Voldemort's Blight Chapter 1 (Patreon)

AN: Welcome everyone to the start of a new story entitled Voldemort's Blight. It's my take on a post-apocalyptic story in the Harry Potter universe. This will be a shorter story than what I typically write. I doubt it'll run for more than ten chapters, but we'll see how the writing process goes.

This story is based on an old outline I wrote three years ago. It's one that I've been itching to write, so I hope you all enjoy it.

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The Black Lake truly lived up to its name now that its waters were as dark and murky as a starless night sky. The gentle waves lapped at the bleached sand and the charcoal-coloured dirt. Everything outside of the border around Hogwarts was desaturated, holding just a hint of its previous colourful life. There were other pockets of safety like this one but not for hundreds of miles.

It was too easy for Harry Potter to lose focus and spend his time in the middle of an important meeting staring out at the desolate landscape outside of their protective Bubble. The endless, thankless task of keeping civilisation afloat rarely left him with time for a proper night’s sleep. It made him easily irritable, quick to make snap decisions without thinking through their consequences. He wasn’t the only one like this though.

Within the grounds of Hogwarts were 13,926 other men, women, children, house-elves, goblins, and centaurs. There were even a small number of hags and three vampires who’d taken shelter here with them before the Bubble had been sealed ten days after Harry had killed the Dark Lord Voldemort.

That was the day Voldemort’s Blight reached their shores.

Sixteen months had passed since then, and each one felt harder than the last. No one was safe from the blight that sucked up every drop of magic that it came across. Without the constant maintenance of the Bubble, all of Hogwarts would be swallowed up by the blight.

When Harry did manage to sleep, he often had nightmares of Voldemort’s high-pitched laugh and the blight destroying everything and everyone he’d ever loved. It was an endless torment that only ended when he awoke shivering and covered in sweat.

Sometimes, he drifted into those grotesque images in the middle of the day. He wouldn’t even have to close his eyes anymore; the world would simply desaturate in front of him and only the subsequent rush of adrenaline would bring him back to reality.

And yet, he still stared out at the wasteland through every window he passed.

Raucous shouts and fists slamming onto tables echoed in the tiny room around him as the meeting continued on as it always did. With so many people filling Hogwarts, the council that now governed what was left of Britain was forced to meet in what had once been a duelling room. A long wooden table stretched down the length of it with conjured wooden chairs that had to be replaced every few days. It was tight and cramped, but at least there were windows. Harry missed being in the real outdoors.

“What you’re asking for is impossible,” Bill Weasley said, frustration filling his tone. He was sitting next to Harry, his leg bouncing restlessly. “We don’t have enough people to maintain the Bubble as it is.”

“If we didn’t then the Bubble would’ve collapsed by now,” Narcissa Malfoy pointed out. Unlike the rest of them, her robes were more for fashion than function. She was one of the few whom Madam Malkin believed truly appreciated the art of weaving fine robes. Everyone had to have an outlet to relieve stress, and Madam Malkin never slacked on making and mending clothes for everyone else, so she never got any pushback from the council over the excessive materials used for a select few.

“That’s because the blight is clever, maybe even somewhat sentient.” Bill ran his hands through his rapidly thinning hair. He looked much older than his twenty-eight years. “It pokes and prods at the Bubble in different spots, testing for weaknesses. Our arithmancers barely have any time to run through new calculations before things start to look bleak, and then I have to make the call as to how to move around our enchanters to empower the wards at different spots to keep the blight at bay. We’re running ourselves ragged.”

“We all are,” Susan Bones commented bitterly from down the table. Her hands and forearms were covered in dirt. Something had gone wrong in Greenhouse Five that morning, and she’d been stuck in there all day fixing it. Harry had spent half of his morning corralling the crowds with a couple of the other aurors so that they didn’t disturb her work.

“But if the Bubble drops because our arithmancers and enchanters can’t keep up, then we’re all dead!” Bill smacked his palm off of the table loudly. “I’ve already given anyone who’s somewhat competent an early pass to join us on the line; the next batch of graduates won’t be ready for another three months at least! Until I have more people, we can’t expand the size of the Bubble!”

