DISCLAIMER: See Ch. 1.

A/N: The McGonagall/Umbridge fight scene has been fixed… anyone who’s read the original version will know what I mean. *Shudder…* I can’t believe I even WROTE that to begin with! (Sorry to those of you who liked it!)

Also, I thought the Latin quote below was quite fitting for this chapter, in regards to the villains.

SPECIAL DISCLAIMER: I do not own the basic idea of the premise for Cornwall’s demise; in fact, that was inspired by the villain’s death in one of my favorite movies, one which has Pierce Brosnan in it. (That’s all I’ll say, since I’m telling you only that for the sake of fun. Hey, if you give up, you can always ask Khadon, since he guessed it right first.)

CHAPTER 47: DEADLY DUELS

Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit. He who dies by his own weapon is destroyed twice. –Publilius, Sententiae (B23)

After taking down the Serpentine Colossus, the Gryffindors and other mixed students retreated back to the shelters. However, some of Voldemort's human Death Eaters also found their way into the castle. The mixed physical and magical tension of the battle loosened the wards somewhat, and those said Death Eaters made their way in. Some Aurors who weren't trying to kill the last of the monsters outside made their way back into the castle.

Strangely, the two biggest threats weren't to be intercepted and fought by Aurors. Ironically, they were among the biggest enemies of Harry Potter and those of the Light Side: Dolores Umbridge and Bellatrix Lestrange. These two women would be intercepted by their other biggest rivals: Minerva McGongall and Severus Snape respectively.

Nor would Hogwarts castle itself be the only hotbed for some fights. Seeing Cornwall manage some tasks from Voldemort's ship (now hovering at a standstill over some ground between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade), Arthur Weasley decided to continue their duel from a month before at the Burrow. Ardeavis spied the red-haired man, and in a flash of flames, the phoenix dropped the Ministry worker-turned-hero on top of the ship, near a hatch. As Mr. Weasley thanked Ardeavis, popped the hatch open and snuck in, the immortal bird returned to Hogwarts to help out defensively.

~*~*~*~

McGonagall stealthily crept through the Transfiguration halls as a cat, being careful for her own safety. Sensing something duck into a classroom, she quickly followed behind whatever it was. The door slammed shut behind her, and she was aghast at the sight in front of her.

Hermione was lying on the floor, held by tight cords which also covered her mouth. Umbridge was gloating mercilessly, a psychotic gleam shining in her eye. McGonagall quickly deduced that Umbridge had somehow intercepted Hermione after the star student had led the students against the Serpentine Colossus. "I see you've finally gotten yours, Granger!" she shrieked in her girlish voice. "Not so powerful now, are you?" As she raised her wand, McGonagall hissed from her hiding spot. Umbridge turned around just in time to face a flying feline intent on raising holy hell.

McGonagall pounced onto Umbridge's fat, flabby face, clawing and biting. Umbridge shrieked with pain as McGonagall's cat claws sliced away at the excess amounts of skin. The Transfiguration professor struck at least a dozen times before she was thrown off. As Umbridge clutched her face and staggered aside, howling with pain, McGonagall landed gracefully on all four feet, transformed back, and magically undid the cords binding her star pupil.

"Are you okay?" she asked Hermione.

She nodded weakly. For a moment, the student and teacher could communicate with each other only through eye contact about what was going on lately. However, their attention was drawn back to Umbridge, who gripped her wand and shouted, "Expelliarmus!"

McGonagall was knocked off her feet and back into the hallway, where she landed gingerly against the stone wall. The Disarming Spell also caused Hermione's wand to fly across the room, beyond her reach.

All reason now out of Umbridge's already twisted mind, the shorter woman fired a Reductor Curse at Hermione. The girl was forced to roll aside to avoid the curse, which ended up blasting a whole in the wall. A few more Reductor Curses were fired, blowing apart desks, until McGonagall came up with her own counterattack.

A six-foot-tall suit of armor that normally stood in the hallway now stood in the doorway, distracting both occupants inside. Its rather ugly face devoid of any emotion, it stomped aside, causing the room to tremble slightly with each step it took. McGonagall stood outside, manipulating it through ancient, difficult and complex magic. Through a psychic link, the caster could manipulate the knight's every single move; however, the link could be severed due to lack of concentration on the spell, leaving the caster vulnerable in the meantime.

Now, the knight stopped a few feet away from Umbridge, and McGonagall's voice could be heard from both outside and from the golem itself: "Get away from her, you bitch!" (1)

McGonagall smirked from outside; she had wanted to say that (or something like that) to Umbridge for more than a year now. The latter glowed with indignation, looking ready to pop like a balloon. Hermione allowed herself a tiny smile, in spite of her initial shock at her mentor's choice of words; she honestly couldn't blame McGonagall for wanting to say that.

