Hermione paced vigorously in her workshop in the Department of Mysteries. Her wand was out and it was trailing red and black sparks behind her.
"It should be feasible to maximally extend the soul manifold, if not the fibre bundles connected to each soul--I refuse to accept that the singularities aren't at least weakly integrable," she mumbled.
She stopped suddenly and ran her other hand through untamed hair.
"Mathemagica, Project." A ghostly membrane appeared in front of her, which she caused to rotate with a gesture from her wand. "Morph, transformation gamma two, along the locus of life lines. Paint surface with integral curves of tangent manifold." The membrane became covered in a star-shaped pattern of white lines. It started to distort, turning in on itself, leaving the surface smooth everywhere except for one patch, where she saw the surface twist and writhe as invisible fingers pinched it and pulled it into a cone of lines spiraling off into oblivion, a graphical representation of the termination of life itself. Every line, no matter where its initial origin, tracked with the errant section of solution space and became lost in the singularity. Every curve, every life, had jagged and bumpy bits, the ghost of a fundamental flaw in the manifold itself. Hermione noted dryly that some Muggle religions referred to this as original sin. "Stop," she said, before the solution became so distorted as to defy projection.
She walked up to the membrane, suspended motionless in the air before her, and stared at it, her fury building. "Argh!" She drove her fist through the image. It wavered for a moment, then solidified again, mocking her with its twisted perversion. "I'm so bloody close... this singularity is the last. I can remove all the rest, but I can't find a way to disentangle it, not with the finality of death staring in my face."
She paced again, snatching a bottle of water from the desk, and took a long swig from it.
"The Eden solution, my whole reason for being, can't be realized until I solve this. World peace, an end to human suffering... I could do it--I'd be hailed as the greatest wizard since Merlin—if it weren't for ruddy death." She set the bottle on the edge of the table. It fell sideways and spilled its contents onto the floor.
Laughter, cynical, came from her, then turned into sobs. She dropped into a hard-back chair, the high type favored by rune specialists, and placed her forehead on her forearms, her shoulders shaking.
"Bloody Death," she wailed. "I'm so damned close. Four years of my life devoted to this, and it's all dross. Four years, locking myself in here, and it's right there—right there! If only Death could be thwarted in more than the most superficial way..." Again, her thoughts turned to the third Hallow, the one Harry refused to share with her. She knew the answer lay with it somehow, but not in any obvious way.
Unless...
The witch bolted up in a frenzy. "Imagine a subdomain containing just the Hallow," she said to herself, grabbing a fresh piece of parchment and starting to scribble. "And suppose that life lines attached here with a smooth mapping..." Writing frenetically, she snapped the tip of her quill, spattering ink onto her hands and face. Without thinking, she tossed it aside and grabbed another and continued scribbling and muttering to herself.
Two hours later, she sat back, a wide smile on her face. With a quick motion of her hand, she duplicated her notes and the copy floated onto her filing shelves. She knew that she probably should go over them one time before she left—she'd been burned many times by the glee of feeling she'd solved a problem, only to find in the morning that she had made a fundamental error, but she couldn't bring herself to do so. Not tonight—tonight, she would savor her victory. She just knew that this time she'd worked it out. It felt too right to be wrong.
"Harry," she drawled, "You're giving me that Hallow. This is far too big for you to sit on." With that, she noticed a cream coloured envelope sitting atop her copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. She placed the book on her lap and opened the letter. "You are cordially invited..."
Harry's and Ginny's wedding was that day. Harry would be there.
Pausing to retrieve her cloak, she touched her wand to a glyph on the invitation and activated the Portkey. A moment later, she felt a sharp tug about her navel.
"Pace yourself there, mate." Ginny's new husband went to her brother's side to steady him as he tipped another shot of Firewhiskey into his throat. At this late hour, only a few people remained of the wedding party—Harry, Ginny, Ron, Ginny's parents, and George, who was dozing on a chair in front of the fire. Winky and Molly were fighting with each other over whose privilege it was to clean up and Arthur was with them in the dining room, trying to keep the peace.
Husband! She still couldn't believe it. Savoring the moment, she closed her eyes and put her hand on her abdomen. Lily shifted inside her.
"Everything okay?" Harry asked, rejoining her and placing his hand over hers. He too felt the movement beneath her skin.
"Yeah," she said, blotting her eyes. "I'm just so happy. So is Lily, I can tell. As active as she is, I think she's going to be a Beater in a few years."
