Harry walked silently through the Forbidden Forest hidden under his Invisibility cloak. He ducked his head, brought the snitch up to his mouth, and whispered "I am going to die."

Looking up at the four silent figures around him he said "Does it hurt?"

"No, it's just like falling asleep" replied Lily

"And no need for a hangover potion" interjected Sirius.

"Do you have to crack jokes at a time like this? My son is about to die."

"Of course I have to joke. He's dying and you said my alternative was 'foolish' so why shouldn't I try to see some humor in this?"

James stepped forward. "Harry needs our support now Sirius. I like jokes as much as you but now is a bit inappropriate."

"What's this about an alternative?" Harry asked.

James turned around and looked him in the eye. "There is no alternative."

"I distinctly heard the word 'alternative' come out of Sirius mouth and I'd be interested in hearing more."

"You have no idea the number of foolish ideas that have come out of Sirius' mouth and this wouldn't be a good time to learn. I'm sorry Harry but it has to be this way."

Harry crossed his arms and turned to Sirius who was shifting uneasily from leg to leg. "What do you think Sirius? Is your idea foolish?"

His godfather glanced from James to Remus to Lily and back to James before finally settling on Harry. "Well I was thinking . . . "

Harry approached the forest clearing quietly and invisibly. Following Sirius' suggestion he got just close enough to see the Death Eater lookouts and then started circling to the rear. If Moody and Dumbledore could see through the cloak then it was likely Voldemort could as well. He could hear the faint murmur of voices but no words were distinguishable. Finally he thought he was in position and began inching his way inwards while hoping Voldemort wasn't looking. He was in luck. A crowd stood in the middle of the clearing and he could just make out the top of Voldemort's bald head over the group of black hoods.

Now for a victim. Few of the death eaters wore hoods or masks. With Voldemort's lackeys in control of the ministry they had no need to hide their identities anymore. Picking a Death Eater at random drew his wand he whispered Imperio. He felt the curse take hold and directed the lackey to get closer to the Dark Lord but not to attract attention.

Harry edged his way around the clearing until only the very edge of the crowd was between him and Voldemort. He did a quick mental confirmation that his controlled Death Eater believed he'd completed the first instruction and was waiting on more. Taking a deep breath he sent a final command to his victim and stepped sideways so he could follow what was happening.

Faster than he could follow the unknown man raised his own wand and a streak of flames burst forth. Voldemort twisted to the side but he was not the intended target. The wave of fiendfyre burst over Nagini and destroyed the horocrux. At the sight of fiendfyre most of the Death Eaters drew their own wands and dove to the ground. Harry briefly considered ordering the man to turn his wand on Voldemort but before he'd sent the command the dark lord flicked his wand and controlled Death Eater exploded in a cloud of red gore.

Harry stepped out from under the cloak and waved at Voldemort. The dark lord turned his wand towards the intruder but Harry just disapparated leaving behind a letter.

Dear Tom,

If you really think the Elder wand makes you strong enough to face me by yourself I'd welcome the challenge. So far you've failed abysmally.

Catch me if you can,

Harry Potter

Harry apparated to London, a few of blocks from Grimmauld Place and wondered what he would find inside. Voldemort had obviously set a trap for him there on the chance he would return but after several months of inactivity the watch would hopefully be slack. The battle at Hogwarts should have drawn away any last guards. Slipping the invisibility clock on again he stepped into the square and looked around. No shady figures standing around. No animals sitting unnaturally still. It was entirely deserted which wasn't unusual for this area late at night. Silently making his way to the door step of #12 he ran a diagnostic spell over the steps. There was magic of course. He'd expected the rain diversion charms and anti-slipping spells. Even the muggle repelling charms weren't unusual. He proceeded up the steps to the door and ran the diagnostic spell again to find only standard protective charms and enchantments to prevent unauthorized entrance. Nothing he didn't already know about. He gently turned the knob and stepped inside. The hall was dusty and quiet. No spectral Dumbledore attacked him. Turning he ran the diagnostic spell over the hinges and discovered a faint pulsing magic. This was Voldemort's trap. Not a spell to kill him but only a warning sent off to some death eater. Possibly Voldemort himself. He wouldn't have much time but in a way it would make things easier. He headed for the library ignoring the clouds of dust puffing up from the rug with every step.

