Voldemort's Blight Chapter 4 (Patreon)

Nature’s beauty was something so easily forgotten when one spent their every day trapped at Hogwarts for years on end. Even the limited surrounding land around the castle was crowded due to how many people spent their days out on the grounds. These vacant mountains felt like a treat in comparison.

Harry had little trouble hiking his way deeper through the expansive mountain range at the start. Vast fields of wild flowers and trees stretched throughout the blissful valleys he crossed. Everything was so full of life and colour that he often lost himself simply taking it all in. But losing one’s self to complacency was a dangerous thing. He knew that he had to keep moving.

So, further and further he walked.

The first night, he slept out underneath the starry sky. He hadn’t even bothered to set up his tent since there wasn’t any falling snow or rain. There hadn’t been much wind for hours, and his thick blankets and the fire he’d made kept him plenty warm. The hatchet in his supply kit had made quick work of some dry branches, and the sparks made from his ferrocerium rod and knife lit them quickly thanks to some magnesium shavings. It was easy for his mind to pretend that he was off on a camping trip with some friends, spending the night out in the wilderness. Maybe Ron and Dean were off fishing up some supper while Seamus and Neville were scouting out some nearby magical fungi.

The image was comforting, but his thoughts inevitably drifted back to Daphne as they so often had during this long day. Despite how exasperating her endless provocations were and how vexing her personality could be at times, he still worried about her. From what little he knew of her, she wasn’t used to being out in dangerous places like this by herself. If she was smart, she’d have portkeyed back to Hogwarts. Then again, her stubbornness probably meant that she’d stay here and try to find the source of the blight alone. He could only hope that if things grew too perilous for her that she’d do the smart thing.

Sighing, Harry pulled the blankets tighter around himself and closed his eyes. He needed his rest, and for the first time in a long while, Harry drifted off to sleep without a single nightmare to plague his dreams.

He awoke when the sun was just climbing over the horizon. Though he felt like he could easily sleep for a few more hours, he heated up a quick meal for himself by pouring boiling water into a pouch full of grains, nuts, and fruit. He devoured it all quickly before cleaning up, packing his things, and heading out for another day’s hike.

Without knowing precisely where the blight was originating from, Harry had to rely upon his senses. As soon as the hairs on his arm stood up, he stopped and waited for the blight to arrive. When it washed over him, his acute sense of magic helped him to identify a rough direction that the blight had come from. It wasn’t perfect, but he knew that he was steadily moving in the proper direction.

Unfortunately, that direction took him higher into the mountains.

At the outskirts, the Ural Mountains were merely extreme rolling hills—nothing that he couldn’t conquer on his own. But the further he walked, the steeper and taller the mountains became. He had to walk winding mountain paths to climb over rises before descending down the far side into new valleys.

Mount Narodnaya was his supposed target, but he had no clue as to where it exactly was beyond what the blight told him. He wished that he’d thought to bring a map with him, but in all of the chaos of rushing to get this mission ready, it’d been one of the many things that he’d overlooked. At the very least, he had enough food to last him a while so that he could search and scour the area before having to call it quits.

The rough ground and frequent patches of stones made it a tiresome area to trek. Harry walked and slept once more as the elevation steadily grew higher and the snows and winds grew in intensity.

A blizzard came upon him on his third day. The morning had been filled with a gentle wind and moderate snowfall. Then, as he crested over a ridge, he found a valley filled with snow billowing around and icy crystals covering everything in sight. Were it not for the insulated robes he’d been given, Harry would’ve been forced to use a Warming Charm by now. He was still considering it given the fact that his face felt frozen beneath the scarf he’d wrapped around his head, but he was trying to avoid the temptation. He didn’t want to bring the blight’s attention down on himself unnecessarily.

Seeing that a detour would cost him too much daylight and perhaps not even work, Harry trudged forward into the blizzard as the snows grew deeper, reluctant to turn back now that he was in the midst of the storm. He fought against the biting-cold winds for hours, flinching as tears streamed from his eyes and froze on his cheeks. Clusters of trees provided limited cover, giving him opportunities to briefly rest and eat and drink before venturing off again.

