The Dark Witch

Disclaimer:
I do not own HARRY POTTER, TAROT: WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE, or any of
the associated characters or settings. This is a work of parody
created for non-commercial purposes (e.g. no money is made off this story).

The wizard Voldemort and the witch Raven Hex had a lot in common.

Both had unnaturally pale skin and seemingly inhuman eyes. They also
both studied and practiced the Dark Arts. Perhaps most importantly,
both had suffered at the hands of humans who did not practice magic
(known as Commoners or Muggles to witches and wizards) and hated such
people (who made up the bulk of their species).

Yet despite all this, the Dark Lord and the Dark Witch were natural
enemies. For they practiced competing forms of magic.

Those like Voldemort were born with the innate ability to channel
magic. Wands and spells were merely a means of harnessing and
directing their own power. They were essentially humans with a
mutation that allowed them to use magic.

While Raven Hex and those like her were just ordinary men and women
who were granted power by the Goddess (or other darker forces).
Achieving such power through worship and study.

Long ago, the worshippers of the Goddess and the magic using mutants
had lived in peace. However the worship of the Goddess had spread,
and the mutants had grown afraid.

For if the Divine Mother granted magic to everyone, the mutant
wizards and witches would lose all their advantages and privileges.

They would be no more invulnerable or powerful than anyone else.

Fearful of losing their power the more militant mutant witches and
wizards had made war on those who were granted power by the Goddess,
while rousing the Commoners against the goddess worshippers as well.

The war had lasted for centuries, with cycles of extraordinary
violence followed by always temporary peaces. However, in the end
the numbers of the Commoners and the power of the mutants was too
much, and the Goddess worshippers were virtually wiped out.

Then the mutants had gone underground, preferring to manipulate the
far more numerous and sometimes violent Muggles from the shadows. In
time the Commoners had mostly forgotten the Goddess worshippers and
the mutants. Remembering the magic that had once openly surrounded
them as nothing more than legends and fairy tales.

Since then, the society of the mutant witches and wizards had become
stagnant and corrupt. Disconnected from the Commoners, and caught up
in their own trivial affairs.

Most of the mutant wizards and witches knew nothing about the goddess
worshippers, or the threat they had once posed.

But the dark wizard Voldemort had studied the ancient lore of his
people, and HE knew.

So when the Dark Lord found out that the Goddess worshipping witch
known as Raven Hex had her own dreams of conquering the Muggles, he
felt compelled to act.

He immediately ordered an attack on the Dark Witch and her followers,
which he led personally.

But Raven had been expecting an attack from one of her many enemies,
and she and her own dragon followers were ready.

The battle had been short but fierce.
Voldemort and Raven Hex's followers had slaughtered each other within
minutes, until only the Dark Witch and Wizard remained.

Raven, voluptuous and pale, gazed upon the deformed visage of
Voldemort, whose own Black magic had so twisted his form that he was
barely recognizable as human anymore.

They attacked simultaneously.
There was a flare of light, then Voldemort's shattered form thudded
to the Earth, while Raven Hex's unmarked but equally dead body fell
to the ground.

However, Voldemort emerged the victor, for while Raven Hex
experienced true death, the Dark Lord had forestalled his own using
magic so dark and twisted the Raven had never even imagined it.

The dark wizard Voldemort had split off pieces of his own soul and
stored them in objects (known as Horcruxes), which tied him to the
world of the living.

Now Voldemort existed as nothing but a mutilated and malignant ghost
for the second time in his life. Deprived of his magic and virtually
powerless.

But Voldemort's followers (the most devoted of which were known as
Death Eaters) had resurrected him before, and he was confident they
would again.

*****

The Dark Lord Voldemort had been without physical form for a long
time. Nevertheless, the deformed magic user was as close as he ever
came to happiness.

For his Death Eaters had recently conducted a purge of his enemies in
the magical community, and were even now in the process of
regenerating his body.

Voldemort's white skinned, red eyed body, took form in one of
London's many Anglican Churches. But the Dark Lord didn't fear
discovery by Muggles, for the priests who were its caretakers had
been put under the Imperius Curse by his Death Eaters.

With a burst of Dark Magic Lord Voldemort's body took form before the
Church altar. Then the Dark Lord opened his eyes for the first time.

And saw himself surrounded by slain Death Eaters. Their bodies
suffering from wounds both mundane and magical.

Fortunately his familiar wand (which his breed of wizard needed to
properly channel and control their own magical power) was lying by
his feet. However, he might not have the opportunity to retrieve it.

For standing before him with her own wand pointed at his snakelike
face, was a bushy haired, brown eyed, young witch dressed in black
robes who looked very familiar to the Dark Lord.

It was only then that Lord Voldemort became consciously aware of the
fact that he was naked. His unnaturally pale form completely
exposed. But the Dark Lord made no attempt to cover himself.

For the spiritually maimed wizard was far too proud to feel shame.

"I've waited a long time for this Voldemort."

