The room of requirement had expanded to nearly the size of the great hall, with a shelved section where many books on defence could be found, as well as an area perfect for duelling as well as for practicing spells. Filling the room were nearly seventy students, all of whom were looking up onto a slightly raised dais on which stood Harry, Hal, Daphne, and Neville.

"Right, I'm glad you all found the place alright, for our first lesson, we're going to be doing simpler spells, like a disarming charm, so that I can tell where you all are in terms of wandwork, aiming, and dodging." Harry spoke in a commanding tone, but the people gathered in the room were clearly unhappy about what they had been told.

"You mean, we're gonna be doing first-year spells?" shouted Ron incredulously, "Most of us have been able to do that since our first term here!"

"Then you shouldn't object to being asked to perform it in order to determine your talent with a wand," snapped Daphne, which caused the boy to open and shut his mouth like a fish.

"And what's this about dodging? Why would we need to dodge if we can just make a shield?" Hal looked down, and saw an irate sixth year towards the front of the crowd.

"Why risk yourself to a magical attack by producing a shield that can be broken or circumvented when you can just solve the problem by simply not being in the way?" Hal answered the question, but the boy scoffed.

"As if my shield could be broken."

Hal stepped down off of the stage, and took the boy by the elbow and led him to the duelling area.

"Produce your strongest shield." A meter-wide disk of shimmering light occupied the area between the two boys, before Hal slashed his wand, sending a blue beam through the shield, which shattered, and knocked the older boy to his feet. He got up, red faced, and blustered back to the rest of the crowd. Before long, they were spread out all around the room, disarming each other and attempting to dodge the red light. Harry, Hal, and Daphne went around, correcting shoddy wandwork, or poor aim. Slowly, the general skill demonstrated increased, with fewer errant spells throwing books off of bookshelves, and more people actually managing to relieve the other person of their wand.

Eventually, Harry called a stop to the practice, sending the students back to their dormitories in waves so as to avoid Filch catching any of them. Susan remained behind with Harry, and Hal followed Dahne back to the Slytherin common rooms, which had become a much more tense but less outright violent atmosphere since Hal had laid down his ultimatum. It was october the twelfth, meaning it was Hal's birthday, and Harry and Neville had already given him his gifts, but Daphne had been very evasive about it, stating that he would 'get the gift at the correct time.'

Hal followed Daphne into her room, which was not unusual behaviour, seeing as how they had been together for nearly two years by that point, in some sense of officiality. Hal sat down on a conjured chair, and watched as Daphne locked the door and applied her usual assortment of privacy charms. The girl turned and smirked at him, before she reached a hand into her bedside table and produced a bottle of firewhisky, along with a pair of glasses with a flourish.

"Happy birthday," she said through a smirk, and twisted the cap of the bottle to break the seal. She poured a generous measure into each glass, before she handed one to him and kicked off her shoes. "Good thing it's a friday, else we'd have to go to lessons with a hangover after finishing this thing!" Hal grinned at her as he drained his glass to match hers. There was no way they'd finish the huge bottle of strong liquor in a single night - was there?

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

Hal slowly came to the realisation that he was, in fact, awake after spending a good half hour in a sort of doze. The more awake he decided he was, the worse he felt, but he couldn't return to sleep despite his best efforts. His head felt halfway between the aftermath of a hippogriff stampede and a weird sisters concert, with his sluggish brain throbbing in the corner of his skull. He suddenly became aware that he was rather warm, and that there were far too many legs in his bed for them to all be his. His eyes snapped open, and a groan escaped his mouth as his headache came into the forefront of his awareness, and he saw the back of a head of golden hair that was decidedly not his, as much as he liked the colour. Hal carefully made to extricate his arm from under Daphne's sleeping form, but despite his best efforts she shifted and woke up. She groaned in much the same way that he had, and Hal smirked as she put the pieces of the puzzle together. He could almost hear the cogs turning under her scalp.

"He-hey," he said, the attempt as being suave rather defeated by his perishingly dry throat.

"What happened?" Daphne responded, "why do I feel so awful? Surely we didn't drink the whole thing."

Hal looked around, his eyes skimming over the clothes scattered haphazardly all around the room, and landed on two glasses, with a bottle next to it. All three were empty. Daphne moved to sit up, drawing attention to the fact that neither of them were wearing anything, and she grabbed her wand, casting a time-telling spell and wincing as it informed them that it was half an hour after midday. Hal had a sudden feeling of panic, and he grabbed his own wand, causing it to recount the last few spells that he had cast, and sighing with relief as the soft pink glow of a contraceptive charm glowed around the room.