Climbing up the far mountain was harder than he’d anticipated. The snow was coming up to his mid-calf, and the winds were trying to topple him over. Still, he refused to allow himself to be bested by the weather.

The raging blizzard made it hard to see much beyond his immediate surroundings, which was why he was shocked when he found the edge of the storm. He lunged through the invisible barrier, breathing a sigh of relief as he plopped himself down on a large rock. The howling wind sounded much less daunting now that he was safe.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered. “Magic…”

There was nothing else the invisible border could be other than a magical ward limiting the stretch of the blizzard, which Harry could only assume was magical in origin too. He’d felt the blight wash over him while he was within it, which meant that whoever had established this knew of a way to circumvent the blight. Or maybe the blight chose to ignore this specific magic.

If Bill were here, he’d probably have a definite answer, but all that Harry was left with were guesses.

The blizzard was clearly meant as a deterrent to anyone travelling through this region. Why this specific valley was chosen to host it wasn’t exactly clear to him. There were taller mountains in the distance, so this couldn’t be Mount Narodnaya. Perhaps some of the other valleys had similar defences, forming a large ring around the origin of the blight.

This had to be a creation of Voldemort’s hands. It was the first line of defence in what Harry feared was a terrible sequence of them. He needed to push on and fight through as many as he could, creating a record in the journal he kept. If he couldn’t make it all the way to the blight, then having this information would be invaluable to a subsequent expedition.

Harry found a small rocky overhang on the mountainside that would provide plenty of shelter for the night. The blizzard was well within sight, giving Harry the opportunity to watch over it and see if any changes came as the hours passed. But by the following morning, the blizzard simply continued to rage within its confines.

Packing up had become a familiar habit to Harry. He rushed through it and set off not long after the sun began to rise. Climbing the mountain he’d slept on, he stared out and saw that the land ahead of him was covered in snow. Countless narrow gullies branched off between stark cliffs, each steadily weaving towards the taller mountains in the distance.

Walking down into the valley, Harry picked one of the central gullies and set off, feeling wary of the tall cliff faces on either side of him. Trees dotted the edge of the frozen river he walked alongside, their branches sagging underneath the weight of the snow. There was just a light snowfall coming down now, little enough for it to look beautiful. The only sounds came from the water running under the ice and the occasional cries of nearby animals.

At least, that’s all there was at first.

A deep, bellowing roar washed over him. It was distant yet still utterly terrifying. Every hair on Harry’s arms stood up, and he paused, the snow crunching under his foot.

Rumbling came next like boulders tumbling down from a cliff. Birds flew from trees, but there was no sign of what had made the noise.

Cautiously, Harry reached into his backpack and retrieved his hatchet. It wasn’t anywhere near as useful as having a wand in hand, but it was better than nothing. That was what he told himself, at least.

He was barely a minute back into walking when he heard something else ring out. At first, he thought it was an animal screaming in pain. It wasn’t until the second cry that he realised that it was a person: Daphne!

Suddenly, Harry took off in a sprint towards the noise. The gully curved steadily to his right, and the deep roars and screams grew louder and louder.

Finally, the gully opened into a wide clearing where several other paths converged. Splotches of blood dotted the white snow around Daphne. She was crouched low underneath the cover of a few trees, clutching at a deep gash on her arm. Standing dozens of feet away in the middle of the clearing was a yeti.

Yetis were creatures that Harry had only ever read about in class, but words barely did the creature justice. The ferocious beast stood at nearly three times Harry’s size, coated in thick white fur. Its dark, purplish flesh was only visible around parts of his face, feet, and hands. It had these terribly sharp nails that were dripping red with Daphne’s blood.

The creature’s appearance here couldn’t be a coincidence. It had to be another one of the blight’s defences.

“Daphne!” Harry shouted.

Her head snapped up and eyes widened as she saw him. The despair on her face turned to hope.

However, Daphne wasn’t the only one to hear him. The yeti slammed its foot down on the ground as it turned to face him. With its hands balled into fists, it roared and charged at him.