The library door was ajar and, following Sirius' instructions, he headed for the second bookcase on the left. A levitating spell lifted the books a few inches in the air. Holding the spell with his right hand he ran is left fingers over the decorative carvings at the base. The third on the right from the middle twisted just as Sirius had said it would. A slight tug on the bottom shelf moved it loose and Harry looked at the pile of books inside. He pulled out the resurrection stoned and turned it twice. A glowing Sirius appeared by his side. James, Lily, and Remus were behind him but they stayed silent.

"Excellent, you made it."

"There's an alarm on the door. Someone's bound to show up soon."

"Best get to work then." Sirius point to a bundle of papers and scrolls tied together with ribbon. "That's the one. Put it on the table. James, Lily,and Remus you go keep watch."

Harry grabbed the bundle then reinserted the shelf with a slight 'click' and levitated the books back on top. There were a couple of smudges in the dust but his careful levitation had left it mostly undisturbed.

He took the papers to a table and positioned himself so the door was in view.

To the right of the door was a chair under a sheet which could serve as his cover. Retracing his steps, gingerly through the footprints in the dust he levitated the rug in front of the doorway and, conjuring chalk, began tracing the glyphs he had found in the book. This was the trap Sirius had convinced him to try based on the Black's collection of Dark Magic. Finished, he lowered the carpet back to the floor, returned to the desk, and cast an inverse cleaning spell to re-scatter the dust and conceal his footprints.

James poked his head through the wall and said "He just showed up in the alley. He's coming."

"Alone?"

"Yep. Looks like he didn't trust anyone else with this job."

Harry picked up the book and headed to chair. Once concealed on the other side he recast the inverse cleaning charm, then sat on the floor and spread open the book. He hadn't had time to memorize this so he'd have to read it.

"Be safe Son and know that whatever happens we are proud of you. Are you sure you won't reconsider this route?"

He looked up at Lily, "Thank you, but all things considered this is probably safer. At least here I don't have a 100% chance of death."

"There are worse things than death," she said before drifting away.

Then James poked his head through the wall next to Harry and whispered "Voldemort's opened the door. The light from this room should attract him."

"You sure he can't see you yet?"

"Not unless we want him to."

Harry peaked around the chair one last time and saw the Marauders and Lily standing to the side of door. Voldemort wouldn't be able to see them until he stepped through the door and thus on top of the rug covered glyphs. As the Master of Death Harry would always be able to see them but they could make themselves selectively visible to others.

He hid himself again and sat quietly, straining his ears for any sound of Voldemort's approach. He could hear the rumble of cars in nearby muggle London. Sirius came and sat beside him. He waited. Eventually there was a faint scuffing sound and James spoke, "Good evening Tom." Harry began chanting very quietly. Voldemort would likely detect a silencing spell to hide the noise but James and Lily would be visible to Voldemort and talk loudly to distract him. Sirius would not let the Dark Lord see him but would stay close to Harry to coach him on the spell and give him warning in case anything went wrong.

Harry focused on the book. In the background he heard talk of illusions and exorcisms but did his best to ignore it. The book had been hand written in Latin. He couldn't understand all the words but he knew enough to correctly pronounce the sections to which Sirius was pointing. He repeated the first chant six times. Picking up the stone knife he'd found in the bundle he sliced open his palm and smeared blood on his face while repeating the chant for a seventh time. Immediately the hair on the back of his neck and his arms stood on end and he felt a moment of doubt. This was bigger than anything he'd tried before but he had to go on. Flipping the page of the book he found the next chant and started reciting it quietly. His voice was beyond his control and with each recitation grew louder. He had started the spell but the magic was driving him now. Why Voldemort wasn't stopping him he didn't know but he kept going. He reached for the scroll with his left hand and turned the page with his right. The chant changed to faster paced roll and on the last note he cried " Voldemort! Voldemort! Voldemort!" The scroll burst into flames scorching his hand and everything was silent.