Hal swung his legs to the floor, resting his forehead on his palms as the room span around him. He shakily got to his feet and walked into the bathroom, noting the utter mess that the room was in, and relieved himself. He walked back into the main area, conjuring water into the two glasses, one of which he handed to Daphne, and the other he drained. Daphne helped him to find all of his clothes, and he dressed so that he could get to his room undisturbed.

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

The first quidditch match of the year was a grudge match between Gryffindor and Slytherin, and as such it was one of the most highly anticipated and contested events for the entire year. Harry was by far the best seeker in the school, and Hal was a natural chaser, who chose the more maneuverable nimbus series over the faster firebolt and more budget oriented cleansweeps. Gryffindor had the better overall squad, with an incredible seeker, three good chasers, two preternatural beaters, and an alright goalkeeper, but Slytherin had Hal. He had been known to score game-winning numbers of goals on his own, even before you add in the passable framework that was built around him. It had gotten so ridiculous that Angelina had apparently instructed the Weasley twins to focus on taking him out, so that he might not be able to take over the game so drastically.

In fact, the school was almost split perfectly into the reds of Gryffindor and the greens of Slytherin, which went to show how the public opinion of the famously sneaky house had changed. Hal strode out over frozen grass, wearing the green robes of the Slytherin quidditch team with the silver trim that designated him as the captain. He shook the hand of Angelina, smirking at her as he saw the hard lines that she set her fact into.

Fifteen people shot up into the air as the balls were released, and immediately Hal grabbed the quaffle, dodged a bludger, and began to fly down the pitch. He managed to get to the hoops just after Ron got there, and as such was in no position to save the shot. Hal immediately flew back, taking a contact with Katie as they scuffled for positioning by the reset point for the Quaffle. Theodore Nott grabbed the red leather ball, and passed it to Hal, which resulted in another goal being scored against the house in red.

Play continued in such a manner, with Hal dominating the game in his usual manner, with Slytherin leading by a huge one-hundred point margin after just twenty brutal minutes of flying. Alacia was taken off of the pitch with a broken arm, and Ginny Weasley subbed on in her place as the girl was obviously incapable of continuing to fly. Even with a fresh flier, Slytherin continued to dominate the scoreline, as Hal pulled off an insane maneuver wherein he intercepted a close pass between chasers, and flew in a maddening corkscrew path around the rest of the obstacles, pushing his top-of-the-line broom to its absolute limit, and almost blacking out from the forces involved in such a move. He feigned left, before throwing the quaffle towards the right goal, where it soared past Ron's outstretched fingertips and into the goal.

A roar went up from the crowd, and Hal took his mind off of his own game and focused on his surroundings. Harry had just risen triumphantly from a dive, golden ball clutched in his fist, with Malfoy hovering a few feet away from his counterpart, a sullen look on his face as he brooded over the loss of the snitch once again to the clearly superior seeker. Hal looked at the scoreboard and grinned, as it read 'Gryffindor 230- Slytherin 240.' He let out a whoop as he landed on the turf below him, raising his arms into the air as the crowd slowly understood what had happened. Despite the apparent simultaneity of the events, Hal had put the quaffle through the hoop a hair of a second before Harry had caught the snitch, resulting in a win instead of a draw for the Slytherins.

Hal felt Harry's arm around his back, and a few cameras flashed from some of the people watching who wanted to enter a career in journalism after they left Hogwarts.

"Unlucky, mate." said Hal, through his grin.

"Nobody in my team can even comprehend what you just did, by the way. Katie reckons that you could play for England if you even thought about wanting to." Harry replied without even a trace of malice, as they both knew that either of them could still win the quidditch cup, depending on how hard they beat the other two houses.

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

Somehow, the pictures taken by the students at the quidditch game had found their way into the Daily Prophet, which despite pressure from the government had been strong-armed into positivity by an anonymous businessman who had apparently bought up over fifty percent of the business, resulting in a slew of positive references to Harry, and many subtle or not so subtle hints that Voldemort had returned. This had led to the paper being banned from the school by the High Inquisitor, but that hadn't stopped any student from receiving it, as the Daily Prophet had a service where the paper could be delivered while disguised as something else, for precisely a reason such as this one.

