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Chapter 36: The Last Drop

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When Ginny regained her senses, she found that she and Neville were still in the large room with the stone walls. She and Neville had been dropped on the floor here right after they had been abducted. The morning had passed in pain and fear as the two of them had remained bound to wonder about their fate. They were given no food or water, and though they could hear muffled voices and footsteps outside no one looked in on them. Sometime after night had fallen, despite her hunger and fear, Ginny had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion. Now as she reawakened, she could see the faint light coming through the narrow ventilation slit. That meant that dawn must be approaching, and her second day as a prisoner of the Death Eaters was beginning. It was the sound of nearby voices that had awakened her, and by the flickering firelight of the torches in the room, she could see Bellatrix and Draco Malfoy were talking across the room from her. A door on the opposite side of the room opened and Crabbe and Goyle came into the room carrying cardboard boxes.

“I believe we have everything here you wanted, Ma’am,” Crabbe said.

“Very well,” said Bellatrix. “All right, everything is prepared for the move to the new headquarters and we’ll be leaving here once the Dark Lord returns, but for right now it’s playtime for these two, so let’s get started.

Ginny watched in growing horror as Bellatrix stripped Neville and levitated him to about four feet above the floor. Then she moved him over to where Crabbe and Goyle stood. Neville began struggling as he was moved. It was of no use. Bellatrix walked over to Neville and made a point of looking at his genitals, and began to laugh hysterically while pointing at Neville’s tiny little cock. Malfoy joined in on the hilarity.

“Is that all you’ve got?” she exclaimed. “Damn, Longbottom you should have been born a girl! But don’t worry, we’re about to correct that mistake of nature right now.”

You could sense Neville’s humiliation as he tried to turn away to hide his genitals from view. The fear and shame he felt actually caused him to begin feeling an erection start to emerge from the folds of his scrotum.

Bellatrix reached out with her gloved hand and used her index finger to begin tickling the barely exposed head of Neville’s cock. “Come on, wittle fella,” she said in a high falsetto voice. “Don’t be shy, baby. Come out and let us see you.”

In spite of his fear, his inexperience with women made Neville susceptible to any stimulation from a woman, even Bellatrix, the sadistic bitch who had tortured his parents into a persistent state of insanity. Under the effects of the tickling, Neville’s cock began to have an erection, his testicles began to visibly throb.

“Do you like that, Neville?” Bellatrix asked coyly. “Would you like me to make you cum? Have you ever even been with a woman?”

Neville said nothing, but it was obvious that he was uncontrollably working up to an ejaculation. He began to gently move his cock onto her finger as though he was having sex. As he began to near climax he rolled his head back and closed his eyes. That was a mistake. In a flash of movement, Bellatrix grasped the erect flesh of Neville’s cock and pulled hard on it. At the same time she brought used her other hand to deliver a hard slap straight into Neville’s scrotum. The force of the blow drawing a sharp yelp from Neville.

“Was it good for you, baby?” mocked Bellatrix as she looked down at Neville. “I know it was good for me.” Allowing Neville a little pause to let the pain she had just delivered settle in on him, Bellatrix looked over at Draco, Crabbe and Goyle who were laughing hysterically.

“Let’s rig him up,” she said as Goyle withdrew a slender length of rope, with a steel ring at one end, from the box he carried. Bellatrix fastened the ring around the base of Neville’s scrotum. Then she used her wand to close the ring making it solid, finally she shrunk the ring until it fit tightly around the skin above Neville’s testicles.

With a flick of her wand Bellatrix cleared the ceiling boards above her victim, exposing the rafter joists. With deliberate care she then levitated the other end of the rope up and around the rafter joist, and then had it tie itself into a knot. Bellatrix had left about half a foot of slack in the rope. Though still in pain from the slap, Neville was able to comprehend what was about to happen to him when the levitation spell was removed.

Lying bound on the floor at the other end of the room, Ginny also realized what the bastards were about to do to poor Neville. No, she didn’t love him, yes, he was a pest; but Neville didn’t deserve what was about to happen to him. Ginny tried to move, to scream, to do something, but there was nothing she could do other than watch in horror.

As Neville looked down at his own scrotum, and saw his bulging testicles and the iron ring that trapped them, his face flushed even redder till it almost looked sunburned. Realizing what was planned he began struggling like a madman, but to no avail.

“Pleaseeeeeee — No — oh, NO — please, NO!” was all he kept screaming over and over.

Using her wand Bellatrix secured Neville’s hands behind his back.

“Are there any last words from the last of the Longbottoms?” asked Bellatrix while the others continued laughing at Neville’s plight.

