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Chapter 707: Priori Incantatem
🕑 Added 2020-02-09 19:31:33 +0000 UTC
As the closest bead of light moved nearer to Harry's wand tip, the wood beneath his fingers grew so hot he feared it would burst into flame. The closer that beads moved, the harder Harry's wand vibrated.
He was sure his wand would not survive contact with it; it felt as though it was about to shatter under his fingers.
No, you couldn’t let the bead come… he couldn’t fail!
Harry concentrated every particle of his mind upon forcing the bead back toward Voldemort, his ears full of phoenix song, his eyes furious and fixed, and his anger spurting… and slowly, very slowly, the beads quivered to a halt, and then, just as slowly, they began to move the other way … and it was Voldemort’s wand that was vibrating extra-hard now… Voldemort who looked astonished, and almost fearful.
He didn't know what was going on. He got a long-lost body and resurrected to regain strength. No one should be opponent to him except Dumbledore, but now he was deadlocked with the boy, and even in a disadvantage, his wand was not obeying him.
The power he was so proud of became a joke. Voldemort didn't know what had happened.
Outside the web of light, another 13-year-old boy had suppressed his Death Eaters and made them flee with their heads in their arms.
Voldemort felt unprecedented humiliation and panic, and then he saw Evan walking towards Nagini.
Evan’s eyes were on Nagini. He wanted to kill this gleaming serpent, a process unimaginably easy.
Nagini was surrounded by Fiendfyre, but instead of dodging and evading like the Death Eaters, she opened her mouth and pounced on Evan.
Evan waved his wand vigorously, the silver light flashed, and the head of the serpent rushing towards him was cut off the next second!
The snake head spun high into the sky, falling into the flames not far away, and instantly turned into a mass of ashes.
Evan paused for a moment and immediately realized what was going on. Nagini was not a Horcrux yet.
Voldemort had not put his soul fragment into Nagini's body; it was just an ordinary big snake. She was still flesh and blood, and there was no need to use other weapons, as long as the powerful magic could kill it.
"No!" Voldemort shouted angrily, but no one could hear him.
He glared at Evan, and then immediately turned his head to look at one of the beads of light that was only a few inches from the tip of his wand.
He no longer cared for Evan, his beloved snake, and the fleeing Death Eaters. He focused on Harry and the wands facing each other, and couldn't let the beam of light come to him. He was feeling the terrible power from above.
"GOOOOOOO!" Harry roared, looking intently at the light on the wand. He didn’t understand why he was doing it, didn’t know what it might achieve… but he now concentrated as he had never done in his life on forcing that bead of light right back into Voldemort’s wand… and slowly… very slowly… it moved along the golden thread… it trembled for a moment… and then it connected.
Voldemort's wand began to emit echoing screams of pain!
Voldemort's red eyes widened with shock, and a dense, smoky hand flew out of the tip of the wand and vanished. It was the ghost of the hand he had made for the vampire Durand.
More shouts of pain … and then something larger began to blossom from Voldemort’s wand tip, a great, grayish something that looked as though it were made of the solidest, densest smoke. First came out a head, then a chest and arms … it is the shadow of a woman.
It was the ghost of Bertha Jorkins, she stared, her eyes wide open at the fight in front of her.
"Hold on, don't give up!" she said to Harry, her voice distant and echoing.
Harry was terribly surprised, but he instinctively clenched his wand firmly, keeping the golden light going.
He looked at Voldemort whose wide red eyes were still shocked. He had no more expected this than Harry had.
Bertha Jorkins stood on the edge of the gold web, glaring grimly at Voldemort.
Immediately afterwards, there were more screams of pain from the wand, and something else emerged from its tip.
It was the dense shadow of a second head, quickly followed by arms and torso.
It was a wizard Harry had never seen before. He was killed by Voldemort in the ruins of the fallen Centaurs. He pushed himself out of the end of the wand just as Bertha Jorkins had done, and his ghost, or his shadow, or whatever it was, stared fiercely at Voldemort.
That man was an outlaw during his lifetime, and looking at him, he seemed eager to pounce on Voldemort.
"Hold on, boy, he killed me… fight him and avenge me!"
Immediately afterwards, a man appeared, the ghost of an innocent man killed by Voldemort.
As they paced around the inner walls of the golden web, circling the duelers, they whispered words of encouragement to Harry and hissed words Harry couldn’t hear to Voldemort, but they were undoubtedly vicious words. Under the stimulus of these words, Voldemort looked even crazier!
And now, another head was emerging from the tip of Voldemort's wand!
Harry knew when he saw it who it would be… he knew, as though he had expected it from the moment Bertha Jorkins appeared from the wand… he knew, because the woman was the one he had thought of more than any other in his life.
The smoky shadow of a young woman with long hair fell to the ground as Bertha had done, straightened up, and looked at him.
And Harry, his arms shaking madly now, looked back into the ghostly face of his mother.
"Harry, your father’s here, too …" she said quietly. "He wants to see you… it will be all right… hold on."
And he came… first his head, then his body… tall and untidy-haired like Harry, the smoky, shadowy form of James Potter blossomed from the end of Voldemort’s wand, fell to the ground, and straightened like his wife.
James Potter walked close to Harry, looking down at him, and he spoke in the same distant, echoing voice as the others, but quietly, so that Voldemort, his face now livid with fear as his victims prowled around him, could not hear!
"Dad…" Harry opened his mouth and tears came out uncontrollably. Although still in the duel, inexplicable sadness rose inside Harry.
He stared at his parents, who looked like they were when they were young, and remained as they were before they died.
"Harry… I'm proud of you!" James Potter said.
"Harry…" the shadow of his mother was looking at him.
"When the connection is broken, we will linger for only moments … but we will give you time … you get to the Portkey with the boy outside, it will return you to Hogwarts … do you understand Harry?” James Potter continued.
"I understand!" Harry gasped, fighting now to keep a hold on his wand, which was slipping and sliding beneath his fingers.
