The Arrival of Them P1

The Arrival of Them P1

With the arrival of the members of the Order of the Phoenix, the battle turned into a true whirlwind of chaos and danger.

"Call for reinforcements!" Moody thundered in a deep voice as he slammed his staff against the ground. From its tip burst a jet of energy that struck a Death Eater square in the chest, hurling him against a wall with a dry crack. There were more than a dozen masked enemies, and they were barely managing to stay together while protecting the young ones.

"Why are there so many?" Moody growled, his brow furrowed in a mix of disgust and suspicion. Something didn't add up.

A deadly green beam shot toward him, but Moody struck the floor again, tearing up a slab of stone that rose as an improvised shield. His expression remained calm, his real eye fixed, while the magical eye spun wildly, tracking every enemy movement, every tiny twitch of a wand.

Tonks slipped deftly between two crumbling columns and reached Hermione, Ginny, and Luna, distributing potions with quick hands. "Drink, quickly. They're not going to give us a break," she ordered tensely, her wand already intercepting another curse that came hurtling toward them.

On the other side, Sirius advanced fearlessly toward Bellatrix. From his wand erupted multiple jets of crystalline water that clashed against his cousin's demonic fire. The heat was so brutal the air itself rippled, distorting their figures like a mirage.

But not even Bellatrix seemed fully in control of that inferno. She laughed with a shriek that chilled the bones while her flames twisted in all directions, incinerating corpses and pieces of wall alike. Shackbolt appeared at his side, lifting both hands in a solemn gesture, and a torrent of magical rain fell in sheets over the fire.

Then, as if fate were determined to make each second worse than the last, another door burst open. More Death Eaters stormed into the hall, their cloaks whipping around them in a supernatural wind.

Harry felt a crushing weight in his chest. The magnitude of his mistake was impossible to ignore. Einar had been right. He should never have acted without thinking. And now he had endangered not only his own life but the lives of everyone he loved.

Fortunately, new reinforcements emerged from the shadows: Charlie Weasley and the Longbottoms. Their faces were bathed in the flickering light of spells crisscrossing the air.

The instant Bellatrix turned her madness-twisted face toward them, Alice and Frank Longbottom tensed. It was only a second of hesitation, but in their eyes shone the rancor of a past that could never be buried.

"Dad... Mom..." Neville whispered, his voice strangled with emotion.

"We'll talk later," his mother said firmly, her calm unshaken as she was already casting a healing spell over a wounded comrade.

Without wasting a moment, Frank charged forward to join Sirius and Shackbolt, adding his strength to the titanic effort to contain the living hell that was Bellatrix Lestrange.

"Moody!" Charlie shouted, unleashing a blast of pure force that crashed into a Death Eater, throwing him over a ring of skeletons Viir had summoned. Many of those charred bones now lay scattered across the floor, reduced to ash by the flames. Viir, indifferent to the chaos, had crawled back into Harry's clothes as soon as more allies had arrived, as if it were all just a dull spectacle.

"That's Lucius Malfoy!" Charlie yelled, pointing to a tall man whose hat had flown off in the blast.

Everyone turned. The blonde hair was unmistakable. But something was wrong. His eyes were dull. His movements, jerky and automatic. And on his neck, a grotesque black mark pulsed like a worm under the skin.

"He's undead," Moody spat with disgust. "What kind of psychopath did they find to make things like this?"

Harry clenched his wand tightly. He watched as the Order began to take hits, staggering under the renewed assault while the enemy seemed to multiply. Without thinking, he threw himself into the fray, unleashing a torrent of spells that drove several Death Eaters back. Sirius appeared beside him, his laughter echoing through the din, filled with fierce pride and defiance.

"That's it, Harry! Fighting like a true Gryffindor!" he shouted, deflecting a green ray that grazed his cloak.

After finally quenching the flames, Frank hurled himself at Bellatrix with all the fury of a lifetime of pain, while Alice stayed close behind, her hands glowing with healing magic that kept her husband on his feet. Together, they were an unbreakable wall. Bellatrix laughed, but she was forced to retreat.

"Ha ha ha! What do you think, James? This is what I told you about—fighting shoulder to shoulder with your father!" Sirius yelled, without realizing he'd said the wrong name.

Harry heard it, but his heart had no time to process. Adrenaline roared in his veins.

"Harry, look out!" Hermione shrieked.

He turned just in time to see a killing curse streaking toward him. With a shout, he raised his wand, and a wall of ice burst up with a violent crack, blocking the curse. Sirius struck back at the attacker in the same breath, smiling with that reckless spirit that had always defined him.

"This is easy! Come on, all of you!" Sirius bellowed, his laughter rumbling off the walls.

As if his words had been a summons, another group of Death Eaters appeared—but these moved in strange, contorted ways, their faces pale and their wands trembling.

"Tsk. No respect whatsoever," Moody growled, an icy fire in his gaze.

