The Dark Apprentice Chapter 81

Chapter 81

After Daphne had agreed to conduct the ritual on the evening of Yule, Harry spent the rest of his day checking the arithmancy of their work. The ritual was delicate. Any miscalculation, even a tiny oversight in the runic patterns or sequences, could lead to catastrophic consequences far beyond simple failure. The very structure of the spellwork was built upon the foundations of blood magic, a field Harry had rapidly mastered but still treated with a healthy, respectful paranoia.

He hunched over the desk in the dimly lit guest room, surrounded by stacks of texts and pages of a precise hand-written script. His wand moved in short, sharp motions, tracing and re-tracing the steps Daphne would take during the ritual. 

This wasn't just verifying the validity of their work, but also running hypothetical scenarios and writing down potential counter-spells that could be necessary. Every theorem, every constant, every variable was double-checked against established magical law and the more obscure, forbidden theorems they had been forced to employ. Harry would not allow a mistake. Not for something this important, not when the price of error was so high.

Satisfied with their work, Harry took a final glance, before nodding. This would work; it had to.

A small, lithe house elf, barely reaching the height of Harry's waist, popped into the room with a soft, nearly inaudible crack. The sudden appearance caused Harry, whose nerves were perpetually on edge since leaving Gaunt Manor, to flinch violently toward the nightstand where his holly and phoenix feather wand lay. His heart skipped a beat, but he managed to stop himself just as his fingers brushed the cool wood. He recognized the creature's simple, linen tunic as the uniform of the Manor's servants, and his initial, defensive surge of magic subsided.

The elf, whose large, watery eyes seemed to realize how close it had been to getting cursed, bowed so low that its nose almost touched the polished floorboards. "The masters be ready for you, sir," the elf squeaked, its voice a thin, reedy sound filled with an almost desperate eagerness to please. It did not raise its gaze. "They will meet you in the dining hall. Does sirs be needing an escort?"

“No.” Harry answered at once, rising to his feet, and brushing off his fanciest set of robes he had chosen for dinner, “That won’t be necessary.”

Without another word, the creature popped away, and Harry took a deep breath in preparation for what was to come. Packing the necessary materials for the ritual, Harry shrunk down the bowl, scrying knife, and other tools, before placing them in his robes, hoping Daphne had the strength to follow through with the plan. 

Arriving in the dining hall, Harry realized that he was definitively the last to arrive for dinner. Lord Greengrass occupied the authoritative head of the long, polished mahogany table. The Lord's eyes, a piercing green that missed nothing, flickered momentarily toward a nearby wall. There, standing sentinel, was an old grandfather clock, its pendulum swinging, chiming the top of an hour just as Harry stepped fully into the room. The chime seemed a deliberate punctuation mark to Harry's late arrival. The Lord’s eyebrows, thick and dark, raised in a slow, deliberate arch, an open and challenging sign of disapproval that spoke volumes without a single word. It was a silent, pointed query about Harry's poor time management.

However, Harry knew that the man’s fate would soon be decided, so he was entirely unmoved by the silent accusation. He refused to even grace the man with even a fleeting acknowledgment. Instead, Harry's focus was solely on the opposite side of the table, where Daphne sat, her expression guarded, her whole body tense with anticipation.

With a long, purposeful stride that conveyed confidence rather than apology, Harry crossed the expanse of the dining hall directly to Daphne’s side. Leaning down, he offered her a soft, lingering kiss on the cheek. His kiss was an intentional snub towards the Lord and Lady of the house, but also a statement that his loyalty and attention rested with her, not the head of the household.

“I hope I didn’t leave you waiting long, my lady,” Harry murmured, his voice low and warm, his eyes holding hers, searching for any signs of her desire to back down from their plan. 

Daphne shook her head with an almost imperceptible sigh, a faint puff of air suggesting a blend of fatigue and gentle exasperation. The room, which had been silent for a strained moment, seemed to hold its breath around the mahogany table. She gestured towards the ornate, high-backed chair to her right, a deliberate tap of her slender fingers against the polished wood serving as a silent, clear instruction.

Harry, taking in her unspoken cue, nodded in understanding. He moved with a practiced, easy grace, pulling the heavy chair out just enough to slip into the cushioned seat. Before fully turning his attention elsewhere, he offered Daphne a final, genuine, and reassuring grin—a flash of his confidence trying to lighten the mood she was so clearly trying to manage.

