Runes, Blood, and a Promise
Kre looked around for an instant, as if he already knew what was about to happen. A smile formed on his face as he raised his red wand.
Immediately, thousands of snaps resounded in unison: the house-elves that surrounded him had activated their magic. Chains, ropes, and roots appeared and lunged to trap him, but the high elf barely waved his wand. A blood-red fire burst from its tip, scorching everything around him.
The blaze swept toward the nearest elves, who vanished with a snap only to reappear elsewhere and continue their attempt to contain that being who should not exist.
Meanwhile, on the battlefield, Harry's group looked at each other for a second, realizing they had no time to waste. Luciel was the first to run toward the barrier that held Katerina trapped.
Hermione noticed him immediately and ran after him. "Guys!" she shouted as she crouched beside Luciel, examining the runes carved around the barrier to decipher how to open it.
Daphne, Draco, and Harry exchanged looks and then lowered their gazes, following the pattern of the marks on the ground. Each moved to a different point and began to modify the runes from their positions.
Without stopping, Luciel drew his sword and struck the barrier with all the strength he had. The metallic echo rang again and again until, on the fifth blow, the sword broke. Even so, he did not release the hilt; with the blade shattered he kept striking, determined to break it down with his own hands.
"Luciel, go! You're in danger. I'll be fine, please!" Katerina shouted from the other side, watching in horror as attacks drew nearer while the elves tried to contain the high elf, who responded with spells of total destruction.
Some elves were sent flying, saved at the last moment by their companions before disappearing and reappearing elsewhere. But for every one that fell, more joined the fight.
The flames began to devour part of the castle, and debris rained across the battlefield.
Luciel, as if he didn't hear his fiancée's pleas, continued striking until his hands filled with blood.
"Luciel, please!" Katerina cried, her voice broken.
He raised his head, forcing a calm smile despite the pain that made him tremble. "What are you saying? I would never leave you."
Katerina's tears fell without stopping. "Please, I beg you, stop…"
"Come on, hurry up!" Hermione exclaimed just as the golem protecting her was hit by a spell and exploded into fragments.
"I'm doing what I can! Yelling at me won't make my hands move faster than my limit," Draco growled, sweating as he frantically traced lines on the ground. Without taking his eyes off the runes, he waved his wand, and one of his golems ran to place itself in front of Hermione as a new shield.
"Same here," Daphne murmured, not lifting her head, while her own golems formed a defensive wall around her.
Harry, silent, drank recovery potions as he worked on his portion of the runes, focused to the extreme.
In the air, Kre began to levitate. With a cold expression, he raised Harry's wand and pointed it at the sky. The fire that poured from it concentrated until it took the form of a fiery dragon, which roared furiously before diving down. The elves barely had time to teleport to escape its strike.
Harry lifted his gaze and saw the dragon heading straight toward Luciel and Hermione. Without hesitation, he pulled out two potions of different colors, drank them in one gulp, and dropped the empty bottles. His skin took on a sickly hue from the mixture, but he raised both hands with determination.
The ground in front of Luciel and Hermione rose, forming a gigantic wall of earth. With another movement of his arms, Harry made the wall crash down with all its weight onto the fire dragon, crushing it.
The effort pushed him to the limit: he fell to his knees, exhausted by the combination of potions and magic.
"Harry!" the others shouted.
He raised a trembling hand, signaling that he was fine and that they shouldn't stop.
Katerina, however, wasn't thinking about the battle or the dragon. She only saw Luciel, her fiancé, with bloodied hands.
"Please, Luciel… move away. I beg you." Her tears mixed with the desperation in her voice.
Luciel, seeing her, stopped his strikes. The pain in his eyes reflected an unbearable weight, as if every one of Katerina's tears shattered his heart to pieces. He placed his wounded hand against the barrier, right where hers rested.
"I promised you," he said softly. "I would never leave you. I would give my life for you if necessary. I'm not going anywhere."