“OH, GOD — PLEASE — NOOOOOOOOO! DON’T!” was all Neville could scream out. Then with a flourish of her wand she released Neville from the levitation spell. Then Neville dropped towards the floor until he was suddenly jerked to a stop. The tension on the rope and metal ring snapped him back into the air where he then bounced back up a bit before he fell again with a snap. As his body jerked to a halt Neville screamed, a blood-curdling scream as the rope snapped taut and his balls suddenly took all of his weight. He flipped over, and then, was suddenly hanging upside down, and spinning in place as he convulsed. Neville struggled vainly, his body jerking in spasms as his scrotum was stretched to the point that it should have ripped apart, but it did not.

It was apparent that Bellatrix had placed spells on Neville to ensure he remained awake and that his scrotal tissue could bear the load placed on it without just ripping out. They wanted Neville to suffer. Even though Neville looked delirious from the pain, his screams and his struggling continued.

Looking at Neville’s body, Ginny couldn’t help but notice that his cock has gone completely rigid. His big purple glans popped out of the foreskin, and the end glistened with the fluids of his manhood. Soon it was so stiff and jutting it looked obscene. Neville slowly spun on the rope — dangling by his testicles. His hands are still tied tightly behind his back, but Ginny could see him working them, struggling to get them free, to try and save himself. Yet it was hard not to notice the change in Neville, as his mind began to close in on him, his screams just blended slowly into a long, continuous cry that seemed to have no beginning and certainly has no end.

Neville’s small cock seemed to jut out from his little patch of pubic hair, and then, as Ginny and the Slytherins watched, he suddenly started to grunt and then he spasmed. Quite unexpectedly, long lines of white semen just seemed to jet out of his untouched cock. It was such an odd sight, Neville grunting and jerking as his body spurted semen like a fountain, and his Slytherin tormentors cheering as it happens. For Neville his release did nothing to bring him pleasure.

As Neville ejaculated the last of his seed, he seemed to almost collapse inwardly, slowly losing his strength as he spurted out his manhood. Soon, he was empty, the spasms of his last orgasm dying with his balls. After that Neville’s struggles slowed and his scream turns to a babble and then to a low, continuous whimper. He seemed to be gasping for air and his balls changed color. At first they were bright red, then dark, finally they went darker still.

Neville was still semi-conscious, but Ginny have no idea how long he will stay that way. After a bit more of this Draco reached under his robes and brought out a kitchen knife that he used to cut through the bonds holding Neville’s hands behind his back. In desperation Neville reached to grab the rope and pull himself up to take the pressure off his balls.

At first it appeared to be working, and he managed to pull himself up, and then up some more. Neville grasped the rope so hard his hands turned white; he was pulling upward with a desperation that caused every muscle in his body to strain. His entire body was covered in sweat; it ran off of his body in torrents. The Slytherin’s laughingly shouted words of encouragement to Neville that he could do it, that he could pull himself up to the rafter and untie the rope. But it was obvious that Neville’s strength had already been sapped and he was spent.

For a few moments Neville hesitated, he lacked the strength to pull himself up farther. His arms were now shaking, and then the quivering intensified, to the sounds of gleeful laughter from the Death Eaters, Neville lost his grip. He fell back to the end of the rope with a snap. He convulsed from the impact, and the shudder seemed to rack his body. Neville’s scream was intense as his purple balls were jerked once again, taking all his weight one more time. Ginny could see that his eyes were wide with desperation.

Looking at the unfriendly faces around him Neville cried out in desperation, “Please help me, someone please help me.”

It was Bellatrix who took the knife from Draco and walked up to Neville. “I’ll help you to help yourself, Neville.” Then she levitated the knife in front of Neville’s flailing hands.

“There you go, Longbottom, just cut yourself free,” she said with a horrid look of evil fascination at Neville’s plight.

Neville grabbed the knife and slashed desperately at the rope, but the rope was also bewitched to be unpartable. Instead of cutting the rope all Neville did was remove the sharp edge from the knife blade; leaving it twisted and dull.

“Poor stupid, baby Longbottom, you’re no brighter than that your twit parents were, are you?” cackled Bellatrix. “Did you think I meant the rope when I said cut yourself free?”

Ginny noticed that Crabbe and Goyle didn’t seem to have caught on yet either, as hadn’t she. When she saw Draco turn to them and make a cutting motion with his hand across his own pubic region, Ginny understood what the knife was intended for. It took Neville a while to understand too as he looked over at the unfriendly crowd around him as they made a mock show with their hands of stretching out their balls and cutting them off, all the while chanting “DO IT...DO IT.” Then the realization hit Neville that the only way to have relief from the rope was to castrate himself. Ginny could see him hesitating, but the pain was too great and all hope was gone from him. Finally, he realized he had no other option.

As Ginny watched on in horror, Neville began to saw the dull knife through his own scrotum. The tissue was stretched so tight that the skin began to rip as soon as the knife started the cut, and then he was sawing faster and faster, desperate to make the cut and be done with it. Neville screamed as he gelded himself with the rough edge of the knife, severing the nerves and blood vessels that had served his manhood. Ginny was startled to see that while he was making the slice his cock spasmed again, and as a final gush of bloody semen shot from his dick. The knife completed the cut and Neville fell free from the rope and ring.