As Umbridge raised her wand, the knight charged forward and swiped at her, knocking her off her feet, causing her to land a few feet away. Hermione dodged to avoid it, and rushed aside to retrieve her wand. Straightening out, Hermione pointed her wand at Umbridge and shouted, "Stupefy!"

The Stunner just grazed Umbridge's head. Being in the wash of the spell itself, Umbridge was temporarily disoriented. As she was trying to get her bearings straight, the knight charged again, pinning her against the nearest wall.

As she screamed and struggled, trying to get loose, McGonagall said, "You don't like it, do you? Not being in charge, not having any power..."

As McGonagall was talking, Umbridge gripped her wand more tightly and used it to get loose. Not many people knew that Dolores Umbridge knew quite a lot about Dark magic and curses, even before she joined forces with Voldemort to help further her plans of revenge against Harry Potter (which no one would have guessed, given how hopeless she was as teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts for a year). And now, Professor McGonagall was about to see just how much she knew.

Using Dark magic, Umbridge changed herself into what looked like a shadow, which slid out of the knights's grip. (2) The golem was thrown off by having its pinned-down victim, but quickly recovered. As Umbridge then became solid again, and she turned around and blasted the knight apart, but not before the knight delivered a right hook to her abdomen, which practically lifted her off the floor and sent her crashing down upon a desk that broke under her weight.

McGonagall decided that she wouldn't try to use that again, so rushing back into the classroom, she said, "Hermione, get back to the shelters with the other students."

Hermione looked a little surprised at being called by her first name by her formal mentor, but with a tiny smile, she retreated while shooting a Reductor Curse at the ground near Umbridge, which pelted her with exploding debris.

With surprising agility for someone of her physique, Umbridge got back on her feet and shot a Pulverization Flame Curse at McGonagall. The Scot avoided it by transforming again to dodge it. She streaked right up to Umbridge, transformed back with her wand pointing right in her enemy's flabby face, and yelled, "STUPEFY!"

There was a small dark ripple, and all of a sudden, it vanished. The Stunner had been absorbed by some kind of dark light, if there was such a thing.

"Spell Void," Umbridge said smugly. "Dark magic, as is this. Nonoffensa!" (3)

McGonagall's wand glowed a sickly, dark blood red. She tried firing another Stunner, but it didn't work.

"Offensive Spell Containment," Umbridge continued even more smugly, a fanatical gleam now blooming in her bulging eyes. "No more curses, hexes or jinxes from you, my dear."

McGonagall winced and snarled at the same time. She was about to say more things which she should not have said to Mrs. Weasley during that little spat at Grimmauld Place. (4)

"You stupid, power-hungry fool with the mentality of a child," McGonagall spat. "I will not be intimidated by you... especially when you're one half my own age, not to mention height."

As Umbridge bristled with rage at those touchy feminine topics, McGonagall smirked to herself and vowed that she would replay this memory later to Molly Weasley as a peace offering and apology gift.

Umbridge slowly walked forward, her love for dramatics and gloating interfering with the fight. "You said something about power, McGonagall? Oh, I know about power. It's the source of all force in this universe, human or otherwise. It's the ultimate investment someone can make..."

As she was blabbering away, McGonagall had her wand behind her back, quietly muttering spells to transfigure the wooden shards into small weapons. As she was done with the last of them, the oblivious Umbridge finished her little speech.

"...And it's the one gift that gives everything else. It gives unto itself, McGonagall, which is one thing you fail to realize. Why earn it when you can just seize it?"

As she was just finishing her speech, a sick green light formed at the end of her wand, she lunged with it as though it was a dagger, but McGonagall was prepared. In a flash of steel, she now held a shield that caught deflected Umbridge’s otherwise calculated blow.

McGonagall smirked. "You only prevented my wand from performing offensiv spells. However, it didn't stop me from using what I teach: Transfiguration." Uncharacteristically smirking now, McGonagall said, "You know, Umbitch, foresight never was one of your abilities."

"And I suppose you're so immersed in Muggle things that you forget what separates us from them?" Umbridge growled, feeling indignant at being countered by a seemingly foolish Muggle weapon.

McGonagall's smirk was now replaced by a scowl; she had partial Muggle heritage. "As the old saying goes, 'Pride goeth before fall.'" Relinquishing her hold and moving aside to show all the Oriental weapons on the desk behind her, McGonagall continued talking. "You said just now how power can be gained? Well, just like everything else that can be given, stolen, etc., power can be taken away."

