~ Chapter One ~

All around him, curses bounced off of magical shields and crashed into the castle walls, showers of rubble flittering down on the witches and wizards below. Harry Potter watched in horror as first and second years huddled sobbing under the remaining house tables, too slow to escape the Great Hall when Voldemort's followers appeared, and now defenseless against the ruthless Death-Eaters.

It wasn't supposed to happen here; this was Hogwarts, this was home, this was safe.

He saw where Ron stood directing the DA, who had taken guard at entrances to the Great Hall. They were away from the heart of the battle but still in plenty of danger as they fought back any death-eaters attempting to follow the fleeing students. Fred and George Weasley were a furious flurry of red hair and rage as they swirled through the room, Weasley Wizard Wheezes flying in all directions. While George let go wave after wave of Decoy Detonators and Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, Fred hastily un-shrunk shield cloaks to drape over the young children who were bit by bit being rescued from underneath tables and delivered to the DA. The cloaks only protected the minor hexes and jinxes directly, but were fairly protective against the second-hand spells deflected from duelers' shields. The twins never paused, despite the tears streaming down their faces. Lee Jordan had been helping, but had stopped to give his own cloak to a Slytherin first year, too scared even to get out from under the table. It had been the last thing Lee would ever do.

Harry wished with all his might he was down with them, but with all of the professors trapped in the fight (many of them outnumbered two or three to one), Hermione had insisted that he was the only one with a chance to call the castle to help.

"You're the most powerful Harry, and you've said yourself that the castle has a mind of her own. You have a connection with it—her—whatever, and you're practically family to the current headmaster. If there's any student whose pleas might be answered, it's you. Hogwarts a History says that in times of peril, the castle itself has fought back the enemy. If this isn't a time of peril, I don't know what is!" She stood in front of him now, panting with the effort of holding back all the spells cast their way. Harry shut his eyes and blocked it out: Hermione, the students, the Death Eaters, Order members, and Ministry workers still pouring into the Great Hall from the various doors behind the head table. He closed his mind from all of it and searched with all his heart for the source of the warmth and comfort that Hogwarts was to him.

And there it was. Like a three dimensional depiction of a muggle blue-print, he could see the castle in his mind, see through walls and ceilings to secret passageways and changing staircases above, and feel in his bones how Hogwarts paused to listen to the new voice in her mind.

"Help us," he pleaded, unaware that the words he spoke boomed through the castle as though a speaker system had been hooked to every room and turned on full volume. "Help me. I'm just a student, but no one loves this place more than I do. Hogwarts is my home…my life. Your staff and students stand, fight, and fall to protect you, showing all the best qualities of a Hogwarts student: Gryffindor bravery, Hufflepuff loyalty, Ravenclaw quick-thinking, and Slytherin resourcefulness. We are out-numbered, and many are still so young…" His voice broke as in his mind he pictured Lee Jordan's lifeless body, and those of a half-dozen other young students, many who hadn't even made it to their first end-of-year feast. The castle saw them too, and she shook with rage and sorrow as Harry's own grief flooded her foundation. "But we are fighting for you!" Harry's mind shouted in desperation, images of the DA, of the Weasley's, of Snape sneeringly fighting to the death with no less than four of his 'old friends' now flashing rapidly through his mind. "Fight for us! Please, please help us."

Harry was suddenly on his back on the cold stone floor and he watched in awe as the DA scattered to make room for statues and suits of armor, come to life at the command of the castle itself. Dobby appeared out of nowhere to help Harry to his feet, what looked like battle paint on his face, before leaping into the fray with a handful of other elves only slightly more cautious than their fearless leader. Ghosts that Harry had never seen before burst through the walls, led by Peeves of all people, and soared through Death Eaters, tormenting and distracting to the best of their ability.

For a few blissful moments, Harry let himself believe that the worst was over. Then his scar seared and there were screams of terror from the other end of the hall. Voldemort had arrived.

Harry Potter slowly blinked his eyes opened and groaned at the bright light that filled his vision. Colorful blurbs moved slowly at the edge of his vision, indistinguishable without his glasses on. There was a low murmur of voices, and in the background the steady hum of muggle machines. Harry started to sit up but quickly froze, sucking air harshly in through his teeth as every muscle in his body resisted the movement and his head pounded. He was disorientated and couldn't figure out why he was here, wherever "here" may be.

Carefully, he lowered himself back to the mattress and squeezed his eyes shut as he waited for his head to stop spinning. Once it had, he wracked his mind for a recent memory, some starting point to help him piece together what had happened. There were suddenly shouts and running feet from outside his door, and he could hear an alarm going off in what must have been a room across the hall. The commotion brought him back to the battle in the Great Hall, and just like that Harry was stumbling to his feet, grimacing through the pain as he dragged himself across the room, using walls and furniture to help pull himself along. Voldemort.

