The Battle of the Rings
“That’s impossible,” I said, my tone filled with denial and horror. “I was in Saudi Arabia just a moment ago... and it was March...”
“We believe someone cast a hex on your apparition,” said one of the Aurors. “There must have been a leak somewhere that informed the Death Eaters of our plans. Someone followed you to Saudi Arabia, and hexed you just as you were disapparating. That hex caught you in a time warp until just now.”
“A... time warp?” The Auror’s words sounded like something out of science fiction, but she was dead-serious.
“It’s happened before,” she said. “Verwood the Bold was caught in a similar time warp for eighty-seven years. Compared to him, you got off pretty lucky.”
“What is going on?” I asked my friends urgently.
“The Aurors found the place where Nick Varennikov had hidden the Phoenix Stone,” said Silas. “It was in the mountains west of Salem Valley. They launched a massive assault, but there were Death Eaters there. Lots of them.”
“So you mean... Nick had cast the ritual already?”
Silas shook his head. “Not yet. The Death Eaters they ran into weren’t the same Death Eaters from before.”
“What do you mean?”
“Darkanoss has gained a huge number of followers since the Second Battle,” said the other Auror. “As soon as the wizarding world got word that he and his followers could resurrect themselves, hundreds of witches and wizards declared their allegiance to his cause. They’ve been gathering in the woods over the past few months, protecting Varennikov as he prepared the ritual.”
“Asher led a strike force, but they weren’t prepared for such a large resistance,” said the first Auror. “They didn’t make it in time to stop the ritual. Varennikov bound all of the new Death Eaters to the Phoenix Stone, and resurrected the ones who had died, including Darkanoss.”
My heart sank in despair. “So it’s happening again...”
Peter firmly gripped my shoulder. “Alan. Listen. It’s not over. The stone – we have it!”
“We do?!” I stared at him.
“Not here,” said Dad. “It’s at John Proctor Middle School. Asher and the other Aurors got it away from Nick, and brought it to a secure location. It’s under their protection.”
“Where is Asher?”
“He’s dead,” said the first Auror solemnly. “He died getting the stone away from Darkanoss.”
I felt like someone had dunked cold water on my head. I thought of the bold and courageous face of Mason Randall Asher, the seemingly invincible Auror who had trained me in combat magic, the one who’d single-handedly held off the Death Eaters so that the rest of us could escape from the Soul Vortex. Now he was dead. How long would it be until the rest of us were too?
I shook my head rapidly and tried to focus. “We need to get to John Proctor. We have to destroy the stone!”
I heard a sound in the air above me, the beautiful call of a wild animal. When I looked up, my radiant phoenix familiar was descending upon me. Spark flapped his great wings and perched himself on my arm. Peter and the others recoiled, and stared at the magical bird in awe.
“Is that... a phoenix?” Peter asked breathlessly.
“It’s amazing,” said Zoe, equally awed.
At that moment, I heard a low crackling sound. One of the Aurors picked up a shortwave radio device attached to their belt (a curious thing for a wizard to be carrying), and brought it up to his ear. “Klein here.”
I heard the sound of explosions on the other end of the line. “Klein! It’s Ripley! The third ring has been breached! A large detachment of Death Eaters is headed your way!”
“Copy that,” said Klein. He lowered the radio and nodded at his partner. “Heads up, Nguyen. We’re about to have company.”
There was a flurry of loud cracks. I stood up and turned around with the rest of my friends and family. At the end of the dark snowy road, an armada of Death Eaters was facing us. There were more of them than there had been before – a sea of heads, all turned toward us, faces hidden behind grotesque masks. They moved forward slowly like a funeral procession. The one in front had his mask off, and his eyes were sullen. He was younger than the others, but there was no doubt that he led the charge.
It was Miles Argo.
Nguyen whipped out her wand, and yelled. “Everyone MOVE!”
We dove to either side as a torrent of spells launched our way. Nguyen fired a hex at the crowd, then she and Klein instantly brought up Shield Charms to block the explosive force of the attacking enemies. Spark whipped his wings and squawked angrily. I slid to one side of the road with Jared and Zoe, covering my head and trying not to get hit by the passing curses. Spark was still with me, his talons now clinging to my shoulders. He raised his wings around my head as if to shield me from the attacking spells.
“There’s so many of them!” Zoe exclaimed.