“I know, Bill,” Minerva McGonagall sighed from her seat at one end of the table. “You’re trying your best—”

“Our best isn’t good enough,” Kingsley Shacklebolt commented grimly. It was the only type of comment he offered nowadays. Everyone pretended not to notice how he came in smelling of alcohol. They would’ve removed him from the council if this wasn’t one of the few times that they could actually convince him to get out of bed.

“The matter remains that our stores for winter aren’t looking good this year,” Hermione Granger said, laying her hands open on the table.

Harry’s best friend had made herself indispensable by turning herself into Hogwarts’ quartermaster. She handled all of the logistics of managing the storage and distribution of food, volunteer labour, goods, and anything else important that needed careful handling. Under her watch, Hogwarts was running as efficiently as possible to ensure fair treatment and that resources ended up where they were needed most.

Hermione flipped through several sheets of parchment before she found the one that she was looking for. “We’re short on wheat and rice after that disaster in July, and our meat supply is nearly half of what it needs to be to make it through the winter. We’ve already had to start rationing meat, beans, and legumes so that we can keep everyone at a healthy level. The problem is that we don’t have enough open land to raise more flocks of animals on. If we don’t increase the size of the Bubble soon, then we’ll be even worse off this time next year.”

“I can’t work miracles,” Bill replied.

“Not with that attitude,” Daphne Greengrass scoffed at him.

Instantly, Harry felt himself bristling as though her words were meant as a personal offence to him. They probably were in part; she knew how protective he was of Hermione and the Weasleys. He glared at Daphne where she sat deliberately at the opposite end of the table from him.

“Oh yes, please enlighten us oh Queen of Doing Nothing,” Harry bit off sarcastically. “What grand insights do you have for us this week?”

Daphne narrowed her sapphire-blue eyes back at him. “For your information, I’ve been tracking the movements of the blight outside of the Bubble. As Bill said, it’s highly clever. Like a river finding the path of least resistance, it looks for the easiest path to reach the greatest source of magic in the region: Hogwarts.”

“Bravo,” Harry clapped his hands mockingly. “You’ve rediscovered what we’ve known for months now.”

“I haven’t gotten to my development,” Daphne said in that indignant tone she only used when she thought she actually had something useful to share. “I’ve been busy documenting the blight’s movements along our wards and in the surrounding lands, something far more important than your pathetic job playing cheerleader in front of everyone.”

“Do you know how delicate our balance of life is here?” Harry asked, ignoring the wave of groans from a select few around the table who were sick of listening to Harry and Daphne’s weekly fights. “Everyone here is scared, tired, and on the brink of doing something stupid. If I wasn’t here keeping everyone motivated, promising that we were doing everything in our power to fix things, then how many accidents do you think we’d have each month? How many fights would break out? How long would it take before there was a mob banging down this door demanding answers, and when they didn’t get ones they liked, how many seconds do you think it’d be before anarchy broke out?”

“We all appreciate what you do for us, Harry,” Hermione said soothingly, trying to calm things down.

“Do we?” Harry raised an eyebrow. “Because Daphne here certainly doesn’t seem to.”

“Like you appreciate my work?” Daphne snorted. “Between the two of us, I’m the one doing the real work that’s going to help us fight back against this damned blight. And if you’d care to stop wasting everyone’s time by interrupting me, then I think we’d all be very grateful to you for once.”

“You’re just a stuck-up—”

A loud bang erupted over the table.

“Mr Potter, sit down!” Minerva shouted with a deep scowl.

Harry hadn’t even realised that he’d started getting to his feet. It felt like he wasn’t always aware of his actions these days. A side effect of the lack of sleep, he supposed. If only those bloody kids hadn’t tried to flood the dungeons in some stupid prank war last night, he might’ve gotten an extra hour or two of much-needed rest.

Slowly, he sat back down, refusing to meet Daphne’s piercing gaze. If he looked at her, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to control his temper a second time.

“Please, Daphne, continue,” Minerva gestured to her.

