Rating: T (as seen above)

Pairings: None at this particular moment. No Slash.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and do not make any money off of him. Note: This is FANfiction. If it were anything else, then it wouldn't be here.

Author's note: While this is an alternate ending to OOTP, it is still HBP and DH compliant (to an extent). I'm trying to stick to cannon, but after you read as much fanfiction as I have, you sometimes forget what really happened. So, with no further ado...

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"They were fused together, bound by pain, and there was no escape—

And when the creature spoke, it used Harry's mouth, so that in his agony he felt his jaw move….

'Kill me now, Dumbledore….'

Blinded and dying, every part of him screaming for release, Harry felt the creature use him again.…

'If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy….'

Let the pain stop, thought Harry. Let him kill us….End it, Dumbledore….Death is nothing compared to this….

And I'll see Sirius again…

And as Harry's heart filled with emotion, the creature's coils loosened, the pain was gone, Harry was lying facedown on the Floor, his glasses gone, shivering as though he lay upon ice, not wood."

The Order of the Phoenix pg 816

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"I'll see Sirius again," Harry thought through his pain. His godfather was dead, his parents were dead, Cedric was dead… and now he was dying. The monster in him writhed as the bittersweet grief laced through him, but Harry, overcome with emotion, held him still.

His godfather, falling, the bark of his last laugh on his lips…the grief was all-consuming, a bright blue fire in his soul. The agony from the coils lessened as his sorrow grew, but Harry did not notice. His physical torture was waylaid by the emotional torment; his body's pain was nothing to the way his heart was splitting.

A keening noise cut through the air, high and shrieking, as the monster struggled to get away. "No, you can't go. I need to see Sirius. I need to see Sirius. You CAN'T GO!"

The sound grew louder, but Harry knew that if the creature left, then he would not die. "I want to die! I want to see Sirius! I NEED TO SEE HIM!"

But then, as thoughts of death invaded and he was ready to give in, his friends appeared in his mind's eye. Hermione smiled, face glowing in front of a cauldron in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom; Ron beamed, carried on the shoulders of his teammates.

The howl reached a fever pitch, but Harry ignored it.

Ginny stood strong, eyes flashing fire as she held her wand at the ready; Luna stared serenely, a half-smile on her face.

He felt the monster throwing itself at the walls in his mind, using its fading strength, struggling to get away. Harry would not let it. He and the creature were one; their body and mind and soul and pain were shared, and it had to know what he felt.

Neville stumbled but caught himself, a blush lighting his cheeks; the twins zoomed away on their brooms, laughing and escaping to freedom.

His grief, still burning, grumbled in his soul, but his love and joy at his friends' happiness soared above it. He knew that the creature was dying, just as he knew he had been dying, and his mind faltered for a moment. How could he love and live, and let someone else die from that?

And then, he remembered the Mirror of Erised. His mother and father had smiled at him, knowing that their sacrifice of love had saved him. In Snape's Penseive, they had been nothing more than children, but when the choice came, they chosen love and death, so that he could choose love and life.

And Sirius had died to save him.

Harry felt something in him shatter. A wave of power coursed through him, ascending through his heart and soul like a liquid Phoenix song, igniting his senses with love and hope and joy and everything good in the world. The very air rippled with the magic that was erupting in him. He had power and he was power and the creature would not escape him. It had caused him to hurt, and his friends to hurt, and his family to hurt and it would not get away again.

He flew through his own mind, where the creature was already in his death throws, and he felt the darkness. The creature was incomplete, his evil tainting other places, allowing him to live forever.

Harry would not let it.

He ripped through its mind, searching and tearing and then he found them: weak, tiny lines of darkness, connecting the evil to the rest of itself. He smiled grimly, the magic twirling around him. Break, he commanded, and it did his will.

A cup, a locket, a snake… all crumbled when facing the heat of his passion, the burning of his heart, the magic in his soul. When the last line had been severed, an inhuman cry of fury, pain and loss split the air, but Harry would not let it convince him. Too many had died so that he could live, but there was one who still had to go.

"Die," he whispered, unable to say the word any louder.

And the creature, too weak to live, breathed its last.

Harry collapsed, fulfilling the deep, carnal knowledge that he had done his duty, and let the darkness overtake him.

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