White Trail Bridge
Jake apparated from the top of the streetlight to the asphalt. He raised his wand and blasted Silas off his feet. Silas’s wand soared through the air and clacked across the pavement. I tried to react, but Jake moved fast, shooting a burst of fire toward me. I blocked it, but was also pushed back, toppling to the ground. When I looked up, I saw Peter, Zoe, and Jared fighting him off, but Jake was laughing his head off, like our efforts were the funniest thing we’d seen in his life.
“It’s too late now, infidels! They’re here! His great acolytes!”
There was a series of apparitions all around us. I whirled around, and saw a group of Reborn Death Eaters approaching us from every direction. The one leading the charge was a face I hadn’t seen since the Battle of Summerroot nearly a year ago. It was chubby and pale, and shared the sadistic grin that was branded onto Jake’s face. It was Jonah Melville.
We were outnumbered. I did everything I could to keep the assaulting spells off our back, but these Death Eaters made the earlier army we faced seem weak by comparison. They were more versatile, more skilled, and more powerful than their adult counterparts could ever dream to be. No matter what anyone said, these children were Darkanoss’s deadliest servants, just as we were the strongest forces of the resistance. The Phoenix War, at the end of the day, was a war of the Reborn. We were at the center of everything, and we were the ones who would determine the outcome of the final battle.
Silas grabbed his wand from the ground and tried to fire a stunner at Jonah, but Jonah blocked it. I threw a spell in his direction, but all it served to do was get his attention. We began to duel, but it was hard to keep my attention on his spells when there were so many other Death Eaters also firing at me.
“Silas!” I yelled.
Silas nodded knowingly at me. He suddenly threw his wand downward, and a cloud of inky smoke exploded from it. Jonah and Jake stepped back in confusion, and Eliza took the opportunity to fire two stunners, knocking down a pair of Death Eaters. As the inky cloud enveloped us, Peter pointed at the streetlight Jake had been standing on, and yelled “Confringo!”
The streetlight exploded. Jake covered his head to shield him from the falling glass, and that bought us just enough time to sprint away. The smoky cloud covered us as we ran down onto a trail on the other side of the street, one that continued to follow the river as it snaked east. The distraction had bought us some time, but not very much. Our position had been given away. The Death Eaters were still after us.
“How far away is White Trail Bridge?” Peter asked Silas breathlessly.
“Still far!” Silas said. “Dammit...!”
The trail ran under a canopy of dead pine trees. I could still hear spells firing from behind us. Jared turned around and blocked a huge one that came from Jonah’s wand. My heart was racing faster and faster. If they knew where we were, then even more would follow. Our odds of making it all the way to John Proctor were looking slim. But we had no choice but to keep going.
I was glancing back to check our flank when Jake suddenly apparated next to me and Zoe. I covered her with my body just as his jinx hit us both, blasting us with nauseating force in the direction of the river. Zoe landed on a long sandbank, while I splashed into the water. It was freezing cold, but I forced myself out, still clinging as hard as I could to my wand and thanking my luck I hadn’t dropped it into the water. Our other friends were still at the trail, and completely surrounded by the Reborn Death Eaters. Jonah apparated next to Jake, and they approached me and Zoe.
I stood up out of the water in time to block a curse from Jonah’s wand. Zoe rolled over and stood up as Jake advanced on her. Jonah moved closer to me, dueling me back and forth and backing me into the rushing water. I was reminded of the duel he had with Emma on the playground of Summerroot School. Like that battle, we were in a deadlock, fiery passion and rage exploding against one another.
“It all comes full circle, Alan Doe! You defied a pure-blooded wizard... and now you pay the price! I am your superior, and always have been!”
I didn’t respond. I stepped back further, half of my ankle submerging as I narrowly dodged a raging curse. A sharp breath escaped my lips as I felt the heat of the curse. It smashed into a tree on the other side of the river, creating a scorching hole a few inches deep.
Jonah twirled his wand and fired more spells. He seemed annoyed by my silence. “Don’t you get it yet?! You’ve lost! The Death Eaters are immortal! But every life you lose is lost forever. I hear that girlfriend of yours got offed by Blair. Serves her right. She always was too defiant for her own good!”
Spark let out a piercing cry from the sky, and landed on my shoulder. Jonah momentarily stopped casting spells in confusion. The instant his guard was down, I raised my wand. “Atovius Familiarus!”
The torrential firestorm returned, spiraling vertically around my wand like a tornado and launching forward at Jonah. His dove out of the way as the flames arched in the air and came back down toward him. His voice became frantic. “What the... what is this?!”