Settled, his focus immediately shifted to the other end of the long, formal table. There, Astoria sat, a picture of tightly-wound anxiety. Her gaze flickered rapidly, like a frantic bird, darting between her father, who radiated an aura of severe expectation, and Harry himself. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, knuckles white against the dark fabric of her skirt, and a visible tension held her shoulders as rigid as Daphne’s. The atmosphere was thick with weighty implications, and Astoria appeared to be sensitive to the severity of what would come.

Breaking the silence, Harry offered casually, “Good evening, Astoria, Lord and Lady Greengrass.”

Lady Greengrass offered him a curt nod, while Astoria's eyes just continued to dart back and forth between Harry and her father. Lord Greengrass merely glared, “If you wish to win the approval of this family, you should learn that it is customary to always greet the Lord of a household when entering any new environment. Surely someone taught you this.”

“Must’ve slipped my mind.” Harry replied dismissively, “I hope I caused no offense.”

Before Lord Greengrass could retort, two elves came bustling into the room with floating dishes, and silence once again reigned over the room.

“You can hope all you wish, but when dining with your social equals, or those of superior standing, you should at least deign to arrive on time.” Cyrus said through gritted teeth.

When the food arrived in front of Harry, the teen clapped his hands together sharply one time, causing Astoria and Daphne to both twitch and Lady Greengrass to stiffen as he grabbed a fork and knife, and then proceeded to dig in without care or thought of what the rest of the room was doing.  Looking up to see all eyes of the table on him, he offered the Lord of the table a wry grin, “This is excellent, Lord Greengrass. Your elves are second to none.”

A long silence followed his words, and Harry continued to bite into the steak that had been prepared for him, not at all caring that no one else had moved.  At last Lord Greengrass broke the tense moment with an audible scoff, “Daphne, you told me this boy was cunning and poised. You even claimed he was used to dining with other noble families. You failed to mention he had the etiquette of a Mudblood.”

Daphne stilled at the man’s words. Before, she seemed almost fidgety and flighty with her nerves; they now seemed to electrify and root her to the spot. Astoria gasped at her father’s words, while Lady Greengrass just frowned in Harry’s direction clearly indicating her agreement.

Harry paused for a moment, but his eyes had been on his food during the Lords statement, and he frowned for a brief moment, lifted his fork to his mouth for a final bite, and chewed deliberately slowly, allowing the moment to fester into something far more uncomfortable.  When Harry swallowed he reached for a napkin, dabbed his mouth, and allowed his eyes to shift upwards, a smirk crossing his features.. This smirk held a sinister triumph, a cold, sharp-edged victory that promised ruin. The air in the room seemed to thicken and chill as the teen offered his rebuttal, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that commanded attention despite its quiet volume. “Mudblood, oh how I hate that word. It is a pathetic, desperate label used by those clinging to a faded history they never truly earned.”

Slowly, deliberately, Harry rose to his feet, his movement fluid and controlled, like a predator deciding on its prey. He placed both hands flat upon the table, his gaze unwavering, locking onto Lord Greengrass with an unnerving intensity that seemed to peel back layers of the man’s arrogance.

“It’s interesting how you, a Lord of our esteemed nation, one who claims the mantle of tradition and pure-blood superiority, so easily forgets a foundational truth,” Harry continued, his voice laced with venomous irony. “It was a ‘Mudblood’—a woman you would dismiss with such a petty slur—who defied the dark Lord not once, not twice, but three times. That woman, whose blood you deem impure, possessed the courage and intellect that your entire generation of Pure-blood Lords lacked.”

He leaned closer, his eyes twin flashes of emerald fire. “It was a ‘Mudblood’ who stopped the most powerful, most feared wizard Britain has ever seen in his tracks, on the very verge of his total victory. She was the shield that protected this very world from his rule.” Harry paused, allowing the weight of those facts to settle, to crush the man's smug composure.

His final thrust was delivered with icy precision, a statement that sliced through Greengrass's personal pride with surgical cruelty. “And that same ‘Mudblood’ also achieved something you, Lord Greengrass, seem utterly and tragically unable to do: she protected her child. She gave her life for me, a sacrifice you wouldn't understand, a concept of unconditional love and duty that seems wholly alien to your self-serving lineage.” The implication hung heavy: Lord Greengrass, by contrast, had demonstrably failed to safeguard his own family from the very blood curse Harry and Daphne sought to cure. Harry’s expression hardened, the smirk returning—a final, damning judgment. “Carry that with you, Lord Greengrass, the next time you decide to speak of blood purity. Her ‘tainted’ blood proved more capable than your hollow claim to nobility.”

