“Prime Servant, what are our orders from Dark Lord Pettigrew? It has been a long time since we’ve seen you last. We’ve heard the strangest rumors from the Ministry recently…”

“That’s all they are. Rumors,” Voldemort said regally, barely resisting the urge to cast the Cruciatus curse at the death eater in front of him. All of them who had used to fear his every word, jostling with each other and begging for his favor with all their might… Now they viewed him as an unstable madman whose leash was held by the one above him.

Oh, how he wished to disabuse them of the ridiculous notion. But the idea was too firmly entrenched in their minds now after he had already killed three of them during his time under the Imperius curse.

Backtracking his words now, pretending that Pettigrew didn’t exist, would only serve to counter Voldemort's goals and make him appear even more mad or weak to his supporters.

Voldemort was starting to feel the pressure on him the more time passed. Who knew what moment that strange being of golden light that had been possessing his body would return? It must be soon after it being so long with Voldemort having no success in killing Eric Potter still.

Even through his burning anger and urge to move forward immediately, Voldemort realized that he must make reasonable preparations before charging full speed into this next battle. There was a reason why it was a topic that few wizards ever wished to address. Why this might not be an easy fight even for Voldemort.

“Our orders from Dark Lord Pettigrew…” Voldemort said, forcing himself to drag the words from his lips reluctantly, “Are that he has ordered us to raid site forty three and steal its contents.”

“The muggles?” Another of his followers said, “Prime Servant, is that a fight we are able to take on by ourselves? Of course the muggles are nothing before us, but the entity that they guard has never been defeated by wizarding hands. We all know the history of the past attempts to acquire one of those devices upon witnessing their destructive power…”

“I will take the creature on alone,” Voldemort said, “I have no need for any others to assist me in battle. Nobody but groups of mediocre wizards have attempted to defeat them so far. I will defeat it in battle and steal its prize. I simply need you to hold back the Aurors until I am finished. Make sure to collect the right muggles to work on it for when I’ve successfully retrieved the weapon.”

All of the death eaters, even Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange shifted around nervously before bowing their heads.

“As Lord Voldemort commands,” Bellatrix said clearly. Voldemort let a small smile form on his face. Even now she stayed loyal to him alone.

“Yes, as Lord Pettigrew orders,” Lucius quickly added. Voldemort’s lips immediately twisted back into a frown as the rest of the death eaters followed Lucius’ lead. After Eric Potter was dead, he’d make them respect him as they once did again. He’d return to things how they should be, where he was above all others in their eyes…

“We attack in three days,” Voldemort said, “Prepare yourselves.”

— — —

Voldemort sent another green beam from his wand to kill another muggle wearing military fatigues who was firing his heavy machine gun into Voldemort's protego shield charm fruitlessly. Even now his death eaters dealt with the others outside. Luckily unlike police stations or other government facilities, the Ministry had no wizards stationed here. None dared to risk coming too close to the weapon just in case.

With a flick of Voldemort’s wand he blasted through the heavy steel door to where the true battle lay.

Voldemort readied his wand as the two halves of the great door fell forward and shook the floor with a resounding boom. Inside the device itself sat inert, a metal box of five feet on all sides and covered in a thick plastic cover. Only a small panel with levers and switches in the center of the complex contraption showed that it was anything more than an elaborate box.

Voldemort carefully levitated a nearby chunk of metal from where he had blasted the heavy doors and sent it pinging off of the device’s plastic shell. As soon as the metal chunk touched the device, something in the air changed. Voldemort adjusted the thin vest he was wearing under his robes. It had taken him two whole days to find an enchanter able to construct what he would need for this fight and having them create the vest for him.

This fight had been tried before, but only by lesser wizards. No matter how many lesser wizards were sent at the creature, all were defeated. It required a higher caliber of power to defeat. With Voldemort fighting the creature, he would have victory. Surely.

The device sitting in the vault began to rattle and shake violently and emanated vast pulsing waves of magic from its surface. Voldemort remained there, muttering and waving his wand as he prepared his attack for when the creature fully awakened. He would have to be certain to preserve the device itself as well, if it was completely destroyed beyond repair then this whole fight would be for nothing…

Suddenly the device started lifting itself into the air and its outer shell began to glow an alternating green and red glow.