I focused all my energy on maintaining the spell. A smirk appeared on my face. This is the girl who beat you, Jonah. The girl you tormented for so many years. The girl you thought was dead!
The flames roared and expanded into what looked like a mass of tentacles, each one tipped with scarlet radiance that burned away the snow in our vicinity. A terrified Jonah fired spell after spell at the monstrosity, but nothing stopped it. He tried to attack me, but his spell vanished before it even hit my face, as if the heat of Emma’s spirit simply burned it away. One of the tentacles whipped forward and slammed into Jonah, sending him flying into the river. His body burned away before he hit the water.
Jonah Melville, the boy who had bullied me and Emma and all the other kids of Summerroot, was dead.
The moment my spell dispersed, I turned on my heel and shot a concussive spell at Jake. He was so preoccupied with Zoe that he didn’t have time to react, and the spell blasted him across the sandy island. His wand fell from his hand, and he struggled to stand up, his limbs all trembling. Zoe, who was bleeding from one arm, limped over to me and looked warily at Jake as he struggled to stand up.
“Damn you... DAMN YOU, ALAN DOE! I’ll make you pay! I’ll make you...”
Jared stepped forward out of nowhere and looked down at Jake. Jake stared up at him. “What... what do you want?!”
Jared pointed his wand down at Jake’s face apathetically. “You hurt my sister.”
There was a flash of white light. Jake instantly flattened against the ground, his shocked face pressing against the riverbank. His body immediately caught fire and burned to ash, the fragments of soot mixing in with the sand and snow. What remained of him blew away in a gust of wind. Zoe and I stared at Jared’s back as he casually put his wand back in his pocket.
“Alan!” I heard Silas yell from the trail. “We need to go while we can!”
I looked in his direction. There was no sign of the other Death Eaters. Silas, Eliza, and Peter were all waiting for us. I looked at Jared and Zoe, and the three of us ran back to the trail.
We sprinted along the riverfront as fast as we could. Spark flapped his wings above us as we ran, keeping watch of our surroundings. We could all feel the energy draining from our bodies, but there could be no stopping. Every moment we wasted, more lives would be lost. The Death Eaters could reappear at any moment. How far were we away now? How much longer would it be?
We ran until we were too tired to run anymore, and stopped briefly beneath an old train bridge. We climbed under the rusted metal scaffolding and pillars into a spot that we thought was relatively out of sight, and the collectively collapsed to our knees, gasping and breathing hoarsely. Spark landed nearby and folded his wings, gazing at us as we slowly recovered from the earlier battle.
“Everyone okay?” asked Peter.
Zoe winced, and clutched her bleeding hand. Silas made a move towards her, but Jared stopped him with his hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Healing her,” Silas said calmly. “My dad taught me how.”
Jared reluctantly lowered his arm, allowing Silas to approach her. Silas rolled up Zoe’s sleeve, revealing a deep gash just beneath her shoulder. I looked away. I heard Silas whisper a spell, and when I looked back, the wound had healed itself, though there was still dried blood all over Zoe’s arm. She smiled in thanks at Silas, who nodded and returned to a minimum safe distance away. Jared quickly knelt down and looked at Zoe, silently asking if she was alright. She nodded and smiled reassuringly.
Silas peeked out from under the bridge and looked around. “We can’t stay here long. We have to get to John Proctor as soon as possible. We don’t know the status of the battle elsewhere.”
“Is your dad fighting at the rings, Silas?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Summerroot. I think most of the resistance is probably either there, or protecting the stone at John Proctor. They’re all waiting on us to finish this.”
There was a long silence after that. Jared kept his attention on Zoe, idly stroking her injured arm as if his hand might provide some kind of healing factor that Silas’s spell had not. Eliza Medley, ever the fighter, kept a stern face as she watched us all. Peter sat next to me.
“What about your parents?” I asked him, quietly enough that the others couldn’t hear.
“They’re at the shelter too,” he said. “I think Jared’s are also.”
“They are,” Jared said, having somehow overheard us. “My mom helped a lot of people evacuate, but she got hurt pretty bad. I think it was her legs.”
“Her... legs?”
Zoe frowned at her feet and spoke weakly. “When we saw her, she couldn’t walk. She wasn’t awake then. I think Dad said they were going to see a doctor in the shelter... but we haven’t heard anything since.”
