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Chapter 100 - In To The Fire

Dimension: 1375 - Earth
Date: 17th October 2001 AD
Country: France - The French Riviera - Marseeleveyre Mountains
Location: Chateau Delacour
Time: Early Evening

Harry exploded out of the Sitting Room fireplace with the force of a man who was out for blood.

The room he emerged into was full of smoke; small fires were burning the curtains and any other fabrics around the broken windows were rapidly igniting.

"FLEUR!! GABRIELLE!!....DIMITRI!! DEPLHINE!!"

No response came above the ever growing roar that was the fire.

FLEUR!! He shouted down the link FLEUR!!

He knew she was alive as if she were not he would be dead, so she must be unconscious somewhere.

Moving out of the Sitting Room he twisted the ring around on his finger and retrieved his swords before twisting it back to resume his former appearance, though now more heavily armed.

There were more fires burning throughout the house and the front doors had been blasted open, one was lying on the ground smoking while the other was hanging by its one remaining hinge, the Entrance Hall was covered in blast marks and most of the furniture including the hand rails for the stairs had been splintered into dozens of deadly looking spikes.

A snarling bark emanated from behind him and he dodged sideways just in time to see a Fire Wolf fly past him and collide hard with the opposite wall.

"Valkyries!!" he hissed, his anger that they would dare attack his family rising to the surface.

Moving into a battle stance he used a swing of his sword to elementally pull the fire from a burning section of carpet onto his blades.

"Come and get me."

The beast stood and took another dive at him.

Dropping to the floor and crossing his swords he held them firm as the beast dived overhead, his blades slicing through its shoulders, stomach and thighs.

The creature fell with an agonised scream, it's useless body slamming into the wall behind him, never to rise again.

Turing back to his goal Harry charged up the stairs, leaping them four at a time so as to get to the top as fast as he could.

He heard one of the Slayers emerge from the fireplace and call after him but he couldn't stop now.

Reaching the top he did a hard right turn and made a rapid jump to avoid falling down the hole where the floor had burnt through and collapsed onto the floor below.

Hearing a growl from a room further down the hall he raised his flaming swords and made for the noise.
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Willow, Tara and Hermione were the next to arrive tumbling out of the disintegrating fireplace just before the lintel collapsed in on it causing a burst of green flame as its connection to the floo network was severed.

"No one else can come through." explained Hermione "We're on our own."

"Then let's find Fleur's family quickly." Added Tara moving out into the hall the others close behind before stopping dead at the sight of the dead Fire Wolf.

"It's the Valkyrie." Explained Hermione drawing her wand "They work for Voldemort."

"Is that Valkyrie as in carrying away the dead?" asked Willow.

"Yes, but they eat them when they take them." Finished Hermione as an explosion emanated from the direction of the front door.

"Harry and Buffy will have gone for Fleur's family;" guessed Tara "Let's try and buy them some time."

Heading towards the front door they had to jump sideways as a glass sphere full of what appeared to be lava sailed between them and exploded on the floor, leaving the flaming hot liquid to burn its way through the carpet.

Some specks of lava splashed on Willows dress.

"Ahh!! I'm on fire!!" she gasped beating at her dress.

Hermione rapidly cast a water charm, then pausing to think for a moment aimed her wand upwards for a few seconds before realigning her wand to so that the water fell on the other two.

"Hermione what are you doing?" gasped Willow as the water wasn't overly warm.

"If they are attacking us with fire it's safer for us to be wet."

"Oh right. Did anyone see what was out there?"

"I saw several Dark skinned people...." answered Tara.

"Valkyrie." Hermione supplied.

".... at least a dozen surrounding a cart which was holding more of those spheres of different sizes which were being loaded into a catapult and fired at us."

"Anything else?" Hermione asked.

"Several more of those wolf things like that one in the hall."

"Fire Wolves."

"Any ideas?" Willow asked.

"I vote kill them." Came a voice from behind them.

"Colette!! How did you....?"

"All of those at Hogwarts who are in The Alliance have been to the Chateau but I am the only one who knows where the castle is physically located." She explained moving up beside Hermione "I Apparated just outside the wards that have been put up by the attackers and walked across them before Apparating to the Sitting Room."

"Couldn't you bring anyone else with you?" asked Willow causing Colette to look at her with a shocked expression.

"Have you ever tried to Apparate someone else across the length of three countries and a twenty mile stretch of water," she replied "It's tiring enough doing it on your own, besides only Fleur or her parents can reveal the Chateaus location."

"Is anyone else coming then?"