The man shot to his feet, hand digging through his robes aggressively trying to get to his wand, and in turn, Harry just stared at the man with an unimpressed glare. The day before, he had danced with the most dangerous witches and wizards alive; this jumped-up Pureblood Lord who had likely never been in real battle was hardly to frighten him.

“What do you know, Potter?” The man bellowed, face red, “We have done everything to rid my daughter of her curse. For generations, we have sought the answer.”

“And now the son of a mudblood has found the answer, the cure, how shameful that must feel.” Harry taunted.

“You have gone too far, Potter. Get out of my house.” The man roared, his face a mask of purple fury, his knuckles white as he gripped the mahogany wand in his hand.

Harry glanced lazily at the lavish spread of uneaten food then back to the man, a faint, almost pitying smile playing on his lips. “But I haven’t finished eating yet? It would be a terrible waste to let such a beautiful dinner go cold, Mr. Greengrass.”

The older wizard’s chest heaved with indignation, his mouth opening for a blistering retort, a fresh wave of condemnation ready to be unleashed. Before the first syllable could escape, however, his wand went flying from his hand, spinning high toward the chandelier. The dangerous smirk on Harry’s face grew, blossoming into something truly menacing, because it was not he who had disarmed the patriarch of the Greengrass family.

As the wand went sailing, a swift, practiced motion from Harry's left hand summoned it with disconcerting ease. The wand arrested its flight mid-arc, pivoting sharply to land cleanly in Harry’s outstretched palm. He didn’t even look at it, his gaze locked on Cyrus Greengrass’s astonished face as he casually slid the recovered wand into the inner pocket of his robes, a clear statement of dominance, “If only you dueled as well you lie.”

A moment of stunned silence enveloped the opulent dining room, broken only by the sharp intake of breath from Daphne’s mother. Before anything further could happen, before Cyrus could articulate the burning outrage that choked him, he roared out in pure, unadulterated fury, his eyes fixing on the silent, pale figure of his eldest daughter. “You dare curse your own father? You dare attack me in my own home, Daphne?”

“Daphne, have you lost your mind?” Her mother, who according to Daphne was a woman usually composed and unflappable, asked immediately after, her voice a sharp, terrified whisper that was a stark contrast to her husband’s booming accusation. Her eyes darted frantically between her daughter and the dark-haired boy sitting across the table, desperately seeking an explanation for the unbelievable betrayal she had just witnessed.

Instead of answering either of them, her eyes went to Astoria, who was on her feet, hiding behind her chair, as any small frightened child might do. Daphne’s determined gaze softened as she stared towards her sister, “Tori, I have found a way to save you.”

“W-w-what?” Astoria stuttered out, her voice a thin squeak that barely cut through the sudden, crushing weight of the chamber. Her eyes, wide and unnaturally bright, darted from her sister to her father.

Daphne’s father began to rage again, but Harry flicked his hand towards the man, silencing him in mid-sentence, and freezing him in place with one swift motion. It was clear Daphne trusted Harry implicitly, because her eyes didn’t even shift towards her father again; they remained fixed on her sister, “Harry and I told you we were working on a cure, and we have one. A cure we will give you tonight.”

“That’s not possible.” Lady Greengrass said coldly, wand in hand, pointing her wand towards Harry, who offered a challenging smirk, “Cyrus is right, we did everything. Searched everywhere.”

Daphne's voice was a soft murmur, yet it held a profound certainty that silenced the room. "The answer was in the Dark Arts all along," she explained, a faint, proud smile gracing her lips. "It's a truth few dare to acknowledge, let alone have the courage to explore, but the most potent magic—the kind capable of challenging a blood curse generations deep—can be taught to those willing to sacrifice anything."

She paused, her gaze flicking over to Harry, who stood beside her, a calm, potent aura surrounding him. "You just had to know where to look, and more importantly, how to navigate that knowledge without succumbing to it. Thankfully, Harry had access to all the right books, and even more importantly, he had the training, the discipline, and the sheer power to make absolutely sure that we didn't make any mistakes along the way."

"Together," Daphne concluded, the triumph now clear in her tone, "We have created a cure for Astoria. But it's so much more than a simple remedy. This spell won't just rid her of the blood curse; it will cleanse our family of it for good. The curse will be utterly erased from the Greengrass line. Future generations will never know its shadow. If someone is just capable of paying the price."