I grimaced back up the road. “We have to get to the stone!”
“I’m with you, Alan!” said Jared. He held out a hand, and I firmly grasped it.
“Me too!” exclaimed Zoe. “We won’t leave your side! We’ll help you get to the stone!”
I nodded at both of them. “Then let’s go!”
We ran back up to the street. The Death Eaters had advanced considerably, and though many of them fell to the spells cast by my allies, it seemed like their numbers were endless. Miles, standing in front, outmatched the adult wizards and witches. He cast one spell that knocked my parents aside, and incapacitated Nguyen long enough to send a Killing Curse hurtling at Klein. Klein tried to block it, but the spell hit his hand first, and he was blown backwards into the middle of an intersection. The streetlights above him shook from the roaring of spells. He was dead.
Silas attacked Miles from one side, and Jared and Zoe came in from the other while Peter and Eliza kept the advancing Death Eater army at bay. Miles seemed agitated, and suddenly hit Zoe with a jinx. She tumbled into a nearby parking lot, and Jared immediately ran after her to make sure she was okay. Miles took advantage of the opening and disarmed Silas, but I blocked him just before he fired another curse at Silas’s face. Silas immediately dove back for his wand, and joined Peter in fighting off the Death Eaters.
Miles grimaced at me. “My master has ordered me to kill you. I will make sure the deed is done! And once I’ve finished you, our glorious wizard utopia will finally come to be!”
I pointed my wand at him, my body flooding with righteous anger. “Your master is a liar, Miles! He’s always been a liar! There will be no wizard utopia! Darkanoss will lose!”
“It is you who will lose!” Miles raised his wand. “Now... let’s see what you’ve got!”
“Yeah, let’s see!” I called angrily. “Atovius Familiarus!”
Spark let out a triumphant cry, and stretched out his wings. The tip of my wand burst into flame, and the flames rapidly spread out, forming a huge spiral around me. They formed together in a single mass with the thickness of a tree trunk, vibrating with intense heat, like a lasso made from a solar flare. The sheer force of it was beyond anything I had expected. It wasn’t just the physical presence of the flames. I felt something inside of me, something I felt when I cast my Patronus, only even stronger now. It was like there was someone there with me, someone’s spirit in the flames.
I smiled. Though I had no way of knowing for sure, I was certain in that moment that I knew who it was.
Emma.
The flames whipped around me, and the firestorm shot at Miles, fire spreading to its sides like the wings of a massive bird. Miles’s eyes widened in horror as the spell barreled towards him.
“Uh... Aguamenti!”
A jet of water erupted from his wand, but turned to steam the moment it touched the flames. The firestorm engulfed his body, throwing him off his feet and propelling him into a nearby streetlight. The river of fire washed over Miles until there was nothing left but ashes, and then dispersed. The streetlight buckled and collapsed, its whole foundation turned to cinders.
Peter stared at me, clearly impressed. “Now that’s what I call magic!”
Even with their leader dead, the Death Eaters didn’t relent. But now that Miles was gone, we could all focus our attention on them. With the five Reborn on our side, we now had them outmatched. Death Eater after Death Eater fell to our spells, until there were only a handful of them left. They exchanged glances and disapparated, leaving an empty street filled with their fallen comrades.
* * *
The Phoenix War was an event which I had the misfortune of witnessing almost in its entirety. However, there were parts of that war which I had not seen, battles that my own personal accounts will not shed light on. The defense of Lynnville during the First Battle of Salem. The battle on the southern flank during the Second, the one that ended tragically when the Soul Vortex descended. Then there was the Battle of the Rings, the only major battle of the war that I did not play any role in. I cannot continue with this story without first summarizing what happened during that battle, and why the courage and sacrifices of those who fought in it were so important. Without them, none of us would have survived.
On the morning of May 14, 2012, Mason Randall Asher and the Aurors determined the location of Nick Varennikov. He had kept his whereabouts secret by moving frequently, staying primarily in the forests around Salem and never entering the town proper. He kept the Phoenix Stone with him, never allowing it to leave his person. Over the months, he gathered more followers sympathetic to the Death Eaters’ cause, amassing hundreds of new servants for Darkanoss from around the world. Pure-blooded wizards who hated muggles. Muggle-born wizards who had suffered from prejudice from their own families. Former Death Eaters. Former Aurors. Wizards and witches seeking immortality, or glory, or justice. People from all walks of life declared allegiance to the cause of “deliverance,” and Nick became their de facto leader in the absence of their master. A thirteen-year-old boy had single-handedly raised the largest army in wizarding history. Together they waited, biding time until the day came that they could resurrect their fallen comrades, and resume their assault on the city of Salem.