Katerina sobbed hard, but before she could speak again, he interrupted her tenderly:
"This place… here is where we had our first date, remember? We didn't even know yet that our families had arranged our engagement. And even so… I always smile when I remember it."
"Luciel, please…" she whispered.
"I'm not going anywhere, my love."
"I'm finished!" Daphne finally shouted.
Harry, exhausted, raised his hand to confirm and collapsed on his back, with Gris firmly at his side, protecting him.
"Hermione!" Draco announced, finishing as well.
Hermione traced the last rune and, in a flash, the barrier exploded into thousands of luminous particles.
Katerina, who had still been leaning against it, fell forward straight into Luciel's arms. He caught her with a serene smile.
"I've got you," he whispered, with that charming expression that seemed capable of conquering the entire world.
Katerina looked deeply into his eyes and, with a weak but genuine smile, replied: "Yes."
"I don't want to interrupt, but it would be better if we moved from here," Hermione said as she approached the figure trapped in what looked like a seal of ice.
Inside, there was a small elf girl in a pink princess dress, as if she were asleep in a deep frozen slumber.
Hermione carefully lifted her, carrying the icy block that contained the creature. Together with Luciel and Katerina, she began moving away from the center of the battlefield.
Katerina turned back one last time. Her eyes fixed on Kre, filled with indescribable pain, before Luciel took her hand to keep her moving.
Kre remained in the middle of the chaos. His hair, now a vibrant red, waved as if it had a life of its own, while his face stayed emotionless. Around him, his kin—elves of the same race—attacked without rest, trying to contain him. But he only wanted to destroy everything. Destroy them if necessary. And if the entire world stood in his way, he would reduce it to ashes as well. The emotions boiling within him grew more dangerous with every passing second.
He raised his wand, and a green glow shone at its tip. Dozens of spells from the house-elves struck him without pause, but none could stop him.
Then, just as he was ready to annihilate everything that stood in his way, his eyes shifted toward Hermione. She was carrying his daughter. That single instant was enough to make him stop.
As if regaining his sanity for a second, the spell he was about to cast transformed into a reddish pulse that burst from his chest, pushing everyone around him back and knocking them to the ground.
Kre pointed at Hermione, who looked at him warily and placed the little one behind her, protecting her despite not knowing who she was.
Kre stood still. Images of his past flooded his mind.
He remembered when Katerina's family had freed his wife and him, saving them from being sold. But that freedom had been a disguised punishment: without work or protection, they ended up in a ruinous house, under the cruelty of a squib woman who mistreated them with hatred. His wife, unable to use magic, was forced to endure abuse, and Kre bore it all for her, just to keep her safe.
When he learned he was going to be a father, he believed it would be the beginning of a new life. His wife, weakened, used every point of magic she managed to gather to sustain the baby growing in her womb. Her sacrifice was such that, when the little girl was born, she did not survive.
The happiest day of Kre's life also became the most painful.
The girl was immediately marked as a slave of the family. Barely a week later, she was already forced to do chores, punished as if she were an adult. Kre could not accept it.
He stole a princess dress and tricked the woman into freeing the girl, but the deception only fueled her fury. The squib tried to kill the child. Kre escaped with her in his arms, and from that moment on, they were hunted, labeled as dangerous elves. No one wanted to employ them.
The girl grew ill. Desperate, Kre received an ancient book from a stranger. He had no other choice but to seal his daughter in ice to keep her alive until he found a solution. And he found it: to force a magical contract that would free her from all servitude. Even if he had to give his life, he would.
But in the process… everything spiraled out of control. He spiraled out of control.
The power in his wand was overwhelming, capable of laying waste to the entire world, and he wasn't even using one percent of it. He knew that sooner or later he would lose control completely.
Kre looked at Hermione and then at the little one. A soft, almost human smile appeared on his face.
"I'm sorry, my princess… it seems your father won't be able to stay by your side." His voice was serene, a whisper that pierced the heart of everyone present.
