Back to the beginning

Rose had spent more time than she ever thought she would do surrounded by Magical Creatures. The Porlock Scorpius first brought home was relatively easy to pity. But once they realised that that pity was what they needed in order to remove the chains, it was harder. Forcing feelings was easier said than done. Luckily, she wasn't alone in trying anymore. Once she had tested the theory, a fair number of workers from the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures also managed to remove the chains. The few remaining ones were the most dangerous ones, like the Chimera. They had considered getting Hagrid down here, he would probably be able to pity even a creature like that. Rose did feel bad for what the Knocker had done to it, of course she did. She was just also very much aware that the Chimera could kill her quite easily, especially after the chain was off and fear of that was stronger than the pity.

Yang was still in St. Mungo's, but at least he was better once they had got the chain off. Feeling sorry for him hadn't been hard at all. Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to say much about what had happened when he was in captivity, as he had either not been present, or been too out of it to remember. He had been able to give details about what he did to Sophia though. Rose shuddered just thinking about that. They should have thought to protect her better.

As she returned to her office after yet another attempt at getting the last creatures out of their chain, she was met by Scorpius coming towards her.

"There you are! Harry and Albus are waiting for us, we need to go."

"Go do what?"

"I'll explain on the way, let's not keep them waiting."

Scorpius dragged her along as he explained what Albus had told him. Rose froze.

"And they're taking it back there? And we will recreate the whole thing?"

"Yes. They suspect that's where it has the largest chance of success."

"And you don't have a problem with this?" she asked in a higher pitch than usual. Rose didn't want to admit it, but she really had no wish to return to that graveyard. A little warning would be nice!

"No. If it will help James, why would I have a problem with it?" Scorpius turned around and saw her expression. He immediately enveloped her in a hug.

"I'm sorry, I didn't even think about that. If you don't want to go, I'm sure they'll understand. They want to recreate the scene as much as possible, but all the Death Eaters will be missing anyway, so I'm sure it won't matter if you are missing as well."

"How are you so calm about it? Why do we need to recreate the scene?"

"I've seen so many other things afterwards that are worse. For me, it would be a lot worse if I suddenly found myself in the meeting room of Malfoy Manor again, with you and Hermione on the floor, or on Pendle Hill. Albus didn't say why we need to recreate the scene; we can ask that when we get there."

Rose could understand that. Seeing her mother in chains on the floor pleading with Voldemort was another horrible memory. But for her, the absolute worst part was standing in that graveyard hearing Scorpius and Albus swear themselves to Voldemort. And seeing James being consumed by that statue. She barely even remembered the torture session; it had just been pain. Even watching Thomas die right in front of her wasn't worse than what she had seen in that graveyard. But if her presence made it more likely that the destruction was successful, shouldn't she try? Besides, from what Scorpius said, it was possible that the statue had taken something from the rest of them as well.

Rose drew several deep breaths, but then she nodded. They had to go. Scorpius held her tightly as he Disapparated.

***

Scorpius hadn't wanted to come back here either. Though it was more of a mixed bag for him. It was both the place where the worst period of his life began, but also the best. It was hard to forget waking up surrounded by a lot of Death Eaters, not to mention all the horrible things he had to say and pretend to do in the weeks that followed. But it was also the beginning of how Rose started to fall in love with him. He wasn't sure if that would have ever happened if he had just remained Albus' friend. It might have. He wanted to think it would have, otherwise he really owed his current life to a group of some of the worst wizards in modern history.

The moment they landed on the site, he felt the pulses from the statue. He shuddered. Rose shrank. He hadn't seen her like this for a long time.

"Do you need to leave?" he whispered.

"No. I need to face this."

Albus came walking over with one of the members from the Order of the Hidden Dragon. He saw at once that Rose was uncomfortable.

"You don't have to be here if you don't want to, but I hope that by destroying it, we will release whatever it was trying to suck out of us. It is possible that all of us, not just James, were affected by it."

"You're going to destroy it?"

"Yes."

"How?"

It seemed Albus hadn't thought that far.

"May I suggest a sledgehammer?" a voice said from behind them. They all jumped, but Albus most of all.

"Sophia! What are you doing here?"

"As if I would miss this! Either way, from what I read there were a lot of Muggles present as well, right? I could stand in for some of those, if you really need to recreate the whole scene."

"Do we really need to do that?" Rose asked, trying not to let her insecurity sound in her voice. "What would that accomplish?"