The weight of her words settled heavily. Horror was written on her mother’s face, while her father’s eyes widened, fear shown in them for the first time. Astoria, however, looked scared, “What price?”

“Blood, from all of us,” Daphne said simply, before her eyes shifted towards her father, “And a life sacrificed that holds a connection to the original curse. In this case…our father.”

“No!” Lady Greengrass shrieked, her voice a raw, desperate sound that echoed unnaturally loud in the sudden, tense silence of the chamber. Her eyes, normally so composed, were wild with a mixture of disbelief and pure, visceral terror as she watched the confrontation unfold. Her wand surged forward, a brilliant jet of scarlet light erupting from the tip, aimed with deadly precision at her unsuspecting daughter, Daphne.

But Harry was already a step ahead, his senses honed by years of training with Tom. With a surge of his wand arm, a shimmering, translucent shield of pure magical energy snapped into existence, manifesting directly in front of the frozen Daphne. The powerful, stunning spell, intended to knock the girl unconscious, struck the magical barrier with a sharp crack and dissolved harmlessly into sparks, the impact momentarily lighting up the horrified expression on Daphne’s face.

The deflection was instantaneous, a testament to Harry's advanced, non-verbal magic. Before the echo of the stunning spell's impact could fully fade, his own wand, the familiar holly and phoenix feather, flew with practiced ease from his sleeve holster into his outstretched hand. His eyes, fixed unblinkingly on Lady Greengrass, narrowed to cold slits. The air around him suddenly felt heavy, charged with a dark, potent malice. His lips barely moved, the word a mere expulsion of breath, a promise of absolute, inescapable control that cut through the silence like a poisoned blade.

He hissed out, the single, terrible word: “Imperio.”

The woman bent to Harry’s will at once, dropping to her knees in submission, eyes cast towards the ground. Harry returned his wand to his sleeve shaking his head, “We won’t be needing any more input from you tonight, Lady Greengrass.”

Astoria now looked horrified by what Harry had done, and fell over backwards as she tried to scramble away, but Daphne was at her side now, holding her in place, “I know this is scary Tori. I know it isn’t what you wanted, but we have to think about more than just ourselves. We can save you, and generations of Greengrass women who will follow in our footsteps. My daughters, yours, their daughters, they will never know the pain you have experienced.”

The young girl was frozen in place, while Harry just watched as Daphne pleaded with her sister, “We can grow old together. You can have a husband, and children, children you can spoil, and show the love we were never given.”

Astoria stared at her sister for a long moment, tears in her eyes now, “But at what cost?”

Taking the young girl's hand in hers, Daphne kissed it before saying, “I’d pay any cost to give you a future, Tori. Just let me pay it.”

Harry and Daphne both stared at Astoria. Neither moved while the girl just allowed the tears to fall from her eyes, “Not like this, Daph. I…I am not worth that.”

Daphne sobbed at her sister's words, pulled her in for a hug, and cried, “Don’t say that, Tori, you are worth that to me…and I am going to prove that to you.”

A flash of red muffled light happened from behind the young girl's back, and she folded limply into Daphne’s arms, unconscious. Gently Daphne guided her little sister to the ground, her wand held in her hand.

“I was wrong, Harry.” Daphne said quietly, “They can never know what we sacrificed to save her. They wouldn’t be able to live with themselves, or me. Can you-”

“Yes.” Harry answered instantly, his plan all coming together perfectly, “I will alter their memories, cast the mark, and leave the blame at the Dark Lord's feet once your sister has been cured, and your house elves have been dealt with. They have seen too much. You can leave that to me, I won’t need to kill them.”

“I trust you, Harry.” Daphne said softly, reaching out to him with one hand.

Closing the distance, Harry took that hand, offering her the strength to do what needed to be done. Steeling her resolve Daphne turned towards her father, with a look of disgust on her face, “You’ve had her whole life to find a cure. Harry and I found one in a single Summer. Your lack of effort tells me all I need to know. Do you have any last words, father?”

With a swish of her wand, her father’s voice returned, and it thundered towards her, “You think you will get away with this? You little brat. You are nothing but a scared little girl grasping at straws.”

Daphne, her chin held high in defiance, merely shook her head, the action dismissive, while her eyes burned with a cold, unwavering glare directed at her father. She took a deliberate step away from Harry, and stalked towards the man slowly.

“No, father,” she began, her voice steady and laced with contempt. “You misunderstand the girl you knew. That fragile creature, the one who flinched and retreated, was a scared little girl—a product of your making, not a true reflection of me.”