Slightly stunned, Harry peaked around the chair toward the door. His mother and father and Remus were standing over a body. Beside him Sirius was silently watching him. He staggered to the body and poked it with his foot. Voldemort stirred and looked up at him. "What did you do?"

"I won."

Shortly after Harry returned to Hogwarts with Voldemort's body the Death Eaters fled. Without bothering to finish his NEWTS ("The Death Eaters won't wait, Hermione, I have to do this now") Harry accepted a position as Special Adviser to Kingsley Shacklebolt, the new Minister of Magic. Using the powers of his new position he had led the remaining Aurors on raids to capture the remaining Death Eaters and his popularity had soared as never before.

Hermione, of course, went on to graduate with top honors and married Ron the summer after. She was preparing to enter the Ministry and work on advancing muggleborn rights when Harry approached her with this unique offer.

"Hermione, I need someone I can trust and, more importantly, someone who trusts me. This work must remain secret so it will require loyalty oaths."

"Of course I trust you Harry. "

"Really? Or do you just want to know the secret?"

Harry laughed at her blushing denials and gave her the contracts. Looking them over she was proud of how thorough and complete they were. It was much better than his normal work. A glance at Harry's smiling face reassured her and she signed. He'd never do anything to hurt her of course. She forgot to consider if he'd do anything reckless.

He grabbed her arm and apparated her to a side street in a small village.

"Is this Godric's Hollow?"

"Yes. It's my home town so I thought I'd like to do something nice for it. Bring in a few new jobs and all."

He led her down the way and turned onto a small country lane. Stopping by an empty field he handed her a piece of paper that read "The Potter Institute for Archaeological Studies can be located on Sutherfield Lane near Godric's Hollow."

Excitedly she turned and a cottage appeared. She could hear Harry incinerating the paper behind her as she rushed towards the door. It refused to open to her touch but Harry opened it. Inside was a small entrance hall and several rooms. Harry guided her to one of them,then inside and down some stairs, and finally to a locked room. Inside the room was a chest. Inside lay a small, cracked stone.

"There's three Hallows, Hermione. I've kept the first as an heirloom and forsaken the second for the greater good but I intend to use the third."

"What . . . What are you going to do?"

"This place is called an archaeological institute for a reason. The question is, what are you going to do as its director?"

Hermione's eyes opened wider as she stared greedily at the stone.

The clock in Hermione's office chimed 8:00 p.m. and she sat back with a sigh. She glanced at the papers scattered on her desk and realized that she wasn't going to finish the report tonight. The subject had been remarkably cooperative in the initial and all subsequent interviews and the researchers (muggles mostly) were still going over the notes. The Resurrection Stone had turned out to be the most important discovery in archaeological history but it was dangerous in it's own way. If knowledge of it had become public they'd have been besieged with petitioners wishing to talk to their loved ones. Not to mention the law-enforcement opportunities Instead Harry had hired her and a few other wizards to safeguard the stone and then hired muggles as researchers. There weren't many wizarding experts in linguistics, archaeology, sociology, or history after all. Securing muggle post-docs had been easy by offering them more pay and the chance of a lifetime. They had to be very discreet in publishing their findings of course. Nothing that couldn't be backed up with muggle sources could go out the door but most of them were simply thrilled with the chance to learn about their area of expertise.

A few experiments had led them to put in safeguards. The stone could only be operated by a wizard and there were always two wizard researchers and a guard present when the stone was taken out of it's chest. This was to prevent any single person from having a chance to take it and also to prevent someone from summoning a name on the Forbidden List.