"You look brilliant today, Gin. I'm the happiest man in the world." Harry, who though distracted, had a smile that hadn't left his face all night. He moved to kiss her.
They were interrupted by her brother's ramblings. "Bloody doesn't matter to her at all! You'd think if anything, she'd want to see her mates get hitched. I mean, yeah, you've got the bun in the oven and all so it's no secret that you two are..."
"Ron!" Ginny glared at her brother, but he was too far potted to notice her anger.
"I envy you, Harry," he said, getting up and stumbling onto the sofa next to Harry, hanging on his shoulder. "You've got a wife who adores you... even if she does leave her feminine things on top of the waste bin. Watch out for that, mate."
"Ron, you'll shut your mouth right now!" Ginny's wand flashed into her hand. Harry fought back a chuckle at her pout.
"Watch it mister, I know where you live," she said to her husband in mock anger, turning the wand onto him.
Harry planted a kiss on her lips to diffuse the situation, one that deepened until Ron started to cough conspicuously.
"I'm sure something came up," Harry said. "Hermione would have made it if she could." He and Ginny shared a glance—it was clear that neither believed it.
"She works alone! How could something just bloody 'come up'? Face it, she loves her work more than she does you guys. Or me... Especially me." Ron started to cry into Harry's shoulder, then blearily reached for his glass.
"I'm sure that's not true," Ginny said, levitating glass and bottle away from his grasp.
Ron fell forward onto the floor, bumping into the short table where the Weasley family clock, with its two new hands, Harry's and Lily's, displayed prominently. The clock teetered before settling upright. A little too late, Ron reached to steady it, knocking it backward onto the table with a loud clatter.
"Even when she does come home, it's not like she's there. Spends her time mumbling about some 'Eden solution' rot." Kneeling, he turned to Harry and put his hand on his best mate's knee. "Am I ugly, mate? It's okay. You can tell me."
"I don't swing that way, Ron."
"You're not ugly." Ginny said, rolling her eyes and righting the clock with her wand. "She's just missing out."
"She's missing out? What about me? It's been months since we last..."
"Ron, I really don't want to know..."
Ginny heard a whistle of wind behind her and she turned to see, much to her surprise, that Hermione had indeed arrived, albeit nine hours late and looking somewhat worse for wear. Her hair was matted on the left side and on the right, it stuck out in a bushy mass. Her skin was pallid and oily and smeared with ink. Her robes were wrinkled and badly in need of a wash. Most disturbing was the manic gleam in her eyes—eyes that Ginny noticed were darker than their normal honey brown. For some reason, they reminded her of Harry's.
"I've done it," she said triumphantly.
Ginny caught the stormy look on her husband's face and reached for his hand.
"Congratulations," Harry said icily. "Won't you come and join us? We were just having a spot of cake."
Hermione blinked, then said, "I need the other Hallow, Harry. Now."
"No."
Molly bustled in, ignoring the tension. "Hermione, you poor dear. They're still working you too hard. Arthur, I thought you were going to have to have a talk with someone at the Ministry--it isn't right, making the poor girl work so hard, and on a weekend too!" She took Hermione's arm. "Do come in. Have you eaten? We have leftovers and plenty of cake in the ice box. Would you like to view the ceremony in a pensieve? It was such a lovely..."
"No thanks, Molly," she said, interrupting the matron and pulling out of her grasp. She put her hands on her hips and glared at Harry. "It's my right to study it. I need to. This is for all of humanity—you can't be so selfish as to just hold onto it. And you've received an official summons. You have no right to tell me no."
"The hell I can't. 'N'. 'O'. No. Don't ask again." He winced as if listening to something in the back of his mind. Ginny felt a heaviness in her throat and Lily started to kick frantically inside her.
"What the hell is your problem, woman?" Ron thundered, waking George up from his alcohol-induced slumber. "You have some nerve, ignoring us all for months, then you come here, the day of their wedding of all days, and all you can talk about is your ruddy work."
"Ron, this doesn't concern you."
"The hell it doesn't. I'll stun you again if I have to to keep your hands off the bloody Hallows."
"That was you! Do you have any idea how much that set my work back!" Ginny saw Harry slip away toward a side room.
"It was for your own good, dear," Ron said smugly.
"I hate you," she hissed, slapping him hard across the face.
"Now let's all try and settle down," Arthur said loudly, stepping between the fighting couple.
"You're an imbecile, Ron. My work needs information only the Deathly Hallows can provide. Something that could help all of us." Hermione blinked tears from her eyes and down her cheeks. "And you stole it from me like a common thief. Here I thought you supported me--I thought you loved me..."
