TBAY: The End of All Things (LotR Spoilers)

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 61153

The light sprang up again, and there at the edge of the clif stood
Elkins, black against the glare of the ships' laterns, tense; erect,
but still as if she had been turned to stone.

"Elkins," cried Eileen. "Elkins, what are you doing?

Then Elkins stirred and spoke with a clear voice, indeed with a voice
clearer and more power than Eileen had ever heard her use (except to
curse Barty Crouch Sr.), and it rose above the throb and turmoil of
Bay, ringing across the water, and through the buildings. 

"It has come,'Elkins said. 'But I do not choose to meet it as I said I
would. I will not care for the weaklings and the patsies! I am no
longer Elkins, the Muggle. I will have magical powers in TBAY! I will
be Elkins the powerful, the tough and steely! I will take veangence!" 

And then, suddenly, she unveiled the thing she had been hiding beneath
her cloak. Pettigrew's silver arm. Then, with a click of her keyboard,
she disappeared. 

Eileen gasped, and tried to run forward, but felt a wand at her back. 

"So," said a too-familiar, cold voice. "We meet again, Muggle. I knew
you couldn't run forever. Wormtail, take down the American woman." 

"Malfoy?" gasped Eileen. 

"Certainly. I've been tracking you for months now, you msut remember.
Where's Avery?'

"I don't know."

"Really?" 

"No. I haven't seen him for a while. Maybe the author has him. Maybe
she'll actually write him into OotP."

Malfoy seemed to consider this, for a moment. Then, he muttered some
spell, and Eileen was flung aside, striking his head against the stony
floor. She lay still and for a moment all went black.

When she awoke, she was dazed, and blood was streaming from her head
dripping into her eyes. She groped forward, and then he saw a strange
and terrible thing. Malfoy had backed away from the conflict, but
Pettigrew on the edge of the cliff was fighting like a mad thing with
an unseen foe. To and fro he swayed, now so near the brink that almost
he tumbled into the Bay below, now dragging back, falling to the
ground, rising, and falling again.

>From the ships below, cries of horror came up to their ears. The red
lights blazed in the lanterns below. Above all this, the weather siren
was now sounding. Eileen looked up and saw that the ships' sails were
beginning to be torn apart by the wind.

"Finish the job, Pettigrew!" shouted Malfoy. "The storm is upon us!"

Eileen saw Pettigrew reach out, and pull, and with a wrench, the
silver arm was in his hands. 

Elkins gave a cry, and there she was, fallen upon her knees beside the
cliff's edge. 

"She won't TBAY again," said Malfoy grimly. 

Eileen tried to stumble up, but only succeeded in drawing Malfoy's
attention.

"Still here, Muggle?" He raised his wand. 

But Pettigrew now held aloft the arm. It shone now as if verily it was
wrought of mithril.

"Precious, precious, precious!" Pettigrew cried. "My Precious! O my
Precious! It is beautiful!' And with that, even as  his eyes were
lifted up to gloat on his prize, he stepped too far, toppled, wavered
for a moment on the brink, and then with a shriek he fell. Out of the
depths came his last wail Precious, and he was gone.

Malfoy stood stricken there a moment. 

Then, there was a roar and a great confusion of noise. The throbbing
grew to a great tumult, and the Bay shook.

"Hurricane Jo," he muttered. "I must be off." And without a instant's
more delay, he disappeared, back, no doubt, to his role in The Order
of the Phoenix. 

Eileen ran to Elkins and picked her up and carried her down to the
cove, where the Fourth Man Hovercraft was stranded. And there upon the
edge of the Bay, such wonder and terror came on her that she stood
still forgetting all else, and gazed as one turned to stone.

A brief vision she had of swirling cloud, and in the midst of it
ships,  as tall as hills, buildings as grand as the Pyramids, the
whole of TBAY before her, and then all passed. Ships sunk and houses
crumbled and melted, crashing down; vast spires of smoke and spouting
steams went billowing up, up, until they toppled like an overwhelming
wave, and its wild crest curled and came foaming down upon the land.
And then at last over the miles between there came a rumble, rising to
a deafening crash and roar; the earth shook, the plain heaved and
cracked, and the Canon Museum reeled. The skies burst into thunder
seared with lightning. Down like lashing whips fell a torrent of black
rain. 

'Well, this is the end, Eileen,' said a voice by her side. And there
was Elkins, pale and worn, and yet herself again; and in his eyes
there was peace now, neither strength of will, nor madness, nor any
fear. There was the dear sycophant of the sweet days in the Fourth Man
Kayak. 

"Elkins!" cried Eileen, and fell upon her knees. In all that ruin of
the Bay for the moment he felt only joy, great joy. The waiting was
gone. Elkins had been saved from the twin lures; she was herself
again, she was free.

And then Eileen caught sight of the maimed and bleeding stump of an
arm. 'Your poor arm!' she said. 'And I have nothing to bind it with,
or comfort it. I would have spared him a whole hand of mine rather.
But he's gone now beyond recall, gone for ever.'

'Yes,' said Elkins. 'But do you remember Dumbledore's words to Harry:
"This is magic at its deepest, its most impenetrable, Harry. But trust
me... the time may come when you will be very glad you saved
Pettigrew's life." But for Pettigrew, Eileen, I could not have
resisted to the end. Our struggle against the powerful would have been
in vain, even at the bitter end. So let us forgive him! For our Quest
is achieved, and now all is over, and it is JKR's turn to take up this
world, with all its contradictions, with all its tantalizing features,
with all its characters whom we know have so much potential. I am glad
you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Eileen.'"