After another moment of the flashing lights with a roar of flames the device was completely submerged as the whole area shook under the pulse of magic the device released. Flickering flames of red and sickening green emerged from thin air all around the device and formed a large humanoid figure composed of the flames, the device now sitting just barely inside its torso. Occasionally the flames would flicker and reveal the glowing plastic shell of the device beneath the flaming figure's flickering form.

“I sense magic,” The humanoid flame announced as its featureless head turned toward Voldemort and it raised its hand towards him. Even now Voldemort could feel his enchanted vest activating and protecting him from the invisible deadly radiation being blasted out of the creature every second it stood there.

“Die under the nuclear flames, wizard,” The creature announced before a giant gout of green and red sickly fire blasted out of its palm towards him.

“...Mede ascuro!” Voldemort finished chanting and jabbed his wand towards the ground. All the air in the building immediately rushed out, leaving only a small bubble of air around Voldemort’s head where he had cast the bubble head charm prior to the battle. What Voldemort had just been casting was activating a complex ward prepared ahead of time for this moment, not a single spell. As long as the two of them fought this deep military complex would remain airless.

Voldemort used his wandless flight spell to dart to the side as the green and red flames brushed by him and scorched through the wall behind where Voldemort had been standing. He could see where the figure of flames stood, their flames diminished, but still present.

“You think this is enough, wizard?” The creature said as it took a lumbering step towards Voldemort in the cramped hallways of the military facility.

“I am a Shard of Annihilation. It is not the place of those with magic to decide if my fellow Shards and I bathe this world in our nuclear flames,” It said conversationally.

It launched a solid mass of flame at Voldemort again in a solid ball this time. He dodged again to the side in the tight space and the green and red flames splashed across the walls behind him again. The flames lingered and filled the air with a sickly glow as they began to dance and spread slowly even with no air around to fuel them.

“You will not be able to defeat me,” the flaming figure continued, “Even your ward is nothing but an inconvenience. You think even a shard of a concept itself could be killed by something as simple as a lack of air?”

It held up its hand and Voldemort could feel it preparing to launch another blast of flame at him. He quickly used his wandless flight spell to fly close to the ground, his nose only inches from the floor as he darted away through the open door into the rooms beyond.

The creature behind roared and let out a massive blast of flames around it in a omnidirectional fiery explosion as it saw Voldemort attempt to flee.

He kept flying full speed, his enchanted vest working hard to protect him from the invisible radiation being expelled by the creature's very existence. Expelled from the Shard of Annihilation.

The wall of flames followed after Voldemort and the ground shook under the force of the explosion behind him.

Voldemort just barely managed to fly ahead of the flames, the trailing edges of his cloak becoming singed as he fled. After a few seconds, the flames consuming everything behind him stopped and began to peter out.

Voldemort stopped and turned around and saw the blackened and shriveled hallway behind him. The strange flames even now belched out more and more radiation as they began to slowly dissipate in the airless space.

The ground shook slightly and Voldemort saw the Shard of Annihilation round a corner, lumbering as it moved and pausing to use its flames to blast holes in the small doorways to create an opening wide enough space for it to pass through.

“You will not escape me, Wizard! I may be slow, but your death is inevitable now that you’ve caught my attention!” The Shard shouted as it spotted Voldemort standing there. It raised its arm and let out another blast of flame, this one only fractionally weaker than the first had been.

Voldemort dodged and kept flying away through the twisting hallways, having already scouted the facility earlier and planned the route that he would be taking ahead of time.

The Shard of Annihilation kept chasing Voldemort through the facility, catching up on open stretches even as it slowed down dramatically in doorways where it had to blast an opening through for its large flaming body.

Eventually the whole level of the facility was blackened and covered in the strange green and red flames. Voldemort’s enchanted vest was going crazy, shuddering as the amount of radiation that it was fighting off began to overwhelm its enchantments. But it continued doing its work to protect him.

Voldemort was near a stairwell and drew his wand even as he kept flying with his black cloud.

“Bombarda!” he chanted and blew the heavy metal door off of its hinges and into the opposite wall. He flew up and pressed himself up against the ceiling as a flaming fist emerged from out of a nearby wall and released a massive fiery slap onto the floor where Voldemort had been seconds ago.