Harry, drunk on the battle, allowed himself a single instant of distraction—a mere blink. In that moment, Bellatrix raised her wand. Her curse shot across the hall like a whip of searing light, slipping past Frank and Alice's guard.

Sirius saw it all in an instant. He lunged, shoving Harry hard to the side.

Harry hit the floor, the breath knocked out of him.

When he looked up, the world was moving in slow motion. Sirius, wrapped in that sinister glow, was thrown backward. And waiting behind him was the Veil.

Harry's heart seemed to stop. He screamed, ran forward, but Lupin stepped in his way, shielding him from the spells raining down from every direction.

"Noooo!" Harry roared, his throat raw as his eyes locked onto the wavering Veil. Waiting… begging for Sirius to appear again with his proud smile. But only silence answered him.

"We have to get out of here!" Lupin shouted, his voice trembling between sorrow and duty.

A black fire began to burn inside Harry's chest. Slowly, he turned his head toward Bellatrix. She was watching him with a twisted smile, her eyes gleaming with cruel delight.

Hatred clouded his thoughts. He drew in a breath so deep he thought his lungs might burst.

"DOVAHKIIN!" he bellowed with every shred of his soul.

The roar shook the entire hall. The walls trembled. For an instant, everyone froze, their faces contorted in expressions of shock and fear. Some raised their wands with condescension, thinking it was nothing but another childish battle cry.

But then, somewhere high in the ceiling, a crack thundered like distant storm drums. And a heartbeat later, it was as if the sky itself split open above them, pouring out a war drum so deep it made the air vibrate. An ancient power was coming, inexorable, ready to sweep everything away.

Even the corpses halted their attacks, standing still as they began to tremble with a dry creaking sound that spread like a shiver across the hall.

Then, as if everyone could hear each barrier in the Ministry shattering one by one, a muffled crack reverberated in their chests—one for every seal breaking in the distance. One. Two. Three. The air grew so thick it was hard to breathe.

Bellatrix was the first to react. Her eyes went wide, lit with a flicker of panic, before she spun around in a single swift movement and bolted down one of the corridors, followed by several Death Eaters who nearly tripped over each other in their rush to escape.

Harry tore free from Lupin's grasp with a desperate yank and sprinted after her, his heart pumping fire through his veins.

That was when it happened.

The very space in front of them split apart with a shrill scream that made everyone's teeth ache. From the dark abyss emerged long, pale hands, wrapped in crackling mist that warped the air around them. With a simple gesture, they pulled the edges of the rift aside as if it were nothing but a flimsy curtain.

Out of that darkness stepped a man whose mere presence seemed to distort reality itself. His mask, carved from dark wood, buzzed with an energy no one there could name. White-platinum hair drifted in a breeze that touched no one else, and his red armor, covered in patterns that looked like living infernal runes, shone with a power that crushed every coherent thought in the minds of those who dared look at him.

Einar stepped through the portal with the calm of someone arriving in a place he already owned. His gaze swept over the battlefield with the unhurried composure of a man browsing fruit in a market.

Then, from his chest, a flash erupted. A light so blinding that, for an instant, everything turned white. When it faded, all the corpses and undead had crumbled into drifting dust, falling to the floor like gray snow. Only four Death Eaters remained standing, trembling like leaves.

Einar turned his head with a soft crack of his neck, just in time to see Harry's figure disappearing through a doorway.

The four Death Eaters looked at each other, terror crawling up their spines, and lifted their shaking wands in a last act of desperation.

Einar didn't even bother to meet their eyes. He raised his hand with a lazy gesture, and from his palm erupted hundreds of lightning bolts that lanced through the hall like an infernal rain. In the blink of an eye, the four bodies hit the ground, riddled with smoking holes.

Without haste, he began walking in the direction Harry had fled.

"Professor…" Hermione whispered in a thin voice, nervous and at the same time relieved to see him there.

"You will have to accept your punishment later," Einar said, his voice so cold and slightly irritated that several of the onlookers turned their faces away.

With steady steps, he walked into the corridor, never glancing back.

The members of the Order remained frozen, caught between following him or staying behind to protect the wounded. Lupin turned back toward the Veil and, after a moment, sank to his knees with a whisper that vanished into the stillness.

Then something stopped them all.

The Veil began to shudder violently, as if an invisible hurricane was tugging at it from the other side. Between its rippling folds, they glimpsed a golden wall covered in symbols that pulsed like beating hearts.

Moody's magical eye spun toward the glow, twitching with a nervous tic.

"Since we got here… that thing hasn't stopped acting strange," he muttered, brow deeply furrowed.

And suddenly, the Veil ripped upward like a curtain torn off its rail.

Before them opened a swirling portal of yellow and red—a vortex that twisted the air and devoured the floor around it as though it meant to swallow the entire world.

Everyone stared, eyes locked on that impossible phenomenon.

"By Merlin…" Charlie whispered, voice hoarse.

"What the hell is that?" Tonks asked, gripping her wand so tightly her knuckles went white.

But before anyone could answer, something stepped out of the portal.