Power Plays Chapter 23 (Patreon)

AN: Hello everyone! This is the penultimate chapter of Part 1 of Power Plays. The next chapter will wrap things up and signal the transition to Part 2 of the story. I know these last few chapters have been quite plot heavy, and we have one more to go after this, but then this story will be returning to more of its original focus: Harry gaining political power through sleeping with various witches. I didn't feel like I could do the story justice without also exploring the plans Harry had in place and the effects of his deals with everyone he slept with, so I wanted to explore that here. Hopefully you've enjoyed this story as well as I have.

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There wasn’t much that could help them now, and Harry knew that. With eight Death Eaters, including Bellatrix Lestrange, standing in front of him and Susan, it was bound to be a rough fight. The only hope he had was his Auror badge. 

Each badge was connected back to Headquarters. If he applied enough magic to it, it’d recognise his call for help and relay that information back to the Auror Department. With Amelia and Proudfoot now in charge of things over there, they were sure to send reinforcements his way as soon as possible, but Harry knew how slow it was to transmit this information. At best, it’d take at least five minutes before anyone showed up here, and that didn’t account for the wards that appeared over the area. Any incoming Aurors or Hit Witches or Hit Wizards would be forced to apparate outside of its bounds and then run in. 

It was a rough situation, and he could see that Susan recognised that too. She tightened her grip on her wand and changed her stance into one that was ready for a fight. 

Bellatrix was staring him down, her wand in her hand, as her seven Death Eater followers began to spread out. They had plenty of space to manoeuvre in the middle of the street, but Harry and Susan had the cover of the short fence and hedges that lined Dawlish’s property. It wouldn’t hold up under sustained fire, and the golden dome still encased Dawlish’s home, preventing them from retreating back towards it.

There was no sign of Dawlish in his home. The windows were all covered with curtains and blinds. Honestly, even with all of his faults, Harry had expected better from the man. Sure, he knew just how protective Dawlish was of his wife given the magical disease that left her severely restricted in what she was able to do in her normal life, but he still thought that the man would have shown up to fight back against Death Eaters.

Instead, he and Susan were left alone again.

The Ministry was corrupt, there was no denying that, but even these broken parts of it weren’t strong enough to stand up to the darkness that plagued their world. Maybe he’d been too passive in his actions to oust Dawlish. Maybe the Ministry would have been better able to combat the rising Death Eater faction if it’d had a competent leader at its helm. Harry didn’t know, but he did now know that a change was needed now more than ever. 

Amelia and Proudfoot were doing their best, but the time constraints and difficult circumstances left them limited. If he were in their place with enough time to reorganise and retrain the Auror Department, they could be whipped into a force that could help protect Britain the way it needed to be. 

If he lived through this, maybe he could manage that. 

But first, he had to deal with the incursion in front of him.

Harry hadn’t realised that he’d slipped into a combat stance himself. It was automatic at this point, and he was grateful for his years of training despite how difficult they were.

“You won’t win this fight,” Harry told Bellatrix fiercely, hinging on his notoriety as the one who killed Voldemort to intimidate whoever she had following her into this fight.

Bellatrix didn’t even bristle at his words. Instead, she just grinned and jabbed her wand towards him. “You have it wrong there, Potter,” she spat on the ground. “You have something I want.”

There was a moment of confusion before Harry realised what she could be referring towards. The only thing he had, in the loosest sense, was the young girl that was now in Auror custody. Unlike the captured Death Eaters who’d already been processed and sent to Azkaban, no one knew quite what to do with the young girl they’d recovered from Rowle Manor. She was old enough to speak, yet she’d not uttered a single word since arriving at the Ministry. She hadn’t said anything during her checkup at St Mungo’s either, and he knew that Amelia was starting to get worried about her.

Maybe she was the daughter of someone important. Maybe she was Bellatrix’s daughter herself, as impossible as that seemed to imagine. Harry didn’t know, but he wasn’t above ignoring an advantage placed right in front of him like this.

“You want the girl,” he stated firmly, like he wasn’t still slightly unsure that he was on the wrong track.

Bellatrix growled and brandished her wand roughly as she leaned forward aggressively towards Harry. “You’ll give her back to me or you’ll pay,” she barked.