"I do, which is why I had to take the bloody thing away. They can't be used the way you want to."
"I suppose you're an expert on the Hallows now," she said sarcastically.
"I know what I see, Hermione, and what I see isn't you. It's the Hallows, the only thing you care about anymore."
"That's not true," she said, turning away.
"It is and you know it."
"The Deathly Hallows?" Molly asked, confused. "Aren't they a children's story?"
"They're real, Mum." Ginny said in the middle of standing clumsily to follow her husband. The final month of pregnancy was by far the hardest, something she was acutely aware of every time she tried to get up.
"Harry used the Hallows to defeat You-Know-Who," Ron said. "He's the Master of Death."
"But if the Hallows are real, that means... that Harry could bring back my Fred," Molly said, her voice barely more than a whisper. Ginny's heart ached--her mother had only recently accepted that her son was indeed gone. This false hope could destroy her.
"He can't," Ron said. "They're way too dangerous for Harry or anyone to use. Look what they did to Hermione. Hell, look at Harry--bloke acts like he's a bloody Inferius half the time."
"That's because he's not using them right." Hermione groused. "And they can be used for something far more important than just resurrecting a loved one." She paused dramatically. "I'm talking about world peace."
"But he can try, can't he?" Molly asked, her voice meek, like that of a child.
"Yeah, wouldn't hurt to try, eh?" George added. "I mean, the bloke's already dead—Fred that is. Harry, he's not quite dead, though his conversation skills might suggest otherwise. Anyway, what's he got to lose?"
"Evil as they are, I don't think anything good can come of using them," Ron said.
George said, "Well, he did knock off You-Know-Who with 'em. That counts as something good in my book."
"Yeah, but at what cost, George?"
"What do you mean?" George asked.
"Didn't you hear me?" Hermione shouted, her face red. "I said they can be used to bring about world peace! World Bloody Peace!"
"That's nice dear," Molly said, patting her on the arm. "But we were talking about my Fred."
"If Harry had it in his power to bring Fred back, I'm sure he would have," Arthur said. "I think we should trust his judgment on this..."
Ignoring the argument in the background, Ginny knocked on the door. She didn't hear an answer, so she turned the handle and pushed it open to find a darkened room and her husband standing at the other side, facing away from her. He was shivering and his hands were clenched into fists.
"Harry?" she said, reaching to turn on the gas lamps and seeing to her surprise that they were already turned on.
A thick, black cloud swirled about him. He turned toward her and she could see his eyes were pinpoints of black. "Stay away from me!" His voice had an inhuman timbre.
She blinked, then frowned and took a step forward. "No."
"Please, I don't know if I can control it!"
"I know you can, Harry. I'm not leaving you."
Harry screamed as he fell to the floor. The darkness swirled ferociously and there was a low roar from all directions as the sense of dread increased tenfold. Then if faded, as the black drew inside him slowly. After a moment, he was on hands and knees, perspiring and panting heavily.
"Sorry," he gasped between pants.
"No problem, love," she said, biting her lip. "All married couples have their rough patches once in awhile."
He smiled faintly. "Not this rough." He looked over her shoulder to the doorway, where her family had started to gather, drawn by the ruckus. "We're okay here. Just a brief spell is all."
"Are you sure? Maybe I should call a Healer."
"I'm fine, Molly."
"Didn't I ask you to call me Mum? Anyway, you didn't sound so fine a moment ago. What were you shouting?"
"Mu-um." Ginny said.
"Fine, fine, I know when I'm not wanted. I'll just go back to the kitchen and clean up. Hermione, dear, come and help, please."
Ginny rolled her eyes, then turned to the others. "Um, can Harry and I have a moment?"
"No problem, Gin," George said, then stepped forward and lowered his voice, "Ask him if he can use his Hallow thingee on Fred."
Ginny sighed and shooed him from the room. She closed the door behind him and Harry cast a Muffliato charm about the room.
"Gin, I need your help."
"Anything, love, but first, I think it's time you explained to me what's going on."
Harry sighed and nodded. "It's been getting a lot worse lately."
She gave him a hug, made a bit more difficult by her large belly. "So that time we were attacked in the alley?"
"Yeah. Normally, I just black out, but that time I was aware as... it happened again. I almost lost control and hurt you—I still can't forgive myself for that. I'm terrified, Gin, of what I could become. I honestly don't know how much longer I can hold out against it. It's starting to affect Hermione too, I can tell."
She hugged him tighter and he stroked her hair. "You're strong, Harry, the strongest man I know. We'll find a way to beat this."