With that disquieting remark, we all fell silent again. I couldn’t imagine the kinds of worries that were plaguing Jared and Zoe right now. I wondered how I would feel if I knew my mom was hurt, but had no idea how badly. I thought about the shelter in Summerroot. How long would Mom and Dad be safe defending it? Had they gotten hurt, or worse? What about Clea and the other muggles? Darkanoss’s armies were larger than ever, and they had once again cut us off from the outside world. It wouldn’t be long until they overwhelmed us.
“We can’t wait here any longer,” I concluded, standing up. Peter stood with me, followed by the others. “We have to keep going. We have to destroy the stone.”
Everyone nodded. With that, we took off down the trail again. We were walking, but only to conserve our energy in preparation for the inevitable fighting that would soon occur. The closer we got to the stone, the more Death Eaters we would encounter. They wouldn’t just let us walk up and destroy it. Now that they knew where we were, we had to assume that a vast number of them were probably converging on us. If I died, then that was the end. The war would be lost. The Death Eaters would do everything in their power to make that happen. We were their primary target.
The trail ended in a familiar park, with a playground and a large awning with outdoor seating. It was Riverfront Park. A park I had visited hundreds of times, a park that I remembered from my youth, from the days before the war took away my childhood. I remembered the conventions that used to be held there, with the food stands giving out parfaits, the wizard performers shooting fire into the sky to the delight of muggle onlookers, people laughing and chatting without a care in the world. How long ago was that? It had been less than a year, but it felt like a lifetime.
The park looked almost the same as it had on that dreaded summer day when this war began, with the exception of the thin layer of ashen snow that had settled over everything in sight. I could see the footbridge that was our destination nearby: White Trail Bridge. The riverside trail weaved along the side of the park onto that bridge, which crossed the raging waters of the deep river to the other side.
Awaiting us in that park were one hundred Death Eaters.
The number is just a ballpark estimate. At the time, I could never have guessed accurately, but I knew there were many of them. They stood under the awning and on top of it, around the playground, up the trail by the bridge, in the parking lot and upon the larger car bridge beyond. It was like a murder of crows, stalking us from every direction, just waiting for the moment to attack us and dig into our flesh.
We took formation around each other, preparing for the attack. Peter glanced at me. “Things are never easy, are they?”
I smirked. Silas nodded at us. “We can take them. We’ve fought adult wizards before.”
Zoe, Jared, and Eliza nodded. They held their wands out courageously.
“Alright,” I said. “Let’s go!”
At the center of the park, Jenna Widow apparated and raised her wand, crying out in an ungodly high-pitched voice. “FOR DELIVERANCE!”
The battle began with explosions from a hundred and six wands. My group quickly split up to divert the ocean of curses launching in our direction, scorching and melting the snow where we had stood. Jared, Zoe, and I ran toward the playground, while Silas, Peter, and Eliza took shelter behind a few cars in the parking lot. Everywhere we ran, there were Death Eaters. They popped up from every direction, apparating left and right. It was pure luck, or perhaps unconscious instinct, that allowed me to block all of the assaulting spells and counterattack. Death Eaters fell, but more kept coming. They wouldn’t let up, and most of them were focusing directly on me. Killing Curses came from every direction. They were desperate to finish me off before I could foil their plans.
Jared, Zoe, and I used the playground for cover as the Death Eaters surrounded us. I dove under little bridges and swing sets to avoid the blasts, which ripped through the wood and metal and tore the children’s play structure to smithereens. One shot destroyed a metal pole near me and left my ears ringing loudly. When I recovered from the blast, I reacted just in time to dive beneath a Killing Curse fired at me by Widow. I flailed backwards on the ground and tried to hit her with a Stunning Spell, but she was too fast for me. “Expelliarmus!”
My wand flew from my fingertips and rolled under the playground. Widow’s eyes widened with triumphant glee, but as she raised her wand above her head to finish the job, I suddenly leapt up and threw my whole weight at her body. She was short and thin, and the attack took her by surprise, so she was knocked off balance with my blow. I slammed her against the playground as hard as I could, and strained to grab the wand from her hands. When Widow recovered from the shock, she grimaced at me.
“Insolent boy! Inpulsa Fluctus!”
An invisible shock wave erupted from her body and sent me flying high into the air. I landed far away from the playground in the snow. The dizzying movement left me nauseous, like I had just gone on the world’s fastest rollercoaster. I didn’t see my wand. I was defenseless.
Widow advanced quickly, her torn dress dragging along the ground. She was about to hit me with another curse, but a white spell slammed into her head from behind. Widow grunted and toppled forward, but kept her footing, her hair a wiry mess.