There it was. The maniacal anger that denoted Bellatrix above all other Death Eaters finally came to the fore. She looked like a wild animal, destined for either a vicious assault or a quick culling depending on how she responded to his next words.

“Or you’ll surrender,” Harry retorted. He loosened his stance slightly, making it look like he didn’t care that he was outnumbered in this fight. Susan shot him a concerned look, but it was subtle enough that he was sure that none of the Death Eaters picked up on it. “You know that you and your lackeys can’t beat me, so why don’t you surrender now. If you don’t, I can’t guarantee your lives will remain intact afterwards.”

Bellatrix sneered at him. “That’s not how Aurors fight.”

That was true. At least, it was to a degree. Despite being allowed to use lethal spells after having them fired at you first, many Aurors didn’t try to kill Death Eaters. Their conscience and sense of justice limited them. It was something that Harry had struggled with himself, but after years in the force and talking with Daphne, he knew his stance on the matter. He’d put down Bellatrix without a second thought, and given the fact that most Death Eaters, even those only barely involved with the cause, recidivated after incarceration, Harry was ready to handle the rest of them in a similar manner.

Even though Susan was with him, he trusted her to play along with him, assuming that he was just trying to intimidate Bellatrix and her followers and not laying out the truth of things.

“Are you so sure about that?” Harry asked cockily. “I put down Voldemort like the dog he was. After what all of you have done, who’s to say we won’t deal with you the same way?”

The subtle steps back some of the Death Eaters took reassured Harry that he was on the right track. Bellatrix didn’t seem to notice any of it; her furious focus was solely locked onto Harry.

“You dare speak his name?” Bellatrix said quietly with a warning evident in her tone. The hatred in her eyes was undeniable. There was almost a physical sensation of the violence she was promising, but Harry ignored it. He’d faced worse when he confronted Voldemort at the Battle of Hogwarts. If he could handle the worst Dark Lord in living memory, he could handle Bellatrix.

“I do,” Harry retorted firmly. “Voldemort was a pathetic weakling who I killed,” he emphasised. “The rest of you will share his fate unless you throw down your wands.”

There was a silent dialogue between two of the Death Eaters at the back of the group. Harry made a mental note of them, hoping that they’d either not unleash their full force on him or simply retreat as soon as the fighting started. Given Bellatrix’s demeanour, he was sure now that no matter what he said, she’d try to kill him tonight. He welcomed her actions gladly; after all, killing her helped save Daphne’s best friend, Tracey.

“Your insolence will be punished severely, you filthy half-blood!” Bellatrix screamed in the middle of the silent street. “Our Lord will be reborn!”

“No he won’t,” Harry interrupted. “I saw to that.”

Bellatrix’s eyes gleamed that maniacal gleam that had haunted Harry’s dreams after the Battle at the Ministry at the end of his fifth year.

“You’re wrong,” she replied, sounding impossibly sure of herself.

There were no Horcruxes left; Harry, Ron, and Hermione had made sure of that. 

“You’re wrong, you’re wrong,” Bellatrix repeated over and over again to herself, her voice dropping as quiet as a whisper.

“Voldemort is gone from the world and—” Harry began to speak, only for Bellatrix to suddenly lunge towards him as she screamed.

“Our daughter will finish what he started!” 

Their daughter? Harry was almost too stunned to block the blood-boiling curse that Bellatrix hurled at him. It was only thanks to Susan snapping into action faster than him that he didn’t boil alive right then. She brought up a glowing shield in front of him, and the dark black curse exploded on it like a giant orb of water.

“You’ll give her back to me right now!” Bellatrix demanded shrilly, her wand arm twitching. She was cracking now, slowly slipping down into whatever madness had been wrought upon her during her time in Azkaban. “Or else I’ll burn this country to the ground!”

“This is what these attacks have all been about,” Harry murmured in realisation to himself. He locked eyes with Bellatrix, and behind the wrath and fury that made her so dangerous was fear. It was an emotion he’d never expected to see out of Bellatrix, but there it was. “The young girl we captured was your daughter. Yours and—” he almost couldn’t bring himself to say it. “—Voldemort’s.”

“She’ll carry on her father’s legacy and put this world in proper order!” Bellatrix raged. Suddenly, the ground beneath her began to crack as her magic began to accidentally leak out of her body. The asphalt road began to crumple and turn to dust as a storm whipped up around her. “And you, Potter, will be the first one to die under her reign!”

