"The Worst Defeat"
Wanda appeared far too calm.
The kind of calm that never meant anything good.
The same calm she had whenever she punished her children by turning them into little babies.
Her eyes first moved toward Harry, who was now behaving like a well behaved child.
Of course, Wanda had been watching him apparently having fun fighting a Dark Wizard.
Her son had become quite powerful and possessed perfect control over his Chaos Magic.
Wanda could not help feeling a little pride in her son and a certain amusement at his behavior.
She simply shook her head.
And finally her gaze settled on Lucius.
The silence became uncomfortable.
Lucius, still covered in blood and twisted magic, looked at her with a mixture of hatred, desire, and fear while his body remained restrained by Draco's golden chains, which seemed to tighten more and more around him.
The moment he felt Wanda's gaze on him, Lucius tried to move his wand.
Despite the chains.
Wanda tilted her head slightly.
And instantly Lucius' wand turned into gray dust and fell to the ground.
"So in your eyes, my dear son is a freak. And I am a monster?" Wanda asked while looking directly at him.
Sirius shifted his gaze as though he suddenly understood why Wanda had ended up coming.
It was only because Lucius had called Harry a freak.
He turned toward Selene and Narcissa, feeling that was a bit excessive.
But both women seemed to completely agree that Wanda had come to set things straight.
If someone insulted their children, they would do exactly the same.
And perhaps they had known she would arrive at any moment because of it.
"Yes. He said it several times," Harry added.
Draco dryly contributed:
"Far too many."
Narcissa looked toward Wanda.
"Is everything already handled at Hogwarts?" she asked calmly.
"Yes. Edward is taking care of it. Though Hogwarts was destroyed," Wanda said calmly.
"Wait, what?" said Sirius Black, the current Headmaster of Hogwarts.
"Oh, shit."
He said it before quickly glancing around, realizing everything would probably be fine without him.
With Wanda here, he was not even necessary.
Using apparition, he vanished in a flash.
"Then?" Wanda asked while looking toward Narcissa.
"Now that he's alive, as his ex wife I should at least ask for his pathetic life to be spared. Let whatever remains of it rot in Azkaban," Narcissa said coldly while looking at Lucius, who shifted his gaze from Wanda to her with complete hatred.
"Remember, I still need the divorce."
"Fine," Wanda said calmly before turning back toward Lucius and walking toward him.
At the same time, her gaze shifted toward the raging Fiendfyre nearby.
She moved one hand, and the flames were suddenly shoved toward the direction where bestial roars and monsters could be heard.
And instantly those flames surged toward that location, destroying everything in their path.
When the flames vanished, only Luciel remained there, lying on the ground with an annoyed expression while staring toward the place where someone else should have been.
The moment that person saw Wanda, he had disappeared immediately.
Meanwhile, Luciel gripped the hilt of his sword tightly.
"Coward," he roared at the escape of his enemy.
"You... disgusting woman!" Lucius roared as he struggled to move while watching Wanda approach.
But he was looking at Narcissa.
She did not even spare him another glance and instead walked over to Draco to see whether he had been injured.
Lucius then looked back at Wanda, who was now standing directly in front of him.
"You... you... monster. HAHAHAHAHA! You're a disgusting monster. I devoured your relative. I devoured maybe even your son. HAHAHAHAHA!"
Lucius laughed.
He seemed insane as he felt the power of Chaos emanating from Wanda.
Or rather, she herself was the personification of that power.
Now that Lucius had her standing before him, he could feel it.
"What are you talking about? The demons of the Darkhold are merely manifestations created by Chaos Magic. Though explaining the magic of a book that no longer exists would be pointless," Wanda said calmly.
"And I don't need to explain anything to you."
Wanda said it with a deadly look in her eyes.
"Though you did serve one purpose. You allowed our children to spread their wings and free themselves a little. They defeated you. And I would never allow something that could bother them in the future to continue existing."
Wanda said this while raising one hand.
Lucius froze from pure instinct.
Even when he had been devoured by that monster in the past, he had never felt the same lethal fear that now reached the deepest parts of his being.
The Chaos Magic surrounding his body trembled.
As if it possessed a life of its own and now regretted ever attacking the son of its queen.
Of its goddess.
Harry felt something strange in his chest.
Lucius' Chaos Magic seemed to shrink before his mother.
Similar to the way Red behaved foolishly around her after getting himself into trouble and needing to be punished.
As he watched his mother.
And watched Lucius' Chaos Magic begin separating itself from his skin.
Lucius opened his eyes, filled with pain.
"No. No, no, no," he roared, trying to move, but the golden chains held him firmly. He could feel himself weakening second by second as the red energy left his body.
The red threads emerged from his arms. From his chest. From his face. From the cracks in his skin.
"No. I will become the new Dark Lord. The new ruler of the magical world. Of the entire world," he said, driven mad, trying to control the magical energy pouring out of his body.
He tried to force it to stay.
His deformed body twisted violently, but the magic did not listen to him.
Someone superior was standing before him, controlling it.
Or perhaps it had never truly listened to him at all.
It had only reacted to what he had become.
A monster corrupted by the blood of a Chaos Demon.
But he would never become a true demon.
Not only that.
As the Chaos Magic poured out from every part of his body, even the magic he had gained by devouring the Horcruxes abandoned him.
And then his own magic.
He could feel it, like a man bleeding to death, losing drop by drop every trace of what made him special.
What made him noble.
What made him superior.
Lucius fell to his knees, still bound by chains.
But now he looked older.
As if he had aged decades in only a few seconds.
His hair dried out and filled with gray.
Much of it even fell to the ground.
His skin began to change, becoming grayish and lifeless.
The tentacles shriveled up, transforming into twisted, horrendous remnants without any purpose.
The deformity did not disappear completely, but it receded enough to reveal the man hidden underneath.
Without magic.
The very thing that separated him from an ordinary muggle.
Leaving only the deformity behind.
Lucius breathed with difficulty.
He could not even speak a single word anymore because he lacked the strength to do so.
His mouth trembled uncontrollably.
Narcissa looked at him.
But she did not feel even the slightest bit of guilt or pity.
Neither did Draco.
Besides, this was the worst defeat imaginable for Lucius.
He had not been destroyed.
He had simply been defeated by two teenagers.
And then stripped of the very thing that made him feel special.
Wanda lowered her hand.
Then turned her head toward the rain of fire in the distance.
She could still hear the roars of beasts dying within the flames.
But at the same time, she could not feel them.
And she understood why she could not.
Because they were only ordinary animals corrupted by her own magic.
It was like trying to sense a part of herself.
She let out a snort at what Lucius had attempted to do with a power he did not understand.
Chaos Magic itself was tied to beings that even she could not fully comprehend.
She shifted her gaze and saw Harry and Draco walking over to Luciel to help him stand.
Wanda could still feel that Dark Magic.
And the cry of sorrow and plea for help coming from a small voice.
"I'll be back," Wanda said to Narcissa.
Who calmly nodded in response.
Wanda disappeared in a flash of red.
While Narcissa turned her gaze back toward Lucius.
Who remained kneeling.
As if his soul had abandoned him the moment he discovered he had become everything he despised most.