Hermione had been the cause of the Forbidden List. Her attempt to summon 'Jesus of Nazareth' had lasted through one turn of the stone before it fell out of her hand and an earthquake had struck that was felt as far away as London. After that Harry had declared that Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Buddah, and Mohamed amongst many others were off limits. Voldemort and Grindewald were also on the list. The summoning of Jesus had expanded the crack in the stone a bit. The stone was one of a kind and couldn't be risked that way. Now the crack in the stone was carefully measured before and after each use to ensure no further damage occurred. So far neither extensive use nor the age of the person whom they summoned had caused problems but they were meticulous anyways.

So far research had been confined mostly to Northwest Europe. Assorted Kings, Prime Ministers, scientists, poets, writers, and artists had been summoned and questioned about everything from the great events of the time to the minutia of daily life. Hermione had listened with rapt attention to first hand accounts of the plague of 1666 and to recitals of poetry. Shakespeare himself had been rather reluctant to answer questions but had finally given a few performance of some of his sonnets after Hermione had asked (begged if she was honest with herself). Memory of each summoning was carefully labeled and duplicated in specialized pensieves for later study. Much further back than Shakespeare had required the intervention of linguists. Language itself morphed overtime and it was difficult to understand the shades from beyond a certain era without careful preparation. Some of the etymologists and philologists were anticipating learning languages long since dead. Hermione, herself, want to hear Beowulf performed by the original author if there was in fact an original author. The language experts wanted to flesh out their sketchy knowledge of old english.

Deciding she'd just give Harry a status update and do the rest in the morning she put away her papers and locked her desk. She headed down the hall towards Harry's office. His secretary wasn't there so she walked in without knocking, stopped, stared, and screamed.

"Goddammit Hermione! How many times have I told you to knock?"

"You . . . V . . . V . . . but . . . Voldemort is in your office!"

"And that's exactly why I told you not to enter w/out knocking." Harry got up from his desk and stepped behind her to close the door.

Turning to the Dark Lord who stood near the fireplace he said, "You'll have to obliviate her again." `

"Harry! What are you doing? Why aren't you fighting him?"

"Hermione, I can explain it but it will take a while . . ."

Hermione ignored him and grabbed her wand. "Stupefy!"

"Expelliarmus". Hermione looked on in horror as Harry grabbed her wand out of the air.

"Sit down and I'll explain it. I suppose I should say 'explain it again'."

Hermione sat on the edge of the couch and looked back and forth between the still silent dark lord and her best friend.

"Don't worry about him. He can't hurt you even in self defense. He can't even talk without my permission."

"But why is he even alive? You said you killed him."

"I lied. The prophecy merely said I had to defeat him so I more or less turned him into my personal house-elf."

"But even house-elves can find ways around orders."

"That's why I said 'more or less'. House-elves are bound because of their nature. Usually they're bound to obey whoever is the owner of a particular house. In ancient egypt the wizard-priests did lots of experiments in immortality. One particular ritual they developed involved removing someone's soul then using the captured soul to control the body. You know them as mummies. When a wizard splits his soul to create a horocrux he isn't vulnerable because he still has half his soul. Voldemort, however, removed 6/7 of his soul. It turns out that's enough for the ritual to work. It helps that the only remaining horocrux is embedded inside me. He can never take it from me and I can control him with a mere thought."

"So you have a pet dark-lord? Do you realize how dangerous this is?"

"Of course but I would never have been as successful as I was at rooting out the rest of the Death Eaters without him. And now he researches new spells for me. Killing him would just be a waste."

Harry stood and moved away from Hermione. "Now that we've finished this conversation it's time to obliviate you. Again."

"Voldemort, obliviate this conversation from Hermione's memory but don't change anything else. Especially don't make her think she is anyone or anything other than who and what she is."

"How many times have you done this?"

"Seven. Eight if you count the time he made you think you were a cat and I made him redo it?"

"I'd hope you made him redo it. I had enough of being a cat after the polyjuice incident."

"We actually didn't notice for a couple of days. We thought you were just being moody until Ron caught you using the flower beds as a litter box."

"What?!"

"Obliviate."

"Next time I'm going to have to show her the pictures before you memory charm her."

"More courage to you Potter. I'm headed back to R&D. I'd like to finish up the tests on the plasma-conjuring spells."

"Good night Tom."