Daphne cleared her throat and glanced at everyone around the table. “The power of the blight waxes and wanes unpredictably. No amount of measuring we’ve ever done has been able to suggest otherwise. What we do know is how it reacts to weaknesses in our Bubble when our enchanters tire or slip up. When the blight is strong, it goes after our weak points. What I’m suggesting is that we take advantage of that and deliberately introduce controlled weak points into the Bubble in order to—”

For once, Harry didn’t even have to shout to start the fighting. Half-a-dozen voices burst up all at once around the table, drowning out Daphne’s completely.

“Ridiculous!”

“Are you trying to get us killed?”

“What foolishness are you trying to put forth?”

“Give her a chance to explain herself!”

Minerva fired off another explosion in the air, but it wasn’t close to enough to break up the overlapping voices. Harry’s ears rang in pain from it all, but he gritted his teeth and waited for it to end. It always did, eventually.

“This will let us spread our enchanters thinner along the line within the Bubble, letting us cover more ground!” Daphne tried to shout. “We’ll keep extra enchanters on standby near the deliberate weak points we set to reinforce it once the blight tries to exploit them!”

“What happens then? The blight will just try to attack somewhere else!” Susan threw up her hands in frustration.

“It won’t!” Daphne argued. “It shouldn’t!”

“Which is it? It won’t or it shouldn’t?” Susan demanded.

“I… I won’t know until we test it,” Daphne admitted.

And thus the shouting began once again.

Minerva cleared her throat. With the Amplifying Charm applied to it, the noise rumbled loudly like brewing thunder. “Enough! We’re taking a twenty minute recess. I suggest you all come back with calmer heads and be prepared to discuss this civilly. Dismissed!”

Though she wasn’t in charge of the council—no one was—she often acted as the de facto leader if only to provide a degree of structure to these meetings. It’d become a common scene as of late for things to devolve into fights that precipitated a break. It was a good day when they only needed one.

Everyone got up out of their chairs, glad to escape this room that rarely had anything pleasant shared within its walls. With how cramped it was, everyone accidentally jostled together as they headed for the door.

Harry was just about to exit when Daphne shoved her way between him and the door frame.

“Watch yourself,” she spat acerbically at him as she brushed past, taking the time to ‘accidentally’ step on his foot as she left.

Harry cursed under his breath and took a couple limping steps out of the room before the pain in his toes started to subside.

“I’m going to try to talk to her,” Hermione told Harry as she followed out behind him.

“Why waste your breath?” Harry asked, somewhat sincerely. “Once she gets her mind stuck on something, you know that she won’t change it.”

“That’s why I’m hoping that she can change mine,” Hermione replied. “Or at least do a better job explaining her idea without having everyone else trying to talk over her.”

Harry just shook his head sadly. “Good luck,” he said without any hope in his voice.

As Hermione headed off in the direction that Daphne had disappeared, Harry walked away from the room before anyone else could try to strike up a conversation with him. He wasn’t keen on going over all of the little things he did every day to keep order around Hogwarts; what mattered was that he got them done without locking people up in the already overcrowded dungeons, unlike how most of the other aurors handled things. He couldn’t blame them really. It was hard to convince them to have much empathy and patience when no one had much empathy or patience for the work the aurors did.

Harry walked the familiar corridors confidently, taking a rather circuitous route to a distant destination. There were few people around the Seventh Floor this time of day, which made it easy for him to get to where he was going without worrying about anyone noticing him.

As his fingers brushed across the wooden grain of a broom cupboard door, it snapped open fast enough to make his hair rustle. A hand reached out from the darkness within and grabbed a fistful of his robes. He let himself be yanked inside and listened in the complete blackness as the door was magically locked and several privacy charms were laid across the walls of the tiny room.

There was barely any space to stand in here, which caused him to brush up against the soft body of a woman. Even in the darkness and through the fabric of her robes, she was perfectly familiar to him. The curve of her ass pressed against his front, he felt the way her hips narrowed into a slender waist, how her breasts overfilled his hands. He let his fingers linger on her body as he leaned in to whisper in her ear.

“That was quite the scene back there.”

A flame flew from the tip of Daphne’s wand and hung gently in the air overhead as she spun around to glare at him. “You took your sweet time getting here. We need to be back in fifteen minutes.”