"That's Mary's idea anyway," Albus said, pointing to the woman next to him. "Though I'm unsure why she thinks it's necessary."

Mary spoke for the first time.

"From what I am able to gather, and from the research, the memories trapped inside there want to get out. But when we do, we need to see the memories and they will scatter unless it is a familiar environment. I also want to see if any of you have any holes in your memories about the event, a clue if you've been affected by it as well…"

She went on like that for quite a while, but none of them understood much of what she was saying. Unlike Sophia, Mary didn't realise she had lost her audience.

"… Does that make it clearer?" she asked as she finished.

"Not at all," Scorpius said. "But more talking won't make it easier. Just tell us what you need." Rose sighed but nodded as well.

"Well, first off, the statue. Would you say it emits the same kind of pulses it did when you first encountered it?"

"Yes, definitely," Rose said. "Though I think it was even worse. Or maybe I've just become more desensitised to the sensation."

"No, I thought the same," Albus said. "And I think I know what's missing. The victim."

"We're not placing James on that thing again!" Scorpius and Rose said together.

"Most certainly we are not," Hermione agreed as she also came over to them. With her was a man in chains, in a prisoner's garb. "Nor are we placing anyone else there."

"That's not what I meant," Albus said. "But we can place a dummy."

With a wave of his wand, Albus had placed a fairly realistic looking dummy near the statue. They all felt the effect instantly.

"That's even worse than I feared," the man that had arrived with Hermione whispered. "And they want to release this into the world."

"The goal is to remove this foulness from the world," Hermione snapped. "And you might benefit from it as well. Until then, just shut up and do as you're told."

Scorpius thought the man looked familiar but couldn't place him. Albus seemed to know who it was, but neither of them explained it.

"Okay, we've placed Muggle Repellent Charms around the area, but they may begin to wonder what's going on soon, so let's get this over with," Harry said as he came from the perimeter of the graveyard.

"Right," Albus said, walking down the rows of graves. "We started over here. Rose, Scorpius and I were tied together over here. The Death Eaters were patrolling around us with hoods on…" he went on to recount the details of their first encounter with Dark Magic. Scorpius and Rose added a few details as well, but it was mostly Albus talking.

Dean Thomas was there, as were several other people who had been present at various times before. Ginny was there too, and with Sophia they played various parts as needed but Sophia seemed transfixed by Albus' story. She probably learnt a lot about the man she had only met properly about a month ago. Most of the others present seemed to be Ministry workers, Scorpius thought he recognised some of them as Unspeakables. Were they here because they had worked in proximity to the statue? But who was the man in chains? None of them seemed to pay any attention to him.

Scorpius told his part more reluctantly than Albus, as Albus once again pretended to stab Dean in the back, then hoisted him up and set him on fire. Rose couldn't stop a few tears from falling as they did that. It was by far the worst part of the whole experience. She had felt her whole world collapsing as one of her own family members had become a murderer. Or so she thought.

"That's right at the vortex," Mary said. "I'm astonished that it didn't affect you more, doing a deed like that surrounded by so much Dark energy."

"Ok, enough talking. How are we going to destroy this thing?" James asked. He felt ill and nauseous just being near that thing and wanted to get away from here as soon as possible.

Hermione started handing out various containers that they could use to scoop up memories as they escaped.

"Some of them might even be from local Muggles who visited the nearby graves," she said. "We will need to identify them later. For now, try to contain as many as possible of the ones that don't go straight for their owners."

They all lined up in a circle around the statue as Harry aimed a Blasting Curse at it. Nothing happened. They all tried various spells, but nothing seemed to make a difference. With the dummy or without, all spells aimed at the statue were either diverted or simply absorbed. Not even all of them casting spells together made as much as a dent in it.

"OK, maybe my idea wasn't so stupid after all," Sophia said as she traced something in the air. A massive sledgehammer appeared by her side.

"Anyone getting too close to that, risks getting sucked in with it," Mary objected. "Especially now that it feels that we're trying to destroy it."

"But there is no other way," Sophia objected.

"There has to be a better way," Mary retorted.

"Get out of my way," James suddenly said from behind them. Before anyone had time to object, he had grabbed the sledgehammer and was running towards the item that had ruined his life. He raised it up high and slammed it into the statue. There was a gigantic bang and the whole statue was enveloped in a grey cloud.