After plucking the rapier from the fallen knight’s suit of armor from the floor, McGonagall took a defensive position. “I can defeat you, you know, also since I actually know how to use some of these Muggle weapons, unlike you. Like I said just recently, power can be taken away as well. The question is, can you deal with not having any power, or will you act like a spoiled child?"

McGonagall felt immense satisfaction at seeing Umbridge's temper rise like lava in an active volcano. With a rather high-pitched scream, Umbridge lunged, with the deadly green light glowing at the end of her wand again. Once again, McGonagall deflected her strike with the shield. However, with the other hand, Umbridge grabbed a small dagger and sliced at McGonagall's face. The Scot backed off just in time, although a thin line of blood was now drawn across her forehead; the slice was so quick and so shallow that McGonagall didn't even feel it.

Umbridge smirked at being able to get a hit at her adversary. "Like with my teaching methods earlier in the year I was here, I tried showing that the important lessons could only be taught thrown pain and suffering!"

McGonagall felt her anger soar at the reference to Umbridge's wicked quill. "So then, I guess you really deserve this!" she shouted, making a quick and fluid movement before the fat woman could respond. A moment later, Umbridge's wand and dagger fell to the floor, and her left hand was currently nailed through the back of it to another desk with the rapier. (5)

Umbridge screamed like she never did before in her life, probably not even when the centaurs abducted her. With her other hand, she wrenched the rapier loose and recklessly lunged at McGonagall.

As swift as the cat she could become, McGonagall reached for the table with all the weapons on it, and took a thin knife. With it, McGonagall deflected the rapier and had it thrown aside.

As McGonagall moved in to attack Umbridge before she could retaliate, the former felt her anger take control as she swiped at the toad-faced woman.

Zing! "This is for Harry." Zing! "This is for Dumbledore." Zing! "This is for Hermione." Zing! Zing! Zing! Zing! "Those are for when you had your goons hit me with those four Stunners a year ago!"

And then she shouted out loud, "And this is for everyone else you harmed!" With that, she brought one arm over the other and had the dagger swipe in diagonal direction, leaving a diagonal gash across Umbridge’s face.

Umbridge now had several cuts all over her body, especially on her face. Truly disheveled and ugly now (not that she wasn't before), she grabbed a six-foot-long wooden rod and tried swatting McGonagall with it. McGonagall quickly ducked and shifted aside to avoid the hit, and seizing Umbridge's wand, she transfigured the Umbridge’s own weapon into an animated wooden centaur, which took the sword and shield and went after Umbridge. While that was going on, McGonagall used Umbridge's wand to take the spell off of her own wand.

The clip-clopping sounds immediately made Umbridge panic, and in a desperate move to defend herself, she dived around the centaur, whacked McGonagall in the back with another wooden rod, and reclaimed her own wand. Pointing it at the centaur, she shrieked, "Avada Kedavra!"

The centaur was blasted apart, and the repercussions of the curse blasted a hole in the wall, which left the classroom open to the outside.

As McGonagall made to pick up her own wand, Umbridge shouted, "Crucio!"

McGonagall screamed with pain under the Cruciatus Curse, which lasted for more than a minute before Umbridge finally stopped it. As she lay flat on the floor, panting from the leftover pain, a sudden chill swept over them. They were leftover dementors who survived the stampede of Harry's stag Patroni...

"And finally, the great Minerva McGonagall meets her match," Umbridge gloated, looking more psychotic than ever. "You always were a stubborn woman, I'll give you that. The dementors are starving for human prey, McGonagall. I think I have just what they need..."

McGonagall ignored her, slowly having her hand creep for her wand.

Umbridge was getting impatient; obviously, she had expected to get a rise out of McGonagall. "Hem hem!" she said in her annoying voice.

Strangely, that was just the incentive to get McGonagall going. With a look of pure anger now on her face, the Scot screamed, "I – HATE – THAT – SOUND!" Making a quick grab for her wand, she got herself up, whipped around, and yelled at the top of her lungs, "EXPELLIARMUS!"

Umbridge was thrown out the gaping hole before she could respond. She fell a couple of stories before she finally hit the ground with a truly painful THUD. Walking over to the window, McGonagall stood at the edge and looked down. Using a Trip Jinx, Umbridge caused McGonagall to fall out the hole down to her. Becoming a cat, McGonagall landed gracefully, and turning back, McGonagall found herself at the end of Umbridge's wand.