Harry raised his head to look across the room, and at once his gaze locked onto the malicious red slits of Voldemort's eyes. They walked towards each other, wands held out and every other distraction in the room reduced to meaningless background noise. As they neared the center of the room, Harry felt the moment arrive and both wizards' shouted spells merged together in a blast of magic powerful enough to overturn the two nearest house tables.

"Avada Kavra!" "Expelliarmus!" As they had in the past, the two spells locked, and unbeknownst to them the rest of the room stood still to watch in awe. The center bead of light inched toward Harry and he let it, instead watching Voldemort's face to make sure the mad man's attention was focused solely on the golden ball of light where their magics met.

Since hearing the prophecy a year earlier, Harry had devoted his time to coming up with a way to beat the Dark Lord in battle. He knew that neither could live while the other survived, but knew with just as much (if not more) certainty that he was not capable of taking a human life. He had learned spell after spell, sneaking away from Ron and Hermione and teaching himself the far advanced magic of spell-writing to combine and alter existing curses. He practically moved into the Room of Requirements to practice, most days emerging only to visit the library, attend classes, and stumble up to his dormitory dead on his feet to shower and change each morning.

Finally, practicing on one of the many Boggarts the room had supplied for him (the previous ones all having been released by the room out of pity after acting as Harry's spell-dummy one too many times), Harry had tossed aside spells entirely and violently poured his magic through his wand in pure frustration, thinking all the while that he wanted nothing more than for Voldemort to somehow survive his own destruction.

The magic that had erupted from his wand was pure and wild, its blinding light filling the boggart from within until with a flash of heat Harry was thrown against the stone walls and passed out. When he woke hours later, a Voldemort shaped creature was scuffling in a corner, desperately trying to crawl into the impossibly small trunk Harry was keeping it in while not practicing. His body contorting into inhuman postures and animal noises pouring from his lips. Harry frowned, wondering what would possess a boggart to act in such a way and raised his wand to cast the banishing spell, but when he spoke the words nothing happened.

Fear quickly escalating, Harry had tried spell after spell, finally resorting to a simple lumos, which resulted in only the faintest glow at the end of his wand, but it was enough to hold his panic in check: he had not lost his magic entirely.

It took nearly a full day before his magic returned enough for him to spell himself back out of the Room of Requirement, and he shuddered to think of what his punishment would be for missing double-potions, not to mention the rest of the day's classes. The boggart, pitifully sobbing and clawing at itself the last Harry had seen it, remained in the room. Harry extinguished all the lights as he left in his best effort to make the creature comfortable, but could not for the life of him figure out how to banish the creature back into its small trunk.

In fact, it was not until weeks later (the room itself having long since dealt with the boggart on its own, though Harry never understood just how the creature was removed) that Harry discovered that the boggart had been unable to morph out of its Voldemort form because Harry had destroyed the very magic within the creature that made it possible. He had literally killed the magic without killing the thing itself. With new drive (and thankfully no more boggarts) Harry had honed the gift on increasingly powerful magical artifacts, teaching himself how to control and direct the power as best he could, and conditioning his body to face the back-lash.

Now, standing locked curse-in-curse with Voldemort himself, Harry knew that this was the main act. There would be no more practice, no more preparation; he would get one shot at it, and if he failed… well, the prophesy would come true after all, and Harry Potter would go down in history as the Boy Who Died And Killed The Wizarding World With Him. He felt his magic swelling, building behind his hands as though anxious to soar across the hall and fulfill its purpose. There was still one thing Harry had to try first, though.

Kicking off his shoes and leaving his bare feet pressed firmly to the stone, he begged with all his heart and soul, imagining the words in his head sweeping through the castle wards like birdsong on the wind.

"Get us out… get us out… I know you can't apparate in Hogwarts, but push us out of the wards… if I do this spell in here the Great Hall and everyone in it could be destroyed, just GET US OUT!" The sensation that followed could only be described as being shot through a human-sized sling-shot. Harry, having braced himself for the eviction, gasped in the earthy smell of the cool night air and caught his bearings before his opponent even realized what had happened. Digging his bare toes into the cool earth below him for purchase, Harry poured every ounce of magic he had through his wand and straight at Voldemort.

Harry watched emotionlessly as for the first time, fear filled the snake-like eyes across from him. "It's okay," he thought to himself calmly, reverting back to the self-soothing he had taught himself as a child. "After all, death is but the next big adventure…" Two screams filled the air and the sky crackled with the force of pure magic.

Harry still didn't have his glasses, and he squinted desperately at the whir of motion in front of him as he half rushed half fell across the hall. There looked to be doctors and nurses filling the room in an endless stream, and in the middle of them, sprawled grotesquely across the hospital bed, was the still, lifeless form of the man who had once been Voldemort. Dark streams of red spread down the blankets from where a jagged slit had been made deep in the pale skin of his neck. A rivulet ran all the way down one arm and dripped onto the floor, where a bloody scalpel lay just past the long fingers that had dropped it to the floor with a clatter moments before.