"Only Adam," she replied "He's the only other person who knows exactly where the Chateau is. Portkey wards are also in place so no one is getting here that way, we're on our own."
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On the roof of the Chateau a bolt of lightning struck, revealing the slightly smoking form of The Guardian.

"I hate travelling that way." He groaned beating himself down "One day I will find a form of travel that does not involve a major power drain, dragging your magic across hundreds of miles or setting yourself on fire."

He did not get the chance to say more as he was forced to duck as a large sphere of molten liquid sailed past him and smashed into one of the towers, setting it ablaze.

"Magma Sphere's." he said to the world in general "Wonderful."

Transforming into a falcon he took off, circling high to get a look at the Chateau.

It was burning badly, flames were coming from many windows and the smoke alone was making it hard to see. He was able to make out the group of Valkyrie with the catapult a few hundred meters from the front of the Chateau and the Witches that had arrived before him advancing on them, throwing fireballs and various other spells their way.

Luckily for all the parties teaching the large joint defence class the teaching sessions had been educational for all involved, this was proved when Willow banishing one of the chocks keeping the Catapult in place resulting in it going flying backwards as it launched its next Sphere, taking a pair of Valkyrie out in the process before rolling off down the hill, bits breaking off it as it went down the slope and smashed into a rock leaving it as little more than broken pieces of wood and metal.

Turning back to the Chateau he dived down towards the already burning Tower nearest him (The Aviary), entering through one of the windows he landed on one of the beams, the usual flying residence having already flown the coop leaving the room deserted.

Transforming back to his usual form he jumped down onto the floor, dodging the small fires and made his way through the smoke into the house.
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Harry was almost beginning to regret his decision now; he should have left the demon and just kept searching.

Now he and Buffy were circling the beast which unfortunately for them turned out to be the same sort of demon that had attacked the Hogwarts express and had almost killed him in the process.

And the evidence that this thing, this Batros as Adam had called it, was dangerous was reinforced by the horribly sliced bodies of a pair of House Elves and two of the Delacour's human servants that the beast had been standing over when he entered.

Both he and Buffy were already sporting deep wounds; he had received a hard hit in his side from its tail (which unlike the last one he had faced was sporting a large mace with lots of long, thin and very sharp spikes on it) and Buffy had received three claws to her shoulder resulting in heavy bleeding from both of them, luckily the beast was not unwounded either as Buffy had got a good hit in with her toll hammer (she had got it shrunk so that it could be carried around at all times and then returned to normally when she touched it) as such the beast had several broken ribs as well as a deep wound through its hind leg where he had managed to stab it.

"I think this could be a problem." Sighed Buffy as the creature raised itself up, seemingly not noticing its injuries and drew its blades out of its chest armour.

"Why doesn't this thing die?" asked Buffy.

"If it helps I know breaking its neck can be very affective." He supplied, re-conjuring the fire along his swords as the creature lunged at them.

Slightly too slow to move Harry got impacted by the creature and forced up against the wall, their four blades pressing hard against each other, both forcing all their strength into the weapons.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Buffy dodging about trying to avoid its flailing tail.

With one unlucky move the Batros swung its tail straight down onto the blade of a dagger that Buffy had just drawn, severing it in two.

The creature screamed in pain giving Harry just enough of a distraction.

Releasing his grip on one of his swords he braced himself for the pain as his sword was shoved back towards him, slashing across his shoulder before his opponent's blade impaled his arm.

He cried out in pain but luckily he had moved his hand just in time before his muscles were skewered.

With a yell of pain and fury he launched a jet of flame from his hand, straight into the midsection of the Batros.

It screamed in pain as it was flung back across the room by the force of the flame.

Using his other hand he dropped his second sword and let rip with both hands, sending a constant stream of fire at the beast that was now flattened against the opposing wall, screaming in pain.

He kept the fire going for at least twenty seconds before he finally let his hands drop, the flame died, revealing the very charred remains of the beast stuck to the opposing wall.

"White meat or dark?" panted Buffy walking over and yanking the knife out of his shoulder "Though I think after that it's all going to be dark, nice trick."

"ARGH!!....Thanks." he nodded, drawing his wand and casting blood clotting charms over their wounds sealing most of the blood in.

"Let' get going." She decided collecting his swords and handing them back to him "That woman of yours is still missing."

Nodded exhaustedly he took the lead and headed out of the room.
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This was bad; this was very very bad thought Tara.

It had all been going rather well until about twenty seconds ago.

They had managed to take out half of the Valkyrie and a couple of the Fire Wolves until one of the Valkyrie's made the fatal mistake of throwing one of the spheres at her.

