Post-Apocalyptic Medieval Battle of Hogwarts and The Love of Maidens
Part 1
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters, they belong to J.K. Rowling. Please review and share with your friends! Part 2 due out tomorrow.
Dumbledore sighed. He had a big victory party to go to, but he was weary and tired. The battle had been tough and fast, and had cost many lives, but he was joyful about having reclaimed Hogwarts as his own. He brushed the soot and bone shards out of his luscious white mane with a fine-toothed comb until it was smooth, clean, and soft. Up in the highest tower of Hogwarts, he examined himself in the Mirror of Erised, but saw only himself looking back at him. This was it, the peak of his life: he had everything he wanted. Yet the mirror showed a happier version, a happier version of himself, but changed on the inside. An Albus Dumbledore the White, with a happy family, maybe some little ones around that he could bring up as his own grandchildren. They weren’t showing up in the Mirror of Erised because their warmth and presence would be something more felt than seen. He was the king of an empire now! There was no time to dilly-dally around and play with little witches and wizards. But he’d make sure to see them every few weeks or so, to guarantee they would get the benefit of his wisdom and kindness, now that he was in his prime.
He stopped brushing his hair. It wasn’t going to get any better than it was.
“Are you ready, Albus?”
“Yes, Minerva,” he called out to his companion. She was pacing the halls in her slippers as fast as she could, more shuffling than striding. Even in her old age, she had retained her wizened grace. Without the rejuvenating effect of being resurrected, her bones were slowly going brittle and her skin cracked and folded. But her robes, dusty and heavy as they were, still had their old lustre and grandness and reminded Dumbledore of a time long gone, a time when they were both teaching in the castle, rather than reigning from it.
He pulled the long sleeves of his dark battle gown down to cover his arms completely to cover his delicate skin that was speckled with birthmarks like an egg. It was brand-new, yet it had been his for so many centuries. He shook his head slightly, to reorder his thoughts and brush away the memories of his new old body.
“I’m ready.” Minerva was now being lifted onto a broomstick by two young battle wizards. She was riding side saddle—her knees weren’t the strongest. Floating in the air next to Dumbledore, her robe trailed behind her on the floor. Dumbledore loved her a lot in that moment, with all his heart, because they were going to their victory party and his beautiful queen didn’t give a Crumple-Horned Snorkack’s arse whether her robe got dirty or not. She had so much swagger. He was definitely lucky to have her. He could think of no better queen to reign over the land than Minerva McGonnagall.
“Let’s go,” she said, and zoomed ahead of him on the broom.
Dumbledore could hear the crowd cheering outside through the castle’s big windows.
He took a breath and felt it fill up his new ancient lungs.
Yes. He was ready now.
---
Harry and Draco lay in the dust. Both of them were bleeding freely from wounds all over their bodies.
“Are you okay, mate?” asked Harry.
Draco said, “Yes, I’m fine. Just… in pain. But it’s nothing I can’t survive.”
They thought back to all the battles they had been in together; the Battle of Hogwarts was only the most recent one. They were on the opposing side now, though, no longer fighting for their head, now that Dumbledore had come back from the dead and was pursuing his own private plan.
Harry showed gaps in his smile where some of his teeth had been knocked out in the fight. It made his smile lopsided and adorable, thought Draco. “You can say that again,” said Harry. The missing teeth gave him a little bit of a lisp, but it didn’t diminish the majesty in his air or the heroic glint in his eye.
They had survived wounds way worse than these. Harry had his head chopped all the way off, and Neville had healed it on again, while Draco had been sewn in half by a fraud magician who had used a real saw. Magic had put him back together, but sometimes he still felt an itch where the stitches were healing across his midriff. His battle armour was wooden, and it was fortified around his waist where he needed the most support, lest he was to fall apart again.
“What are we going to tell the others?” asked Harry.
“Um,” said Draco, and in that moment, Harry knew.
There were no others.
They were the only ones left.
Everyone else formerly of the DA, now the ADA, was dead. The curse bomb that had obliterated their troops and seared itself brightly into their retinas had killed all their friends.
“Bloody hell,” said Harry quietly, more to himself than to anyone else.
Draco crawled over to him, wincing at every step at his bruised and broken limbs. After a long while, he had made it, and he put his arm around Harry’s shoulders, who had buried his face in his crossed arms.
“We’re okay.”
“Well,” said Harry.
Draco smiled. He knew that doubt was the first sign of his best friend’s cynicism that he loved so well.
“We will be. I’m sure.”