"Give me a reason," Umbridge breathed, "And I swear I will."

The cold increased as several dementors drew near them. Building up for one final spell, Umbridge waved her wand and started, "Cru-"

McGonagall took advantage of the wand movements to move in and do some up-close damage. She grabbed Umbridge's arm and twisted it in at a funny angle, which actually broke it. She screamed in pain as the Scot did a sweep with her foot, which knocked her enemy off balance and onto the ground. With her other hand (the one still bloody from being impaled), Umbridge made to get her wand back, but McGonagall stepped on it, cleanly breaking it in two.

"Well!?" Umbridge screamed to the dementors. "Get her!"

None of them moved; instead, they were all facing Umbridge rather belligerently.

McGonagall seemed to figure it out quicker than the toad-faced woman did. "They don't want to fight for you anymore, since they got killed and hurt badly during the main battle itself just for being on your side," McGonagall smirked. "You're not in control of them anymore."

"Don't tell me what I can or cannot do!" Umbridge screeched, ever the power-hungry one. Finding a rock on the ground, she picked it up, and with surprising accuracy, she hit McGonagall right in the forehead with it.

McGonagall recoiled and screaming in pain, but Umbridge's twisted laugh drew her attention away from her own injuries. She wanted to make this woman suffer. With a furious battle cry, she grabbed Umbridge by the scruff of her robes and punched her in the face as hard as she could. Almost as though in slow motion, she could see how Umbridge's flabby face recoiled and shifted from the sheer force of the punch. (6) In fact, it probably had enough force to easily break through a plank of wood.

As Umbridge slumped to the ground, the dementors closed in as McGonagall put her nemesis in a headlock and said, "You forgot the first rule of politics: Try to gain and maintain the support of your followers!"

McGonagall knew she was being a bit cruel by leaving Umbridge to the dementors, but she reminded herself about how Umbridge could worm her way out of any situation, and that she should not be given the opportunity to strike back again. It was just like she told Harry that night after he killed the Lestrange brothers. This was for the good of everyone else. Besides, whether or not Umbridge actually had a soul to begin with was rather debatable, or at least in McGonagall's opinion.

"No!" Umbridge screamed. "You can't do this to me! I am superior to you! You're no better than those damn centaurs or penguins!" (7)

'Penguins?' McGonagall thought. 'She's obviously losing her mind.' Transforming into a cat, she slinked off safely, since animals had more immunity to dementors than humans were.

"McGonagall, please, help me!" she pleaded, her pride and dignity instantly gone.

"No," McGonagall said with glacial coldness. "Harry had to defend himself against your dementors nearly two years ago. If you were so powerful, you should be able to do the same."

"Please!" she shrieked, looking truly pitiful now.

"Good-bye, Umbridge," McGonagall said with absolute coldness. With that, she transformed into a cat and quickly slunk back in the direction of the bunkers.

Behind her, Umbridge's pitiful shrieks of helplessness echoed through the night, followed by the last one being cut short as a dementor swooped in on her, followed by a sound as though something were being absorbed...

'How peachy,' McGonagall thought as she disappeared into the shadows.

~*~*~*~

Down in the dungeons, Snape just killed the last snake monster hiding in that part of the castle with a Reductor Curse when a feminine voice hissed behind him. "So, Severus, you never get enough of the fighting, do you?"

Snape didn't need to turn around to know who it was. "I could say the same about you, Bellatrix," he replied neutrally.

"Turn around, Snape," she sneered, "And face your enemy."

Slowly taking out his wand, Snape said, "I'm only doing so because we have an unsettled score to finish."

He stopped in spite of himself when he saw Lestrange's new form. She was hardly even human now. She was about ten feet from head to tail now, about half that length from waist to tail. To put it more accurately, she now had the same basic body structure as the mythical race of Nagas from Asia. Even more terrifying were her bulbous red basilisk-like eyes, and her wild dreadlocks with sharpened points on the ends. She now also had fangs instead of normal teeth, and one of her truly most frightening features were what used to be here retractable wrist spikes; now, they were like the retractable wrist sickles. She kept her breastplate and armor, which Snape knew had become stronger like its owner by now, and no doubt containing enchantments and such.

All in all, she looked like a serpent warrior from the most savage jungle on the face of the planet.

"You're a monster," Snape breathed, "an absolute freak of nature."

"Oh, I beg to differ, Snape," she breathed, slithering up to him menacingly. "I am superhumanly powerful, just like the Dark Lord himself. I am superior. I am perfection."

"A piece of slithering filth, more like," Snape countered, drawing his wand.