“You should thank me. Even after you stomped on my toes harder than usual, I delayed Hermione a few extra seconds from following you to ask all about your grand idea—”

“We agreed to no work talk while we’re in here,” Daphne told him as she unceremoniously bent forward and pulled her panties down her legs, kicking them towards the back of the cupboard. “Besides, I’ve got a better use for your loud mouth.”

She pushed the top of his head down as he dropped to his knees. He ran his fingers up her creamy thighs, lifting up the skirt of her robes. She lifted up one leg and hooked it over his shoulder just as the warm musk of her pussy hit his nose. She’d probably already got herself started in here while she waited for him. He dove in eagerly, letting his tongue taste her.

Daphne’s slit settled against his mouth as he began to work his magic. With little to grab onto for support, Daphne braced herself with one hand against the wall and the other grabbing a fistful of his hair. She was rough with him, yanking his lips right against her labia so that his tongue could lap at the beads of her juices starting to form. It was the only way the two of them ever got along. When you had precious few minutes to work with, if you ever tried to be slow or gentle, there was a good chance that one or both of them wouldn’t get off.

So, Harry lapped at Daphne’s pussy, dipping his tongue between her folds as far as he could go before swiping up towards her clit. She was as sensitive as anything when he touched her there, so he was well prepared when her thighs tried to squeeze his head like she was trying to crush it.

“Fuck, right fucking there,” Daphne moaned, rolling her head back. “Don’t you dare fucking stop.”

“Such a filthy mouth,” Harry replied, but his words came out all muffled against her labia. She tugged at his head again, wanting him to keep licking her rather than try to come up with another cute remark.

Harry’s tongue spent all of its time focusing on Daphne’s clit. He sucked it gently between his lips and slid his tongue all over it in as random a pattern as he could create. It was obviously working well from how Daphne kept squirming around him, but that made it harder to keep up a steady pace. Her juices started to drip onto his chin as it rubbed across her slit, and Harry quickly caught the excess liquid with his fingers and popped it into his mouth so that it didn’t accidentally spill onto his robes. It wouldn’t be the first time that he’d forgotten about a stain made in the heat of passion.

“Stop!” Daphne suddenly demanded.

Harry pulled back, an unspoken yet familiar question in his eyes.

“Nine minutes left,” she said as she read the time on her pocket watch.

Standing up quickly, Harry parted his robes and undid his trousers. His cock was already hard from all of his efforts on Daphne.

Daphne spat a thick glob of saliva into her hand and rubbed it all over Harry’s cock. “Your turn to pick. How are we—”

Harry grabbed thick handfuls of her ass and lifted her up off of her feet. She let out a quick squeal of surprise before she snapped her mouth shut and glared at him for making her emit such a sound.

With easy practise, Daphne hooked her legs over his arms as he pinned her back against the wall. While Harry kept her suspended in place, Daphne reached down to grab his girthy cock and lined it up with her wet pussy. Then, a single thrust buried him completely inside of her.

It’d been nearly two weeks since the last time they’d been like this—last week’s meeting had seen the two of them getting so furious with each other that they both refused to signal the other to meet—and so the burst of excitement that flooded through Harry at finally knowing he was going to find a proper release was incredible. Daphne’s pussy felt perfect around him as it molded to accommodate his shape and size, letting her juices coat his shaft.

When Daphne wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and settled comfortably, Harry started moving.

Pumping in and out of Daphne’s slick pussy was the only true pleasure that Harry would find today, so he savoured every second of it. He drove his cock deep inside of her, leaving them both gasping from how good it felt. But Harry didn’t slow down for even a second. He repeated his thrust again and again, feeling his balls smack off of Daphne’s ass as he filled her up.

If he wasn’t keeping her pinned against the wall, Daphne would’ve been bouncing wildly from how hard and fast he was slamming into her.

Their faces were inches away from each other as she cried out in time with every thrust: “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Merlin, he wanted to capture her lips with his own and let his tongue dominate hers inside of her mouth, but they had a rule to never kiss. Daphne had been the one to insist on it. Harry didn’t particularly care either way so long as he got to keep fucking this gorgeous witch who made it her daily mission to make his life as difficult as possible. He doubted she felt any differently.