He hit the concrete floor hard on his back with his semen still running down the sides of his stiff cock. The remains of his scrotum remained hooked in the retaining ring above him, then, slowly, they fell free of the ring and landed on his belly with a splat. The Death Eaters cheered wildly as Neville lay perfectly still, apparently finally going unconscious. Bellatrix stepped over him and looked at the gapping wound in his crotch that was pouring forth blood. She licked her lips in delicious ecstasy over the torment she had imposed on the young boy. She gave him a hard kick in the side with the toe of her boot. Neville merely made a guttural grunt and didn’t move.

“That should take care of young master Longbottom,” she said with a cruel sneer. “Let the little bugger bleed out a bit and the shock will finish him off. It’s a shame we can’t send his body home to break his poor mummy and daddy’s heart. They haven’t even known that their little git exists since I got through with them.”

Her comments brought a round of crude laughter from the Death Eaters. Making a tisk-tisk sound Bella used the toe of her boot to press down on Neville’s chin to open his mouth. With her wand she levitated the detached scrotum and its contents from Neville’s belly into his mouth, and then used the boot toe to close it up again.

“Now, now, Mr. Longbottom,” she said in her falsetto voice to the cackling laughter of the Death Eaters, “we mustn’t leave loose things lying around must we?”

With the show over on that side of the room, the Death Eaters turned their concentration to Ginny. With a few flicks of Bellatrix's wand, Ginny was levitated upright and spread eagle into the air. She was unable to move her hands or feet. She was completely exposed to view by the drooling Crabbe and Goyle. As Goyle went to put his hand on Ginny’s twat a flick from Bellatrix’s wand sent a painful blast into his crotch that left him lying on the ground moaning and clutching his balls. This caused Draco to throw back his head and laugh heartily at the spectacle of Goyle writhing on the floor.

“Hands off my property,” she said looking down at Ginny. “The Dark Lord has placed me in charge of this, so I get to determine who has use of her. She's not the first Weasley that the Dark Lord has given me for my amusement. Outside Azkaban he gave me your big brother Bill to care for. Are you a brave little girl? I ask because he tried to be a brave little boy, but long before I was done with him he was begging me to kill him. Did you know that he cried for his mummy while I was working on him? I bet I can make you cry for your mummy too.”

Ginny looked up into the face of her tormentor. “I’m going to kill you, you fucking whore,” screamed Ginny, “however long it takes me to find you I’m going to kill you all for what you did to my brothers. You are dead, bitch!”

“Your brother Bill was feisty too; he talked just that way to Draco’s daddy. Allow me to give you a translation of Lucius’ reply, suitable for the gentler sex.” Then Bellatrix took her fist and hit Ginny in the right breast with a loud splat sound that was followed by a scream of pain from Ginny. A few seconds later Bella applied a second blow to Ginny’s left breast that produced a gurgling scream of agony from Ginny.

“Yes, that’s what your dumbarse brother said too,” said Bellatrix. Turning to Draco she asked, “Would you like to rape the little Weasley bitch, dear nephew?”

“Yes, Auntie Bellatrix,” he said. “I think I would, a little payback for my father.”

Bellatrix levitated Ginny horizontal and grabbed her legs, raising them up in the air. Then she brought Draco around and undid his trousers so that his cock was exposed. Bellatrix pulled the already semi-erect cock clear of Draco’s pants, and gently massaged it till he was fully erect. Bellatrix reached into Ginny’s cleft and with two fingers pulled her labia apart to expose her inner pinkness. With her other hand she gently grasp Draco’s cock and guided him into position to penetrate her.

“I hear you’ve been saving this,” she said to Ginny. “Apparently you wouldn’t give poor little Neville any, or Harry either. Well look who gets to enjoy it now.”

With a quick thrust, Draco penetrated Ginny causing her to scream as her maidenhead was brutally ruptured. Draco was at least seven inches long and knew what he was doing as he went into her. With only a couple of thrusts he was all inside her. Draco then grabbed her by her upturned ankles and roughly started pumping his cock in and out of her. The rough motion caused by the intercourse only intensified the pain in her badly bruised breasts as they swayed in time with Draco’s thrusts. Goyle managed to get to his feet and he and Crabbe watched with lustful greed as Draco raped Ginny. Crabbe’s need overcame him and he reached his hand inside his trousers and began to wank himself as he watched Draco. For her part, Bellatrix stood beside Draco, her right hand lightly holding his balls downward so that he wouldn’t ejaculate too quickly.