Her words cut through the tense air with the precision of a duelist. “Anytime you raised your voice to shout... Anytime you threw a glass across the room, careless of where it landed... Anytime you raised your hand to strike me, sending me scurrying to the solitude of my room merely for daring to ask questions about the blood curse that governs our families' lives... then, yes, I was a scared little girl.”

She paused, letting the weight of her accusations settle upon him, the silence amplifying the shame of his past cruelty. Her gaze hardened further as she swept her arm out, her index finger pointing directly towards Harry.

“But that girl is gone,” Daphne declared, the finality in her tone absolute. “What you see standing before you now is what he made me. What the apprentice of Lord Voldemort made me.”

The man’s eyes widened in surprise now, glancing towards Harry, who waved his wand over his face, making the golden mask Tom had created him appear. The man went stark pale, and Daphne cooed, “Oh, now you understand. Now you respect me, because I am a threat. Don’t worry, father, it’s not something you will have to worry about much longer. Goodbye.”

With a sharp, guttural cry, Daphne didn't hesitate. The air around her crackled with volatile, barely contained magic, a palpable aura of deadly intent. She slashed it forward in a wide, vicious arc, the movement graceful yet utterly lethal. The curse struck the man squarely in the center of his chest, the force of the impact sounding less like a magical strike and more like a physical blow—a sickening, dull thwack. He didn't even have time to flinch or raise a hand in hopes of defending himself. The man's eyes widened in a fleeting moment of shock and agony before the effect took hold. Torrents of deep crimson blood instantly burst forth from a deep, gash that had appeared in his robes and flesh. The cutting curse had done its work with ruthless efficiency, tearing through tissue and bone alike. He staggered backward, a choked gasp escaping his lips, his hands flying instinctively to the sudden, horrific wound blooming over his chest.

Daphne’s own eyes widened in horror, but Harry knew time was of the essence as he pulled the previously shrunken items out of his robes, and began clearing room at the table, “Daphne, we have to do this. If we are going to save Astoria, it's now or never.”

This seemed to snap the girl back to focus, as silent tears began to fall from her eyes. Fighting through the tears, Daphne moved to the table where she grabbed the scrying knife, and slashed her own palm first. Blood immediately began to tickle down, and she choked her way through the first set of whispered enchantments.

Efficiently, with a slow, deliberate grace that belied the potent magic she was preparing, Daphne drew a small measure of blood from each of her gathered family members. 

As she completed this step, Harry was at the basin. He worked with a focused intensity, his movements precise as he prepared the other necessary ingredients. A pinch of asphodel, moonstone, harvested under the fullest lunar light; a swirl of consecrated water drawn from a spring deep within their ancestral manor grounds; and a scattering of finely crushed magical herbs, each chosen for its specific sympathetic resonance. 

He watched her carefully, his eyes never leaving her face or her hands. It was a silent conversation, a constant, non-verbal checking that ensured every part of this complex and dangerous ritual was conducted not just accurately, but perfectly. The stakes were too high for error, the confluence of their collective magical energy requiring absolute synchronicity in the Dark Arts. 

Minutes passed, and Harry knew that Daphne was getting close as she began inspecting her work. Her father had not bled out yet, but the moment was nearing, as Harry watched her syphon all the lost blood into the basin, and attach his life force to the ritual with a spell Harry had learned in Secrets of the Darkest Arts.

When she was done, she took a heavy step backwards, nearly falling over at the magnitude of what she was doing. She raised her wand, but froze, and Harry watched for a moment in silence, before speaking, “You didn’t lie to Astoria. This ritual required a great sacrifice, but you have the world to gain from it.”

Daphne didn’t move, her wand was pointed at the basin, but her hesitation trailed on, making Harry think she was going to trip at the finish line. Instead, Harry slid behind her, offering a seductive encouragement,  “You are both going to grow in a world where neither of you has to worry about which of your descendants is going to be cursed with this affliction. It dies here, Daph. End it once and for all, and you can all be free.”

“I-I-I I can’t.” Daphne said shakily, “I can…I can still undo…”

Her eyes closed, and Harry froze. He could hardly believe she was this close. Was she going to stop now? Was she going to stop where Harry didn’t? Was she going to fail where he succeeded all those years ago?

Before those doubts could fully coalesce, Daphne’s wand ignited when she jabbed her wand towards the basin and whispered the word, “Incendio.”