Suddenly, Bellatrix hurled another spell towards him. It was the purest white-coloured spell he’d ever seen, and he didn’t recognise it. Not knowing what it was, both he and Susan leapt aside, and the spell exploded on the golden dome that encased Dawlish’s house.

“Kill them!” Bellatrix commanded her Death Eaters.

Harry was just regaining his footing when the order was issued. Of the seven who had come with her, two seemed reluctant to fight. They held back, holding their wands in defensive positions, while the other five began their attack. 

Harry was forced to shield and defend himself as the spellfire rained down upon him. The Death Eaters pushed forward into Dawlish’s front garden and separated Harry and Susan from each other. Four of the Death Eaters split off to go fight Susan while the remaining three and Bellatrix herself attacked him.

Crackling energy filled the garden as dozens of spells were fired in seconds. The Death Eaters were reckless in their use of Killing Curses, and they forced Harry to be as quick on his feet as he was with his wand. For every slab of stone he managed to conjure or raise out of the earth, two more killing curses would arrive before he could make another. He had to leap from side to side, duck, and weave his body carefully around the incoming spells in order to stay alive. The house behind him was being pummelled by the killing curses, and Harry could already hear the internal structure of it starting to whine as more and more pieces were weakened and destroyed.

Within thirty seconds, the Death Eaters in front of him were beginning to flag. Although the Killing Curse was relatively easy to cast so long as one meant to actually kill someone, it was very draining to use so frequently in such a short span of time. In this opening volley, each Death Eater managed to cast it no less than six times. And each time Harry dodged out of the way, the next one arrived just a little bit slower than the last.

Years of physical and magical training kept Harry prepared for this exact situation. Dodging at close range like this was challenging, but it wasn’t difficult to predict where the Death Eaters were going to cast given how their gazes clearly telegraphed their targets. Their casting became sloppier over time, their spells less precise, and, most importantly, they left bigger gaps in between their Killing Curses.

Harry took the first chance he had to fire back a spell. A two-second gap in between Killing Curses gave him just enough time to act. “Expulso!” He shouted, deliberately wanting to warn Susan in case she could overhear him so that she didn't get caught off guard by any stray debris. 

The blue light of his curse struck the ground directly beside the leftmost Death Eater that was attacking him, sending him careening into his closest ally. The two Death Eaters went down in a heap on the ground while Bellatrix and the other one were pelted with heavy clumps of grass, dirt, and bits of stone. 

Even though he had Bellatrix and the other Death Eater off guard, Harry couldn’t risk the other two getting back up and joining the fight. He fired another Blasting Curse at the two fallen men and held back a cringe as the curse blew holes through both of their chests.

“Look out!” Susan cried out in the distance.

Harry’s body reacted before his mind did. He threw himself aside and tucked into a roll as the house behind him finally began to collapse. The entire side of the building closest to him splintered and caved in, creating a cascade of walls collapsing one after the other. The top half of the house started to fall into the now open gap, and the structure let out a terrible screech before a heavy boom rang out as the house smashed into the dirt. 

Massive splinters of wood and plaster spat out of the burning wreckage. Harry gasped in pain as one of them pierced through his calf, but he didn’t let himself get distracted like the remaining Death Eater did. That man was too busy watching the destruction of the house to notice the Severing Charm that sliced straight through his neck, showering Bellatrix with hot blood.

Despite having just killed three men, Harry felt more alive than ever. After the war, he’d been propped up and paraded around as a symbol of peace and stability. And, while he enjoyed the peace that came with Voldemort’s fall, the bureaucracy, red tape, and intense scrutiny over every little action he made was tedious to say the least. Even when he did manage to get out in the field and do good work, it almost felt too easy at times. It was almost never like how the war was when his life was on the line and every decision he made had a tremendous impact on the world.

This fight brought him back to that. Here, he could let loose and feel pushed to his limits. It was like whenever he exercised; if he wasn’t pushing his limits, then he never felt quite satisfied. Having four people cast Killing Curses at him, knowing that a single one could end his life if it touched him, brought the world around him into sharp clarity. Everything felt so much more visceral like this, and it rejuvenated Harry’s soul unlike anything else.