It had missed but the spray from the impact landed in two large clumps on her bare arms.

She had understandably screamed in pain as the lava burned her skin for the half a second that it was in contact with her before she shook and brushed it off, but that was enough.

Willow had heard the sound of her screaming and as anyone who knew them knew; there was one thing and only one thing that was guaranteed to set Willow off and that was her love for Tara.

The redhead screamed her eyes and hair turning black as she levitated herself up twenty feet above the ground.

"You shall PAY for that!!" she screamed, firing a stream of familiar crackling black magic towards an unfortunate group of Valkyrie near the remains of their catapult.

They screamed out in agony for several seconds as the stream of magic hit them before their bodies fell to the ground dead, whatever dark purpose the magic served having done its job.

Willow screamed again turning to the wolves. Conjuring several spheres of the magic she threw them at all those still standing, each wolf howled out as what looked like black electricity passed over them upon impact before they too dropped to the ground dead.

Turning towards one of the few remaining Valkyrie that was wrestling with a fully avian Colette she conjured another ball.

"Willow no!!" Hermione shouted as the crackling sphere was launched at the pair.
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Hermione watched horrified as the sphere rapidly approached the struggling combatants.

Fortunately both seemed to notice at the same time and the Valkyrie was smart enough to let Colette launch a fireball back.

The spheres collided in mid air, the explosion blowing Colette and the Valkyrie off their feet.

"DIE!!" screamed Willow again, launching a bigger magic ball at them.

Again Colette threw fire back to destroy the magic ball, but this time the fireball simply blew apart on impact allowing the dark sphere to continue on.

"MOVE!!" Hermione shouted as the Valkyrie and the Veela threw themselves away from each other, though all too slowly in the case of the Valkyrie as he was hit by the magic and killed just like the wolves.

Willow's head spun around to face her.

"Don't interfere Witch." She ordered in a dark and very un-Willow like way before throwing a ball of magic towards her.

More out of shock at the change in Willow's voice than madness or slow reaction time Hermione failed to more.

Only when the sphere was just in front of her did she react.

Screaming she threw up her hands defensively and was astonished to see a white stream of magic target the sphere and cause it to explode.

Looking around for the source of the magic she saw Tara panting on the ground, having presumably just dropped there.

"Willow stop." Tara gasped as Hermione ran over to help her, but the raging witch ignored her, instead opting to send a stream of black magic towards them.

Conjuring a shield Hermione braced herself for the impact, but it never came, yet the sounds of battle continued.

Looking up she saw Adam standing in front of them, his staff held horizontally in his hands, projecting a shield in front of it. Willow could not be seen but they knew she was there as the stream of black magic was impacting against the shield, obscuring their vision.

"Adam." She smiled, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Get Colette and start putting the fire out, Tara will need help; projecting pure magic is very draining, I will take care of Willow....I would also recommend haste as I cannot hold this shield for long."

Nodding, Hermione helped Tara to her feet before gesturing for Colette to follow.
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Adam sighed in relief as Hermione and the others disappeared around the side of the building, casting water charms at the side of the chateau.

Pulsing his magic, he threw his shield outwards, blasting the dark magic back, just long enough so that he could jump clear.

Once out of the line of fire he immediately floated upwards to the same level as Willow.

"Willow." He smiled.

"Adam." The eerie voice grinned back "I'm going to enjoy this."

She launched a sphere of dark magic at him which collided with a white magic sphere coming the other way, detonating in a large explosion between them.

"You will have to do better than that Dark One." He replied.

"Ok then." She nodded sarcastically "How's this?"

Streams of black magic flew at him; again impacting white magic coming in the other direction, anyone watching would have seen how the air around the combatants reflected the nature of the magic; Willow's side growing darker and colder while Adam's let out a gentle warmth.

There was a split second as the magic's connected and started to gather into a combined monochromatic sphere before a massive explosion emanated from it, blowing both the combatants backwards through the air.

Stabilising himself Adam flew around the cloud of smoke marking the detonation point and flew within ten meters of Willow.

A quick sidespin allowed him to dodge the three dark magic balls sent his way, allowing him to send a light sphere back which Willow casually detonated with another dark sphere.
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Willow laughed at his plight, it was pathetic, the Great Guardian could not even take down a little witch.

"Your light magic's are no match for the powers of darkness." She laughed conjuring another black sphere in her hand "You cannot defeat me."

"Aren't they indeed," he replied stopping his motion and coming to a hover in front of her "Then I will use your own magic's against you."