Hal had ridden the high from his birthday and his quidditch game for a good few weeks, getting him through the rest of October and neatly into november without incident, which had carried him straight into Daphne's birthday, where he enthusiastically returned the favour. The number of defence association meetings had drastically increased, as the students seemed more enthusiastic than ever as they were able to see real, tangible improvement over the course of a few sessions. They had moved on to slightly less basic topics such as the various commonly used curses that were good for defence, as well as covering the majority of the OWL and NEWT syllabuses to prepare those years for their tests. All of the students were very excited to learn the more flashy and impressive magics, such as the patronus charm, but Harry had been adamant that they had to master the basics before they went on to the harder things.

Despite Umbridge's apparent obsession with catching Harry in the act of saying something that she could punish, Harry was relatively happy. He felt somewhat isolated from his Hal and Daphne due to their unashamed self sufficiency, but he was busy enough and had a developed enough support network that it didn't hurt him too badly. His relationship with Susan had dropped out of the interests of the rumour mill as it had been found to be a poor source of gossip due to the fact that the teens talked through issues in a sensible and calm manner before they ran into shouting matches.

What had become apparent, however, was that Harry's temper lay a lot closer to the surface than it usually did, and it was not unknown for him to lose it with someone, but despite his famous duelling prowess it never came to blows. Harry's behaviour was disconcerting, but virtually harmless, and the majority of the student body had put it down to stress. Cho, on the other hand, had bounced from relationship to relationship, and she could often be found in the coffee shops of Hogsmeade on the frequent permitted weekends. She seemed to be happier, at least to anyone who didn't know her. Those who did know her saw that her constant string of boyfriends was an attempt to hide her internal issues that could only be healed by time, and they worried about her.

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

By the time that christmas rolled around, both Gryffindor and Slytherin had stomped Hufflepuff, and as such the standings in the quidditch cup were still all to play for.

The night before they were due to return home, Harry found himself ripped from a pleasant dream about a happy hour spent with friends and thrust into a dark corridor, belly sliding on the tiled floor. Harry's vision seemed odd, and he felt that he could 'see' the chill of the floor. He flicked out his tongue, and became suddenly aware of a man with red hair slumped on the wall, half covered with an invisibility cloak, and snoring softly as he slept. The snake coiled up, preparing to strike at the man, when the man shifted and opened his eyes. The snake made to lunge at the man, and Harry yelled out in his mind, causing the snake to flinch and miss the mark. Arthur Weasley leapt to his feet, shooting a flurry of cutting curses at the snake as it lunged again for him, but the snake inexplicably missed once again.

Gore began to spatter on the floor as scales were ripped from the back of the snake and gouges appeared in the flesh underneath, causing the movement of the enormous serpent to be inhibited by the slippery floor. The snake lunged again, hitting the red haired man's arm, but was impacted by a brutal cutting curse as the fangs clamped down and pumped venom into the twin wounds in the man's arm. The body of the snake fell backwards, leaking a black tarry substance as it dissolved, but blood began to freely flow from the man, who slumped back against the wall with a pained gurgle, with the venom in his body breaking down the soft tissues and muscles at an alarming rate.

Harry shot to his feet, drenched in sweat, and grabbed his cloak and wand before rushing out of the door. He took off at a sprint, heading towards the gargoyle that guarded the entrance to Dumbledore's office.

"Sugar Quills!" The gargoyle slid aside, and Harry took the spiral stairs two at a time in his hurry to reach the top. He heard voices within which immediately went silent when he knocked loudly on the door. Harry opened the door, and pulled the cloak off of him, which caused Dumbledore to raise an eyebrow.

"Sir, Mr Weasley's injured, an enormous snake bit him and although he managed to kill the beast he's definitely going to die unless you can get to him." Dumbledore tilted his head at Harry, before he raised his wand and sent forth a silver phoenix from the tip of it, which vanished seconds later, presumably to take a message to somebody.

"I presume you had a vision of the attack." Dumbledore stated, without really asking, "This is a worrying development, but not one that I'd say was overly important in the grand scheme of things. Harry's jaw dropped.

"You're just going to let him die?"

Dumbledore stiffened, before replying in a terse voice.

"Arthur knew what he signed on for. From your account, he had fallen asleep in his duties and thus his fate is his own fault. Additionally, it would not do to have the minister questioning why i knew of these illegal activities taking place, and he may use the opportunity to discredit me further, or to simply have me arrested. This is for the greater good, I wouldn't expect you to understand."

Harry stood and made to leave, but he found the door locked when he tried the handle.