As fast as he could, Harry undid the straps from his backpack and let it slip off of his shoulders as the yeti raised its fists above its head and brought them down. Harry rolled out of the way through the powdery snow and cringed as the yeti’s fists crashed into the ground. He scrambled to his feet and took off sprinting to another thicket of trees near the edge of the clearing.

His mind raced for ideas.

Daphne was still bleeding and in no fit state to take on a yeti. She’d just get in his way if he tried to bring her in to help.

The clearing itself was unfortunately quite open. Large creatures like yetis were deceptively fast, and it would run Harry down if he tried to fight it out in the open. The walls of this clearing were climbable, but Harry wasn’t a fast enough climber to outrun a yeti’s hands. That left the patches of trees near the outskirts of the clearing. Daphne was clever to have hidden underneath them. Their branches and thick trunks would make it difficult for the yeti to manoeuvre around them; yet, the beast was probably strong enough to tear through the trunks if it came down to it.

His hatchet would have been a useful tool if yetis, like many magical beasts, didn’t have thick hides. The hatchet couldn’t cut very deep even if he managed to get through its hide. But getting up close to a yeti like that was just asking for trouble.

Harry grimaced as the yeti roared again. His mind tried to recall what advice they gave on yetis, but he just pulling up those terrible memories about Gilderoy Lockhart’s stupid book—

“Fire!” Daphne shouted, as if knowing exactly what he was trying to recall.

Of course! Yetis were terrified of fire!

A sinking feeling hit his stomach as he remembered that he’d just dropped his bag to free its weight from his shoulders so that he could move around more nimbly. He didn’t have his ferrocerium rod to make sparks. But Daphne still had her backpack around her shoulders!

Unfortunately, her latest shout had drawn the yeti’s focus back onto her. It was moving menacingly, huffing as it prepared to tear through whatever was in its path to get to her.

“Look for tree resin and light it on fire!” Harry shouted at Daphne as he burst from his cover amongst the trees. “I’ll distract it!”

The yeti wasn’t interested in him though. It was getting closer to Daphne, who was rifling through her backpack quickly to get her supplies. Despite Harry running towards the yeti, it was going to reach her first.

So, he did the only thing he could. He shouted at the top of his lungs and hurled his hatchet at the creature’s back.

The hatchet flew end over end, wobbling in the air as it flew right towards the yeti. The flat of the blade smacked against the yeti’s back, making enough of a distraction that it paused, turned, and saw Harry standing right out in the open.

With nothing in his hands, Harry grimaced and kept shouting at the yeti. The sound came from his chest, a deeper rumble than even he thought he was capable of. The yeti took it as the challenge it was and dropped onto all fours and came charging at Harry.

Harry started running to the side, but the yeti managed to turn smoothly to keep Harry dead ahead of him. There was no way he was going to avoid this easily, so Harry planted his feet and faced the yeti, preparing to dodge at the last second.

With a roar, the yeti threw himself into the air towards Harry. It was exactly what he’d been hoping for, and so Harry threw himself forward right underneath the yeti. Seeing his prey try to escape, the yeti kicked out, and a blossom of pain shot out from Harry’s shoulder as the beast’s meaty foot connected with a grazing blow.

Harry landed hard on the ground, gasping as his shoulder radiated in agony, but he couldn’t stay down for long. He pushed himself up and started running right for Daphne’s cover. She had the hatchet and ferrocerium rod in hand and was striking it again and again, making sparks fly at the tree she was hiding behind.

The yeti wasn’t letting Harry get away though. It too clambered back onto its feet and spun around to charge at Harry’s retreating back. This was a race that Harry knew he wasn’t going to win, so he just needed to wait for—

Finally, the sparks took, and the resin lit. Then, Daphne took a broken branch and dipped it into the flames. She must’ve put something on it because it started burning immediately.

As Harry dove into the tree line, he heard the yeti come to a hesitant stop. Daphne didn’t have much fire going, but it was enough to make the beast second guess its choices.

Though his shoulder was aching, Harry hurried over to Daphne’s side and picked up her hatchet to start shaving bark off of the trees. He formed it in a little pile on a clear patch of dirt and directed Daphne to ignite it.