Willow's eyes widened in shock as her opponent conjured his own dark sphere and threw it at her.

Launching her own just in time they impacted and detonated just in front of her causing her skin to get burned by the blast.

"Minor wounds only, easy to repair."

Though she never got the chance as what appeared to be a silvery/grey lightning leapt from Adam's fingers.

Rapidly raising a shield she started laughing again when she realised that she could not even feel any pressure on it.

"Is that the best you....you can....what?"

She gasped, she was losing power, she could not maintain the shield.

"What the?....What are you doing to me."

"It's called Anti-Magic Willow." He replied, now appearing to tower over her as she began to lose her ability to stay airborne "Shadow Anti-Magic to be precise, something far beyond your abilities. They are the ‘Achilles Heel' of the dark magic's that are controlling you Willow and now they know not to challenge me again."

Willow's vision blacked out just as he finished, she remembered falling before strong arms caught her.

"You will be alright now Willow."
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Around the other side of the building Tara, Colette and Hermione were busy firing water through every window, they had used so much water that some rooms should have been absolutely drenched but the fires in the centre and on top of the Chateau were out of reach.

When Adam landed beside them and lowered a redheaded Willow to the ground Tara immediately dropped down beside her.

"Is she...."

"She'll be fine, just a bit drained." He assured her "I've got to...."

He was interrupted by a crash and roar as a soon to be dead Batros demon was blasted out of one of the upstairs windows by a huge jet of flame.

"It looks like Harry is making his presence known." He commented before taking a running jump towards the window "Excuse me."

With a short burst of transformation and a couple of quick flaps he reverted to his normal form just as he landed inside the recently destroyed remains of the window, quickly bringing a dagger up to block the sword that was swung at him by Harry.

"Good reactions." He greeted before sheaving the dagger and jumping down from the sill "Have you found them yet?"

"No," Buffy replied "But they must be on this floor or the one above."

"Fleur's on this floor." Confirmed Harry taking off down the corridor.

"We'll take the top floor." Agreed Buffy veering off towards the stairs with Adam in hot pursuit.
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Harry was getting desperate, he knew he was close but Fleur had been unresponsive to his attempts at mental communication and the smoke was now so thick that anyone standing in it would start to choke.

He literally explode his way into the room he knew she was in, having to blast the timber that had fallen down, blocking his way.

The room was a mess, half the ceiling had caved in, leaving a whole to the top floor, the furniture was in a similar state of destruction with many of the wooden items having been smashed.

"Mr Harry Potter Sir."

Spinning to his right he saw Fleur lying unconscious within a bubble of clear air being maintained by a House Elf, Fleur's forehead had a large gash over it.

"Is she alright?"

"She fell Mr Harry Potter Sir." Explained the Elf, lowering the bubble "Miss Fleur was finding Miss Gabby when floor collapsed Sir."

"Get out of the Chateau." He ordered, picking up his unconscious Mate "Try to put out some of the fires."

Harry heard the pop but did not turn to see whether the House Elf had gone as he moved over to the room's broken window and looked out.

He could see no one on this side of the Chateau.

Quickly stepping back and making sure his arm was wrapped around her, he did a very rapid transformation in his dragon form.

Swinging his tail at the window he knocked several square feet of brick out of the wall, allowing him to jump out of the newly enlarged gap.

He landed softly on three legs, ignoring the pain from when his leg had been impaled earlier, his remaining front paw held Fleur against him.

Transforming back he picked her up, carrying her by her back and knees and ran around the corner to where he could hear the faint sounds of spells being cast.
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On the top floor Adam and Buffy were having to climb over the wreckage of chandeliers, assorted pieces of wooden furniture and many parts of the ceiling and walls that had collapsed.

Hearing a growl to their left followed by a high pitched scream, they altered their course down the relevant corridor.

"Was that Fleur's sister?" asked Buffy, slamming her troll hammer into a joist blocking their way, splintering it into many pieces as they blasted through.

"Highly probable," he replied somersaulting over a partially collapsed section of roof "It was coming from the direction of her room."

"I think I recognised that growl."

"So did I." he nodded "I'll deal with it, you get Gabrielle out."

"Got ya."

Exploding into the room, the door of which was in pieces on the floor, the pair were confronted by what they thought they would see.

A Batros demon pounding down on top of another House Elf shield containing a pair of House Elves and a terrified Gabrielle.

"Get her out!!" he shouted "I'll get Dimitri and Delphine."

The demon instantly turned at his shout. Its reaction was to swing its tail at him, this one with a very large morning star attached to it.

