This close to Voldemort, Heri's scar nearly split her head open with pain. Not letting herself hesitate, Heri lunged at the vessel, ignored the burning pain from physical contact with Voldemort, and brought the venomous fang down on its head.
An ear-piercing screech like metal being scraped over broken glass filled the air. Heri ignored the wretched noise to jerk the fang to the side, shattering through fragile forehead bone and gouging up a slitted eyeball. Completely overtaken by her battle senses, Heri could only keep slashing away at the abomination, determined to end its revolting existence.
The damage finally became too much for the vessel to continue clinging onto life. As it became little more than a pile of mutilated flesh and bone fragments, Voldemort's wraithly spirit manifested in a murky, grey wisp above it before he went . . . poofing? . . . away, disappearing like mist before Heri could do anything else.
A silence fell over the graveyard.
With all known danger dealt with, Heri slumped into herself, breathing deeply to settle her nerves. She grabbed her right arm and cradled it to her chest. When her heart-rate picked up, the wound began bleeding more quickly. On top of adrenaline withdrawal, she was also light-headed from blood-loss. She had to get herself medical attention soon.
Now running on the force of will, Heri heaved herself to her feet. There was no time to waste when there was a psychopath still untied and you needed to stem your bleeding.
She staggered toward the unconscious Barty, summon'ing the rope when she saw it. In a thrice, she had the slobbering minion hogtied and gagged. Not knowing what else to do with him, she left him where he had landed, hitting him with a Stunner so he wouldn't be waking up any time soon. She took his wand as well. If nothing prevented it, whatever authorities she'd eventually get it contact with would come take him away.
Heri was about to heal herself with a flesh-knitting spell but stopped before the words left her mouth. She didn't know how to Apparate yet and she didn't have one of Sirius' emergency portkeys on her, so she'd have to go down into the muggle village for help. It would look mightily suspicious if she claimed kidnapping and assault if she was covered in blood without a wound on her.
Heri sighed and instead did a partial variation, not healing the wound completely, but making it smaller so it wouldn't keep gushing the way it was. She tore a strip from Barty's robes to wrap it up to stem the flow even more.
Heri cast a notice-me-not on her hip pouch before sticking the wands in her hair with her extras. Wearing a dirty, blood-covered but obviously expensive school uniform, Heri hoped to pass as a rich man's daughter that had been abducted to be held for ransom by a violent kidnapper.
Shivering in the cool drizzle, Heri began her trudge toward civilisation. She considered going to the church, but she didn't know if anyone would be in at that time of day, and she wasn't really comfortable with the idea of entering a place of worship for a religion she didn't share. The big house on the hill was also a no-go since it was very obviously abandoned. Her only option seemed to be the village proper.
Coming down from the hill, she came to a country lane bordered by high, tangled hedgerows. She followed the lane for a few minutes until she came to a wooden signpost that was sticking out of the brambles on the left-hand side of the road.
Pausing, Heri looked up at the sign's two arms. The one pointing back the way she had come read: Greater Hangleton, 8 kilometres. The arm pointing in the direction she was headed read: Little Hangleton, 1 kilometre. She was relieved that she was headed in the direction of the closer location.
She continued walking on with nothing to see but the hedgerows until the lane curved to the left and fell away, sloping steeply down a hillside. She had a sudden, unexpected view of a whole valley laid out in front of her.
Her eyes widened when she realised that she had seen this hillside and valley before. Gods, this was where she had flown past during her vision in divination!
(Not far now, not far now, not far now . . .)
The lane curved sharply to the right and when she rounded the corner, and she nearly missed a gap in the hedge. Despite her self-imposed goals, she surveyed the path through the gap, a narrow dirt track bordered by higher and wilder hedgerows than those of the main road. Without knowing why, she turned onto this path, wandering further in.
The path was crooked, rocky, and potholed, sloping downhill like the last one, and it seemed to be heading for a patch of dark trees. With the greyness of the rainy sky, the old trees ahead cast deeper, darker shadows than it would have on a sunny day. Blinking rapidly and activating her raptor vision, Heri discerned a building half-hidden amongst the tangle of trunks.
It seemed to her to be a very strange location to choose for a house, or else an odd decision to leave the trees growing nearby, blocking all light and the view of the valley below. She idly wondered if it was inhabited; its walls were mossy and so many tiles had fallen off the roof that the rafters were visible in places. Nettles grew all around it, their tips reaching the windows, which were tiny and thick with grime. No, it was likely abandoned.
Still caught up in her odd compulsion, Heri approached the dilapidated shack.
As she came to the door, she noted that there was a dead snake nailed to it. She wrinkled her nose. Unnecessary cruelty combined with poor taste in decorating; it chafed at her sensibilities. She summon'd out the nails holding the poor creature in place and toed it off into the grass for a more peaceful resting place
----------------
If you want advanced chapters ahead from here, you can find it at.
P@treon/Playerfanfic
🎁 Get 50% OFF with promo code: A33C7
expires on August 31, 2026.