"Now, Harry, you didn't seriously think that you could keep these memories, did you? It would be very bad for me if this was to be made public knowledge, and so I'm afraid I'm going to have to obliviate you." Harry reached for his wand, but saw it already in Dumbledore's hand, before he slumped to the floor unconscious. Dumbledore leant over the boy, forcing his way into his mind and voyeuristically watching Harry's memories of his more intimate moments with Susan. The old man then cleared the memories of his last few hours, and in his arrogance he forgot to check again whether the flow of time would make sense from Harry's point of view as he apparated silently with Harry into the Gryffindor dormitory and replaced the boy into his bed. Harry's wand was then replaced onto his bedside table, and it glowed softly for a second as the new tracking charm activated.

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

Harry was seated in their usual compartment, arms wrapped around Susan as they sped back towards London on the scarlet steam engine, practically seated on one another, or at least not easily separable.

"Harry, did you ask Sirius when it was okay for me to come over?" she whispered up to him, and his eyes widened in panic.

"I-I can't remember. Actually, now that I think about it I don't remember anything after dinner yesterday." Hal looked up sharply at his words.

"Do you mind if I take a look?" he asked, and Harry nodded slowly.

Harry felt Hal's presence in his mind, and he instinctively cleared his mind in response to the sensation, but Harry couldn't help but bring up images. He knew from experience that this recalling effect was Hal's presence in his mind, and a few seconds later the presence retreated. Hal frowned, "You've definitely had some modification to your memory. There's not even a remnant or fragment of the memory, nor is it merely sectioned off. Whoever did it clearly knew what they were doing, which actually helps us." Daphne snapped her fingers.

"It basically reduces the suspects down to Dumbledore, Snape, or Flitwick, but you haven't seen Flitwick since wednesday's lesson, and somehow I don't see you going to Snape for help after hours. It's got to be Dumbledore, which means there's not too much we can do about it, as there's a reason he is famed as the only wizard Voldemort ever feared."

Harry's coat whipped around him in the wind as he said his goodbye to Susan on the platform in a rather physical manner, only stopping when Sirius cleared his throat beside the pair who broke away from each other looking dutifully sheepish at the interruption. Susan walked over to a tall and severe looking woman, giving her a quick hug as the older woman's mouth quirked up in a smile. Sirius put an arm around Harry's shoulder, guiding him a short distance away before the pair of them disappeared in a swirl of fabric. They reappeared, and the first thing that Harry noticed was the smell of pine and then the breathtaking mountain scenery.

"Like it, pup?" asked Sirius with a grin, "Here's where we'll be spending Christmas, along with Susan and Madam Bones when they arrive tomorrow." Sirius laughed at how Harry's face lit up at his words, before he led him into the cosy wooden cabin.

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

OWLs crept up not-so-subtly on the fifth years as the months slipped away, but despite the enormous drains on their free time every single student made every effort to turn up to DA meetings, as they knew that the meetings were all that lay between them and a failed OWL, as well as the simple fact that without the meetings almost all of the students would be left for dead in a fight. Now, however, the majority stood a chance at escaping, even if they were unlikely to be able to take down fully qualified wizards.

What they did stand more than a chance against was the dementors, as Harry had just finished teaching them the patronus charm, and to his amazement a majority of the members were eventually able to cast a full corporeal patronus. Suddenly the door to the hall opened and Hal's elf, Pinky, ran in and whispered to Hal, who nodded grimly.

"Umbridge knows. Disillusion yourselves, I'll secure the room against her, then leave through the alternate passages in ones and twos. Harry, you must not be caught, or she'll use it to gain power."

The students vanished in place, or rather blended in to their backgrounds before leaving through a small alternate doorway as a blast rattled the door. The hinges of the door to the room of requirement cracked and the left door swung inwards, admitting several Slytherin students who attempted to grab Hal and Harry, but they shook off their assailants and calmly walked towards the door where the toad clad in pink stood, framed by the light streaming in from the corridor. The parchment curled into ashes behind them as the short professor bounced down the corridors towards the headmaster's office.

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow as Harry strode in, followed closely by Hal, but he said nothing. The minister for magic was also present, and his jaw dropped when he saw Hal stride in and lean against a bookshelf which held the sorting hat alongside a series of ancient tomes.

"Well, I think we've got more than enough evidence to arrest you, Dumbledore, as well as expelling these two troublemakers," said the minister in a voice that suggested the early coming of roughly five christmases all in one go.