Nick had a spy among the Aurors in Salem. They found out about our plans to find my phoenix familiar. It was Nick who had followed me to Saudi Arabia, and cast the hex that trapped me in a time warp. Without me, the Aurors could only focus on one plan: apprehending Nick and the Phoenix Stone before he could cast the Ritual of the Blind. The long-term goal was to relocate it to a secure vault in the Department of Mysteries at the British Ministry of Magic. When Nick’s whereabouts were finally revealed, Asher led a strike force of three dozen Aurors and allied resistance wizards into the forest, intending to arrest Nick and end the Third Battle of Salem before it could begin. But they hadn’t anticipated the hundreds of Death Eaters that had joined Darkanoss’s cause, the ones who had hidden themselves throughout the mountains and forests, waiting for this very moment. A bloody battle erupted in the woods. Asher made it to the site of the Phoenix Stone, but he was too late: Nick performed the ritual, and the deceased Death Eaters – including Darkanoss – returned in bursts of flame.
Asher had not been able to prevent the resurrection, but he did achieve one important goal: he stole the Phoenix Stone from Nick. What followed was a series of desperate battles as the resistance passed the stone from one ally to the next, trying to keep it out of the hands of Darkanoss. They didn’t apparate, because the stone itself could not be apparated; a countermeasure Darkanoss had prepared in case this very event occurred. So instead, the resistance took turns defending each other as different people held the stone and brought it farther east, away from the attacking force of Death Eaters. Ring-shaped defensive maneuvers were set up to hold off the Death Eaters, but they fell one by one to the attacking force. Many people died, and not just Asher. Lisa Forman and Matilda Ashmore, two girls who had helped me destroy the Soul Vortex, also fought in that battle. Matilda was killed by Nick. But during the latter part of the battle, one of the Aurors had disarmed Nick, which broke the hex that had kept me in suspended animation for two months. As a result, I apparated back into the city, to my family and friends. I’m not sure why I ended up so close to them. Maybe it was Spark who brought me to them.
With the battle having settled down, the surviving Auror woman, Nguyen, informed us of most of this. “It’s imperative that we get Alan Doe to the Phoenix Stone as soon as possible. We believe that destroying it will not only make the Death Eaters mortal, but also dissolve the Limbo cloud above the city. We will be able to call for reinforcements, and defeat the Death Eaters who remain.”
“So let’s apparate Alan to John Proctor now!” Jared insisted.
“No,” Nguyen said firmly. “It’s too risky. We don’t know if Nick Varennikov’s hex might still have an effect on Alan. If we lose him now, then the battle is lost.”
Everyone was quiet for a few moments. The silence was broken by Dad. “Okay. Then let’s get Alan to John Proctor on foot. It’s a long walk from here, but if we leave now...”
The radio on Nguyen’s hip crackled. She brought it to her mouth. “Nguyen here.”
This time, I didn’t hear the voice on the other side. Nguyen listened for a while, and nodded. “Understood.” Then she looked at us. “The safehouse is under attack.”
“Safehouse?” I remarked. I looked at the others, whose eyes were wide.
“We evacuated the civilians to a new safehouse in the Summerroot neighborhood,” Nguyen explained. “The muggle military built it last month, in the event of another large-scale attack. A large force of Death Eaters has just assaulted it from the northeastern mountains.”
“Clea is there!” Mom cried.
My heart stopped. “We have to help them...!”
“No!” Nguyen stepped closer to me. “Listen to me, Alan Doe. You must reach the Phoenix Stone and destroy it at all costs. We cannot allow this battle to prolong any more.”
“I’ll go with him...” Mom began to say, but Nguyen stopped her. “I can’t allow that. We need as many people as we can to defend the safehouse. Mia, Jim, I need you to come with me.”
“We can’t leave them alone!” Mom insisted.
Nguyen looked at my friends. “Listen to me. You kids are Reborn. You can defend yourselves. You have to make it to John Proctor. But you can’t take the road directly south, it’s too risky. Follow the Lewis River and cross at White Trail Bridge. From there, head down Harley Avenue, and you’ll reach the road leading to John Proctor. Do you know those locations?”
