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The Fiendfyre was drawn from Ian's core magic, refined through battle and tutelage in the Twilight Realm. It would not be banished by schoolboy spellwork.
Beads of sweat began to form on Voldemort's borrowed brow. He grit his teeth, his expression contorting with effort. Desperate, he turned to sothing far darker.
"Descend into the Abyss!"
With that incantation, a wave of black mist burst forth, spreading like a malignant fog throughout the Chamber. Within it, the shapes of countless wailing souls writhed and clawed their way forward, forming a shield of the damned.
Dark magic, true dark magic, had a unique trait. It could produce devastating effects even without vast magical reserves, so long as it was willing to draw from twisted sources.
The sacrifice of others. The corruption of souls.
This was its nature.
And Voldemort, who had long discarded morality, did not hesitate to pay the price. His own soul, already fractured and threadbare, ant little to him now. A horde of tortured spirits charged toward the Fiendfyre, shrieking with fury and pain, their spectral claws flailing as they tried to stall the advancing flas.
Yet, Even this was not enough.
Fiendfyre, Ian's most refined magic, was no ordinary fire. It devoured everything. It judged everything. It did not fear dark magic, it consud it.
Even at his height, Voldemort had failed to suppress it. Here and now, weakened and bound to another's body, he stood no chance.
"Roar! Roar! Roar!"
The black mist shrieked as the Fiendfyre t it, flas crashing through the soul-shield like a battering ram of wrath. Each ti the blue fire t a spirit, it erupted in a burst of howling agony, and black smoke billowed into the air. The souls twisted, burned, dissolved, until nothing remained but ash swirling through the cursed wind.
The so-called defense fell apart instantly.
But Voldemort did not panic.
No, this had never been a counterattack. He had known from the start that Ian's strength was absolute.
He only needed ti.
And the mont the flas slowed, if only slightly, he took it.
He lunged.
Straight for Pansy.
"Do you intend to reduce your classmate to ashes too?" He shouted, grabbing the stunned girl's limp form and yanking her upright. "This innocent little witch, are you going to burn her with the rest of us?"
The implication was clear: a plea to Ian's conscience, a gamble on compassion. He pressed Harry's wand against Pansy's neck, the tip glowing ominously green. A Killing Curse, barely restrained.
This was a bet.
A final wager.
That Ian, like most Hogwarts students, valued loyalty, friendship, and sentintality.
But Ian only narrowed his eyes.
"Tch. Do you think I care about so random Slytherin who ans nothing to ? Do you honestly believe that could stop ? What does her life or death have to do with ?"
His tone was cold, deathly cold.
"You've never understood , Voldemort. You thought I was like the rest of them. But this girl? She's nothing. Just another footnote in a larger spell. Disposable. Insignificant."
And the fire did not stop.
The Fiendfyre roared closer, curling behind Voldemort like a wave preparing to crash.
"You don't care about her?" Voldemort snarled, eyes flashing. "Then what about Harry Potter? The so-called saviour of the wizarding world! If you kill , he dies too!"
He was rattled. He hadn't expected Ian's unwavering cruelty. Now he played his final card. The true host. The Boy Who Lived.
Surely that mattered. But Ian didn't flinch.
"It's a necessary sacrifice," He said coolly. "And I think Harry would agree, with the right framing. For the greater good."
He snapped his wand downward, and the Fiendfyre surged once more. It overwheld Voldemort's last defenses, engulfing the chamber in sapphire fla.
"I'll make sure he receives a dignified ending," Ian said, his voice distant, like soone reciting a prepared eulogy. "He died fighting you. With this little Slytherin girl at his side. Side by side in the final battle against evil."
"Tomorrow's Prophet will publish the story. A heroic end. Maybe I'll even receive an Order of rlin for it, 'for avenging the fallen,' they'll say."
His face was still as if it had been carved from frost as he spoke.
Yet his words cut deep, calculated barbs, aid with precision, every syllable designed to pierce Voldemort's fractured pride. Seeing "Harry" with disbelief written all over his face, Ian pressed his advantage, his tone calm and cruel.
"Tom, we were born of the sa world, shaped by the sa magic... how are we not the sa kind of person?" As he spoke, Ian flicked his wand, and the Fiendfyre turned sharply, rushing toward the unconscious Pansy without hesitation.
The eerie blue flas surged and danced. They played along the edge of Voldemort's already-fraying nerves.
"No! You can't do that! You shouldn't be this twisted!"
Watching Ian destroy a fellow student so coldly sent a jolt of terror through Voldemort's fractured soul. For the first ti, he felt the depth of Ian's darkness, and how utterly wrong his previous assumptions had been.
Indeed.
He, too, had worn a mask at Hogwarts, charming, clever, charismatic. But the boy before him wasn't pretending. Ian wasn't so sanctimonious white-robed duelist. No, this young wizard was capable of killing the Boy Who Lived, without so much as a flicker of hesitation in his eyes.
The Fiendfyre cracked Voldemort's protective enchantnts further. He had no doubt now. Ian ant every word.
"Clever of you!" Voldemort snarled.
And just as his magical shield shattered entirely, "Harry" could take no more.
He saw Ian lift his wand again. The sa, unmistakable hue of the Killing Curse flared, aid at Harry's heart.
He began shaking the limp, half-conscious boy violently, voice rising in sheer desperation, as if shouting upward, through the Chamber ceiling, toward the school above.
He prayed, scread, for Hogwarts itself to intervene. That so remnant of ancient magic, so guardian enchantnt still lurking in its bones, would save him as it had once before.
Once before?
The newly-awakened Harry Potter blinked in confusion.
He was lying in ankle-deep water, his robes drenched. A few feet away, Ian held another sodden figure, an unconscious, pale-faced witch.
The Boy Who Lived could only gape. His first thought wasn't gratitude for survival.
It was bewildernt.
'Why was he on the ground… and why was Ian carrying soone else?'
'Was it because he wasn't Harry?'
His muddled mind couldn't quite grasp what absurd thoughts were beginning to surface.
"Oh, I might've forgotten to ntion, last year, I defeated Voldemort too, just like you. Love and all that. But this ti, it's nothing so poetic. This year, it's raw, overwhelming, magical force."
Ian regretted not having enchanted a Pensieve crystal to record the battle; if he had, he might've projected his heroic image in every Hogwarts corridor, on loop, twenty-four hours a day.
"The power of love…"
Harry struggled to rise, shaking his pounding head with all the strength he could muster. Just as Ian stepped forward, ready to offer a full explanation, Harry suddenly paused, a flicker of recollection flashing across his face.
His complexion drained to a ghostly white, and his eyes brimd with pain and confusion.
"Are you alright?"
Ian, unsure, moved closer, concern evident in his tone.
And then, without warning, Harry collapsed to his knees, clutching at his skull as though sothing unspeakable was clawing its way through his mind. His eyes clouded, catching flashes of distant, fragnted images.
It was a side effect of the lingering connection to the Horcrux, though now severed, its remnants flickered like shards of shattered glass, slipping through his thoughts.
(To Be Continued…)
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