"I honestly hoped when I gave Hermione the other Hallows that she'd solve the problem, like she always did. Instead, she just dug in deeper, obsessed for a reason I don't understand. I can't let her get ahold of the Stone—it's too dangerous. And I can't trust myself not to go and seize it, Ministry decrees be damned, and lose myself to it."
"What can I do?" she asked, resolute.
"I hate to ask this of you tonight of all nights, but could you go to our vault and in the third chamber on the right is a small golden box with a blood seal that you won't be able to open. I've arranged with Ragnok for a new, secret vault to be made which you alone have access to and it's ready. The vault is gold-lined and has every magical dampening charm known to Wizards or Goblins. You need to seal the box inside. It's the only thing I can think of--the only way to buy us some time."
"I'll do it." She kissed her husband.
"I had planned on moving it tomorrow, but I wouldn't put it past Hermione and the Ministry to raid our vault by morning."
"Is this fireplace connected?" She gestured to the one in the room.
"Yeah. You need someone to go with you, though. It's not safe alone. I can't—after what just happened, I can tell that the pull is almost irresistible, even this far away. Should I get Ron?"
She shook her head. "Too much to drink. Same with George. Besides, he wants you to use the Stone to bring Fred back, so I wouldn't put it past him to tell Hermione."
"I could call one of our crew, but I don't want to put anyone in a position where he has to choose between loyalty to me and being an Auror. How about your father?"
She nodded.
Harry went to the door and called Arthur over. An Incendio lit the fireplace and as she stepped toward the green flames, Ginny thought she heard a whisper of fabric from somewhere in the room.
Ginny hiked the hem of her wedding robes up and jogged out of the fireplace ahead of her father through the dark, empty pub. Chairs were overturned atop the tables clearing a path to the rear of the room, where the small courtyard and entrance of Diagon Alley lay.
"Dad, hurry," she called over her shoulder, feeling a strange need to hurry.
"Coming, Snapdragon," he said, jogging beside her as they reached the rear door. He insisted on holding it open for her, much to her dismay. "Should you be running like that in your condition?"
"Probably not." She ambled toward the wall and took out her wand, poking at the bricks. She missed the sequence the first time and had to start over.
"Easy there. Slow and steady wins the race," her father said, causing her to mess up the sequence again.
With a grumble, she started tapping the bricks a third time, as the feeling of dread inside her grew. Tap. Tap. Tap...
She heard a crumple and a loud crack, as something struck the cobblestone at her feet. She turned and looked down. Her father was on the ground unconscious, bleeding from a head wound.
"Dad?" She dropped into a defensive stance and scanned the dark.
Nobody was there.
She heard a rustle of wings and a faint squeal. She spun toward the noise; it was just an owl, landing upon the wall with a mouse, the evening's dinner.
Hear heart raced as her eyes darted left, right, then left again. Nobody, still. Then a faint ribbon of pink light struck her and she felt... wonderful. A woman's voice inside her head told her that everything was fine and she just knew that it was. The voice said that she that all she had to do was get the stone from her vault, as Harry had asked her, and bring it to the Ministry, that it would be safer there than Gringotts. The voice told her that Harry would be happy with her decision.
She wanted the stone to be safe. She wanted Harry to be happy.
She tapped the final brick and the walls slid apart.
"Hit me with a sobriety charm, mate." Ron tossed Harry his wand.
"You sure? You'll be feeling it tomorrow."
"I don't care. Something isn't right."
"You and your instincts," Harry joked, then muttered the charm. A light blue cone shot from the end of Ron's wand and surrounded his body. Harry held the charm on him for a full seven minutes, as required for full sobriety. The charm was unpleasant because of the way it broke down the alcohol, generating a glut of lactic acid in the recipient's bloodstream.
"Ugh. Every time, it seems to get worse," Ron said, stretching his sore limbs gingerly.
"You're just drinking more."
"Well, there is that." He tossed down an elixir to blunt the pain.
"Hey Ron?"
Ron grunted in reply.
"If anything happens to me, look after Gin, okay?"
"You planning on dying or something?"
"Not exactly, but things are in motion... if we don't settle things with this last Hallow, I don't know how long..."
"Don't worry. I've got your back." Ron clasped his hand on the shoulder of his best friend.
"Gin and I are planning to name you Lily's godfather."
"I'm honored, mate. Just... well, think twice about making Hermione the godmother. Much as I love her, it seems my dear wife's finally going around the bend."
"Yeah, I'm worried about her too," Harry said.