Draco fixed his eyes upon Ginny’s, seeing the shame and intense pain he was causing by raping her, and thoroughly enjoying every second of it. There was something else he saw in those eyes too, a look of pure hatred of him. However, that look, and the streams of tears that were pouring from her eyes and running down her cheeks only made it better for him. Draco joined in his father’s wishes to see the blood traitor Weasley family completely destroyed. Draco had now made it his duty to see that all the damned Weasleys were exterminated in retribution for his father’s death. He only wished he could be there when that stupid Arthur Weasley, who’d had the audacity to raid their home and make criminals of his family, found out he had lost still another child, and that the little brat had been raped by him. That would be a perfect picture to keep.

Ginny had sworn to herself when she realized what was coming that she would not scream or cry out. They could do their worst and she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing they had hurt her. Now though she couldn’t help crying, not only from the pain caused by Draco, but in the thought that the one thing she had to offer Harry had now been taken from her by Bellatrix and Draco. At least Harry had died not knowing what had happened to her. As with Neville, it was just as well to die now.

Draco felt his testicles tighten in preparation for ejaculation and went to rapid short strokes. Bellatrix released her hold on Draco’s testicles and in seconds he came, spewing great wads of ejaculate into Ginny who felt the warm wetness inside her vagina and knew what it meant. Draco gave a satisfied grunt and sigh as the last of his semen was drained. Bellatrix was still massaging his balls as she withdrew Draco’s cock from Ginny. Producing a clean cloth, Bellatrix wiped Draco’s dick clean, then ran her finger lightly along the urethra to remove the final remaining drops of man cum trapped in there. Collecting the drops on the tip of her finger, she ran the finger over Ginny’s trembling lips to wipe it clean. Draco returned his cock to his trousers.

“Mmmmm,” Bellatrix moaned. “I think she likes it, you’re good to the last drop, Draco darling.”

“Can we have her now?” asked Crabbe with his hand still working in his trousers. The sullen Goyle only able to nod.

“Sod off,” spit Bellatrix. “You two wankers can do without. Anyway you’ve got work to do, so get going.”

“Are you going to kill her now, Aunt Bella?” asked Draco.

“No, dear nephew, remember that I told you that for proper Slytherins there are ways of dealing with your enemies other than just killing them outright. You have to learn to be imaginative in your cruelty or it takes all the fun out of it. Take little Miss Weasley here, she comes from a tight-knit, loving family of blood traitors who have opposed the Dark Lord’s political agenda. I personally killed their oldest son in a most amusing way, they are presently grieving their tender loving little hearts out right now over their precious baby boy, and now I’m going to send them their only little baby girl in a body bag, but with a little something extra to let them know how horribly she died.”

Bellatrix reached over to retrieve a cardboard box she had brought with her, reaching inside she brought a shriveled set of male genitals, a large cock and scrotum with the testicles still inside. Going over to Ginny she held the amputated genitals over her. “Guess who these used to belong to, darling? If you said your dear brother Bill then you’re right. I had them ripped off of him outside the gates of Azkaban as he hung there begging me for the mercy of death.”

Bellatrix laughed at the look of sheer horror on Ginny’s face, knowing that what was coming next would literally blow the little cunt’s mind apart. But that was the idea.

“A quick lesson in the art of black magic, my dear nephew. The Inferi enchantment is commonly used to reanimate dead tissue into useful servants to serve the dark witch or wizard. Commonly it is used on whole bodies, but it can be used on any dead flesh, including body parts.” With a tap of her wand on the shriveled genitals and the spoken incantation “Corpus Animi” the flesh began to move. Goyle and Crabbe jumped back in terror, even Draco drew back in horror from the spectacle. Bellatrix only laughed all the louder as she leaned over to the squirming penis and began to whisper instructions to it.

With a look of pure evil at the helpless Ginny, she used her wand to force Ginny’s mouth to open wide. The terror in Ginny’s eyes reached a point of near insanity as the squirming cock was lowered into her mouth and began to move deeper into her throat.

“That’s right, my darling Bill, choke the life out of your little slut sister, but not too quickly. We don’t want her to die with her sanity intact do we?”

Ginny tried to scream but the glans of her brother’s penis wedged itself in her throat shutting off the airflow. As she choked, she could feel the cock working itself back and forth in her mouth. She was able to grab quick partial breaths of air as the penis drew back, and then moved forward again to block the esophagus. It was like the penis was having oral sex with her.

“Apparently, dear brother Bill hadn’t been getting any before he died, his balls were full when I took them and he’s been needing some relief. You don’t mind helping him out do you, little sister?”

In her mouth Ginny felt the dead flesh begin to thrust quicker, in a moment of horror she realized what was about to happen. Then the penis convulsed and ejaculated a slimy fluid in her mouth. As she felt the cold putrid semen splash against the back of her throat Ginny again tried to scream, but the penis immediately resumed it thrust back into her throat. She was being slowly throttled, but Ginny’s mind had already reached the breaking point. She was unable to bear the terror any longer, she quietly slid into a catatonic state from which she knew she would never awaken.