Conjuring a shield he let it heavily impact against it before swinging his staff around to face it.

A quick kick caught him in the ribs, its claws briefly impaling his side, providing just enough of a distraction for it to knock his staff out of his hands to clatter to the ground on the other side of the room.

Grunting he took a step back as the beast stood on its hind legs and bared its teeth.
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Buffy, darting around the fight quickly picked up the trembling Gabrielle allowing the House Elves to ‘pop' away, but because of the positions of the combatants she was unable to get back to the door as the first scuffle had moved the battle to block her path.

"Fine." Adam growled in a rare display of serious emotion which was something that Buffy had not seen before "Let's do this your way."

Buffy stood waiting while neither party moved for several seconds before she saw a dark pigment spread under Adam's skin and dark black and grey hairs erupted all over his body.

"What the!!" she exclaimed as his body began to expand, his muscles grew, his back hunched, his clothes absorbed into his expanding skin.

She watched in a slightly confused type of comprehension as his face became pointed like that of a wolf, as his arms and legs extended and his fingers extended into claws.

"Go." He growled in a deep voice as he stretched his limbs and bared his Werewolf teeth "Go!!"

Not needing to be told a third time she darted towards the door and legged it down the corridor.

She heard the snarls and the sounds of impacts as the two creatures collided with each other, biting and scratching at any exposed sections of skin.

She could still hear the sounds of the fight as she jumped out through a first floor window, carefully planning her landing so as not to hurt the young Veela in her arms.
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With a resounding crack Adam released the demons broken neck, allowing it to slump to the floor as he reverted to his usual form.

"It's been a while since I have had to do that." He gasped, briefly examining the multiple cuts and gashes he was sporting after the fight before turning and heading back out of the door and down the corridor, summoning his staff back to him as he went.

"DIMITRI!!....DELPHINE!!" he shouted turning another corner and coming face to face with a large roof cave in.

Transforming into a bird he darted through the supports blocking his way before stopping in mid flight and landing awkwardly.

Transforming back he heaved a support beam aside and sighed sadly at the sight he saw.
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Harry watched relieved as Fleur finally came around just as Buffy arrived with Gabrielle.

"What happened?" she gasped as her sister threw her arms around her.

"The Chateau was attacked and set on fire by the Valkyrie," he replied "You were knocked out by part of the ceiling collapsing."

She looked dazed for several seconds before her memory returned and her eyes flew open locking onto the burning form of the Chateau.

"My parents!!" she cried out, empting to get up with Gabrielle still wrapped tightly around her.

"Adam's getting...."

Buffy didn't get the chance to finish as the sound of creaking wood and cracking stone emanated from the Chateau, immediately followed by one of the towers collapsing as its exterior walls gave out, slowly wrenching itself away from the rest of the Chateau as it plummeted towards the ground.

Several square meters of the ground floor walls were pulled away from the Chateau with the tower, resulting in the upper floors above the missing wall sections collapsing down into the ground floor, an entire quarter of the Chateau was destroyed.

In the midst of the collapse Harry and the others caught sight of a dark figure jumping from the top floor just as it began to collapse, before landing smoothly atop the remains of the tower.

They saw Adam straighten himself up and look back at the Chateau before turning and walking sadly towards the group, passing the line of over three dozen House Elves led by Dobby that were busy trying to put out the fires, Harry realised then that the Portkey and Apparation wards would have no affect on their mode of travel allowing them to answer The Alliance distress call as soon as they were able.

Fleur struggled to her feet and she and Gabrielle ran towards him, Harry hot on their heels.

"Where are they?" his mate asked panicked "Where are my parents?"

As they came to a stop in front of Adam he slowly raised his head.

"A large part of the ceiling caved in on the main corridor of the top floor....your parents....were underneath it at the time." He answered solemnly as Hermione and the others caught up "I'm sorry Fleur....There was nothing I could do."

Harry was frozen.

It could not be....They couldn't be dead....Not the first adults to ever really trust him.

"LIAR!!" Fleur screamed, startling him out of his shocked state as she moved towards Adam and started hitting him while he just stood there "It's not true!!....It's NOT true!!....They can't be...."

Harry moved forward as she started to breakdown, pulling her into his embrace as she dropped to her knees.

"They can't be....They....can't be...." she sobbed into his shoulder as Gabrielle dropped down on his other side and hugged them as she started crying.

"Mother....Father...."
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AUTHORS NOTE: I bet none of you thought I would do something like that to mark my reaching the one hundredth chapter.