The fiery arm quested around as it felt the floor, leaving a trail of sickly flames behind. Its hand started sinking into the floor slightly even as its shoulder continued to melt through the wall to the point that it started to push its head through the widening red hot gap in the concrete and steel.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Voldemort skid against the ceiling and made it to the stairwell just as the Shard of Annihilation’s fiery head emerged from the wall and turned to spot him.

“GRAH! You may be nimble, but I am relentless! I will not stop before you are burned to ash, it will only take a single blow to crush you! A single mistake!” The Shard of Annihilation shouted angrily as it took its fiery hand and cupped it into the pooled lava that had just been created in the floor below. With a quick scoop of its arm, it whipped its fiery arm forward and sent a spray of molten rock blasting towards where Voldemort floated.

Voldemort dashed straight up the stairwell with his flight spell as his eyes widened as he saw the surprise attack. The far wall below him was splattered by red hot lava as he continued flying upwards.

His death eaters had helped prepare this next attack. Hopefully the Shard of Annihilation was weakened enough by its airless surroundings that this would finish it off…

With a command to the complex wards around him that Voldemort had just activated, he commanded a certain set of pipes to open wide. The whole building was airless so the water jetted at high speed out of the pipes from the designated points, and the… ‘sprinkler’ system activated as well to let a gentle spray of water spray down from little devices on the ceilings.

The Shard of Annihilation roared below as it melted through the concrete of the doorway at the base of the stairwell.

“Bombarda!” Voldemort remained hovering near the exit door after blasting it open, lingering so the Shard of Annihilation would remain focused on chasing him rather than preserving itself or escaping somehow.

The Shard of Annihilation started crawling up the stairwell, clambering up them as Voldemort floated there and watched from above. The Shard fired a few blasts of flame up towards Voldemort, but he shifted himself to the side to avoid the blasts with so much warning as they approached him from below. The water from the sprinklers in the stairwell sprayed everywhere and sent little droplets into the Shard’s flames. Each evaporated into steam as soon as they so much as neared the Shard’s body. But each drop weakened the Shard slightly.

“Wizard!” The Shard of Annihilation shouted from half way up the staircase, its voice now a little strained and no longer as confident, “Coward! So much work to weaken a single small sliver of Annihilation! When the non-magical humans unleash us, all of you haughty wizards will burn with the rest! All of your magic, all of your tricks, all of them will be nothing in the face of Annihilation! Nothing shall be left behind of you fools but charred corpses!”

“Then I suppose I must start fighting back if that’s what you wish!” Voldemort shouted mockingly as he waved his wand and altered the wards again. All the water in the building started being drawn inwards towards their stairwell. Voldemort fired off a blasting curse experimentally at the Shard now that he had some breathing room with it climbing the stairs as quickly as it could. Far too slowly at its lumbering pace as it launched blasts of flame upwards towards Voldemort from far enough away that he easily had enough time to dodge.

Drawn in by the wards, water began pouring in from all the doors lining the stairwell from the cracks in the shut doors in a steady spray.

The Shard’s hand came too close to one of the doors and it melted and released a deluge of water that lanced directly into the creature. The Shard fell back slightly as the water evaporated as soon as it came close to its body. But its flames began to flicker and visibly shrink for the first time in the cat and mouse game between the two of them.

Voldemort sent a series of curses to blast open more and more doors lining the stairwell causing water to start pouring down on the Shard like a waterfall.

“RAAAHHHH!!!” The Shard roared as Voldemort cast a spell to redirect the falling water so it condensed into a tight stream to strike the Shard with piercing force. The beam was so powerful that the water actually pierced into the Shard’s flaming body slightly before being evaporated. Voldemort let a smile rise on his face as he saw the flames of the Shard weaken more and more as he kept guiding the water to spray it.

The Shard paused its climb of the stairwell and turned its flaming head directly towards Voldemort. He suddenly felt a feeling of intense danger and immediately used his flight spell to dart to the side through the open door he had blasted open earlier. Out of the stairwell in a flash.

