Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 114: Escape
"What is happening?!" Tonks said in panic.
After leaving the cathedral, they ran for several minutes through the streets of the city.
At first, they thought that the release of magical energies from the ritual had caused some fires in the buildings and houses, but they soon started to realize that something much worse had happened here.
There were cracks on the ground from where a nauseating gas was coming out. The gas would then catch on fire, burning everything around it.
They could hear the sounds of creatures nearby but couldn't see them.
And up in the sky, there was something resembling a full moon, except it was emitting a strong red light that bathed the entire city, giving it a very eerie look.
There were no humans in sight, and yet, they would often hear painful moans coming from beneath the ground.
"What happened here? What did the Demon Lord do?!" Sirius asked again.
Even Voldemort was not too sure at this point. "A sacrificial ritual of seven million people is something unprecedented," he said in a somber tone. "Its effects could only be guessed at best."
"Then guess…" Tonks said.
Voldemort glared around the nightmarish place and drew a conclusion based on Harry's previous actions. "Some ancient tomes speak about the possible origin of demons. Some claim that they all come from a different world or dimension, called the Netherworld… A ritual like this one may have been powerful enough to bring a piece of that world into ours...or perhaps even to alter the fabric of reality itself."
"You mean like… Hell? This is Hell?!" Tonks looked horrified at the mere idea.
"Shh! Wait!" Sirius exclaimed. "I think… we are being surrounded." They kept hearing rustling noises as if something had been moving close by, but they were all sure these were not humans.
"Where are we even going?" asked Tonks. "We left all of our troops at St. Mungo's, but…"
She didn't want to say it, but looking at the condition of the city, it was not likely for anyone there to still be alive.
But even worse than that, the Ministry of Magic, as well as Diagon Alley, were also inside London.
"Should we go to the Ministry to check?" Sirius wondered if someone could still be there.
"What do you think?" Voldemort asked while trying to contain his rising anger. If the situation were different, he would have already killed these two.
But right now, he could not afford to spare anyone capable of holding a wand.
"We are going to Hogwarts," Voldemort finally said. "It's the safest place right now."
"That would be nice, but… do we really need to walk out of here first? There are like twenty miles to the border! Moody said that we cannot use apparition or our portkeys." Tonks didn't look like she could walk that distance, much less run while fighting demons at the same time.
"He was right," Voldemort confirmed. "Can't you feel it in the air? There's this bizarre presence… At first, I thought it was a high concentration of magic caused by the ritual, but it's something else."
"You mean like… something that came from the demon world?" Sirius asked.
"We don't know how our own magic would react to it, so we'd better keep it to a minimum," Voldemort suggested.
"Hold on…" Sirius had a sudden idea. "Let's go to the Leaky Cauldron! We can get flying brooms from Diagon Alley. If they work, we can leave this place in no time."
Voldemort seemed to consider it for a moment. His red eyes darted around. The noises were getting louder, and it was clear that something was following them.
The chances of leaving the city without being attacked were very low, and none of them were in good shape.
They had come here after fighting an army of demons in Azkaban, with just a short rest in between. Everyone had a limit.
"We have to run… they saw us," Voldemort said, glancing up.
A dozen flying creatures were now coming their way. They were different from all the demons they had seen so far, and they didn't want to stay to find out what these could do.
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"Close the door! Hurry!" Tonks screamed.
"Huff… huff…" Sirius pushed the door shut, and Voldemort placed a chain in front to prevent it from opening.
They had only to run ten blocks to get here and were chased all the way by those flying demons, as well as others running across the flames, but they couldn't see them clearly.
"There is no one here either…" Tonks said.
They all knew that the ritual Harry used would turn human bodies into dust, but they had a sliver of hope that magical folk were somewhat resistant to it, and perhaps they could find a few survivors.
Their group had only avoided the effects because they were at the very center of the circle...it was the only safe place to be.
"We should have warned them all…" Sirius lamented.
Voldemort scoffed. "If we had wasted time doing that, we would be dead as well. Besides, do you think they would have believed you and run away?"
Sirius knew that it was true. They barely made it to the cathedral before the circle became active. Had they tried to come here first or write messages, they would have been too late. "Still…"
"Moody told me that he sent a message to the Ministry while we were at the hospital," said Tonks. "Maybe the Minister and a few others are still alive."
"I guess we'll find out soon enough," Voldemort said as he opened the wall that led into the alley.
"It's the same," Sirius frowned when he saw that the previously beautiful Diagon Alley had turned into a ruined mess with fire everywhere.
"Come on. Let's just hope that a few brooms have survived the ordeal," Voldemort urged them to move.