Lestrange sneered a truly ugly sneer. Rearing up to her full erect height, she pushed out her sickle-like wrist blades, which curved inward in the direction of her hands. Staring him down, she hissed, "Are you ready to die, Snape?"

"No," Snape said rather menacingly, his black eyes shining with a deadly kind of light. "I'm ready to kill you."

As Lestrange coiled her powerful muscles, Snape used his wand to mutter some quick incantations under his breath. Suddenly, Lestrange lunged forward, her "wrist-sickles" flying in quicker than the human eye could see. She meant to slice at Snape's chest, but the spy already had himself well-defended; he was now blocking her sickles. He did so with his bare hands, because now, they were transfigured into sharp steel claws.

Lestrange scowled at how she was now countered so easily. Snape smirked, and said, "You're not the only one who can get upgrades, you know." With that, he lunged.

Snape might not have looked it, but he was very swift and agile. And now, he was about to prove it, making Lestrange learn it the hard way.

For the next several minutes, Snape and Lestrange clashed, both physically and verbally.

"You always were the slippery one, Snape," Lestrange hissed with a swipe, which only caught the hem of Snape's black robes.

"How hypocritical of you, since you fooled me all those years," Snape growled, lunging in and only denting her breastplate.

"You were a tool we needed, you little fool," she spat, swiping and only leaving a couple of shallow scratches on his arm.

"I'm nobody's tool or puppet!" he yelled, making a successful hit at her face.

Some bright-greenish substance, presumably her blood, was drawn and splattered across the walls, where it made hissing noises and slowly ate away. Unfortunately, some of the now-acidic blood was now eating away at Snape's metallic claws. He quickly chanted a countercurse to undo the effects on his hands, and he went for his wand just as Lestrange's voice could be heard again.

"Acidic blood!" she gloated. (8) "Nice try, Snapey, but not good enough!" And as she spoke, her scars slowly clotted up and healed.

"That's little incentive for me to try something else," Snape shot back, reaching into his robes.

"If you were also a Serpentine Soldier like me, you would be able to do this!" Lestrange challenged him, spitting several ounces of acid from her mouth, which burned a whole in the wall which Snape had been in front of just a moment before.

"Why would I bother," the Potions Master countered, "When I can do this!" With that, he threw what looked like a silvery orb with several indents and scratch marks on it. As it hit the floor, it unfolded to reveal a silvery spider, which turned its back on her and unleashed a sort of web-net that got her tangled up in ultra-strong wire. She struggled for a few moments as it dug harshly into her skin, but when it broke loose, the spider then leaped on her back and exploded, injecting her with lethal poison that made her shriek in agony.

"Not many people may guess, but I tend to do a fair amount of tinkering and experimenting in my spare time," Snape smirked.

As she lunged again, he threw a few more silvery spiders at her. Lestrange was able to stop two of them with her acid spit, but the third got through and leapt onto her breastplate, effectively denting it when it exploded.

For what seemed to both combatants like several hours, when in truth it was really less than an hour, they battled at their peaks of performance, the worst of magic clashing against the twisted forces of nature. Both enemies got hit, but not with anything too severe. The whole time, they were venting out their anger from suppressed memories on each other, with Snape funneling out his pain from the manipulated Marauders, and Lestrange unleashing her pent-up wrath from years in Azkaban. Soon enough, Lestrange turned up the heat, in which she employed her strength, defense, speed, and venom all at once. Fortunately, Snape was inherently faster than most men, so he was always able to get out of the way in time, escaping with only a few small scratches and minor burns.

Snape now tried turning to Darker curses, which he had no qualms about using on this monster. Several of them she easily deflected or was easy to shrug off, until the damage finally started to take its toll on her magically forged body armor. Quickly catching onto this, he yelled, "Eviscerate!"

The Evisceration Curse sliced through the breastplate and hit her vitals in her abdomen area. They started to steam and hiss even more before they clotted up in a matter of moments. As it healed, Lestrange lifted up her enormous tail and knocked him clear off his feet. Snape lurched on the ground as through huddling in pain, but unseen to his nemesis, he quickly drank some Strengthening Solution.

Snape felt his strength surge as Lestrange coiled him up in her tail and stared him down, her red eyes glowing with evil and sadism, the likes of which even he could not describe.

"You know, Snape," she breathed, "I was always better."

"No you weren't,"Snape said, biding his time until the potion he just took reached its full effect in his body. "Just another evil, manipulative monster."

"Oh, like you weren't yourself?" she chided. "Or aren't still that now, for that matter?"