“Alan! Heads up!”
In the second Widow was distracted, I saw something flying through the air from Zoe’s fingertips. It was my wand. It landed a few feet to my right, resting in the snow. Widow whirled around, and Zoe faced her directly, her wand held bravely forward. She was completely exposed.
“Zoe!” I screamed. “No! Get out of the way!”
But it was too late. A malevolent grin appeared on Widow’s face. She held up her wand, and waved it wildly in the air before pointing it at Zoe’s chest. “Avada Kedavra!”
The world slowed down. I could see the spell leaving Widow’s wand, the green light like a vile aurora shooting out toward Zoe. I desperately tried to reach my wand, to do something before it was too late, but it was just barely out of reach. The Killing Curse drew closer, the air rippling with it. I heard a flurry of footsteps from the right, but couldn’t turn fast enough to see whose they were.
Just as the curse was about to strike Zoe, Jared leapt in front of her and took the full blast.
His body was thrown back from the impact, knocking Zoe to the ground. The two of them tumbled over into the shadow of the playground. Jared fell off of Zoe, and rolled slowly backwards, his body facing the sky. Zoe strained to sit up, and looked at her fallen brother.
“Jared?”
He didn’t move. Zoe slid over to him and shook his chest. “Jared...?”
Still nothing. Jared’s face was white. His mouth was closed, and his half-closed eyes faced the sky. Zoe’s voice began to tremble. “Jared, no... Jared, no, no, Jared, no... Jared, no, don’t do this to me... Jared...” Her voice cracked, and tears fell from her eyes. “Jared, no...”
At that moment, something inside of me snapped.
There were no thoughts in my mind anymore. There was no longer feeling or agency. I was no longer myself. I saw Jared’s lifeless body lying next to his sobbing sister, and everything left me. My body moved with motor energy, my fingers coiling around my wand. My eyes registered Widow in front of me. She was laughing at the top of her lungs, the only sound reverberating through my unhearing ears. She turned around at me, her wicked grin slowly lowering. I observed the contours of her wrinkled middle-aged face, her long nose and pointed chin, those unfeeling eyes of hers.
I pointed my wand at that evil face, and cast the Unforgivable Curse.
“AVADA KEDAVRA!”
The spell burst from my wand with overwhelming power. The green light was almost blinding. Widow screamed for a split second before it engulfed her, and then she was silent. Her body flailed through the air like a ragdoll, and slammed down on the trail. When the corpse rolled to a halt, it stared back at me with wide, lifeless eyes, still frozen in that last moment of shock. Then her body lit up with flames, and burned away.
“JARED!” I heard Zoe screaming, but I couldn’t look at anything but Widow’s ashes. “Jared, no, please, noooo! Oh God, noooo...”
All the air left Zoe’s lungs. She fell down atop Jared’s chest, and seemed to struggle to breathe. His shirt was wet with her tears. I faintly registered something dragging her away from it. She resisted, but the force pulled her more urgently, and she reluctantly began sprinting away. Then something appeared in front of me, a vaguely familiar face, a face I had known when I was still human.
“Alan!” screamed the face. “Alan, we have to go! Come on, Alan!”
It was Peter. He grabbed my hand and pulled me as hard as he could, until we had both taken off into a sprint. I didn’t look back to see Jared’s body. My body ran on autopilot as I joined Silas, Peter, Zoe, and Eliza, all of us running as fast as we could in the direction of White Trail Bridge. The other Death Eaters were defeated, and their limp bodies burned away into cinders one after the other. But more of them would come. But that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. I was completely numb to all feeling. The moment Jared died repeated over and over in my mind. I couldn’t hear anything but the sound of Zoe’s sobs.
We made it to the threshold of the bridge. Zoe and Eliza were the first to run across, followed by Peter. Silas went next, and just as I was about to follow him, he turned around and cried out in warning. “Alan, look out!”
I whirled around to see a curse flying right at me like a bullet. “Protego!”
The spell dissipated as it hit my shield, but the impact shook the whole bridge. Zoe and Eliza, nearing the far side, grabbed each other to keep balance and then kept running. I lowered my wand to see who had fired the spell, and saw a tall young Death Eater striding toward me across the remains of Riverfront Park.
It was Nick. He had come alone, but that was more than enough to pose a serious threat. He waved his wand elegantly to his side, and blue flames erupted all around him, enveloping the whole park. He gazed at me as he advanced, never moving his eyes away from mine.
Silas grabbed my arm. “Come on! Let’s go!”