"I'm actually more worried about what she might do to get ahold of the Stone."
"I'm taking care of it, actually. Gin and your dad went to Gringotts while your mum distracted her here."
"Uh, she never went with Mum."
A tortured scream rang out—Molly's. Harry and Ron rushed into the sitting room to see her holding the family clock, her face frozen in shock. Harry could see his hand was on "At Home"; Molly's and Ron's were "Visiting a Friend"; Hermione's was "At Work."
Arthur's showed "Mortal Peril."
Harry noticed that Molly's eyes were not on the clock. He followed her gaze and his own face became blank as he noticed two hands lying upon the table. Ginny's and a tiny sliver of steel—Lily's.
Beside them, a vase of white lilies wilted. A moment later, Harry disappeared in a crack of thunder.
Blood. So much of it--on her hands, her clothes, the floor.
She was in the amphitheater near the Veil, where she had planned to implement the Eden solution, the greatest discovery in the history of magic and a means by which to usher in an era of unending peace. Merlin had achieved but a glimpse of its potential with Avalon.
A sudden gust circled the room, causing candles to flicker and runes on the floor to glisten.
She peered at the runes, which had been scribed in fresh blood. Odd, that--ink would have done just as well. Curiously, they seemed to be in her handwriting. Why did she have no memory of it?
An ivory pedestal stood before the Veil, upon which the Resurrection Stone, the focus needed to enact the solution, would be placed to complete the ritual. Everything seemed complete, save for the Stone.
The Resurrection Stone--something clicked in the back of her mind, a memory of... Gringotts and a woman. A woman with red hair.
Ginny! It was Ginny who had gotten the Stone for her. Where was she?
Hermione stepped back and tripped, falling onto her bum. She looked at what it was she had tripped over and saw a woman's body, lying still. Her face, pale and freckled, was turned toward her with eyes that were glassy and lifeless.
Hermione gasped and backed into a tier. Ginny's abdomen had been sliced open and beside her lay the corpse of her fetus. It too had been violated.
Hermione vomited and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. Had she done this? If so, why? And why had she no memory of it?
She placed her hand in the pocket of her robes and felt two items, a tiny box of some sort and a worn leather book. She grasped the book in her left hand, drawing strength from its familiarity and her grief and disgust faded somewhat. She examined the box in her right. It was fashioned out of gold.
Something ticked in the back of her mind.
She had a faint memory of a blood seal and of drawing blood from a fetus to bypass it. Her grief returned and her stomach protested against the memory, but she produced nothing but bile. Blinking back tears, she pressed the tip of her thumb to the latch and the lid sprang open. Inside was a ring--the third Hallow, Cadmus's Stone.
Her breath caught and she felt a powerful, overwhelming urge to seize it and claim it for herself, Eden be damned!
The ticking sound in her head grew loud and her heart beat rapidly.
She whispered, "Forgive me, Harry. I'll bring Ginny and your daughter back. It'll be worth it, I swear."
She reached for the ring and placed it upon her hand, relishing the fiery strength it gave her. Her reservations melted into memory as she lost herself in darkness.
–
The door to the Department of Mysteries exploded inward as a being wreathed in midnight with black, ghostly wings stepped into the amphitheater. "Hermione," it said with a cold voice that evoked the chill of a grave.
"Harry." Her own voice was equally inhuman.
He stood silent for a moment, eyes closed, as he concentrated. The blackness surrounding him abated somewhat, yet he remained haunted. In an unsteady voice, he asked, "What have you done with my wife and child?"
Hermione's eyes were chips of coal. "I've taken the Stone. You owed it to me."
Harrry spied a woman's red hair and he rushed to the floor before her. His shaking hands balled into fists as he knelt over his beloved's mangled body. "Dead..." he whispered, not believing his eyes. He threw his head back and screamed to the heavens, "No!" A minute later, hoarse, he could only repeat, "No... No," Sobbing, he closed Ginny's eyes gently and placed Lily into her lifeless arms.
After a long time, he stood and glared at his one-time friend, the darkness swirling about him once again. It had a malevolence that matched his mood. He growled, "I owed you nothing, murderer."
"Death is irrelevant for beings such as we."
"You know nothing. Death can't be undone so frivolously, not without sacrifice." His own eyes, moist from grief, became black and cold.
"I have come to know it, Harry, and it's power." She clenched her fist and it became wreathed in blue faerie flame.
"You don't understand what you're meddling with. The Hallows--you can't hope to control them. They'll consume you." The aura about him darkened to the consistency of pitch before he shook his head violently, causing it to fade.