Maybe it was a byproduct of the fact that he’d grown up experiencing tremendous abuse and a constant struggle to stay alive against the forces of darkness, or maybe he just liked the thrill of it all. Harry wasn’t here to judge his motivations. As long as he was killing the right people and it led to a better outcome for the magical world, that was good enough for him.

Bellatrix screeched as she wiped away the Death Eater’s blood from her face. She was huffing and puffing in fury, ready to slaughter Harry in a second if he only dropped his guard for a moment.

Behind her, Harry saw that Susan had eliminated one Death Eater herself, but she was still struggling under the steady fire of the remaining three. Like Harry, she was waiting for her time to strike whenever the three Death Eaters fell out of sync with one another, but they had her backed into a corner against the golden dome-like shield that covered Dawlish’s house. It wasn’t letting her pass through, and without a good range of motion to dodge the deadly spells the Death Eaters were using, Susan was facing an uphill battle.

As much as Harry wanted to help her, he had to get through Bellatrix first. 

“Avada Kedavra!” She shouted in a venom-laced tone.

The jet of green light flashed before Harry’s eyes as he spun away from it. As it crashed against the destroyed house behind him, two more jets of red-coloured light came flying out of Bellatrix’s wand towards him.

Harry summoned some of the debris from the destroyed house to absorb the spells. The first wooden plank disintegrated into a fine dust while the second somehow transfigured into an acidic-looking liquid that sizzled when it plummeted to the ground.

“You’re going to die here, Potter!” Bellatrix screamed in frustration as she unleashed another flurry of blows.

The longer this fight went on, the more Harry started to become confused. He remembered Bellatrix during the war. Everyone had been terrified of her and her incredible prowess on the battlefield. Even he had been wary of her despite his strong desire to avenge his godfather, Sirius. Her spells had always been powerful enough to tear through the shields of even competent witches and wizards, and the speed of her casting was legendary. Yet, she wasn’t landing a scratch on him.

Harry dodged away from the next blow. Sure, he had to be quick on his feet to stay out of the way of her vicious attacks, but he didn’t feel that same level of fear that came when he was fighting an opponent who was better than him.

Had she gotten weaker, or was he just stronger now?

No, she hadn’t gotten weaker. He could see that in the destructive power of her spells, even with the manic look in her eyes that only seemed to have grown since the war.

Perhaps there was something more to being the Master of Death than met the eye.

Regardless, Harry needed to end this for good. Bellatrix needed to die. 

As he ducked beneath another curse, Harry pointed his wand at the debris behind him. With a simple twist of his wrist, he sent six large pieces of wood into the air and transfigured them into small eagles.

The birds screeched and flew forward at Harry’s unspoken command. They stuck out their talons and descended down onto Bellatrix, who hastily erected a barrier of flames in front of her. 

Without the fear that came with true sentience, the eagles flew straight through the thick wall of flames. Their wings and bodies ignited as they passed through the flames, but they still attacked Bellatrix under Harry’s command.

Bellatrix screamed as the flaming eagles scratched through her flesh. It was a horrific-enough sound to draw the attention of the other Death Eaters, who quickly rushed to her aid. Two of them turned their backs on Susan and started blasting the eagles out of the air.

In a one-on-one fight, the lone Death Eater was no match for Susan. Even as he tried to use the Killing Curse to end things, Susan was faster. She struck him with a stunner so strong that he left his feet, and she followed that up with the Incarcerous Spell that bound him tightly in thick ropes before he even hit the ground.

Harry felt his connection to his magical creations snap one by one as they were dismantled by the Death Eaters. Bellatrix was still screaming, but he could see her thrashing about through the flames as she cast curse after curse to destroy the flaming eagles.

They needed to end things now. He sidestepped his way around the three remaining enemies to reach Susan’s side. She was gasping for breath, looking thoroughly exhausted.

“I’ll take care of Bellatrix,” Harry told her, quickly snapping a shield into place when one of the Death Eaters decided to fire a stray curse at them. “Are you good to handle the other two?”

“Yeah,” Susan panted. As she readied her wand, Harry noticed the growing patch of blood forming on the sleeve of robes over her wand arm. 

“You’re hurt,” Harry commented as he readied himself again too, using the last of his eagles to buy Susan as much time as she needed to recover. Even though he felt confident enough to take on all three fighters at once, he needed her strong enough to not get caught out by a stray spell.