We began to run across the bridge. Dozens of feet below us, the waters churned and spiraled angrily, rushing as if to flee from the scene of battle. When we were about halfway across, Nick fired a flurry of spells towards us, which I stopped to block. The delay put Silas several paces in front of me. When he made it across the other side of the bridge and joined the others, a sudden burst of blue flames appeared between me and them, blocking my way out. I whirled around as Nick stepped onto the bridge, and the flames behind him crept up to the threshold of the bridge. Both exits were now blocked.
“Alan!” I heard Peter yelling from behind the fire. “Are you okay? Say something!”
“Silencio,” said Nick, pointing at the flames behind me. All of the sudden, I couldn’t hear my friends anymore. I couldn’t hear anything. Both sides of the river were engulfed in towering walls of blue flame. There was nothing but the bridge, and the river, and me and Nick facing each other from either side.
“No more running away, Alan. You will duel me, here and now.”
I faced him and raised my wand. When my voice found its way to my throat, it was weak and hoarse. “The stone... the Death Eaters... I won’t let you hurt anyone else!”
Nick smirked. “I won’t let you defeat me again. I’m wise to your tricks. I was there when you found that phoenix in Saudi Arabia. Did you really think I’d let you use your familiar here?”
I realized then that Spark had also disappeared. I scanned the graying skies, but he was nowhere to be seen. Nick was amused by my confusion. “Nothing can enter this space but you and me. It’s a special spell I designed just for this moment.”
He raised his wand. “Now, face me, Alan Doe!
I frowned scornfully at him. We took stances on opposite sides of the bridge, both of our wands at the ready. I felt my heart and head throbbing with pain. Nick, oppositely, looked completely unfazed. He looked like he had been waiting for this moment for a long, long time.
“Sectumsempra!”
“Expulso!”
The spells collided, and exploded in a great cloud of blue light. We exchanged blows back and forth, but Nick was more powerful, and quickly got the upper hand. Soon, I was blocking more than I was attacking. He crossed the middle of the bridge, and cornered me against the flames.
“We captured your mother, Alan!” he yelled. “We tortured her until her mind broke!”
My heart went cold. “You’re... you’re lying!”
“I’m not. Your father too. And your little baby sister. They’re all dead now.”
I felt my insides exploding. Never, in all my life, had I felt such primal anger and rage. It roared within me, shaking the very world around me. The magic in my veins had turned into fire. Nick’s eyes gleamed with delight as he spoke.
“They were utterly pathetic...”
“CRUCIO!”
Nick screamed in pain, and fell onto his back. When he recovered from the attack, he grasped the side of the bridge and pulled himself up. He glared at me and aimed his wand again. “Avada...”
Some dark spell flew from my wand and slammed Nick further down the bridge. He gurgled and got up, firing another curse at me. I caught it with my wand and flicked it right back at him. I advanced mercilessly, shooting curses without name, every ounce of rage inside of me channeling into bolts of magical fury. Nick fired another Killing Curse, but this one missed and hit the ground in front of me. I ran forward in that narrow window, and our duel suddenly devolved into a fistfight. I punched him directly in the jaw, but Nick retaliated with a powerful right hook. He was way stronger than me, and his fist felt like a jackhammer. My cheek stung, but I kept up the willpower and tried to punch again. Nick blocked my approaching hand and kicked me hard in the stomach. I buckled, and fell backwards against the wooden ground.
Nick backed away quickly, trying to put enough distance between us to fire another spell. He shot an explosive curse, but I blocked it at the last second and it ricocheted right, blasting the railings of the bridge to smithereens. The sudden light temporarily blinded Nick, and that was all the opportunity I needed.
“Stupefy!”
The stunning spell hit him in the chest. Nick gasped and choked, lurching back and trembling on his feet. He dropped his wand, which rolled through a gap in the wooden floor and fell into the river. The Master Reborn’s eyes shook for a single moment, as if he was struggling to remain conscious, to stay on his feet.
Then his left leg gave, and he toppled over the edge of the bridge.
I breathed heavily for a few moments, then sat up and rushed over to the edge, staring down at the churning water. There was no sign of him. I scanned the rocks downriver for signs of his ornate cloak, but there was nothing there but waves.
At that moment, the blue flames dispersed, and I heard Peter calling to me from the other side.
“Alan! Let’s go!”
I looked in his direction, and saw him standing there at the end of the bridge with Silas, Zoe, and Eliza. Spark had reappeared, and was flying in circles above them. With one last glance down at the spot where Nicholas Varennikov had disappeared, I ran after them.