---
Dumbledore rode on his hippogriff at the top of the parade, witches and wizards from all over had gathered to greet their long-lost emperor. But there were some women by the wayside, crying their eyes out. At first, a bubble of anger rose in Dumbledore’s throat – they were supposed to be happy for him! But he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it was that thing, the very thing that made him happy, that was causing them grief.
He dug his heels into the flanks of his beautiful steed. “Hush, Buckfast, that’ll be it for now. Fly about for a little while and meet me back here in 20 minutes,” he whispered into the hippogriff’s ear.
Buckfast nodded his head in response, and pushed himself off the ground with his powerful claws.
“What’s the matter?” said Dumbledore to the crying women.
They looked afraid to see their new ruler so close by.
“It’s our husbands.”
“You evaporated their remains.”
“We want to bury them.”
“Or we will never find peace.”
It seemed to him that they were all speaking at the same time, they were all opening their mouths and speaking their heart’s desires, like one voice and four voices. He was overwhelmed by pity. He knew, of course, that victory came at a price, but this seemed like too expensive a price to pay.
“I will find them, and you can bury them.”
He took out his wand, shiny and new – he had got a new one after his resurrection, since Harry Potter obviously now had his wand. “Accio Remains!” he shouted, and his gravelly voice shook the ground. At first, nothing happened. The bystanders all looked around, but they couldn’t see what he had summoned. Then, with a large rushing and wooshing sound all around, the dusty bones of the women’s husbands arrived in a heap. The women looked troubled, but thankful. As horrified as they were, they looked like they knew that they could now find their peace.
---
“What was that?” said Harry. His chest hurt where the centaur had kicked him.
“I don’t know. I could be wrong, but it looked like a bunch of bones just flew through the air.”
“Shit. What is going on?”
“I don’t know.”
Draco looked down at his friend, who had now stopped crying and was breathing steadily. They were both wounded and would probably die where they were if no one came along to help them. Their long hatred of each other had turned to a deep connection and a lasting friendship over the years, and he truly loved Harry like a brother. They had sworn a blood oath to protect each other always, and they knew they wanted to do everything in the world together. Now their adventures seemed to have come to an end, with both of them slowly running out of fight within them. Only in their mid-twenties, a tiredness mixed with ennui slowed them to a halt. They were so, so tired. Maybe this was it. Maybe dying would be the last thing they would do together.
---
Dumbledore moved on. The women were hunched over the pile of bones, weeping still, but with less desperation than before. They would make a burial and hold a funeral, and then their souls would be still.
He whistled.
Buckfast came pelting down from the air, and he scooped up Dumbledore, whose stride was still as smooth as ever – resurrection had done wonders for his posture.
“Continue the parade,” he said to his friends around him, who had waited in silence all through the preceding action.
“Of course,” said his officer, Nearly Headless Nick.
The music started up again. It was a cheerful tune played by brass flutes and wooden trumpets, and Dumbledore hummed along to it.
Suddenly, the parade stopped again. He was riding at the helm, but couldn’t see immediately what had made Buckfast stop in his tracks.
Buckfast growled through his closed beak.
Dumbledore sensed something was wrong.
Buckfast sniffed at something on the ground.
Not something.
Some…one.
“Help,” came a hoarse whisper from underneath Buckfast’s face.
Dumbledore jumped off his hippogriff. He saw a man lying on the ground, his leg bent the wrong way, bleeding from his hip. The man’s face was contorted in pain, and he seemed to have landed in this spot just a minute ago.
“We dragged ourselves out here so we could live,” said another man, who was crawling close by out of the thicket. He had very thick dark hair with a streak of premature grey in it, and wide eyes that were rimmed in red from having left contact lenses in for too long.
“But you’re my enemies,” said Dumbledore. He saw their armour, made of wood, the armour of the last bastion of Hogwarts defenders who wanted it to remain an anarchist’s playground.
“We hoped you’d have mercy,” said the man lying on the ground. He raised his face to meet Dumbledore’s gaze, and then Dumbledore recognised them both.
Harry James Potter.
Draco Salazar Malfoy.
“You.”
He spoke quietly, put his hand on Buckfast’s shoulder to steady himself, and turned over his thoughts in his head. Over, and over, and over again.
“Fine. You shall live.”
“But, Sir,” Nearly Headless Nick was at Dumbledore’s side. He clearly had doubts about Dumbledore’s judgement. “They’re our mortal enemies.”
“I didn’t say they could live in freedom,” said Dumbledore.
TBC.
