A/N: I just wanted to say thank you to the guest who pointed out an inconsistency in the story, one that I had previously overlooked. Feedback is always appreciated, as it helps me to improve my writing.

This is not a new chapter for those who have already read it, I have just deleted the old version of this chapter and uploaded a revised version of it.


Chapter 2

He's alive, Harry was sure of it. But the white hot pain in his scar didn't seem to lessen, and the poison he felt just moments before was once again boiling beneath the surface. He wanted blood, and he was sure he'd to anything to get it. Somewhere in the depths of his mind he knew something was not right about the situation, but it was as if some outer force had compromised him, rendering him useless. And then he realized why.

"It's too dangerous for him to stay here. We have to get him out while we can," he heard someone, Lupin, whisper.

"I don't know. He hasn't moved or responded to anything for quite a long time. Something's not right, Moony."

"Of course it's not right. He's been compromised and nowhere is safe for him while his mind is still open."

Everyone knew what had happened, and then Harry realized that in his fit of rage, Voldemort had gained access to his mind.

"But that's...he's been receiving lessons in Occlumency hasn't he?"

"There are ways, Sirius."

At the mention of his name, Harry's head snapped up and he looked around. Lupin and Sirius were standing next to him. When they saw him, they stopped talking.

"Are you alright, Harry?" Sirius asked looking very concerned.

He didn't answer. He wasn't sure how to explain the fact that he'd almost become Voldemort in that moment of weakness. A lump rose in his throat but he swallowed it brusquely.

They seemed to sense his feeling, and Sirius pulled him into a hug.

"It's alright, I'm - "

"I thought she killed you," Harry choked out. "And...this feeling just came over me...I wanted to perform the Cruciatus curse on her. I wanted to make her suffer and then...I heard him.

"Him? You mean - "

"Yeah, he got inside of me again," Harry said flatly.

"What did you see?" Sirius asked.

"He wanted the prophecy, and I could feel his anger, like it was a part of me," Harry said.

"Like in your dreams?"

"Only worse."

He sat down on the floor again, gazing at the destruction around them. Neville was still on the ground out cold by the dais.

"They'll be coming back soon," said Lupin. "Best to get you two out of here before anything happens."

"Where's Dumbledore?" Harry asked.

"He went after the remaining Death Eaters," they explained.

"I have to go after him," said Harry.

"NO! That's out of the question," Sirius said.

"I have to do this. The others are back there, Hermione was unconscious, Ginny broke her ankle, and Ron was attacked with a cursed brain - "

There was a loud bang and a yell from behind the dais. Kingsley appeared, yelling in pain, and hit the ground. Bellatrix appeared again, this time being chased by Dumbledore as the shot and deflected spells they shot at each other.

"Harry - no!" cried Lupin and Sirius at the same time, but Harry already ripped himself out of their slackened grip.

"SHE TRIED TO KILL HIM!" Harry bellowed. "SHE TRIED TO KILL SIRIUS!"

He bolted up the stairs, ignoring the people shouting behind him. The hem of Bellatrix's robes whipped out of sight as Harry dived back into the room where the brains were still swimming...

Tanks exploded all around him, coating the floor in slippery goo. Slipping and sliding, he jumped over Luna, who was still groaning on the floor, past Ginny, past Ron, who giggled feebly, and past the still unconscious Hermione. Bellatrix jumped into a lift and Harry immediately called another one, jamming the button marked Atrium.

He forced his way out of the lift before the grilles were fully opened and looked around. Bellatrix was almost at the telephone lift at the other end of the hall. He shot a spell at her, but she dodged it and almost immediately countered. Harry ducked behind the Fountain of Magical Brethren; the spell zoomed past him and hit the wrought gold gates at the other end of the Atrium so that they rang like bells. There were no more footsteps. She had stopped running. He crouched behind the statues, listening.

"Come out, come out, has little Harry come out to play?" her high voice shrilled and echoed off the walls. "What have you come after me for? Trying to get back at me for trying to kill my dear cousin?"

"Yes!" shouted Harry, and a score of ghostly Harrys seemed to chorus Yes! Yes! Yes! all around the room.

"Aaaaaah...do you love him baby Potter?"

Hatred bubbled inside him and spilled over as he bellowed, "Crucio!" over the fountain.

Bellatrix screamed and was knocked off her feet, but she did not writhe and shriek in pain as Neville did - she was already on her feet, breathless, no longer laughing. Harry dodged behind the golden fountain again as her counterspell hit the head of the handsome wizard and was blown twenty feet away.