“Nighty night, little princess,” quipped a still smirking Bellatrix as she saw the eyes go dim. She knew that look from her experiences with the Longbottoms and other victims she had tortured into a state of perpetual insanity. As much as she would have loved to send little Ginny home drooling to her dear blood traitor parents, the Dark Lord had given specific instructions that she could have her fun with the prisoners, but there were to be no survivors. She leaned over to the throbbing cock still moving inside Ginny’s mouth, “Kill her, my pet, but not too quickly, take your time with her.”

At the other end of the room, the door opened and Pansy Parkinson walked in. Pansy took a few seconds to take in the scene before her. She smiled appreciatingly at Bellatrix’s handiwork on Neville. Then walked over to Draco and embraced him, and gave him a long delicious kiss. Draco was quick to tell her the details of what had been done to the prisoners.

“See — I told you it would be more fun this way,” she purred.

Before Draco could answer, Bellatrix stepped in front of Pansy. “I thought I told you to stay in the room where I left you,” Bella said belligerently. “Maybe you need lessons in who’s in charge around here.”

“Oh, I know who’s in charge around here,” replied Pansy, matching Bellatrix’s hard stare. “The Dark Lord is in charge, he has now arrived and he personally sent me here with a bit of news we missed out on back at Hogwarts. Harry Potter is alive, the Dark Lord and several others saw him.’

“That’s impossible!” gasp Bellatrix. “The Dark Lord killed him, I saw the corpse, and he was dead. There must be some mistake, some trickery at work here.”

“The Dark Lord is not easily fooled, he not only saw Potter, but talked to him as well. Anyway, I asked our Master if I could come here with the news and stay to help. He granted me his permission.”

Pansy then deliberately turned away from her to face Draco, and gave him another long kiss. “I’ve missed you, baby. Why haven’t you let me know where you were before now. I could have been helping you all along. I could have gotten Potter for you long before now if I’d only known what the Dark Lord wanted done. Don’t you trust me, baby?”

“I told you I’d be busy, and I do trust you, but I’m not the one who makes those kinds of decisions,” Draco answered with a nod towards Bellatrix.

“That’s right, Pansy,” said Bellatrix in a less than friendly way. “I say who gets trusted, when they are worthy of trust, and how far.”

“Our Lord and Master has chosen to accept my services,” she said. “Are you suggesting his judgment is flawed?”

“I’m stating that you haven’t proven yourself yet,” came Bella’s terse, but carefully worded reply. This little bitch’s affairs would have to settled delicately.

“Only because I haven’t been given a chance to in the past,” Pansy replied. “Of course, now that the Dark Lord needs to recruit new help I think he will welcome the assistance of a pureblood Slytherin of my substantial powers to his great cause.”

Bellatrix barked out a sneering laugh. “What have you ever done for the Dark Lord compared to my record of service?”

“Well for one thing, I haven’t failed him on more than one occasion,” snapped back Pansy.

“Why you little cunt, I’ll…” began Bellatrix as she raised her wand threateningly.

“I’m here at the orders of the Dark Lord,” she said as she took a step away from Draco and brought her own wand up to a defensive position. “Since your old and ugly arse is already on probation are you sure you want to start this now and take a chance on pissing off the Master?”

The thought of going before the Dark Lord again with him displeased with her sufficiently frightened Bellatrix to calm her anger over this upstart. She knew the type, this Parkinson bitch would try to take her place in front of the Dark Lord, or more likely under him in his bed chambers. That wouldn’t be allowed to happen, but there was a time and a place for dealing with internal rivals, this wasn’t it.

“All right then, you’re here to assist, then you can assist by cleaning up the mess I’ve made in here. You will wait with these two until they are dead, then dump the bodies someplace conspicuous where they can be found. Once that is done you are to return here to await contact and further instructions. This place is now compromised, so we will be moving operations to another place.”

“Where?” asked Pansy.

“That’s none of your business, yet. Just clean up this mess, burn the place out to destroy any traces of our being here while they are busy dying… and then take out the trash,” she said, indicating Ginny and Neville.

“I’m not a fucking house elf…,” began Pansy.

“No you’re not!” shouted Bellatrix. “You are in the service of the Dark Lord and you will do as you are told. So obey your orders — or else suffer the consequences. If you make it back … alone, you’ll be escorted to the new site.”

Motioning to the others to leave with her, Bellatrix and the others disapparated away. Pansy was left alone with the mutilated Longbottom who was showing signs of rapidly slipping into shock from his injuries, with heart failure and death not far behind; and the glassy-eyed Ginny who was barely gasping as the reanimated penis slowly choked her to death. Pansy didn’t like it, but she would do the only thing she could do, she’d follow her orders.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Nearly three dozen sets of fear filled eyes watched the pair of black boots as they walked across the concrete floor that they knelt upon. They were the unfortunates, they had chosen to align themselves with the Dark Lord, some by their free choice, and others had to one degree or another been coerced into serving Voldemort. They had all been promised an easy victory, and great rewards. They realized now they had been lied to, but it was too late.