"Well, I think that you'll find, minister…" began both Dumbledore and Hal simultaneously. Dumbledore raised a hand as if to suggest the Hal should continue, and although he looked taken aback by it he took it in his stride.

"I think you're forgetting, minister," Hal continued in a dangerously soft voice, "that you owe the Selwyn family at least one favour. Far be it from me to reveal some of your more - sensitive secrets." The minister swallowed nervously, and Harry couldn't help but wonder about what precisely Hal knew.

"O-of course, my apologies. Dumbledore is the only one we have an issue with here."

"Now, minister, I feel you may be labouring under the delusion that I will be coming quietly." said Dumbledore, before a wave of heat rushed over the room, blowing the people into the walls as Dumbledore vanished in a flash of flame. The minister shakily got to his feet, helping his undersecretary to her feet as he looked around the ruined office, which was decidedly Dumbledore free.

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

Harry slumped down in his normal seat in the library, grinning as he had just finished his final exam, history of magic. Although he felt that he had done terribly with the exam, he felt confident in his performances in all of the other subjects. Susan practically skipped into the library, and threw herself into him, earning a glare from Madam Prince, the librarian. Harry closed his eyes, rubbing his temples to ward off the headache that had been buzzing behind his eyes since the morning, but as soon as they shut, a vision filled his eyes.

"You're going to have to kill me, then," said Sirius as he kneeled before Voldemort, near-unrecognisable as his features were ragged and maimed. It seemed that Voldemort had tired of the cruciatus curse and had resorted to more traditional torture methods.

"Well then, Sirius, we will have to wait until you are prepared to do what your lord wishes for you." Sirius began to scream as the handsome man once again began to torture him.

Harry's eyes shot open as he gasped for air. Susan was facing him with a look of concern on her face. Harry leapt to his feet and took off at a run towards the Gryffindor common room, followed closely by Susan who wore a supremely confused look on her face. Harry opened the portrait, and leapt into the common room, taking the stairs to his dormitory three at a time. Susan waited for him to return, and hopefully to explain somewhat. He came back down the stairs with a mirror in his hand, while he spoke Sirius' name into it. Suddenly he swore and cancelled the spell, returning the mirror to its normal reflective state.

"Voldemort has Sirius in the department of mysteries. When the mirror activated, all I could hear was Sirius screaming in pain. I'm going to get him." Harry was striding towards the main hall as he spoke in a hushed tone.

"Like hell you are, Potter," said Hal, standing in front of them with folded arms, "I'm coming too, I can't trust you to not die on your own."

"I'm coming too," said Daphne, followed up by a similar affirmative response from Neville. Susan shook her head.

"There's no way I'm coming. If voldemort is really there then I'm going to get Snape, he'd know what to do." Harry bowed his head, before he gave her a quick kiss and turned back towards the huge doorway.

The four of them ran towards the forest, hoping to get away from the wards and apparate to the Ministry, when Luna who was feeding thestrals by the treeline called out to them.

"You're going to need more help if you want to actually take Voldemort down." They had gotten used to her incredible intuition over the course of their DA meetings, and Neville especially had grown close to the girl, who had a natural talent for combat underpinned by an incredibly unusual fighting style that enabled her to defeat most opponents before they could adapt to it. She joined them in their run past the warding around Hogwarts, and grabbed onto Hal's arm along with the others as they prepared to apparate.

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

The atrium of the ministry of magic was closed for the day, and almost deserted. The immediacy of magical travel meant that people generally signed off at around half-five or six, and the way in which magic enabled them to work more efficiently than muggles were capable of. This led to the five of them being able to run uninterrupted through the deserted hall, passing the unusual fountain and the desk where they would generally have to register their wands.

They piled into one of the darkened lifts, which took off at a disconcerting pace in a lateral manner before shooting downwards towards the department of mysteries, where Harry had seen Voldemort torturing Sirius. They stepped out into the corridor lit with ethereal blue lights and hurried past heavy dark wooden doors that led to the courtrooms on either side of the corridor, and towards the one with a golden inlay that Harry knew led to the department of mysteries proper. The five of them had their wands out, and warily stepped over the threshold of the door, into a room whose walls began to spin around them such that the blue light of the torches became lines burned into their retinas due to the pace that the room span at. Harry tried a door, which led to a room filled with ticking clocks, except for the fact that they all ticked at different rates, and some of the hands on the clocks went backwards. A cabinet filled with time-turners stood next to a bell jar with an egg that hatched and grew into a hummingbird, which then shrank and encased itself within the pale blue shell of the egg.

