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Harry Potter In The Witcher [19]
🕑 Added 2025-06-05 12:56:39 +0000 UTCHe’d died that night, a true hero, but in that one, single, horrific night, he’d managed to rack up enough confirmed kills to retain a spot in the top ten heaviest hitters of the entire war, despite the bloody conflict continuing for another brutal two years after his death.
The point Harry was trying to make, at least to himself, was that sometimes, sacrificing yourself for a cause you truly believed in, for what was right, was all you could do.
Sometimes, you needed to stand up against the ignorant, hateful crowd, against the tide of popular opinion, for what you knew, deep in your soul, was right. And that was exactly what he was going to do right now.
Harry started walking, calmly and deliberately, towards the wooden podium. The executioner, a hulking man with a greasy beard and a cruel smirk, was currently letting the audience have their "fun" with the beaten, sobbing elf girl.
They were jeering, calling her vile names, and throwing random, rotten items at her, all before they intended to finish her off.
Not that that was going to happen. Not today. Because Harry had just made it to the rickety wooden stairs of the podium and had started climbing them, his expression unreadable.
At this point, the executioner and the handful of thuggish-looking town guards stationed around the platform had finally noticed him.
So, unfortunately, had the entire audience. A hush fell over the crowd, replaced by a low, curious murmur.
"Oi! You there! Civilian!" one of the guards, a particularly large, pig-faced specimen, bellowed, stepping forward to block Harry’s path. "You need to stay off the podium, mate! What'chu think you're doin'?"
Harry looked at the man with a completely blank, almost bored face. "I think," Harry replied, his voice calm, yet carrying easily over the sudden silence of the crowd, "that I'm going to walk over to that poor girl, take that noose off her neck, and then escort her safely out of this charming little town."
Both the crowd and the guards seemed to find his calmly stated words extremely, hilariously funny. A wave of loud, raucous laughter erupted from them all.
Harry patiently waited for them to finish their amusement, his hand discreetly, almost invisibly, slipping into his sleeve and closing around the familiar, comforting shape of his holly wand.
"Yeah, I don't know if you've been hittin' the drink a bit too hard there, mate," the main guard said, finally regaining some composure, though his face was still red from laughing.
He swaggered right up into Harry's personal space, his foul breath washing over Harry. "But you should really step down now, before I have to knock you right on your arse."
This brought a fresh round of boisterous laughter from his guard buddies, as well as renewed jeers from the crowd. Harry allowed a smooth, almost predatory smile to slowly cross over his features.
He leaned in towards the guard, slowly, deliberately, until their faces were mere inches apart. The crowd, sensing a shift in the atmosphere, shut their mouths real quickly, straining to hear his response.
"If you don't get the fuck out of my way, right now," Harry said, his voice little more than a soft, chilling whisper, yet it seemed to almost echo through the suddenly silent courtyard, "I'm going to show these… 'nice' people here, in excruciating detail, exactly what it looks like to turn a human being completely inside out."
Despite the quietness of his words, their horrific implication was clear. The guard recoiled back instinctively at the mere thought of what Harry had just described, his bravado momentarily faltering. Then, anger, hot and defensive, crossed his face.
"Alright, I've had just about enough of this!" he yelled, trying to regain his authority. He turned his head slightly, shouting behind him towards his fellow guardsmen.
"Let's show this bloody elf-lover what we think of his kind, boys!" He reached for the hilt of his sword, drawing the rusty blade with a flourish.
It was unfortunate, really, that he did not see the blindingly fast, scarlet curse rushing towards him in time. Otherwise, he may have been able to stop Harry from making good on his rather gruesome promise by, perhaps, dodging out of its deadly path.
Alas, it would seem he was too distracted by his own bluster. Which was why, right now, he was no longer a swaggering, pig-faced guard, but just a giant, steaming, obscene red puddle of blood, bone fragments, and unrecognizable human organs splattered across the rough wooden planks of the platform.
It didn't take long for the screaming to start after that. Pure, unadulterated, terrified screaming. Even the remaining guards seemed to be too shocked, too disgusted and horrified, to act immediately after what had just happened to their commander.
This was also unfortunate for them. Because Harry, at that particular moment, wasn't feeling in a too merciful or patient mood.
He decided, quite pragmatically, that it would just be easier, and cleaner in the long run, to dispose of all of them right here and now, rather than let them live, recover from their shock, and potentially get reinforcements, who he would then also have to kill. It was just more efficient this way.
The first two remaining guards were split in half, almost completely and with horrifying neatness, by the silent, invisible cutting charm Harry had quickly and expertly cast at them within the span of a single second.
The third and fourth guards weren't quite so lucky, or perhaps they were unluckier, depending on your perspective. Harry had decided, on a whim, that he wanted them to burn.
"Flammis acribus," Harry whispered the incantation twice, the familiar, vicious words rolling off his tongue.
Two jets of searing, impossibly hot magical fire erupted from his wand tip, catching them both squarely in the chest.
It was one of his signature spells during the war, a spell he had refined and mastered to the point where, when he cast it with his full, considerable power, it could almost keep up with the destructive intensity of most Fiendfyres, but with far greater control.
Harry took a brief, detached moment to watch the remaining crowd screaming, scrambling, and running away as fast as their legs could possibly carry them.
Even the hulking Executioner had booked it, disappearing into the panicked throng with surprising speed. Good riddance.
Harry ignored the fleeing mob and turned his attention towards the elf woman. She was looking at him with wide, terrified eyes, her body trembling uncontrollably.
Many years ago, it might have bothered him, that someone he had just rescued looked at him with such raw horror.
Now, it didn't bother him a bit.
He understood. No matter their intentions, no matter how justified the violence, watching a man casually, brutally butcher other human beings was never an easy thing to witness.
He walked calmly up to her. "Cáelm," he said to her softly, his voice gentle, using the Elder Speech word for 'calm' or 'peace', in hopes that she wouldn't struggle as he reached out to release the rough noose from her bruised neck.
His Elder Speech wasn't perfect, not by any means, but he knew enough to get by in most situations. It seemed she understood the sentiment, at least, as she visibly calmed a fraction at his word, though the fear still lingered deep in her eyes.
He finished carefully untying and removing the noose from around her neck, then gestured for her to follow him. Luckily, they weren't too far from one of the main exits leading out of the town.
"Name?" Harry asked, his voice still quiet as they began to walk.