They had been captured during the mopping up action by the Aurors following the attack on Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. After a very uncomfortable night in temporary holding cells, they had been transferred to London and imprisoned in the Ministry building by the Inquisition. There they awaited interrogation, and what they already knew would come after. Before them walked the Inquisitor General herself making sure of last minute arrangements. Special interrogation teams had been set up just for this; portable Pensieves sat before each prisoner so that the thoughts ripped from their minds might be deposited there and retained for future research.

“I know it has been a long night and we are all exhausted, but we need all the information they have as quickly as possible. Especially hiding places and names of accomplices. Dig out every shred of knowledge in their minds, drain them to the last drop. Some of you may know some of the prisoners. Remember what they were caught red-handed doing, the number of innocents killed, and that there are still several students missing and assumed captured. I know that we normally move slowly so as to leave a nominally functioning mind in the suspect, but that’s not an issue here. What you leave today the Dementor’s get tomorrow. So don’t worry about the healers not being able to wire their brains back together for a trial, it won’t matter. In fact, most of them will thank you if they didn’t know what was happening to them in the lower rooms later.”

There was a chorus of sobs and crying from the kneeling prisoners, the sound of ‘please’ and ‘mercy’ rose from the group of mostly young adults. Some of the idiots were still demanding to see their parents, or their attorneys. These pleas went unanswered as Madam Bartleby simply walked out of the room. The junior Death Eaters were left in the room to suffer their appointed fates as the Inquisitors gripped their heads and began to dig out their thoughts and memories and drop them in the Pensieves.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Harry was gently awakened by Poonanni as the first light of morning streamed into the apartment. Poonanni apologized profusely for wakening Harry, but told him that Mistress Desiree urgently needed to speak to him. Harry dressed quickly and met Desiree in the living room.

“It there any word on Ginny or Neville?” Harry asked as he entered the room.

“None,” answered Desiree. “They have probably gone to ground in one of their safehouses and are holding them prisoner there. Maybe they want hostages in case they are caught.”

“Maybe?” said Harry somewhat doubtfully. “That’s not his usual style though. How is Luna doing?”

“I have a bit of good news there,” she said, “I think Luna is going to be all right. We were able to stop the curse from damaging her organs any further and reverse the worse of the spell. She’s also fortunate that she doesn’t seem to remember being raped. Apparently, the curse had her in shock and she just sort of tuned out the mental trauma. To her it’s almost like something she watched on the muggle’s television.”

“How much longer before she can go home?”

“Probably a few days should do it, then therapy afterwards if she has problems,” Desiree replied. “Problem now is her father is going mad with worry and wanting to talk to you. And he’s not the only one. The story has already gotten into the Daily Prophet that the Chosen One has survived yet another attempt by Voldemort to kill him. Along with some accounts that you came back from the dead. Also, a blown up version of the story about how you saved the Ravenclaws made the paper too, so you are going to be the bloody great hero of the day. Everybody and his brother is already looking for you; and nobody knows where you’ve gone. So you are the great mystery hero of the hour.”

Harry sighed a bit as he thought on what Desiree had told him. “All of the surviving Death Eaters are now unsure of their Master, and the Dark Lord is probably ready to doubt himself. I’d just as soon it stays that way, except we can’t keep Mr. Lovegood in the dark about Luna, she’s all he has.”

“What do you want to do then, carry him into the void?”

“No,” said Harry. “That’s way too dangerous. If he blabs what he knows in the Quibbler to make a story headline then we’ve given Voldemort that information too. What if we get Fleur to put Luna in a bedroom at Grimmauld Place temporarily while Lupin brings him in blindfolded? He can see and talk to Luna, know that she’s all right. Balzhoff is there to help with security. Then bundle him out and have Fleur open the void and put Luna back in from there. If he does let any information out then Snape will know in a flash that it’s Grimmauld Place, nothing new disclosed there, and they’ll still think we are headquartered there, making this place safe.”

“Well I think I can arrange that with Fleur.”

“So all I have to do is find where Lupin is at.”

“Oh, I can help you with that great mystery of the universe. He showed up last night and said he had your permission to set up a tab. For old time’s sake, I took him at his word and let him have a room on the second floor.”

“Yeah, I promised to let him have some pussy on credit.”

“You know he’ll never pay off. He never paid James what he owed.”

“There are payments besides cold cash, and he made a number of those payments, including saving my life more than once by teaching me how to make a Patronus when he wasn’t supposed to. I figure I owe him.”

“You’re the boss,” said Desiree. “With the Ministry’s state of emergency order keeping us closed I guess it’s just as well. If I know Remus, he’ll keep the elves from getting rusty while we wait to reopen.”

“That bad, huh?” laughed Harry.

“Oh, yes, and not a drop of Irish blood in him, he’s a natural.”

That explains why Tonks was so fond of him, thought Harry.