They moved into the next room, where a stone pillar stood, carved with glowing blue runes. A humming noise was all that could be heard in the room, even when one of the five spoke up to ask about it. A door opposite them led into an amphitheatre-like room, with a raised stone platform upon which stood an archway of black marble, with a silk veil blowing mysteriously in a non-existent breeze. Deep trenches were gouged into the floor of the platform, and evidence of a fierce spellfight could be seen, although whether it had happened five minutes ago or five hundred years ago could not be told.

Harry led them through a door to their right according to his instincts, and before them lay a cavernous room filled from top to bottom with shelves, upon which lay countless glowing blue crystal balls. The room was gargantuan, and despite the fact that the balls glowed they couldn't see how far up the small crystal spheres went.

"Row ninety seven. Keep your wands ready."

The five of them hurried past innumerable prophesies, some that were, some that are, some that will be, and some that may never come to pass, rushing towards the small golden number ninety seven. Eventually they came upon it, and found Sirius lying in a pool of his own blood, breathing weakly. He coughed when he saw the five of them.

"J-James?" he asked weakly, "you shouldn't have come, you know he'll use you to get it. And you, Chiron. You should have known better than to rush into this fool's errand." Sirius stared at Hal as he spoke, and Daphne shivered.

"Harry, this one has your name on it." said Neville, indicating a small glass orb with his wand. Harry stood up from his godfather's form, and took the ball from the shelf, and a voice rang out behind them.

"Very good, now turn slowly and give it to me."

Death eaters in their black robes and silver masks appeared from the shadows between shelves, with wands from all angles pointing at the five of them.

"Take a single step towards me and I smash it." Harry's voice rang out in the otherwise silent room, and along with Hal, Neville, and Daphne they formed up around Luna who was by far the weakest combatant of all of them.

"He knows how to play!" cackled a feminine voice from the darkness.

"Bellatrix, it's been a long time. I wonder if I'll beat you this time?" Hal couldn't help but grin as he spoke. Life and death situations gave him an adrenaline rush, and he had found it next to impossible to find a fair duel recently, given how much more powerful he was than most of his peers.

"Well, Selwyn, if you just hand over the prophecy then we can find out, I promise that I'll give you a chance after I kill all of your little friends."

"You w-won't be killing anyone today!" Neville shouted with false bravado.

"Ah! Longbottom, isn't it? I will take great pleasure in completing the set, and killing you as I did your parents."

Daphne nudged the two boys to her sides to get their attention as the others fought verbally with the death eaters, and waited ten seconds before she shot a blasting curse into the death eaters in front of her. She heard the others copy her, and she grabbed Luna by the hand and took off at a sprint towards the exit. From the sounds of things, three of the curses had impacted death eaters, but one had been deflected and had ricocheted into one of the tall shelves. A flash of green light shone from behind her, and she risked a glance back, seeing Sirius's body lie still as the silvery orbs fell to the ground and shattered around his body.

They ran out into the room with the veil, followed by streams of black smoke from which materialised death eaters. They were surrounded, and as they were standing on the raised platform they were almost certainly done for as they had little to no cover from the ring of dark wizards facing them from the arrayed seating area. One of the death eaters stepped forward, and waved his wand to dispel his mask, revealing the face of Lucius Malfoy. He mockingly applauded them.

"Well done, you killed three death eaters. Now you will all certainly die here, as there is no defence against us. All that is preventing your death right now is that prophesy, so hand it over."

"Telling us that you will kill us if we give you the prophecy is a great way to get us to give you the prophecy." said Luna from her position leaning against the arch of stone.

Suddenly, cracks around them could be heard, and various aurors appeared around the room and engaged the death eaters in combat. Harry and his friends dived for cover as Bellatrix appeared on the platform, shooting a jet of pink flames at Luna, who dived to avoid it, but then was hit by a red beam, leaving her shrieking in pain on the floor. Daphne became preoccupied by another death eater, and broke off from the larger fight to focus on her own safety. Harry, Hal, and Neville had duelled Bellatrix to a standstill, and the witch was no longer holding anything back as she fought to stay alive.

A multicoloured beam impacted Neville in the chest, knocking him back and causing him to stumble, before Bellatrix followed up with a blue jet, which threw the boy backwards, causing him to pass through the veil. The battle seemed to fade away as the life within the teenager faded too, and Bellatrix let out a cackle before she turned and sprinted out of the veil room with Harry and Hal hot on her trail. Bellatrix's lift doors closed just as the two boys came into view, and they piled into the next one and followed her up.