"Potter, you cannot win against me," she cried. He could hear her moving to the right, trying to get a clear shot at him. "I was and am the Dark Lord's most loyal servant, I learned the Dark Arts from him, and I know spells of such power that you, pathetic little boy, can never hope to compete - "

"Stupefy!" yelled Harry. She reacted so fast he barely had time to duck.

"Protego!"

His own Stunning Spell ricocheted back and hit one of the goblin's ears.

"Potter, I am going to give you one chance!" shouted Bellatrix. "Give me the prophecy - roll it out toward me now - and I may spare your life!"

"Well, you're going to have to kill me because it's gone!" Harry roared - and as he shouted, pain seared across his forehead. His scar was on fire again, and he felt a surge of fury that was quite unconnected to his own rage.

"And he knows!" Harry laughed almost as hysterically as Bellatrix. "He knows you failed! Your dear old Voldemort is not going to be too happy with you, is he!"

"What, what do you mean?" she cried, and for the first time there was fear in her voice.

"The prophecy smashed while I was trying to get Neville up the steps. What do you think Voldemort'll say to that, then?"

"LIAR!" she shrieked, but he could hear the terror in her voice. "Accio Prophecy! ACCIO PROPHECY!"

Harry laughed because he knew it would incense her and because the pain in his head was about to make him burst.

"Nothing here!" he shouted. "Nothing to summon! It smashed and nobody heard what it said, tell your boss that - "

"No!" she screamed. "It isn't true, you're lying - MASTER, I TRIED, DO NOT PUNISH ME!"

"Save your breath!" yelled Harry, his eyes screwed up against the pain in his scar, now more terrible than ever. "He can't hear you from here!"

"Can't I, Potter?" said a high cold voice.

Harry's blood froze. Tall, thin, and black-hooded, his terrible snakelike face white and gaunt...Lord Voldemort appeared in the middle of the hall, wand pointed at Harry. He couldn't move.

"So you smashed my prophecy?" hissed Voldemort, staring at Harry with those pitiless red eyes. "No Bella, he is not lying. I can see it in his worthless mind...months and months of planning, and you have let Harry Potter thwart me again."

"Master, please, I was fighting the Animagus Black," Bellatrix whimpered.

"Enough, Bella," Voldemort said softly. "I tire of these games," - he pointed his raised wand at Harry - "AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Before Harry could move, the statue behind him suddenly jumped in front of him and shielded him from the curse. It bounced off its armor and into the wall.

There stood Albus Dumbledore with his wand raised, with Sirius and Lupin behind him.

"Dumbledore!" Voldemort snarled, turning to face him.

"It's no use, Tom," Dumbledore said calmly. Another statue came to life at his command, walked over, and pinned a screaming Bellatrix to the ground. "The Aurors are already on their way - "

"By which time, I'll be gone, and you dead!" Voldemort spat.

"Like hell!" Sirius said coldly. "Do you want to know where all your precious little Death Eaters are now? As we speak, most of them are still left suspended in the air in the Death Chamber, with no means of Disapparation. Oh...and I do believe Dolohov has made a run for it, shows you how committed he is - "

"Do not dare speak of the subject of loyalty in front of my Lord!" Bellatrix screeched, fighting the bonds of the unyielding stone soldier. "You filthy blood traitor, y-you are a disgrace to the family, I should have killed you when - "

She was cut off by Voldemort's abrupt killing curse aimed at Dumbledore. It missed and hit the security desk which immediately burst into flame. Dumbledore flicked his own wand. The force of the spell that emanated from it was so powerful, Harry felt his hair stand on end as it passed, and this time Voldemort was forced to conjure a shining silver shield, though a deep, gong like note reverberated from it, an oddly chilling sound.

"You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?" called Voldemort, his scarlet eyes narrowed over the top of the shield. "Above such brutality, are you?"

"We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom," Dumbledore said calmly, continuing to walk toward Voldemort as though he had not a care in the world. "Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit - "

"There us nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!" snarled Voldemort.