"I know more about them than anyone, living or dead. Only I can use them to their potential. I was destined for them, not you."
"Destiny. So you believe in Divination now..." A bone-white wand appeared in his pale hand.
"In this, I do. This is my purpose."
"Eden?"
"I don't care about Eden anymore. Let humanity suffer--they've wrought their fate with their infantile wrangling over petty concerns. I have power instead, the power that was always mine to claim. The power to fashion a new way, and to force the masses to submit to it."
"Then the Hermione I knew is already gone." His wand flashed a silent curse and a jagged yellow bolt leaped at her. She raised her own wand, a slender, black rod with runes matching Harry's, and swatted his curse away idly. It crashed against one of the piers, shattering it. Her return strike, a fan of red lightning that glowed in the dark chamber, was barely stopped by his shield. Even still, a few rivulets penetrated and stabbed his left shoulder, scorching robes and skin.
"How?" he asked, knowing that she should not have been able to thwart his assault so handily.
"I've fashioned my own Hallows, Harry—my own Cloak, my own Deathstick." She held up an ebony wand and flicked it idly. A magenta bolt struck the floor before one of the piers. A cloud of pink mist appeared, then faded, leaving behind a startled Professor Dumbledore. "Surely you knew it was within my ability to do so. I am the greatest of our generation, after all..."
"I believed you could, but I never thought you would, Hermione. This is... desecration," Harry said, as his favorite professor stood up tall and stretched his limbs. A second bolt summoned an ancient bearded wizard. The man was short and stocky, wearing robes decorated in Celtic knots and ancient glyphs, and he leaned upon a gnarled staff. Harry guessed it was Merlin himself. A third conjured a dark-haired woman with navy robes and a severe face. Harry recognized her from her portraits in Hogwarts—Rowena Ravenclaw.
"All of the knowledge I could ever hope for is mine to command. I shall be the greatest, Harry." She nodded to the wizards she had summoned. "Defeat him."
"Sir?" Harry asked his mentor as he backpeddled.
"It pains me that I find myself compelled to attack you," Dumbledore said sadly. "Would that I had known this quality of the Stone, I would not have sought it so so earnestly in my youth. Please, Harry, you must command the powers of death to survive."
"No," Harry protested, readying a shield. "Ask me anything but that..."
His mentor sighed, then made a wide, looping motion with his arm, which conjured a scythe of glowing bronze that leapt from the tip of his wand and spun toward Harry. It made a massive "gong" as it slammed into Harry's shield and deflected into the wall, tearing a massive rent in the stone. At the same time, a Basilisk-sized dragon was conjured out of flame by the other bearded wizard. It leaped upon Harry, pinning him to the ground with its massive foreclaws. A tongue of white fire shot from the beast's maw, licking his face and scorching chin, hair, and skin. Harry wriggled his wand arm free and discharged an ice spear into the dragon's brainpan, dispelling it. Before he could move, an animated stone pier—Rowena's handiwork--pinched closed about his left leg, holding him fast.
Harry screamed as his bones snapped, then shattered the pier with a blasting curse. Rolling to his feet, but favoring his ruined leg, he conjured a rock wall from floor to ceiling between him and the three wizards, then used a charm to make it transparent on his side. He transfigured a second pier into a huge adder, which he Disilliusioned and silenced. In Parseltongue, he ordered the snake to stalk and attack the witch from the right flank. Just then, Merlin rose from liquid stone behind him and hurled a blue ball of lightning at Harry. The younger wizard avoided it--barely--by diving face-first onto the ground. It passed over his head, singeing his wings and shattering the wall as if it were glass.
Harry started to push himself up, but hissed as a dozen slender, marble spears protruded up from the floor, impaling his shoulders, arms, and legs and suspending him face-down and immobile, just above eye level. Dumbledore faded into view beside him with a solemn look on his face. Merlin nodded to the man and crossed his arms over his staff. Behind, Harry heard a woman's scream—his serpent had apparently struck down the Ravenclaw witch, a hollow victory.
Hermione stepped forward confidently. "Kill him," she said to her minions.
"I am truly sorry, dear boy. It saddens me that you did not fight us as an avatar. You stood no chance facing us as a wizard." Dumbledore conjured an iron spear and drove it up through the front of Harry's chest and out his back near his spine.
"Harry's scream died quickly on his lips as he expended the last air in his collapsed lungs. Wide-eyed, he watched as his blood flowed down the shaft jutting from his chest and pooled upon the runes beneath him, joining that of his wife's. They would be together in death, if not in life.