"I've paid my dues," Snape said evenly, pretending to be helpless in her grasp as the potion continued to subtly strengthen him. "You, in the meantime, are up to your fangs in debt, all of which will come back to get you soon enough..."

"And I suppose you'll turn your back on the benefactor which helped you through, being yours truly?" she asked cunningly.

"You set me up, you bitch!" he cursed, causing her to raise the strength on her grasp even more.

"No, Sevvie dear," she mocked him, "I taught you... about power..."

"Ha!" he scoffed disdainfully. "If you were so powerful, you wouldn't have needed to deceive me!"

She scowled, and raising her left sickle, she said, "You have gotten away from me before, but not this time. You've reached the end of your line. Being a Slytherin, you should know about survival of the fittest. Good-bye, Snivellus." (9)

As she slowly and dramatically raised her left sickle, Snape tensed with anger and rage, and finally using his pent-up, potion-induced strength, he growled, "My - name – is - Severus – Snape!"

With unbelievable, superhuman strength, Snape grabbed her tail by the scales and wrenched her grip apart. Caught off balance, Lestrange lunged at him with her right sickle, but Snape was too quick for that little attack; he caught the blade barehanded with both hands, and twisting, he effectively snapped it off from her wrist, which caused her to shriek shrilly in pain. With one strong foot on the base of her huge tail and the other pinning down her right wrist, Snape towered over Lestrange, holding his stolen sickle in both hands.

Lestrange now looked on helplessly, cursing herself for letting her intent to overrule her thinking. "Wait, Severus, please..." she pleaded as though they were suddenly good friends.

"Being a Slytherin, you should know about survival of the fittest," Snape said, echoing her own words from just a minute before and effectively crushing her as he applied pressure through where he was standing. Remembering a rather nasty nickname that the Marauders came up with for her, he said, "Good-bye, Bitch-atrix."

Before the impact of that nasty comment could sink in, Snape swung the sickle in a wide arc, aiming right for her neck.

Thwick!

Quicker than the normal human eye could see (but not too quick for him), Snape decapitated the mutated Death Eater. (10) Her head landed a few feet away with a lifeless thump, her eyes still staring out in front of her, and her now gorgon-like face permanently wearing a look of surprise.

Dropping the sickle and letting the adrenaline leave his system, he breathed heavily and walked away. On the way to his office to clean himself up to before doing anything else, he felt a rare tinge of remorse. Looking back, he said, "Forgive me, Bellatrix." With that, he left the mess behind him for the time being.

~*~*~*~

Once on board Voldemort's carrier, Arthur Weasley immediately set out to look for the source of the ship. Magical engineering was an obscure science that had not been explored much. Some times in the past, ancient civilizations sometimes created things like flying ships and other vehicles, often mirroring various Muggle vehicles. Over the centuries, if not millennia, the wonders and studies of magical engineering were scrapped due to lack of interest, among other things. There had to be some sort of a source for this thing to run so efficiently and so smoothly the way it did.

Of course, Arthur Weasley knew that the inventions of Floo Powder, enchanted broomsticks, and Portkeys, among other things, made the vehicles of magical engineering obsolete. Magical engineering was something of a lost art. There were once splendid vehicles like sailing ships that could float and fly through the air like present-day Muggle blimps, among other wonders as well.

Finally, he saw the engine room. He also saw the center of all the power: The Energy Matrix. This crystal, positioned very carefully in a power core, could fuel the entire ship. They were exceedingly rare, and only the most powerful wizards in the world, including Dumbledore and Voldemort, could create them through very complex means and over long periods of time. However, the energy currently being used was obviously needed for something very special, not just for the maneuverability of the ship itself. Looking around, he thought he saw a gigantic cannon in room below him, suspended by chains.

Just then, he was forced to dive aside as a sick-looking yellow light flew his way. He ducked aside and turned around to see Joseph Cornwall. "Mr. Arthur Weasley, we meet again," he said coolly with a smirk.

"Unfortunately, yes," Arthur evenly replied.

"I suppose that I'll need to send you to the hospital again?" Cornwall smirked.

"Oh no," Arthur growled, "That time, it was because you came after me and attacked me. This time, I'm making sure that I can get rid of you."

"How brave of you," Cornwall said in his oily voice. "And I assume that you're also here for the sight-seeing of the ship, what with your... eccentricities?"

"You're in no position to talk," Arthur shot back, "At least I don't do things to innocent people like torture, murder or kidnapping."

"To each his own," Cornwall said with mock wisdom. Noting the gigantic cannon in the chamber below them, he said, "You like the Crater Cannon?"