“There is another pressing concern,” said Desiree. “I just received an owl from Alastor Moody asking me if I would ask ‘you-know-who’ to come back to Hogwarts as soon as possible, that it was an emergency. So how much does he know about us; and who has he told about our relationship with you?”

“He thinks I’m dating either Fleur or Gabrielle and that my secret hideout is at your villa. There was no way to convince him of any plausible alternative, and it was still far enough away from the truth that I thought it safe to bluff and say nothing. He’s not going to blab it anywhere, he’s too tight lipped. It’ll satisfy his curiosity about me.”

“It could also make my daughters targets of the Death Eaters if it did slip out.”

“I know and I’m sorry, but there wasn’t anything I could do.”

“All right then, but we’ll have to be extra careful. I guess go and see Moody, or else he’ll show up here in person, which means he might be followed.”

Harry had a light breakfast waiting when he got back to his apartment, and took out time for a quick shower before he left to see Moody. Without the apparition shields in place anymore, Harry was able to apparate right to the front doors of Hogwarts. Seeing the castle in the early morning light for the first time since the attack turned his stomach. Hogwarts was in ruins. The larger fires had been put out, but the brightly glowing embers of the timbers still smoldered, shrouding the castle in smoke. In many places the roof had fallen in as the firestorm had gutted the classrooms and burned away the supports. Several of the smaller towers were collapsed, including the tower Harry had shared with Pansy. Harry belatedly realized that he had now lost his trunk in the fire and rubble, and with it the photo album of his parents that Hagrid had given him five years earlier.

The water that had flooded the lower areas of the castle was being pumped out and into the lake, and the shards of shattered glass had been transfigured into grains of sand. Wind spells were being used to blow the sand out. All in all, the solid stone core structure of Hogwarts seemed sound enough; the Death Eaters had not had the time and energy to truly destroy the central support structure of the building, just make an ugly mess of everything.

Moody met Harry at the main door. “Hello, Harry,” he said amicably. “You are a hard man to track down sometimes. You weren’t at Grimmauld Place when I stopped by last night to check on you and I got worried.”

“I was staying with friends, I’m safe,” answered Harry. “I kind of needed to be alone. Any new word on Ginny?”

“Nothing more than before, she and Longbottom were captured out by Hagrid’s hut by a party of Death Eaters which included Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy Parkinson. They were clearly identified by several students watching from the towers.”

“They better hope you find them first instead of me, cause if Ginny is dead, so are they.”

“I saw Dolohov’s body, or what was left of it, in the Ravenclaw commons, did you use the you-know-what to do that?”

“Yes,” answered Harry.

“It wasn’t at Grimmauld Place anymore, so I figured you had gotten it. It’s dangerous to have that thing out of there without the wards to shield it’s presence, I hope you have it in a safe place now?”

“Yes, it’s in my back pocket, where I can get to it if I need it.”

Moody nearly choked as Harry told him that the Black Wand was in his pocket. “For fuck’s sake, Harry, do you know what will happen if you are caught with that?”

“Nothing as bad as what will happen to anyone that tries to take it from me,” answered Harry with a hard look at Moody. “I’ve used it to kill now, and I’m not done killing just yet. Isn’t that what you wanted me to become anyway, a killer. Isn’t that why you trained me? You succeeded, I’m a killer now.”

Moody knew this was not the place or time to get into this with Harry, and he really had no answer. He had trained Harry to fight and kill, he could hardly criticize him now.

“Did any of the staff survive beyond Balzhoff, Firenze, and Pomfrey?” asked Harry, wanting to change the subject away from him.

“Binns, but he was already a ghost and couldn’t die again. We found Filch technically alive out on the grounds, the Dementors had gotten to him. The surviving house elves have been taken in by the Ministry; the ghosts have been relocated to a castle in Wales. Nearly Headless Nick and Moaning Myrtle wanted me to tell you goodbye for them. The students have all been picked up. A few Aurors will remain to guard the castle from gawkers. For what it’s worth, we took a big chunk out of Voldemort’s troop strength. I don’t think it went as he planned; the odds are in the Ministry’s favor now. A number of persons who were suspected of supporting Voldemort have made a big show of being quietly at home all day.”

“Everyone else is dead?” asked Harry, the thoughts of their faces filling his mind.

“Fang made it through too; he’s gone into the forest with Firenze. Pomfrey came back this morning with Hermione to do some tidying up in the hospital. Hermione’s recovering nicely. Kingsley offered to get Poppy a job with St. Mungo’s hospital if she wanted it. Kingsley also wanted to know if you are going to stay on as an Auror in training.”

“I guess I need to rethink it now that I’m not at Hogwarts — now that there is no Hogwarts,” answered Harry. No Hogwarts, the thought sounded unbelievable to Harry. As he stood there, he determined that Hogwarts would rise from the ashes after Voldemort was destroyed, and that he, Harry Potter, would do it. He had the money, and as long as wizards got hard-ons and witches had itchy muffins he had a steady source of income. This castle had been the first time in his life that he had been happy, he wouldn’t let it die. Hogwarts would live again one day.