“I’ll be fine,” Susan replied gruffly.

He supposed that he had to take her at her word because Bellatrix slaughtered the last of his eagles with a black Cutting Curse that shredded it like paper.

As the flames dissipated from around Bellatrix, Harry saw the damage he’d done to her. Her face was littered with deep, red gouges, and her robes were shredded. Blood dripped freely down her body and was quickly forming a tiny puddle on the ground around her feet. She also had a few burns on her, but they looked minor compared to the damage done by the eagle’s talons.

Despite all she’d suffered, Bellatrix looked no less determined or maniacal as she stared down at Harry. Before her allies could even prepare themselves, she stalked towards Harry and Susan, firing off the darkest spells she knew to try to kill them.

“Give up and go join mummy and daddy already!” Bellatrix screamed.

Harry covered both him and Susan in a shield, but when Bellatrix’s spells struck it and he felt the power behind them, he knew that it wouldn’t hold for long. 

“Get ready to dodge,” Harry told Susan over the sounds of Bellatrix’s spells crashing against his shield.

Suddenly, Harry dropped the shield, and he and Susan leapt in opposite directions. As he landed on his feet, Harry pointed his wand at Bellatrix. “Glacius!” He cried out.

A thick burst of cold air shot out of his wand and touched Bellatrix. Thick shards of ice began forming around her body, trying to encase her in an icy prison. But, before her arms could be sealed away, Bellatrix dispelled the magic sharply.

With her momentarily distracted, Susan quickly fired a stunning spell at Bellatrix. Harry wanted to shout in frustration that he had this handled, that she should focus on the two Death Eaters who were chasing after Bellatrix. She was exhausted and just needed to bide her time so that Harry could deal with Bellatrix and come to help her. But Susan was an Auror through and through, and if had a chance to stun Bellatrix and take her back to the Ministry alive, she was going to take it. Bellatrix was the last remaining Death Eater who had attacked her home before her sixth year after all.

Unfortunately, Susan’s exhaustion left her less than prepared for a fight like this. Days of long hours, late nights, and exhausting work had left them both tired, but whereas Harry had the magical reserves to keep his body going, Susan was near her limit. 

The red jet of light flew right at Bellatrix’s face and missed it by an inch.

Bellatrix rounded on Susan then as she snapped free of the ice. Susan stumbled in the holes left in the ground from Harry’s blasting curses from earlier.

“Reducto!” Harry shouted. 

His spell connected with a shield one of the two remaining Death Eaters brought up, saving Bellatrix.

“Avada Kedavra!”

The green light engulfed Susan’s body before she had a chance to react.

Green light flashed before Harry’s eyes, and his body instinctively dodged the Killing Curse sent by the second Death Eater. He had felt it more than he had seen it. His eyes still hadn’t left Susan’s body as it crumpled to the ground and life faded from her eyes.

The next seconds were a blur to Harry. Over the ringing in his ears, he heard Bellatrix’s triumphant cackle, the sounds of spells flying towards him, and a rush of blood that forced him into action.

Harry was vicious, duelling like hell to kill these three pieces of scum in front of him. He didn’t defend a single spell, not even when a Cutting Curse clipped his hips and opened up a cut right down to the bone. He just retaliated with a Blasting Curse that took the Death Eater’s head off.

Bellatrix taunted him, saying something that Harry couldn’t make out. He could hear anything anymore. The battlefield was silent, even as the other Death Eater opened his mouth in a scream when Harry’s severing charm lopped off both of his legs.

Even right up to the end, Bellatrix taunted him. He could see it in the expression on her face, the way her lips twisted like her fighting for her life was just a little joke between the two of them. She couldn’t send any curses his way, not when he was fighting like this. His steady stream of powerful curses pounded against her shield again and again until it splintered and cracked and exploded in a shower of light.

Bellatrix landed on her back on the ground, bleeding from various cuts around her body, but she was still laughing. She laughed all the while Harry set her aflame with Fiendfyre and burned her to a crisp. She was still laughing when he pulverised her skeleton into dust. She was still laughing when he vanished away the ash that remained of her body, leaving no trace of her left in the world. She was still laughing when Harry dropped to the ground and cradled Susan’s body in his arms.

She was still laughing when Dawlish opened his front door and stepped outside.