He slowly lowered the wand, lifted his other hand, and snapped his fingers. The seal shattered into brilliant fragments, freeing the little one.
"Take care of her," he said, looking at Hermione. Even as a stranger, she had put the girl's safety before her own. He moved the red wand, and a scarlet thread of magic emerged, binding Hermione and the elf child in a magical contract.
Afterward, Kre turned his gaze toward Katerina.
"I'm sorry… I tried to force you into something that wasn't your fault."
Katerina opened her tear-filled eyes.
"No, Kre… it was our fault."
He smiled softly and let the wand fall.
The house-elves, who had risen, surrounded him. With a single snap, they unleashed hundreds, thousands of spells at once.
Kre spread his arms wide, receiving them all without resistance. He knew that his existence could become the cause of the extinction of house-elves, because witches and wizards would never accept that one of their kind could attain such power.
Harry and the others watched in silence. On their faces there was no celebration, only seriousness and grief.
In one of Beauxbatons' towers.
"A love story in the middle of a battlefield… and a father who gave everything for his daughter." Pandora leaned against the balustrade, both hands propped under her cheeks, watching the scene with interest. Beside her, Luna mirrored her mother's posture, wearing the same dreamy expression.
"They were all amazing. I'm truly proud of them," Selene remarked with a serene smile, watching the group finally reach safety along with the rescued students. Astoria was even munching on popcorn.
"Says the person who was about to jump off the roof to save them," Sirius quipped in his usual mocking tone, though his eyes reflected the pride he felt for his little fledglings on the battlefield.
Selene rolled her eyes and gestured with her chin. "Well, I wasn't the only one." Her gaze shifted to Susan and Narcissa, who had also been on the verge of stepping in. Meanwhile, Wanda stood motionless, her hand extended in the air as if waiting for the exact moment.
"Can I ask what exactly this rather… interesting test is for?" Tonks asked, having followed Sirius out of curiosity.
Edward stood with his arms crossed, wand in hand, watching intently. Wendel, on the other hand, held his head every time he saw an explosion too close to Hermione, as if with each blast his heart shrank.
Alice and Frank looked at their son with pride that was impossible to hide, remembering that, before all this, they had helped bring the fainted students to safety.
Nicolas, who had remained silent until then, stepped forward from the corner where he stood. With a calm smile, he explained:
"I suppose the purpose is to show them that not everything can be solved easily. Even if they are protected by all the defenses that have been created for them, it doesn't mean they are out of danger. Harry understood it when facing Luciel: if he had truly been injured, the protections wouldn't have been able to save him. Draco learned that, although his skills surpass many others, it is still not enough in certain situations. Daphne realized that magic is not a game, like when Harry turned into an adult. And Hermione… when she lost her wand, she almost lost most of her power, because she never made the effort to develop what is special within her: her telekinesis. It was always easier to learn a thousand spells than to explore that unique talent. And one more thing: sometimes small things trigger greater catastrophes. Everything began with the disappearance of just a few wands."
The parents listened in silence, absorbing every word.
Then, Nicolas turned his gaze toward the center of the battlefield. The house-elves' spells converged in one point, and there was Wanda, her eyes fixed and serious.
"A father who made poor decisions to see his daughter grow," Nicolas murmured. "He didn't choose the best path, and with his mere existence he could bring danger to his entire race. Even so…"
His gaze met Wanda's. For a moment, the Scarlet Witch looked at him seriously, then turned her eyes back to Kre. She slowly closed her hand.
An explosion erupted, with Kre at its center, engulfing him in a final radiance.
Nicolas remained silent for a few seconds, before looking at the students' parents. They were a varied and eccentric group, but in that moment they seemed united by the same feeling.
"Truly… a great family," he said calmly. He had been watching them from the very beginning: worried to the extreme, later cheering like cheerleaders, then shocked at every twist in the battle, and finally overflowing with pride.