"You are quite wrong," said Dumbledore, still closing in upon Voldemort and speaking as lightly as though they were having a normal conversation. Harry was scared to see him walking along without a shield, as well as Sirius and Lupin standing behind him defenseless too. "Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness - "

Another jet of green light flew from behind the silver shield. This time, Sirius and Lupin raised their wands to cast a shield charm, but a one-armed centaur had galloped between them and taken the blast, shattering into a hundred pieces. Dumbledore had drawn back his wand and waved it as though a brandishing whip. Sirius and Lupin were simultaneously building up a shield bubble around the three of them. A long thin flame flew from the tip; it wrapped itself around Voldemort, shield and all. For a moment, it seemed Dumbledore had won, but the fiery rope became a serpent, which relinquished its hold upon Voldemort and, hissing fiercely, turned to face Dumbledore.

Voldemort vanished. The snake reared from the floor, ready to strike -

There was a burst of flame in midair above Dumbledore just as Voldemort reappeared.

"Look out!" shouted Harry.

But even as he said it, three more jets of green light had flown at the three of them from Voldemort's wand and the snake had struck -

Fawkes swooped down in front of Dumbledore, opened his beak wide, and swallowed the jet of green light whole. Sirius deflected the other two as they passed through the unfinished shield charm, and Lupin sent the snake, which had been an instant from sinking its fangs into him, flying in the air and vanishing in dark smoke.

Dumbledore brandished his wand in one, long, fluid movement and the water in the pool rose up and covered Voldemort like a cocoon of molten glass -

For a few seconds Voldemort was visible only as a dark, rippling, faceless figure, shimmering and indistinct upon the plinth, clearly struggling to throw off the suffocating mass -

Then he was gone, and the water fell with a crash back into its pool, slopping wildly over the sides, drenching the polished floor.

"MASTER!" screamed Bellatrix.

Harry felt a huff of relief release from his body. Surely it was all over, and Voldemort had decided to flee. He made his way around the headless guard still standing in his way, but Dumbledore bellowed, "Stay where you are, Harry!"

For the first time, Dumbledore sounded frightened. Lupin was turning this way and that, wide-eyed, and Sirius's usual calm, nonchalant demeanor was replaced by a cold terror.

"Now listen to me, Harry. Don't move while I come closer," he said.

Harry wasn't exactly sure why. The hall was all but empty except for themselves, with baby Fawkes still croaking feebly on the floor, and a sobbing Bellatrix trapped beneath her statue.

"Focus, Harry. Focus on me! Close off your mind to anything else," instructed Sirius, trying to hide the tremor in his voice.

He was about to ask why when his scar burst open. He felt something crack his skull open to force its way inside. All else disappeared, and he was trapped, trapped in a void of raw pain, bound in a creature's coils so tightly, he didn't know who was who anymore.

Red eyes slowly snaked its way inside his mind and they were fused together, bound by pain, and there was no escape -

And when the creature spoke, its voice forced its way up Harry body and made 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...Sirius, I'm so sorry...

And as Harry's heart filled with emotion, the creature's coils loosened, the pain was gone, and Harry was lying face down on the floor, his glasses gone, ice cold from his core and pouring sweat.

"Harry? Harry..."

There were voices echoing through the hall, more voices than there should have been: Harry opened his eyes, and saw his glasses lying at the heel of the headless statue that had been guarding him. He put them on and saw the concerned faces of Sirius and Dumbledore, Dumbledore's nose inches from his own.

"Are you alright, Harry?"

"Yes," said Harry, shaking so violently he could not hold his head up properly. "Yeah, I'm - where's Voldemort, where - who are all these - what's -"

The Atrium was full of people. Sirius hauled Harry to his feet and put a protective arm around him. Harry sagged on his feet and looked around. There were a stream of witches and wizards emerging from the fireplaces along one wall. He saw a stunned-looking Cornelius Fudge coming forward.

"He was there!" shouted a scarlet-robed man with a ponytail. He pointed at a golden rubble on the other side of the hall, where Bellatrix had lain trapped moments before. "I saw him, Mr. Fudge, I swear, it was You-Know-Who, and he grabbed a woman and Disapparated!"

"I know, Williamson, I know, I saw him too!" gibbered Fudge, who was wearing pajamas under his pinstriped cloak. "Merlin's beard - here! - in the Ministry of Magic! - great heavens above - how can this be?"

If you proceed downstairs into the Department of Mysteries, Cornelius," said Dumbledore, apparently satisfied that Harry was in good hands, and walked forward so that the newcomers were aware of his presence for the first time, "you will find several escaped Death Eaters contained in the Death Chamber, bound by an Anti-Disapparation Jinx and awaiting your decision as to what to do with them."