Harry groaned loudly as her walls clamped down hard around his cock. Yet even with this awkward position, he didn’t stop fucking her. Her mouth was hung open as she alternated between panting and moaning, losing all control in the moments they had left.

Experience taught him that when Daphne’s body turned rigid for half a second before relaxing again, it was a clear sign that she was about to cum. She didn’t announce loudly like some other women did. It was like every other part of her body besides her pussy shut down so that she could experience the maximum amount of ecstasy possible.

As Harry rammed his cock deep inside of her again, Daphne sucked in a gasp and went rigid. She relaxed, giving him time to make two more thrusts, and then she went rigid again. Her mouth went slack as she let out a silent, wordless scream, and her pussy spasmed wildly around his cock. Then, her body started to tremble as the orgasm rolled through her.

Two seconds later, a high-pitched cry of pleasure finally escaped past her lips as her body sagged with the type of relief that only came after a truly powerful orgasm.

Harry snatched the pocket watch from within Daphne’s robes. “Five minutes,” he warned her.

“Let me down,” she demanded as she started to squirm.

Harry helped her down, pulling his cock out of her. Now, it was Daphne’s turn to drop to her knees. She brushed her hair back behind her shoulders and practically unhinged her jaw as she engulfed Harry’s slick cock with her mouth. She pushed all the way forward until she was deepthroating him, and then she started humming while she used her hands to gently cradle his balls.

Back and forth, Daphne bobbed her head quickly while stroking his cock with her tightly sealed lips and letting her tongue swirl all around him. It was impossible to deny that she was an expert at sucking his cock, and between fucking her and this, it didn’t take Harry more than a few seconds before he felt his own orgasm bubbling up.

He warned Daphne about what was going to happen with a gentle tap on the top of her head, which was her sign to take him straight down her throat. His cock slid into her thigh throat. As she nuzzled her nose against his pelvis, Harry let out a deep groan and fired a torrent of cum down her throat. She drank it all down dutifully without complaint, only waiting until his body relaxed before she pulled away.

“We have to hurry back,” she said as she wiped the saliva away from her lips.

Even in a dazed, post-orgasm state, it still impressed Harry as to how quickly she could make herself look presentable again. A couple of charms quickly smoothed out her robes and fixed her hair back up as she walked over and picked up her discarded panties. She quickly put them back on as Harry vanished the wetness from his cock and stuffed himself back inside of his robes. Then, he smoothed out his own robes and waited as Daphne exited the broom cupboard without another word.

This was their routine. Inside this place, their hatred of each other was put to the wayside. They never spoke about what went on in here and no one else knew about these secret rendezvous. It was a little slice of blissful peace in an otherwise chaotic world.

After forty-five seconds, Harry opened the door and slipped out casually. The corridor was deserted, and he quickly made his way back to the council’s room.

Stepping inside, he realised that he was the last person to return. Daphne was seated in her chair, looking annoyed at him like she wasn’t just as guilty for the reason he was late.

There was a tenseness among everyone in the room that instantly put Harry on edge. He was worried that another disaster had struck. Crop failure, a riot inside the castle, someone who couldn’t take living in such extreme measures and decided to walk through the safety of the Bubble to add to the pile of ashen skeletons that already lay out there. Or was it some new manner of torment that they’d yet to face?

Minerva stood at the back of the room with a concerned expression as she spoke in hushed whispers with Septima Vector, the Professor of Arithmancy and Divination at Hogwarts.

Harry had to press his back against the wall as he manoeuvred behind everyone’s seats until he could settle into his own.

“What’s going on?” He whispered to Bill.

“Nothing good,” the man replied back. “Septima practically knocked Daphne over when she came charging into the room.”

Harry glanced over at Hermione, but her focus was solely on the two women speaking rapidly between themselves. Septima stuffed some parchments into Minerva’s hands and then ran out of the room in a frenzied rush.

“Minerva?” Narcissa prompted the older woman.

With a grave look, Minerva turned to face them. “Septima believes that she has discovered the source of the blight.”