They had a stable source of fire for now, and the yeti started pacing back and forth, unwilling to get any closer than he was.

“How the hell did you find me?” Daphne asked the second they had a moment’s respite.

“I wasn’t trying to,” Harry said, instantly cringing at how that sounded. “I was just heading in the direction I could feel the blight coming from when I ran into you. How did you make it here anyways?”

“I was following the detector that Septima made,” she said, gesturing to a compass on the ground. “The second I stepped foot into this clearing, the yeti came down from above.”

“It’s a trap that Voldemort left for us,” Harry said darkly. “He doesn’t want anyone getting close to his blight. I dealt with stuff like this back when I was hunting him down.”

Daphne eyed the beast warily. “How are we supposed to kill this thing?”

“I doubt we can without magic,” Harry said. “But I don’t think we have to. I already ran into one of Voldemort’s other traps, and there was a ward that kept it contained. It could be the exact same situation here. If we get far enough away from the clearing, the yeti might not chase us.”

“Or it could stalk us until it gets dark and smash our heads in while we sleep,” Daphne retorted.

“Look, it’s the best I’ve got,” Harry admitted. “Its hide is too thick for the weapons we have to hurt it. We’re going to run out of fire eventually, and when we do, it’ll come after us. At least if we try to leave, we might find something that could help us. Or we get lucky and the beast stops following us altogether.”

“I don’t like to rely on luck.”

“Well you’d better get used to it out here. Sometimes, luck is all you have.”

Daphne didn’t have much of a response to that, so Harry took the opportunity to start preparing makeshift torches. He cut down branches and broke them up before using fibrous tree shavings to tie several bits of dried wood around one end of the branches. Then, Daphne added some magnesium shavings to make it easier for them to light when they’d need them.

“I need to get my backpack and hatchet,” Harry told her.

“The hatchet might be fine, but your backpack has seen better days,” she said, pointing out where it lay on the ground.

When he’d dodged the yeti’s attack, it’d clearly decided to smash the next closest thing. Most of the useful supplies in his pack had been pulverised by its fists.

Harry knew instantly that the two backup ward stones were destroyed. The runes on them were fragile. Scratches or other damage would mess up the runes and prevent them from functioning as intended. Most of his survival kit was probably wasted too. His blankets and some of his food would be fine, and that alone was worth grabbing.

“We should get them anyway,” Harry said. “We can see what’s been broken when we’ve gotten someplace safer.”

“The yeti’s standing by your hatchet,” Daphne pointed out. “Don’t think it’ll give up easily.”

“It will thanks to this fire. Just stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Harry ignited one of the torches and stepped out of the trees. He wished that he could say that he was scared as he started walking towards the yeti. The anger in the beast’s eyes was palpable. It wanted to rip Harry limb from limb, but thankfully it feared the fire more.

When Harry was nearly halfway to the creature, it started to back up slowly. Harry held the torch out well in front of him, waving it slightly to try to scare the yeti back further. It worked, and he managed to retrieve his hatchet without issue.

But as he started towards his backpack, the yeti followed him. It kept its distance, like it had somehow determined a set radius where it was safe from the fire, but it stalked him the way a cat would a mouse. It was a terribly disconcerting feeling, but Harry managed to make it back to Daphne’s side with his backpack in hand.

“It’s going to wait us out,” Harry said as he crouched down next to Daphne as she continued to tend to their fire. “Do you trust me?”

“With my life? Absolutely not,” Daphne answered resolutely.

“Then do you at least trust that I wouldn’t throw my life away on something I didn’t think would work?” He asked her.

Harry didn’t like the way she paused.

“I suppose that even you wouldn’t be so foolish—”

“Then we should leave now,” Harry said as he stood back up. “We need to find a place where we can bandage you up.”

“Let me get something first,” Daphne reached back into her backpack. “I prepared for this.”

She pulled out a small chest and cracked it open. Six thin vials sat alongside each other. She pulled one out, uncorked it, and downed the vial.

“Blood replenisher,” Harry nodded in approval, recognising the colour of the potion from his many visits to the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts. “Smart.”