"Dumbledore!" gasped Fudge, apparently beside himself with amazement. "You - here - I - I - seize him!"

"Cornelius, I am ready to fight your men - and win again!" Dumbledore's voice thundered. "But a few minutes ago you saw proof, with your own eyes, that I have been telling the truth for an entire year. Lord Voldemort has returned, you have been chasing the wrong men for twelve months, and it is time you listened to sense!"

Fudge, with hysterical terror in his eyes, combined with him being appalled at the circumstances stumbled around trying to get a grip of things. The other members began to twitter nervously and a buzz rose from the crowd.

"Pompous goat," Sirius whispered to Harry, who was still unsteady on his feet.

"Alright, fine - Williamson, Dawlish - go down there and check. And while they're doing that, Dumbledore please explain to me...what...happened..." Fudge said, his voice weakening with vulnerability at the end.

"I will explain everything after I have sent Harry safely back to Hogwarts," Dumbledore said.

"Harry - Harry Potter?" Fudge whirled around looking as if he were to pass out from the train of events. "I - well that is, - " He blanched when he turned around and saw Sirius with him.

"T-That-it's...him!" a witch shrieked, falling in a dead faint.

The room descended into chaos as more and more people realized that Harry was with the infamous Sirius Black, dubbed murderer and escapee of Azkaban. People were shouting and running into each other, several more fainting along the way. Fudge didn't seem too far off from doing so himself.

"What about the others?" Harry shouted over the din, thinking of his injured friends left back in the Department of Mysteries.

"They will be taken care of, I will see to it," said Lupin emerging from the crowd. He looked pale and sweaty, but otherwise unharmed.

"I-I demand that he be handed in at once," Fudge cried, pointing a shaky finger at Sirius. "Two years, Dumbledore, Two years he has been at large and you have been withholding him from me. I want him turned in to the Ministry a-and you arrested for conspiracy - "

"He has committed no crime against you, and I am sure with with all the things ahead of you, you will want as little distraction as possible," Dumbledore remarked.

"Committed no crime! Committed no...crime?" Fudge sputtered. The room suddenly became deathly quiet, the tension wound so tight it could split the air at any given moment. "May I remind you that all of those deaths were on his account, and ever since his escape from Azkaban, the whole Wizarding and Muggle World has been in danger of his wrath, and you mean to tell me he has committed no crime!"

Gone was the calm demeanor Dumbledore usually upheld. It had been replaced by a cold, unyielding presence, the aura of power being exuded from him so formidable, it made Fudge cower.

"If you are aware of what is in store, I should think you have much more reason to be afraid," Dumbledore said ominously.

Fudge paled at that as if he suddenly realized the task at hand.

"I assure you, Cornelius, all will be explained in due time. Although I must say most of this could have been anticipated and avoided if it were not for your blatant ignorance," Dumbledore said matter-of-factly.

Fudge made what sounded like a noise of indignation, but Dumbledore held up a hand.

"But I will say this. The Order was reinstated the moment word got out of his return, and Sirius plays a vital role in our efforts. So he will not be 'turned over' to anyone and as soon as Harry is safely back at school, I would like to have our little discussion."

Dumbledore walked over to where the golden wizard's head lay on the floor. He pointed his wand at it and muttered, "Portus." The head glowed blue for a moment, trembled against the wood, and became still once more.

"Now see here, Dumbledore," Fudge said as Dumbledore walked over to Harry and Sirius with the head. "You haven't got authorization for that Portkey! You can't do things like that - "

His voice faltered as Dumbledore met his gaze.

"You will give the order to remove Dolores Umbridge from Hogwarts," said Dumbledore. "You will tell your Aurors to stop searching for my Care of Magical Creatures teacher so that he can return to work. I will give you..." Dumbledore pulled a watch with twelve hands from his pocket and surveyed it, "...half an hour of my time tonight, in which I think we shall be more than able to cover the important points of what has happened here. After that, I shall need to return to my school. If you need more help from me you are, of course, more than welcome to contact me at Hogwarts. Letters addressed to the headmaster will find me."

"I - you - "

Dumbledore turned his back on him.

"Harry, this Portkey will take you back to Hogwarts. Sirius will accompany you. I will meet you in my office in a half an hour," he said.

Harry placed his hand on the Portkey, still clinging to Sirius like a lifeline. A moment later he felt a whooshing sensation and a familiar blurring of his surroundings before everything disappeared.


How was it? Suggestions are always welcome!