"Longbottom's dead! Longbottom's dead! Are you coming to get me?"

"Crucio!" shouted Harry, causing the woman to fall to the floor, but she quickly got to her feet.

"You've got to mean it, Potter. Let me demonstrate. Crucio!" Harry screamed in agony as his blood boiled and his bones fragmented, and he writhed on the floor in his despair. The curse lifted as Hal fired a grey spell from his wand that lazily wound its way across the open space between the two. Bellatrix barely managed to dodge the spell, and her eyes reflected her shock that such a deadly spell could be used by a student.

Hal ran away from Harry, into the open space within the atrium so as to separate the unconscious teenager from any rogue spells that could hit him. Bellatrix followed him, transfiguring a pebble on the floor into a spray of molten metal, which Hal calmly cooled with his wand before dodging out of its way. He returned with a flurry of various colours that had to be dodged due to the raw power behind them. Bellatrix flourished her wand, and Harry deflected the abnormally fast spell that ensued, ripping a hole in the huge banner that was behind him.

Hal responded with a jet of flame that twisted and formed into dangerous magical creatures, which leaped towards the witch and attempted to devour her. Bellatrix was forced to abandon her attack in order to prevent her death at the talons of the fiendfyre. As she dispelled it, Hal's cutting curse ripped a gash in her arm, and she hissed as her off-hand became useless, hanging down at her side as the blood flowed freely from it. Bellatrix gasped as she realised that the wound was one that could very easily kill her, due to the fact that the specific cutting curse used prevented the clotting of blood. She would bleed out if she did not manage to escape from the fight.

She shrieked as she shot spell after spell at her opponent, but he calmly avoided them all with perfect movement that appeared almost mechanical. The teen's eyes were glowing with a purple light that screamed of raw magical power unleashed, something she had only seen three times before, all of which were when her master duelled Dumbledore, although Riddle's magic had been red in hue.

Realising the futility of her efforts, she tried to blind him in order to escape from the combat, but as she tried to twist into the air to vanish she felt his magic pushing down on her, preventing her from leaving. At the same time, she felt the sensation of a hook ripping through her flesh, and moaned in pain as her leg detached from the rest of her body. She fell to the floor, and Hal glided over to her, floating about an inch from the ground. He touched her wand, which shattered before her eyes, and leaned in towards the defenceless woman.

"This is for Sirius."

The bones in her arm shattered, pulping the muscle in her forearm.

"This is for Harry."

The skin from her leg detached from the rest of her, and the muscle underneath twisted and contorted, extracting a pained whimper from the woman.

"This is for Neville."

Hal pushed into her mind, batting aside her occlumency defences and leaving behind every memory of pain that he had, with none of the release or relief that came after. The woman screamed as hell itself played out in her mind for what seemed like an eternity. Finally it was lifted, and she sobbed in relief.

"This is for mercy."

A jet of green lit the boy's features from below, contrasting with the purple glow that stained his sclera violet with its light.

"Well, well, it looks like I may have competition." a high, cold voice spoke from ahead, revealing the presence of Voldemort leaning against a ruined pillar in the middle of the atrium. "How were you, a mere boy, able to take down one of the greatest and most feared fighters to have ever lived?" his tone sounded curious, confident in his power over the teenager that floated before him.

"I was more powerful. She was likely the better duelist, but I had power behind my magic that she could not hope to match. If she was much better, she would have merely outclassed me in terms of skill, but as it is the power difference was more than enough for me to win this one."

Suddenly Dumbledore appeared in the scene as well, taking into account the carnage in the atrium, and seeing the teenager floating before the Dark Lord with glowing eyes and conversing calmly. He cleared his throat, and Voldemort straightened.

"Well, boy, we will continue this conversation another time. I believe that I have a prior engagement." he turned to face Dumbledore, who held his wand raised at Voldemort. Hal stepped back onto the ground and walked over to Harry's prone body, and turned him face up. He knew that he would be in agony when he awoke, so he stunned him to prevent him from waking up and experiencing the pain unnecessarily.

He turned back to watch the two formidable combatants in an incredibly fast paced duel, well aware he was watching the current pinnacle of magical ability. Both men were near the limit of magic that could be safely channeled through a wand, and it showed.