With a massive boom, Voldemort heard an explosion below and something slammed hard against the ceiling of the stairwell behind him. Voldemort glanced behind him and saw the Shard of Annihilation start to fall and manage to land a flaming hand on the doorway.

Its flaming body was flickering, the dented and cracked plastic of the device within it showing through more often than not now. Parts of its head and arms were bending inwards and pulsing out again as its form struggled to keep its humanoid form through its diminished flame.

Voldemort was all out of tricks. They were on the top floor of the facility, at ground level. He’d have to get some distance and find another source of water to fight it with. With the wards drawing all moisture inwards everything in the military base was bone dry, even the desiccated bodies of the dead muggle soldiers.

He needed another source of water to fight the creature, and fast before it recovered somehow.

Voldemort’s enchanted vest hummed and strained, he could feel it buzzing against his chest. But it kept protecting him from the radiation. It only had to last through this one fight.

Voldemort started flying to the exit of the building and the Shard followed after him in a stumbling charge. It struggled to run as its legs sagged and flickered as it charged towards Voldemort with hands outstretched. Not throwing any more bursts of flame at him now that it was so weakened.

He sped up his flying spell and burst out of the front door and saw his group of cloaked death eaters fighting off groups of blue-clad Aurors. Voldemort ignored them all as he looked around for a source of water. He raised his wand, “Inveni Aquam maxima!” He quickly cast. His wand tip was dragged to the side and was pointed towards a certain section of the ground.

Several of the Aurors were distracted by Voldemort's sudden disappearance and were struck down by killing curses as Voldemort’s death eaters took advantage of their distraction from the immediate battles.

“Bombarda Maxima!” Voldemort chanted and pointed his wand towards the portion of the base his wand had pointed to. His spell shot out and in a massive explosion concrete and fragments of stone were sent flying from the crater that he’d just created. Water began shooting into the air at high pressure. Perhaps he had hit one of the muggle water pipes below the ground?

“Air! Aha!” The Shard of Annihilation shouted as it melted its way out of the military base’s front door and took a single step through into the open air. Beyond the range of the wards and now surrounded by air again, its flames began to slowly grow in intensity again rather than slowly dwindle like they had in the building.

All of the wizards in the area except for Voldemort froze as the Shard of Annihilation scanned the crowd with its featureless head of flame before fixating on Voldemort.

The wizards around the area began to cough and collapse to the ground, Death Eater and Auror alike as the Shard of Annihilation’s green and red flames suddenly flared brighter in a large pulse before settling back a little weaker than before.

As Voldemort swirled his wand and redirected the spraying fountain of water behind him and placed it under his control, he watched as the skin of the people on the ground began to become red as if they had a sunburn. Those coughing let out red splatters of blood from their throats with every cough. The people looked around sightlessly with their eyes blank and cloudy. It was the radiation, Voldemort realized. They were not protected from it.

Only one woman remained standing. Bellatrix and Voldemort shared a glance for a moment as she reached up to her collar and pulled her robes down slightly to reveal an enchanted vest mirroring his own worn underneath her outer robes.

Voldemort refocused on the Shard and with a shout sent the orb of water that he’d created towards the Shard of Annihilation that appeared to be slowly regaining its strength in the open air even as it kept charging towards Voldemort.

The orb of water over twenty feet across hit the Shard of Annihilation head on. The front half of the orb evaporated into steam… but the back half did not.

The Shard stumbled and fell as the flame of its legs disappeared to rush upwards to start boiling away at the orb of water now sitting around inside its upper torso, the water having survived its journey now gathered in a ball less than two feet across now. But the remaining water refused to be boiled away by the weakened flames just yet.

Voldemort cast another spell and quickly kept funneling more and more water to stream into the spinning ball of water that slowly grew as the spell within its depths kept it in place inside of the Shard’s body.

The Shard roared again, its voice now tinged with desperation now as it lay on the ground and batted at the orb of water inside of it with its flaming arms.

Voldemort kept the steady stream of water pouring into the orb of water so it continued to grow even as the Shard’s flames grew weaker.

Eventually the Shard stopped moving, only its fiery head still tracking Voldemort as he floated in the air showing that it was still alive. Even as it lay there the rest of its flaming arms began to be drawn inwards in its efforts to evaporate the orb of water around it.