“Look, the main reason I sent for you this early is I need to ask you a critically important question, and I need a straight answer on this,” said Moody. “What happened to the Sorting Hat and the Sword of Gryffindor? Does Voldemort have them?”

“No,” replied Harry. “The Sorting Hat and sword were retrieved just before Voldemort blasted the door in to steal them.”

“So you have them? You know the Ministry, read that as Scrimgeour, wants them both very badly.”

“I don’t have either the hat or sword, and they wouldn’t do Scrimgeour any good if they were in his hands anyway.”

“Who has them then, the Ministry is claiming they belong to it now.”

“They are in the hands of their lawful owners, the last living descendents of Godric Gryffindor. They, and only they, can use its power, to anyone else in the Ministry the sword is just wall decoration.”

“But I thought the last of the Gryffindor line was Albus and his brother, they’re both dead.”

“And that is what Dumbledore wanted the world to believe, that he left no heirs.”

Moody just stood there wide-eyed for a few seconds in disbelief. “You mean the old bastard had a family secreted away somewhere? He wasn’t gay? He had children?”

“Yes.”

“So you know who these descendents are then? Are the items safe from Voldemort?”

“Yes, and as you might well imagine they are solidly on our side in this as they have a murdered father to avenge. As to safety, the items are safe as long as no one knows who has them or where they are hidden. You’ll have to trust me for now, and keep your suspicions about where I go and who I deal with to yourself, or risk everything we’ve worked for.”

“My suspicions about where you go? What the ….” Moody stopped in midsentence as it finally hit him what Harry was talking about. “Oh, bloody hell! The woman at the … those two girls?”

“No one can know; it’s safe as long as it’s secret. A loose word can destroy everything now.”

“I agree. However, I do hope you’ll let me in on more of the details in the future. Also, I wanted to let you know that there is going to be a full inquiry before the Wizengamot. You and Remus will almost certainly be called to testify. Tell Remus to get a better story together than the sack of troll dung he tried handing me yesterday morning.”

“I’ll have a talk with him.”

“See that you do. I assume there is a good reason why I can’t be told what really happened here night before last.”

“Yes,” said Harry looking straight into Moody’s eyes. “I know you started all this last summer after the Azkaban attack, but the events you set in motion have taken on a life of their own now. I can only ask you to trust me, and promise you that everything I’ve done has been for the right reasons. The prophesy is coming true, but we’re not ready yet.”

“I trust you, Harry,” said Moody, his eyes now turning a bit misty. “I’ll do my best to help you. I’ve got to go get some rest. We’re still looking for the Weasley girl and Longbottom, but I don’t have a great deal of hope. Hermione said that if I saw you to ask if you’d come by and see her a bit. I don’t know where she disappeared to after Pomfrey fixed her broken arm, but she took her stuff and Ginny Weasley’s belongings away with her, then she was back this morning.”

Harry figured he knew where she had gone for the night, her office in the Inquisition section of the Ministry building. When Harry got to the hospital ward, he saw Hermione there looking fit but very weary. She hadn’t had much actual sleep either. That didn’t stop her from running to Harry and throwing her arms around him. The two held each other without speaking for a while sharing the pain of their loss. Finally they separated and sat on the nearest bed.

“I guess you must have stayed in your room in the Ministry building last night. I’m glad you went there, you needed some rest, there’s nothing either of us can do till someone locates them.”

“I know, Harry, but I wanted you to know that I don’t blame you for anything that’s happened. I explained how Ron died to Fred and George. They wanted me to tell you that they don’t blame you for Ron’s death … or Ginny’s.” Hermione put her face in her hands and broke down in sobs at the thought of having lost her friend.

“We don’t know she’s dead,” Harry quickly said, while holding her close to him, her head resting on his shoulder. “Malfoy and Parkinson took them prisoner; they must have had a use for them. Something they’ll keep them alive for. That gives us a chance to find and free them. We both love her, we always have.”

Madam Pomfrey came out of her office with her suitcase packed with her meager set of belongings. She took a long mournful look around her hospital ward as thought making a final impression of a place she would never see again. The morning Sun’s rays were spilling into the old hospital ward, lighting up the now empty beds and ward tables.

“I guess it’s time to go,” she said as she walked over to the windows. “I’ve been here for almost fifteen years now, seems like only yesterday dear old Professor Dumbledore showed me this room for the first time. How many times I’ve watched the sun come up through these windows…”

Both Harry and Hermione were startled as they heard Madam Pomfrey scream in alarm as she looked out the window. Thinking it was an attack they both drew their wands.

“Outside!” yelled Pomfrey while pointing out the window. “It’s Pansy Parkinson and she’s got the Weasley girl and Longbottom with her. I think they’re dead!”