A nurse was babbling on one side of the room, supposedly the one who had been present when Voldemort awoke.

"He started going on and on about Mongols and magic, just kept screaming 'filthy Mongol!' at me, and then raised his hand and hissed like he was trying to curse me in some creepy voodoo ritual, and then he screamed, clutching at his chest. I thought he was having a heart attack, and I grabbed the supply tray straight away and pressed the call-button and he- he just—There was so much blood, and he grabbed it so fast…" Harry blocked out those words though, blocked out the muttering of other nurses and doctors all around him and hung onto one single phrase like a lifeline.

"Time of death, 10:57pm, July 31st." With a choked sob of relief, Harry let his muscles relax fell to the floor. His last thought was "Happy Birthday, Harry," and then finally, gloriously, he slept.

In fact, Harry slept for a very long time. For weeks he lay in a muggle hospital in Scotland, completely comatose while his body and magic rested and heeled. His nurses would come in every few hours, check his vitals, write on his charts, and fuss over him like worried mothers.

"Lightning-Boy" they called him; he had been brought in with a second man, both suffering extreme nerve damage from what appeared to be a lightning storm. The boy's feet had been bare and his face and shoulder all but smashed from falling tree limbs broken off by the lightning. Both men had needed extensive surgeries, and somehow the boy had woken just hours after his and stumbled across the hall just in time to see his friend kill himself. The poor dear had dropped dead away from the pain and grief.

No one had come to claim the John Doe in all his weeks at the hospital. He was so small and peaceful asleep on his hospital bed, the staff couldn't help but adopt him. If the boy didn't wake up soon, they would be forced to take him off life support. More than a tear or two was shed, and staff began encouraging the young man whenever they had a free moment.

"C'mon now lad, you've had a good rest, it's about time ye join the livin' again."

"You poor dear, why don't you open your eyes now, and we can talk it all out."

When Harry did wake up, however, he was alone in an unfamiliar dark room, and voices outside his door spoke of "Lightning-Boy" and sending his picture to the muggle news stations to help find his family. Harry reached self-consciously for the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, and gasped in the dark at the smooth skin he found beneath his fingertips instead. Careful not to make any noise, Harry felt around in the dark for his glasses then slowly, painfully, pulled himself out of bed and crept to the attached bathroom.

It was a slow process, tubes and wires needing to be detached before he could move around, but eventually he made it and shut the door quietly behind him before shielding his eyes to turn on the light. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he turned to the mirror and just barely stopped himself from shouting out in shock.

The man who looked back at Harry from the mirror was not Harry. His face was leaner, cheek bones far more pronounced and shaped slightly different than Harry remembered. His chin, which he had always thought of as somewhat flat, was now… chiseled was the only word that came to mind, and it looked almost out of place on his face. His nose too was longer, although perhaps it was just that his forehead had been reshaped in such a way that his eyebrows arched higher than they ever had. His eyes themselves, always a bright green, were almost a golden-brown, as though they had absorbed the light of the magic that had destroyed Voldemort's powers. Certainly a note-worthy change was the way that two months of stress-free, press-free, responsibility-free rest topped with a healthy, consistent diet had left him with a healthy glow and body tone that he had not known since he was an infant

And his scar was gone. Quickly, Harry slumped down onto the seat of the toilet, mind spinning in a hundred directions at once as he tried to figure out what had happened.

He remembered the roar of splintering tree branches as the magic exploded from his wand, and then an impact that knocked the breath out of him before everything went dark. Clearly, I had some sort of plastic surgery to fix my injuries, but is my scar gone because Voldemort is gone, or did it simply get sliced out during the muggle procedure… and wasn't that a pretty thought…

Then, a far less pleasant thought crossed his mind. I must have been in this hospital for ages if my face is already so healed, so my friends don't know where I am. What does that mean for the wizarding world? Do they assume I died with Voldemort? Do they think Voldemort dead at all? How long could death-eaters stay in power even without their master if the wizarding world stayed cowering in fear of a Dark Lord they thought might still be alive? And just because I got me and Voldemort thrown from the castle, there were still hoards of Death Eaters left in Hogwarts. Is it possible that they won the battle even without their leader?

He had a responsibility to see this war through to the end, which meant he had to get back to the wizarding world. The question was, was he still a wizard?


Author Note: Fair warning, this story will be slow to be updated, as my primary focus at the moment is on The Order of the Dragon. However, random pieces of this story have pestered their way into my notes throughout the writing process of my first story, and as I finally had enough compiled for the first chapter, I thought posting this might appease the characters long enough to leave me alone for a while. An author can only hope, anyway.

As always, questions/comments/suggestions/criticisms/predictions are welcome and appreciated.

-Emmette