He’d brought his own too, but they were probably smashed to bits.

Harry gathered up the collection of torches as Daphne stowed everything in her backpack again. In the interest of preserving their source of fire, Daphne decided that she was going to be the only one holding a lit torch.

As soon as they were ready, they set off. With a torch in one hand and her detector in the other, Daphne gestured to another gully in the distance.

“Down that way is our best bet.”

Harry took the lead while Daphne stayed close behind him, warding off the yeti with the torch. The beast fumed and roared and beat its chest with its fists but kept its distance. Harry was feeling quite confident up until the yeti started following them into the gully.

“It’s following us,” Daphne hissed under her breath.

“The ward barrier can’t be too far away,” Harry said, hoping that his prediction of such a thing was correct. If it wasn’t… they’d just have to come up with some other way of dealing with the beast.

The gully wound back and forth as the cliff walls steadily decreased in height. Harry recognised that they were climbing up higher again into the mountains.

Eventually, the gully came to an end as they climbed out onto the side of a mountain.

For a moment, the yeti paused at the end of the gully, eyeing them. Then, it suddenly turned around and started walking away.

Harry and Daphne just stood there for several minutes, watching from up high as the yeti continued on back the way they’d come from.

“Thank Merlin for small mercies,” Daphne joked quietly.

“We shouldn’t linger just in case,” Harry said. He still didn’t know if they were actually safe out here or not from the beast or if it was trying to lull them into a false sense of security. Still, his hope was high that this was the end of it.

There was a clear path up the mountain that was easy to follow from their position. It was a rocky path barely touched by snow that led straight up towards what looked like a small terrace.

As they started up, Harry couldn’t help but ask Daphne. “How did you make it all the way here by yourself?”

She snorted in reply. “I’m not as helpless as you seem to think I am. I carefully chose my paths and found safe places to rest each night.”

“I just never took you for the adventuring type.”

“Shows what you know about me,” she retorted.

“I know some things,” he argued back. “You can be a clever witch when you’re not trying to start fights with me.”

“I’m always a clever witch,” she corrected him. “And for your information, I don’t start fights. You’re the one who always instigates things.”

Harry scoffed. “Please, the only time you’re ever not looking for a fight is when we’re in that broom cupboard—”

“We made a deal not to talk about that outside of there,” Daphne’s icy tone interrupted him.

“Only because we didn’t want anyone else to learn about what was going on,” Harry pointed out. “There’s no one here to listen to us.”

“I still don’t want to talk about it,” Daphne insisted.

“Come on. How come it’s the only place where you don’t want to rip my guts out? Why did you even invite me in there in the first place?”

Daphne refused to answer, leading to Harry’s growing frustration. Silently, they reached the terrace overhead. There was a small rocky overhang they could sit beneath and take a breath.

But just as they made a few steps towards it, the stone beneath their feet trembled. Spiderweb cracks shot out in every direction around them as the stone started to break apart. Daphne screamed as they started to fall.

Instinctively, Harry grabbed Daphne in his arms and tried to twist his body so that he’d cushion her fall. They only fell for a second before Harry’s feet hit the stone floor below and the bones in his leg shattered. He cried out in pain, but then all of the air left his lungs as Daphne slammed against his chest. His vision went dark for a moment as the pain threatened to overwhelm his mind.

“Harry!” Daphne shouted, rolling onto her knees at his side and trying to look him over for injuries. As her face loomed overhead, dark shapes began to swirl in the sky overhead.

“Look out,” he managed to say before a coughing fit wracked his body, sending more waves of pain through himself. He was pretty sure that he’d dislocated his injured shoulder in the fall.

Daphne leapt to her feet as the dark shapes started swooping lower. Panicked, she hurled a rock at one of them, but the stone didn’t reach.

Darkness began to crowd the edges of Harry’s vision. He tried to speak but his body refused to let him. The frigid chill made his blood feel unnaturally hot as it spilt from a cut on his leg.

His eyes closed as the darkness began to take over.

“Depulso!” Daphne screamed. “Don’t you dare die on me, Harry! Arresto Momentum! Stay awake damn it! I need—”