Arthur looked down to see it. He had a shrewd feeling why it would be called such a thing... and then, with awful comprehension, it dawned on him.

"You're going to use it on Hogwarts, aren't you?" he breathed as sweat started to form on his brow.

Cornwall gloated at seeing the look of pure horror on Arthur's face. "I came up with the idea myself. If you can't get rid of the wards, one by one, why not just blow it all away in one go?"

Arthur immediately whipped out his wand and pointed it to the cannon. Cornwall laughed mercilessly. "You really think that's going to destroy it, Weasley?"

"You'd be surprised what I know, Cornwall," Arthur said warningly. "An advantage of Muggle Studies is the knowledge of useful things which your wizarding supremacist counterparts don't want to know."

"Oh, even wizards use some devices that were developed by Muggles, such as cameras and typewriters," Cornwall said smoothly. "After all, if we can use things to create and record, why not use things which destroy and eliminate?"

"Even tools of destruction can be destroyed," Arthur tried again.

"Oh, I'm well aware of that," Cornwall scoffed. "That's why I'm holding onto the only device which can destroy the Cannon."

Cornwall raised his sleeve to show a device strapped to his wrist. It had a few flashing lights on it and a small clock showing the time. "Set to go off in ten minutes," he said with an evil smile. "You might want to get as many people out as you can, because I have to make sure it goes off. And when that happens... kaboom. A nice big crater will replace Hogwarts, on which the Dark Lord can build his own new sanctuary."

Arthur, who still had his wand pointed at the cannon the whole time threateningly, suddenly swung it around and aimed a Reductor Curse at Cornwall. The latter, who was older than Arthur Weasley by a decade or two, may not have looked it, but he was relatively healthy for his age and rather quick. Cornwall ducked it and ran off to another room.

Arthur, on the other hand, didn't immediately go after his quarry. Instead, he magically protected himself, took out the Energy Matrix, and stuck it in backwards. He then followed after Cornwall.

His reasoning for this was pure and simple: If he just waited around in the same place, making sure it would explode and get out just in time, Cornwall would know that something was wrong, only to come back in and replace the Energy Matrix the right way. If Arthur kept trying to get at him, then Cornwall would be to busy trying to defend himself to worry about the cannon.

Sticking to that plan, Arthur followed right behind.

Arthur followed Cornwall's path through some outdoor walkways. He fired some Stunners at Cornwall, which he narrowly dodged. In return, Cornwall sent some Dark curses back at him, which Arthur also had to dodge. The back and forth volley of spells and curses continued until Cornwall hastily dropped down into a hatch. Arthur scrambled right up the ladder leading to the hatch and jumped down in after him, only to be faced with a magically locked and sealed door.

Cornwall was in another room behind that door. Fortunately for Arthur, he purchased an enchanted penknife like Harry's, months before. He carefully and quietly slid the blade between the door and the post. Just as carefully withdrawing it, he kicked it open and leaped at Cornwall.

Just as the silver-haired traitor looked up, Arthur shouted, "Stupefy!"

What ensued for the next several minutes was intense fighting on both sides, with both men clashing like angry tigers. Sparks and spells alike flew, sometimes hitting their targets, and other times missing and hitting the machinery instead. By the end of it, Arthur had an aching forehead with a few scratches on it, and Cornwall had blood running down, smeared, on the side of his face after Arthur grabbed him and slammed him against the machinery.

Cornwall then lunged for a lever, which he slid into place, and suddenly, the floor beneath Arthur gave way.

He tumbled down through a few more rooms, each with their own hatches. Eventually, he fell flat on his back against the top of the cannon, which really hurt with all the different gears and mechanisms sticking out of it. He clung onto the ledge with both hands, and looking up, he could see Cornwall floating down to him using the Feather-Light Charm.

Cornwall sneered maliciously as he undid the charm on himself. Just to mock and taunt Arthur, he stomped down on one hand, and when Arthur lost his grip with that hand, Cornwall did the same with the other hand as well.

Arthur was just able to grab onto the ledge with his left hand; he couldn't reach up with his right hand, because it hurt when he did so. He knew he had to hang on for dear life, because he was now dangling a few hundred feet directly above the ground (they were now hovering between a couple of mountains to the northwest of Hogwarts, with a small clearing in between those two mountains).

Cornwall smoothly walked up to Arthur and lay his foot on his left hand, slowly applying pressure. "Strangely enough, Weasley," he said in his smooth, oily voice, "You need to maintain your grip over things."