"Bugger me with a broomstick!" Ron's voice was behind. "Y-you... my sister... and Harry..." he said in shock at the grisly scene.
"Ron, sweetheart?" Hermione said sweetly amidst a tempest of swirling dark. "Can you go home and wait for me there? I'm a bit tied up at the moment..."
"The hell I will. What the devil is going on?"
"I really don't have time to explain. You wouldn't understand anyway."
"You're damned right I don't understand," he said, drawing his wand. "Like how you could go slaughtering your friends like pigs for power! That's the sort of thing a Dark Lord would do." She started to answer him, but he interrupted her. "Save it. I'm sure Voldemort and Grindelwald had good reasons for why they killed everyone too."
He fell into a dueling crouch and his words, while practiced, were devoid of life. "Put down your wand and come quietly, or I will have no choice but to use deadly force."
Hermione answered with a bone-shattering curse at neck-level. Ron's Auror training came to the fore as he defended with a silent shield spell. Unfortunately, the charm solidified an instant too late and only deflected the witch's curse somewhat, the blue-grey bolt striking his left clavicle instead, snapping it like a twig.
He grunted and sent a powerful stunner back toward his wife. She slapped his spell away easily, as if toying with him. A blasting curse followed from the second Deathstick, aimed a the floor by his feet. The yellow bolt crashed into the marble and the resulting explosion, which left a meter-wide crater, tossed the Auror up into the air and back against the wall, where his back struck at an awkward angle, making a sickening crunch.
"Avada Kedavra!" A sickly green bolt wreathed in black jetted from Hermione's ebony wand and struck her husband dead on the spot.
Harry grimaced as Ron's body slid down the wall to the floor, his wand rolling from lifeless fingers. He felt his own life ebb just then, the final drops of his blood leaving him. However, instead of the peace he had envisioned at the end of his life, he felt a massive rage well inside him. Time slowed to a stop as a solitary droplet of blood, black in the werelight, suspended an inch from the pool beneath.
He looked up and green eyes met gold. The avatar of Azrael, the Reaper of Souls and the tormenter of his dreams, knelt to meet his gaze and for once he did not turn away. The being bowed its head reverently.
"I accept this call," Harry said, in death forsaking a vow he had sworn in life.
The dark angel placed a hand upon Harry's head and he felt a moment of disorientation as stone and iron shattered and his broken body reformed, hale and pure of purpose. An eternity of wisdom flowed into his brain and he found himself clinging desperately to his meagre identity, a mote lost among the million cycles of the Mazal. Human language and thought was displaced in his mind by Kabbalistic incantations older than time itself. Darkness swirled about him and for once he reveled in it, embracing his true nature. Then he espied the sacrilege and it aroused his wroth.
"Impostor," he hissed, his mouth feeling different, as if his tongue were formed for a purpose other than human speech.
Hermione looked up. "Impossible! You were dead!"
"I am Death. To kill me would be an oxymoron." He spied the Headmaster smiling at him over half-moon glasses. "Your presence here, wizard... it is a grievous affront."
"Thank you, Harry. I was most distressed as well to have had my peace interrupted." Merlin nodded at Dumbledore's words. A black bolt from the Deathstick, a purified form of the abomination that became Killing Curse, struck the Headmaster in the chest and a smile graced the old man's face as he returned to the next great adventure.
"No, you cannot!" Hermione shouted, sending a bolt of blue toward Harry, striking him on the shoulder. Flesh and sinew evaporated beneath it, then reformed just as quickly. He ignored it, instead turning toward Merlin. Harry held his right arm straight, then clenched his fingers. A cage of smoke formed around the venerable wizard. He approached the man and said to him in his ancient tongue, "What do you seek, great wizard."
"To return to death," he said in response, bowing low before Harry. Harry touched a finger to the man's forehead and he too slumped lifeless to the ground.
"Avada Kedavra!" Hermione shouted and a chattering green bolt arced toward Harry. Before it struck, he disappeared in black flames.
There was silence, deadly and foreboding.
The chamber shuddered from a sub-sonic blow, which caused large blocks of granite to fall from the ceiling. A second, deep rumble collapsed the doorway and the lights went out entirely, all except for an eerie glow from beyond the Veil. Hermione spun, sensing a presence behind her, and she muttered a spell that expelled a gleaming ribbon of silver from the end of her wand that sliced into the blackness.
It found traction in something in the impenetrable darkness, as evinced by the faint grunt she heard. She hurled a fireball in its direction, but the vanishing flare showed nothing.