I knew most of them, but Silas nodded immediately. “Yes. We do.”
“The trip will take you a few hours. I don’t like it, but it’s much better than risking you taking the direct route. We don’t know how much longer the rings will hold out. You need to move now.”
Mom still looked like she wanted to protest. Her eyes were on the verge of tears. “I can’t leave my little boy! Nguyen, please...”
I walked over to Mom and took her hand. She looked at me.
“Mom,” I said gently. “Don’t worry. My friends are with me. I’ll be okay. I promise.”
Mom stared quietly at me for a long time. She looked up, eyeing the phoenix on my shoulders, who winked at her and cawed quietly. She looked at my friends, who returned determined gazes.
“Okay,” she breathed. She looked me in the eye. “It’s a promise, you hear me?”
I smiled, and nodded. “It’s a promise.”
“I’ll never forgive you if you break it.” Mom began to cry. “I’ll ground you for a month.”
Then she hugged me tightly, holding me for a long time. Dad walked over and hugged me too. It took a moment longer before he could pry Mom away from me. “Baby, we have to go.”
Mom wiped her eyes and nodded.
I looked her in the eye. “Save Clea, Mom.”
“I will,” she said. “That’s a promise.”
Mom locked hands with Dad, and they both took one last look at me before disapparating. Nguyen followed, and then it was just me and my friends, standing there in the empty street surrounded by the bodies of our enemies, which one by one burned into cinders. Peter. Silas. Jared. Zoe. Eliza. And me. Six kids, six Reborn. Together, we were the ones who had to stop Darkanoss once and for all. I held my wand tightly, and turned south, staring out over the horizon in the direction of John Proctor.
“Let’s go.”
* * *
The silver-gold clouds rumbled overhead. It was still snowing, but the snow was gray too, like ashes falling from the sky. It wasn’t the kind of atmosphere you would expect in May. I still had trouble believing that I had been sent two months into the future, but I had no time to question or dwell on it. Unbelievable or not, this was reality. I had to adjust to it, as I had adjusted to so many things over the past year.
Just a short walk away from the intersection near Shichang, we came across a bridge leading over the Lewis River. We stepped off of the sidewalk and descended the snowy hillside leading to the water’s edge, and began following it as it flowed roughly east. Spark circled overhead as we walked, our wands at the ready for the slightest sign of a disturbance. But there was nothing. The world was eerily still. The trees shook, the snow drifted, the river rushed, but there were no Death Eaters.
As we crossed a rocky beachfront on the river, I began talking to the others. “How long have you guys been fighting?”
“All day,” answered Silas. He checked his watch. “I think the battle started at like 6 AM. It’s 12:30 now.”
“The adults didn’t want us to be involved at first,” said Jared. “But we started fighting after the first few rings fell. They needed the Reborn, and we wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
I was impressed to see Jared so determined to fight the Death Eaters. When I had first met him at John Proctor, he had seemed like the kind of guy who avoided conflict at all costs, even if it meant throwing his friends under the bus. But something must have changed in him over the course of what we’d all been through together. He wasn’t backing down. I felt a deep appreciation for him.
“Did any of you see Nick? Or Darkanoss?”
They all shook their heads. “I heard that Darkanoss was the one to kill Asher,” said Eliza. “But we haven’t actually seen him. He’s probably off hiding somewhere, the coward... I’ll make him pay for what he did! He’ll regret the day he killed my teacher!”
“We had just retreated from the battle when you showed up,” said Zoe. “You really surprised us. I knew you went to get a phoenix, but I didn’t think I’d actually get to see it!”
We all looked up at Spark. He flapped his wings gracefully, curving in the air around us.
“Won’t the Death Eaters see that?” asked Jared.
“We’re nowhere near the battle,” said Silas. “It should be fine.”
“How do we know they won’t just apparate to us?” I asked.
“That’s not how apparition works. If they don’t know where we are, they can’t just apparate right in front of us. But I’ll bet that Darkanoss has a few of them patrolling the city, looking for us.”
“That’s why we’re taking the long way around. To keep them off our tracks.”
Silas nodded. “But the long way around also takes a while. It could be hours before we make it to John Proctor. We need to stay alive until then.”