As Cornwall was talking and gloating in his moment of triumph, Arthur slowly drew his Muggle Swiss army knife out of his robes and lunged at Cornwall’s leg. (11) As Cornwall temporarily lost control from all the pain, Arthur grabbed the older man and climbed up using him as a sort of counterweight.

A few moments later, Arthur was standing on the ledge, holding Cornwall by the wrist, since he was now dangling a few hundred feet above the ground.

"Well, you got me Arthur," Cornwall mocked him. "I suppose you'll take me in now? Do the right thing?"

Blood pounded in Arthur's ears at that little crack about "doing the right thing." However, he then noticed Cornwall taking a poison-filled dagger out of the back of his robes, the same way Arthur took out his wand.

"No, because you'll stab someone else in the back and weasel your way out again," Arthur said, eyeing the dagger. Cornwall caught onto how he had unwittingly given himself away and scowled as Arthur added, "But I suppose I will do the right thing. At least in this situation, anyway."

With that, Arthur let go.

For a few moments, as Cornwall plummeted a few hundred feet towards the ground, he let out a scream of fury and frustration. It only stopped when he hit the ground on his back, with one of his legs twisted at a funny angle. (12)

As Cornwall coughed up blood and looked back up, he saw Arthur glaring back down at him. A moment later, the turquoise flying Ford Anglia hovered up towards its red-headed owner. Bill was flying it, with Percy and Mrs. Weasley in the back seat, eager to help out. They had to be careful, since the cannon was partially in the way.

Slowly, and timing it just right, Arthur jumped onto the back of the car. He lost his footing, and slid down the back until he managed to get a grip on the bumper. He then shouted, "I'm fine, just go!"

Bill floored it, and they zoomed off through the air with Arthur still holding on. A few moments later, as the clock ticked down to zero, a destructive chain reaction took place. With its power inverted, the Energy Matrix caused a fire from its holding place, which spread throughout the ship. Combined with the backfiring of the Crater Cannon, the ship exploded with a deafening blast that could be heard for miles around. Magical paneling and armor plating was blown off the sides, and fire flew up in the night sky from it. Part of the cannon's design was to undo any magical spells and enchantments on its target, as well as to cause as much physical damage as possible; that meant it now also lost what kept it airborne.

As it descended in a heap of fire and debris, Cornwall yelled as if to protest his now-inevitable fate, "NOOOOO..."

And then it made impact, forever silencing the silver-tongued Ministry insider.

~*~*~*~

From his office, Dumbledore was observing all three duels, and he silently congratulated his three allies. He'd be sure to congratulate them face to face afterwards. (He had to stay in his office, so he could re-establish any broken defensive wards from there.)

In the meantime, Voldemort was still somewhere on the grounds, and Harry was looking for him so he could fulfill the prophecy on his own terms.

And judging from two very powerful magical surges he felt far across the grounds, near one of the mountains, Dumbledore knew it would not be long now before one of them killed the other...

(End of Chapter 47.)

A/N: Personally, this was one of my favorite chapters!

(1) This is most likely my favorite line from “Aliens,” where Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) says that to the queen alien. I was looking for an excuse to type this in, haha!

(2) Kind of funny, isn’t it, since the name “Umbridge” comes from umbra, meaning “shadow.”

(3) It’s supposed to be something like “no offense,” as in offensive things done against another person.

(4) Back in chapter 33, of course.

(5) Ironic, ain’t it? Umbridge has her wicked quill, and McGonagall has her dagger!

(6) For a better example, think of the scene towards the end of “The Matrix Revolutions,” where Neo punches Smith in the face, as seen close up and in slow motion.

(7) In case you don’t remember, I’m talking about Umbridge’s nightmare in chapter 41.

(8) I seem to have Aliens a lot on the mind lately, don’t I?

BTW, I had the idea for the Snape/Bellatrix scene brewing in my head ever since I saw the movie Van Helsing, so if you want to play some music to that, be my guest…

(9) Please note the symbolism here with the left being evil and the right being good. Clever, eh?

(10) Think of the myth of Perseus and Medusa. It’s supposed to be a joke, since Snape’s anagram name is Perseus Evans. (By the way, I’d like to note right now that that’s my favorite hero myth from Greek mythology, since Perseus doesn’t muck things up with his life in the end, like so many other heroes form Greek mythology seem to do.)

(11) Think back to the Arthur/Cornwall confrontation scene in ch. 45, with the mention of the Swiss army knife; that was a hint towards this event.

(12) Ever notice how wizards seem to have more immunity to physical injuries than Muggles do? To see what I mean, read the essay at the HP-Lexicon entitled something like “That Had To Hurt… Or Did It?”

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