A backhand from nowhere spun her around and left her prone upon the cold marble floor, spitting blood. She rolled to a seated position and a bevy of bludgeoning curses flew from her wand in the direction where she thought her adversary was. Each missed and instead crashed into the walls of the amphitheater. Large sheets of stone broke from the walls and fell, filling the air with dust.
She coughed, then spun around.
A hint of movement behind her drew a cone of blue flame in that direction.
Nothing.
She waited, a curse on her lips.
Still nothing.
The silence broke with a chant in a language she didn't recognize. A half second after it started, rain fell inside the chamber and she hissed as the droplets sizzled on her skin.
"Tears of the Damned." Harry said from his perch, not ten feet before her.
She sent a Killing Curse in his direction. He answered with a black bolt and the two jets met in the middle. A dome of crystal formed about them as the spell arcs pressed against one another, each wrestling for dominance. In the background was a chorus of angelic voices.
"Priori Incantatem," Harry said.
Hermione answered through gritted teeth, "Both wands share the same core, a feather from Death itself."
With an act of will, Harry forced the bead back to Hermione's wand. It moved with agonizing slowness toward its tip. As the two merged, Ron's likeness appeared, a white, ghost-like figure between them.
"I can't believe it. You bloody killed me, Hermione," he said, then turned toward Harry with a penitent expression. "Sorry, mate. I wasn't much help there in the end."
Hermione's gaze glinted to the ghost of her husband and the tip of her wand quivered. Her face flickered from resolute to pained and back again. "No," she hissed, forcing the bead a foot back from the end of her wand.
"The Hermione I knew was loving and gentle—she cared about her friends," Harry growled, sending the bead back faster this time. A moment later, a likeness of Ginny appeared, cradling a child in her arms. "You killed us, Hermione, and for what? Damn you. Damn you!" The image of Ginny tried to strike Hermione, but her ghostly hand passed through the witch.
"No!" Hermione screamed, almost losing her composure, and the bead shot a meter away before Harry could direct it back toward her.
As it neared her wand a third time, Hermione's black eyes faded to brown and she asked aloud, "What have I done?"
Her wand shattered and she collapsed onto the stone before the arch. Harry stepped forward, motioning with his hand. Gossamer wings tore from her back as the facsimile Cloak, rent and ruined, flew to his arm. A second gesture wrenched the Resurrection Stone off Hermione's hand and onto his outstretched palm.
"You may have possessed the Hallows, but you were never their master. They were yours."
"What have I done?" she whispered, horrified.
Harry raised the Elder Wand, preparing to call down the fury of his station and strike his associate down in a pyre of black flame. Words older than mankind formed in his mind, an incantation that felt as natural to the young avatar as breathing.
He stopped upon seeing a solitary tear fall from her eye, a jewel catching the werelight. Hermione bowed her head, ready to accept her fate.
"No, I won't do this," he whispered, lowering his wand. "I can't do this..."
After a long pause, he walked past her and knelt before his deceased wife, placing a hand upon her forehead. His other hand touched the tiny brow of his deceased child. A moment later, a woman's silhouette appeared behind the Veil, holding a child.
Harry walked toward them, his black wings evaporating into motes of smoke. "For all your study, you never knew the true nature of the Hallows. They were never about bringing back the dead, but about righting the balance between this world and the next. The Hallows are about about death, nothing more, nothing less."
He stopped before the archway and opened his arms wide. The curtains parted and brilliant sunlight burst from within. Just on the other side of the Veil was Ginny, beaming at him with their child in her arms amidst a halo of light.
"She's got your eyes, love," she said, weeping with happiness. The last traces of the darkness haunting Harry vanished in an instant. His own eyes, green and vibrant, blinked back tears.
"I love you, Ginny."
Without taking his eyes off his beloved, Harry addressed Hermione once more. "I forfeit a life now to bring one back. Try to live, okay? Your husband loves you, as do your friends."
Hermione nodded meekly, her cheeks streaked with tears.
"Take care, Ron." Harry said.
Ron coughed and sat up. "No problem, mate. And thanks." His face was scrunched up in grief. "Take care of my sister, alright?"
Harry reached into the archway and took his his wife's hand in his. Then he stepped through.
Eyes closed, he inhaled deeply, then exhaled. He repeated this several times and, after a long pause, he said finally, "Peace."
"Come, Harry. Let's go meet your family." Ginny took his arm.
Harry placed a kiss upon her forehead and the two entered paradise together.