare for Britain and a dream for Voldemort.

The Ministry withdrew support from the war and left Dumbledore to form his own vigilante group while Arcturus himself tried to do the best he could on his own, being quite a formidable dueller.

A fact, that had to be grasped about magical wars, was that while there were armies involved, up to hundreds of wizards and witches, the battle was usually decided by the leaders, the truly powerful who popped up once every handful of decades.

While the Death Eaters and the Aurors existed and fought each other actively in battles, the war would only be over when somebody, Albus, Arcturus or maybe somebody else, fought and defeated Voldemort in one on one battle.

It had been the same with the Grindelwald war, while the allies were winning heavily, especially on the muggle side of things, it was Dumbledore's duel with Grindelwald that finally decided the war.

That was just the way things tended to go.

Thus, in the heart of the Voldemort war, Arcturus challenged the upstart Dark Lord before he got any older and lot more of his magic, and before the sprightly young Voldemort gained more power.

Unfortunately, it was not to be.

It was later called the battle of magical London. Magical London being an entirely magical city that was raised high into the sky and hidden from muggles.

That city does not exist today.

It was a great and terrible battle which Arcturus remembered vividly, the voice of Tom Marvolo Riddle…

They exchanged spells first, moving up and up in level as behind both duellers rubble exploded, and was sent flying back at the opponent.

Arcturus was the first to throw off the kiddy gloves, sending a whip of fire at Voldemort who created a serpent of water that ran itself right through it, turning to black smoke and throwing itself at Arcturus, who waved his wand, having the very wind bend to his will and throw the foul smoke back at Voldemort like a super-powered wind blower.

The Dark Lord rose on a tidal wave of necromancy bigger than the biggest building in the city, crushing various monuments in the evacuated city and he hurtled towards Arcturus who was dwarfed by the giant wave of black magic.

Arcturus waved his wand expansively, and a tidal wave of equal measure approached from his side, created not of black magic but of white flame.

The older wizard took a magic enhanced leap that would not have been otherwise possible, reaching over both of the tidal waved, using the wind itself to hold himself high in the sky, conjuring a full fledged tornado and sending it flying at Voldemort.

The Dark Lord whipped his wand, sending a knife of darkness cutting right through the conjuration of wind, halting only when it met Arcturus' hastily conjured magical shield as he returned fire with several decidedly grey (by the ministry's definition) magic.

Voldemort let out a laugh as he effortlessly flicked away the bone-breakers that would have overwhelmed most wizards without a fight.

"Pitiful, if this is the best that the great Arcturus Black can offer…" the vile snake-face gloated as he faced off against the 96 year old wizard.

"Please, you're not even worthy to kiss my boots, Riddle!" Arcturus spat as he attempted to regain his breath and deflect the barrage of insanely fast spells that was being thrown upon him.

Voldemort turned to his strongest combo, his "Unforgivable string" that comprised mostly of Avada kedavras and Crucios stringed together with a few extra quick-to-cast nasty curses and hexes thrown in just to speed up the rate of fire.

"Avis!" Arcturus roared, conjuring hundreds of paper birds with razor sharp metal beaks and the majority of the string just hit the birds, as the remainder of the flock went flying at Voldemort at break-neck speeds, only to be incinerated by a small fire whip that melted the metal in the beaks and destroyed the paper utterly.

Voldemort swung back the molten metal at Arcturus, who defended himself by pulling up a water shield that hissed loudly against the molten metal but managed to stop it… just barely.

Arcturus sent a hail of arrows created from pure light magic flying at Voldemort who created the likeness of a huge shield above his head from dark magic, before crunching it into a big ball and throwing it at Arcturus, who apparated with a soft crack and appeared behind Voldemort, sending a heavy flood of water hurtling at speeds high enough to break every bone in Voldemort's body.

The Dark Lord spun around, ignoring the ball of dark magic that destroyed the Ministry of Magic building.

Voldemort managed to erect a hasty ice-shield but it shattered against the pressure of the water, and Voldemort was forcefully pushed away by the water, not injuring him badly but leaving him open, an opportunity that Arcturus would not leave alone. A bone-breaker hit Voldemort's leg and several other curses deflected off a shield conjured in the heat of the moment.

As soon as Voldemort hit a building and stopped moving, he apparated back to where Arcturus was, moving behind him like the older man had done previously and creating a big hammer of darkness, smashing it down on the unsuspecting Black Lord's head.

Arcturus spun around, moving pure light magic up in an attempt at a shield, only stopping the hammer briefly, enough to stop it from killing him.

It slammed into him like a muggle lorry, and Arcturus was almost knocked from consciousness as he looked around at the wreckage of the city falling apart around him.

As his vision faded, Arcturus shot a final bone-breaker at Voldemort and apparated away with a loud painful crack, ending up in his own fidelius-protected Black Manor, in critical condition.

He spent several months recovering, by the time of which, Harry Potter had already taken down the Dark Lord.

Coming out of his reminiscing, Arcturus went to fetch his breakfast from his house-elf.

Dark Times were coming again, he knew it.

He could feel the darkness moving, for it was not "dark spells" as classified by the ministry that were truly evil, it was necromancy, calling upon dark forces to do your bidding that was actually dark and the darkness was stirring.

Arcturus was preparing himself for a war.

One that would probably be the last that he ever saw.

*** End of Chapter