We kept walking. The river looked cold as it flowed alongside us. I gazed at the rippling rapids as we passed through the shrubs and bushes on the riverfront. I remembered tubing on that river with my family in the summertime. I remembered skipping stones on it with Peter. Salem was still Salem, even after everything that had happened to it. But I didn’t know how long that would last. Even with my friends with me, and even with Spark, I couldn’t shake the all-encompassing feeling of dread.
Peter approached me. “Hey,” he said quietly. “You good?”
I nodded halfheartedly. “Yeah. I mean, I’m fine, I guess.”
He looked away. “You know... you were gone a long time. You had me worried. Er, us worried.”
“Did you guys look for me?”
“Yeah, at first. We looked everywhere. Eventually they figured out about the hex, but even then we couldn’t do anything. It was... scary. I thought you might not come back.”
I smiled at him. “Well, I’m back now.”
He smiled back. “Yeah. You are.”
We were silent for a moment, and then Peter spoke up again.
“When this is over, we should... uh...”
I looked at him. He grew flustered, and rubbed his neck. “We should, like, do something. For fun. Like, go camping, or something.”
“You and me?”
“Well... yeah. Is that weird?”
I shook my head. “Of course not. It sounds like fun.”
“Really?” Peter gave me an awkward look.
“Sure. Where would you want to go?”
Peter hid a smile. Unbefitting to his usual easygoing demeanor, my words seemed to have really made an impact on him. He began talking more freely.
“Well, not Salem. That’s for sure. I don’t know about you, but I need a long break from this town.”
I chuckled. I thought of the liberating feeling I got when I was in Saudi Arabia, far away from home and the scenes of battle I had witnessed. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“I was thinking maybe Utah or something. They have some really cool national parks down there, and it would be fun to go camping in the desert. Plus, we could visit the new magic school on the way.”
“New magic school?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you hear? They’re building one near Salt Lake City. The Utah Academy. It’s not for muggles, though. It’s an all-wizard school. Nothing like John Proctor.”
“That’s good,” I laughed. “John Proctor was... a mess.”
“Thanks Obama,” Peter said jokingly.
I laughed. “Ah, c’mon. It’s not his fault.”
“True,” he shrugged. Then, a moment later: “Thanks, man. I, uh... it means a lot to me. You saying that.”
I beamed. “My pleasure. I’m looking forward to it.”
Peter blushed, and nodded.
We kept walking. The river eventually left the outskirts of the city and entered the downtown area. We came to a point where the river ran directly beneath a concrete bridge. There was no longer a riverbank to walk on, so we forged our way through a thicket of snow-covered trees and thorny bushes to make it back up the hill. We found a trail nearby, and a row of stone steps leading up to the street. Even now, everything was still. There were no cars in sight. I surmised that most of the people in Salem were probably in Summerroot right now. I wondered how the defense was going.
“Should we cross here?” I asked, gesturing to the bridge.
Silas shook his head. “The Auror’s orders were clear. We keep going until we reach White Trail Bridge...”
“Now what do we have here?”
All of us whirled around. There was a boy sitting atop a nearby streetlight, wearing a flowing black robe and an expression I can only describe as deranged. He aimed his wand at us, and grinned. My heart skipped a beat when I recognized him. It was a face I hadn’t seen since the Second Battle of Salem.
“Jake?”
Sure enough, it was Jake Rockwell, the boy who used to pick on me during our lessons with Asher. He had been a part of our group when we went to destroy the Soul Vortex, but he’d disappeared right before the battle began. Seeing him here now, wearing those robes, immediately answered the question of where he’d been for the past five months. He was one of them now. He was a Death Eater.
Jake stood up, balancing impossibly on the top of the streetlight. “It’s been a while, Alan. How was your little time trip? I’ve been pretty busy, as you can see. Had a real interesting chat with the New Dark Lord. He taught me many things. He taught me how to escape death.”
Peter and the others raised their wands, but Jake didn’t give them a chance to act. With a howling laugh, he pointed his wand up to the sky, and fired a huge red flare high into the air. It glowed brightly like an exploding firework, bright enough to be seen from across the entire valley.
Silas’s eyes went wide. “He’s giving away our position!”
Jake’s lips parted into a sadistic smile. “It ends here, Alan Doe! The one who finally finishes you, the one who will deliver your corpse to Lord Darkanoss... will be me!”