Once the witch spoke the Dark Lord recognized her.

Hermione Granger, the Muggle-Born mutant witch who had befriended the
boy Voldemort had once considered the only true threat to himself.
The Dark Lord knew that Hermione had become Raven Hex's apprentice
after he killed the Boy-Who-Lived, but he had assumed that she had
died with her mistress.

Well, he had no time to puzzle over such things now (not with a wand
pointed at his head by a witch with a grudge).

The naked Dark wizard dove for his wand. To his surprise Granger
made no attempt to stop him. But once he grasped the wand in his
right hand something unexpected happened.

It exploded, sending bloody fragments of his hand in all directions,
as the Dark Lord screeched in pain.

"You didn't really think I would give you your real wand did you?"
Hermione asked coldly.

"I only let them resurrect you so that you could feel pain again"
Granger continued in an even more icy tone.

The brown haired witch gestured grandly with her wand, then six
objects appeared before her.

Voldemort recognized then instantly.

"My Horcruxes" the Dark Lord murmured as he clutched the bleeding
stump where his hand had once been.

"And do you know what I'm going to do with them?" Hermione asked as a
look of hatred crossed her features.

Voldemort found himself in the unfamiliar position of being at the
mercy of someone he had hurt. However, it did not even occur to the
soul damaged wizard to beg.

"Don't assume you have won child…those things cannot be destroyed by
conventional means…now give me back my real wand and I promise I
shall…" the creature formerly known as Tom Riddle began.

Hermione Granger laughed, a strangely horrible and mirthless sound to
Lord Voldemort.

"Oh I KNOW what your promises are worth Voldemort" Hermione sneered.

Then she cast the most evil and destructive spell that Raven Hex had
taught her, and Voldemort watched in disbelief and horror as his
Horcruxes faded away to nothing.

"NOOOO!"
Lord Voldemort screeched in rage and fear as he watched fragments of
his living soul being destroyed before his eyes.

The Dark Lord tried to leap on her, but Granger stopped him with a
curse he never imagined she would use.

"CRUCIO!"

Voldemort writhed in pain and fell down as he was hit with the
Cruciatus Curse.

"THAT`S FOR HARRY."

Hermione yelled as she cast the torture spell upon the Dark wizard
who had killed so many of those she cared about.

"THAT'S FOR TAROT."

Granger screamed as she cast the Cruciatus Curse upon Voldemort once
more.

Hermione placed the torture curse on the Dark Lord again and again,
yelling out the name of a fallen friend or comrade each time.
Voldemort tried to teleport away, but he found that he had once again
underestimated Hermione Granger. For she had used the skills Raven
Hex taught her to prevent Apparition.

It was obvious to the Dark Lord now that Granger had always intended
his second rebirth to be nothing more than a particularly cruel trap.

Once Lord Voldemort realized he was trapped he tried to threaten
Hermione into letting him go, and promising her things he thought she
would want in exchange for his freedom. But Raven Hex's apprentice
barely heard him.

She would settle for nothing less than vengeance.

Finally, when there was only one name left, Hermione stopped casting
the Cruciatus Curse. And gazed down upon her enemy (who was lying on
his back, breathing heavily).

At that moment the dominant witch found it hard to believe that this
naked, trembling, bleeding creature before her had inspired fear in
generations of wizards and witches.

But there was no room in Hermione's heart for sympathy concerning the
Dark Lord. Instead, she decided to commit the final insult.

"This is for Raven."

Hermione said in an icy cold voice. Then she reached into her robe
and pulled out a small handgun.

"What's this…surely I cannot die at the hands of a pitiful MUGGLE
weapon."
The Dark Lord thought in disbelief.

But that is exactly what happened. As a shot rang out and the back
of Voldemort's head blew out. Spraying blood and brain matter upon
the Church altar.

Then Hermione Granger spit on the corpse, and simply walked away.

*****

The island of New Avalon was hidden from the eyes of Commoners by
magic. It had once served as a base for Raven Hex and her followers.

But now Raven was dead, and all of her followers who had not been
slain themselves had moved on to other things. Except for one.

Inside a hidden chamber on New Avalon, Hermione Granger continued to
put kindling around Raven Hex's body.

Her mentor had been dead for months, but Hermione Granger's magic had
preserved it, so that Raven looked as beautiful as she had in life.

Granger had finally avenged Hex, but she still found it difficult to
let the woman go. For Raven had meant far more to her than anyone
else had ever known.

However, Hermione knew she couldn't live the rest of her life in
mourning for her mentor. There were still surviving Death Eaters out
there, and Raven Hex's dream (a dream Granger had come to share) of a
Witch Ruled world had yet to be fulfilled.

However, Hermione Granger still had to tell Raven something before
she could really let her go.

Something Hermione had never had the time or courage to tell Raven
Hex while the Dark Witch was still alive.

It came out in a breathy whisper.

"I love you Raven."

Then she lit the funeral pyre as tears ran down her cheeks.


THE END