“You may have won this time, wizard,” The Shard groaned, “But I will rejoin Annihilation soon. The other shards will know how to stop you and your cowardly ways next time… They will learn from my defeat. May your death be long... and drawn out.”

Voldemort did not reply and after a few more seconds the Shard finally succumbed and the last bit of its strange flame was smothered by Voldemort's orb of water. Leaving only the device itself behind to fall to the floor with a severely battered outer casing. It fell to the ground with a crunch of crumpling metal.

Voldemort cast a series of spells to check the device and let out a small sigh of relief as they all came back clear. It seems that the Shard of Annihilation was defeated. That was perhaps the most difficult fight in Voldemort’s life. But yet, he was victorious. There it was, his prize well earned after a well fought battle.

“Reparo!” He cast and something shifted inside of the device and some of the dents in the plastic casing pushed out again.

“Reparo!”

It took nine more casts of the repair spell before the large device was in pristine condition once more.

The device that would end the threat of Eric Potter once and for all with no chances that even he could escape.

Something that would finally defeat that boy with no more chances of failure.

The nuclear bomb was now his.

— — —

Bellatrix looked around to the bloated bodies of Death eaters and Auror alike in every direction. All gruesomely killed by a single attack by that flaming creature that her lord had killed. The very thought of how imposing and powerful he had looked when he killed the creature made her skin tingle and her breath grow heavier with desire as she looked at him.

He was staring at the nuclear weapon now and placing the extendable pouch on the ground and levitating the bomb and carefully maneuvering it into the mouth of the bag for easy transport.

He suddenly paused halfway through putting the bomb into the bag and his eyes began to glow with a bright golden light.

“What is this?” Her lord suddenly asked in the imposter’s voice, “Defeating a Shard of Annihilation? How for one so weak…? Let’s search your mind… Yes, hm. Yes, yes. Okay. Now that’s…”

Her lord stood there motionless for a few seconds. When the imposter spoke again its voice was cold and ruthless. It made Bellatrix shiver. It was nothing like the titillating way that Voldemort did it, asserting his power over those lesser than he was that made her want to do all sorts of things to please him. But a voice dispassionate, throwing away pieces that it no longer had any use for while only slightly resenting the waste of potential from their loss.

“An acceptable loss. Proceed,” The golden-eyed imposter said coldly before the golden light faded from her lord’s eyes.

Voldemort blinked, but then continued levitating the nuclear bomb into the spatially expanded bag like nothing had happened. Bellatrix watched as he finished and picked up the bag and put it into his robes.

He raised his wand as if to apparate away.

“My lord!” Bellatrix called out reflexively to him. He stopped and looked at her, “What are your orders?” she asked as he stared at her. She gestured to all the other dead death eaters and Aurors around the both of them.

Her lord paused and surveyed all the bloated bodies scattered about.

“Clean up all the bodies that were on our side,” Voldemort said, “Then try to transfer as many of their assets to your control as possible before their deaths are discovered. Especially Lucius and the Malfoy’s wealth. I’ll be taking the bomb to the muggle scientists so it can be modified to suit my uses. Once I’ve finished and used the weapon properly then we’ll have to build from scratch again. We’ll need as much wealth as possible to do that. Make sure to scrape every galleon possible that you can from our dead allies' vaults. Feel free to threaten the next generation into giving over their wealth if you think the heirs would not remain loyal enough to our cause.”

“Just the two of us, starting over from the beginning,” Bellatrix said, only barely resisting fanning herself at the romantic thought. Ah, her lord would only be able to pay attention to her and her alone if she was the only one of the old guard left! This was a wonderful day!

“Indeed. Do hurry,” Voldemort said, “We both have much to do in little time. Goodbye, Bellatrix. Most loyal of my servants.”

With that, her lord waved his wand and apparated away in a loud crack of air.

Bellatrix stood there for a few moments staring at the spot that he’d left from. Then she turned around and inspected the bloated bodies of ally and foe alike scattered about. She had a lot of work to do in the service of her lord.

But first she had to clean up all of these bodies before the next wave of Aurors arrived so no one would be able to identify all of the dead death eaters who had fallen in battle…