Dumbledore's shield rang out like a gong each time a spell struck it, and even the green light of the killing curse failed to penetrate the shield. Voldemort had one of his own, and as soon as he stopped casting, Dumbledore whipped his wand around with a jet of flame wrapping around the Dark Lord, but the flame turned to flesh and scales as it was transfigured into a snake. The implausibly large serpent turned and hissed at Dumbledore, and Voldemort vanished in a cloud of smoke, appearing in the air above Dumbledore with eyes glowing bright red.

The snake attacked at the same time as a jet of green left Voldemort's wand, but Dumbledore deflected the light from the tip of his wand and redirected it into the snake, which fell to the floor and crumbled into ashes as the magic that formed it was ripped away. The water rose up and formed around Voldemort in a ball, before being flung away as the handsome man rose to his feet. A second of silence passed between the two men, before Riddle screamed and threw his arms out wide, shattering every piece of glass in the atrium, which gathered into a cloud of razors and flew at Dumbledore, who merely waved his wand and turned the glass into dust.

Cracks and pops began to sound around them, and Fudge along with almost the entire auror department arrived in the atrium. Voldemort sneered at Dumbledore and Hal, before he turned on the spot and ripped casually through the anti-apparation wards that covered the atrium.

"H-he's back!" stuttered Fudge.

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

Harry stood on the precipice of a cliff, watching the sea crash into the base of it with angry thundering. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he stood straight, but tears flowed freely down his face. Two years. That was how long he had had a family for. A hand touched his shoulder, and he didn't have to look to know it was Susan's. Since the events of the department of mysteries she hadn't left his side, something begrudgingly accepted by Dumbledore as he explained the prophecy to Harry in his office, leading the teenager to rage and ruin the room with accidental magic. Dumbledore had at least looked somewhat guilty, but knowledge of guilt didn't excuse his wrongdoing. Harry should have been told about the prophecy as soon as he had been able to comprehend, at the latest he should have been told after Voldemort's return. Harry should never have been sent to the Dursley's, but at least it'd had the effect of making Harry acknowledge his skill and blessings when they eventually came.

As it was, Harry was incapable of dealing with death, and had been left broken by his only positive link to his parents being ripped from him so cruelly. He blamed Dumbledore for that too, as he had placed Sirius on guard duty despite knowing full well that he of all people was most at risk due to his close connection to Harry.

Neville's grandmother had broken upon hearing of his death, and was currently in St Mungo's for symptoms that nobody could figure out. Dumbledore theorised that she had simply stopped caring for life after the death of her only sane link to her children, and Harry placed the blame for his friend's death firmly at his own feet, in the same way as he blamed himself for Hermione's death. Luna had been found tortured into insanity in a corner of the hall of prophecy, with signs of assault that made Harry burn with rage as he thought about it. The healers had been saddened at her condition, but remained hopeful that she would recover as she had learned to talk once again, but seemed understandably unwilling to do anything more than talk. The trauma of her experiences seemed to have caused her to regress into a toddler-like state, a fact that had caused her father to weep furious and powerless tears of anger and frustration.

As for Hal, he had received an order of Merlin for killing Bellatrix, who was widely considered to be the fifth most dangerous dark sorcerer of all time, after Morgana, Voldemort, Grindelwald, and Herpo the foul. He blamed himself for different reasons to Harry, in that he felt that he should have protected Neville, but was incapable. He and Daphne had escaped relatively unharmed, but the mental effects of combat would remain with them for a long time. Daphne's father had been furious, but more directed towards the death eaters and the ministry's incompetence than at Harry, and had proposed a motion of no confidence in Fudge, which had passed unanimously. He had then been elected as minister for magic, and immediately announced Voldemort's return publicly, putting into place stringent security measures against attacks, and tried to safeguard people, but was suffering from the strain put upon wartime leaders.

The lestranges had been wiped out, with Rudolphus dying in the hall of prophecy, and Bellatrix dying at Hal's hand, and so the fortune and other contents of the vault had passed to Harry, who had also inherited the Black fortune and estate.

Recovery would take time, which was unfortunate considering that time was the thing they had the least of.

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

AN

Wow, so I didn't expect this to go how it did, but once I started writing it seemed natural to have the consequences of combat be more severe than the books would have you believe. I kept Dumbledore and Voldemort's duel fairly faithful to the film/book version, but I feel that I have raised the power of Voldemort somewhat, to keep him as being stronger than Harry (and Hal.)

More people would have died if the book was realistic, and I think this is a decent compromise between George RR Martin and JK Rowling. Having said that, I don't want this to turn into an 'everything goes to hell' fic, just as I didn't want it turning into a 'Harry saves everyone' fic.

/AN