Chapter Ten: Paid in Full
They landed in front of the cottage without any sense of movement. "Impressive, Mr. Weasley," McGonagall said, her smile genuine and warm.
"Thanks," Ron said, blushing. "Learned it from Her- Hermione." He gulped at the mention of her name, and Arthur laid a consoling hand on his shoulder.
"We know, son," he said gently.
"Well, let's get started." Kingsley moved toward the cottage, but when he touched the knob, a blinding flash knocked him backward, and he landed sprawling on the stone walk. Arthur and Ron helped him to his feet, and he glared at Ron as he brushed the dust from his robes. "Why would Harry put up wards if he knew that we were coming to aid him, Ron?"
"I don't know, Minister," Ron said. "He promised that he'd wait."
"I think that he might have lied," Arthur said. He pointed toward the hill, where flares of green and red flashed across the rapidly darkening sky.
"Oh shit," Ron muttered.
"I'll get to work on unraveling this, Kingsley," McGonagall said. "You three go and take care of Potter and Ginny."
"Thank you, Minerva. Get some Aurors here. We're going to have to do quite a bit of memory modification after this, I'd imagine."
"I'll get right to it. In the meantime, I'll see if I can get through those wards. I'm certain that Potter had a good reason to put them up. I'd like to know what it is." The three men started up the hill, and Minerva turned back to the cottage. "I hope you know what you're doing, Potter," she murmured.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Power gathered in the air, alerting Harry to Ginny's presence, and he stepped into the circle as she came forward, pushing Malfoy in front of her. Draco looked a little the worse for wear, but Harry thought he might be able to aid in his own defense if he could get hold of a wand.
"Let him go, Ginny," Harry said as the pair moved toward him. "He's done nothing to harm you."
"Nothing to harm me, Harry?" She laughed, a high, cackling sound that made the hair stand up on the back of Harry's neck. A shiver ran through him, but he pushed aside the fear it brought with it. "I loved you from the day I saw you!" she screamed, and her eyes were wild and dark. "I gave you my heart, and you left me for her! You sacrificed everything we had just so you could be with her!" Tears streaked her cheeks and she rubbed them away, her face blotchy and red. "And then you had this piece of shit follow me." She pushed Draco; unprepared, he fell face first to the ground. He groaned as he tried to catch himself, broken fingers throbbing.
"You killed her, Ginny!" Harry's eyes blazed, and Ginny took a step back, her face fearful—and confused. "You took the only thing in my life that mattered!" He pulled the little bottle from his pocket and threw it at her feet. Ginny flinched as it shattered against a rock. "You couldn't let it go," and now his voice was low and filled with menace. "She may have taken her own life, but your hand was on the rope."
He pulled his wand out, but did not point it at her. Reaching into his back pocket he took Bellatrix's wand and tossed it to land less than a foot in front of her. "Go ahead," he said. "Take it." He bent and laid his wand the same distance from his own feet. "I'll even give you the first shot. But know this, Ginny. This is a duel to the death. Only one of us is going to walk out of this circle. My only condition is that you let Draco go free."
"Potter, no!" Draco scrambled to his feet. "She'll kill you. It's the Horcrux. It's driving her mad!"
"Go, Draco." It was Ginny's lips that moved, but the voice coming from her throat was Bellatrix. "Leave baby Potter to me. Let me finish the Dark Lord's work!"
"No!" Draco stumbled toward her, and a green light flashed from her hand. He fell, his eyes lifeless, and Harry barely had time to duck and grab for his wand before another green jet was heading for him. I'm sorry, Draco, he thought. I should never have dragged you and Seamus into this.
He heard a mental snort. Since when could you tell me what to do, Potter, a sneering voice asked,and Harry smiled even as he conjured a shield, spinning away from Ginny as she cast a Cruciatus cursein his direction. I was always my own man, for better or worse, just like you, until the end. Harry, be certain that it's over this time. And-and tell my mother that I love her.
The Resurrection Stone burned hot against his leg for a moment, then was cold once again. The exchange had taken no more than a second, but he turned back to Ginny in time to see another spell coming for him. He circled, focused now, and Ginny's expression grew cunning and feral; he could see Bellatrix's face superimposed on that of his old friend.
"Come on, Potter," she snarled. "Time to play!"
Harry cast several stunning spells at her, but she dodged them easily. "If you'll come to me, Potter, I'll make it easy for you," she said, her voice filled with contempt. "Put down your wand and accept your fate."
"You're as mad as he was, Bellatrix," Harry said as they circled. He knew he was facing the deranged Death Eater now; Ginny's consciousness had been completely subsumed. It had been Bellatrix all along, pulling string like some sort of twisted puppeteer. "You will meet the same fate."
"I don't see you risking the death of your best friend's sister, Potter." Bellatrix grinned with Ginny's lips and Harry's stomach turned over at the sight. "Albus infected you with the nobility that always crippled him against the Dark Lord."
"Tom was as blind as you are. He fed on fear, on the terror that murder struck in the hearts of the Wizarding world." He cast a silent Stunner, but Ginny's youthful body worked in Bellatrix's favor. She skipped out of the way, casting another Cruciatus. Harry recalled Dumbledore's words years before. She likes to play with her food before she eats it.
A red stunner clipped the edge of one of the stones, and Harry looked away to see Arthur, Kingsley, and Ron sprinting toward them. Forgive me, old friends, he thought. This is not your fight. Holding his wand high, he bellowed, "Pefendum ignisium!"
Everything stopped. The three men vanished, falling back as a wall of Fiendfyre spouted from the tip of Harry's wand. It rose high to form a dome, shutting out the rest of the world. Bellatrix went sprawling, her hands over her ears as the magical fire chuckled and roared. There was fear in her eyes, and Harry stepped back, letting the flames fade from his wand.
The dome remained, and Bellatrix stared at him in awe. "Now, Bellatrix," Harry said in a voice as cold as the grave. "We finish what we started."
"You're playing with me," she said, and Harry could see her wand hand shaking.
"Yes, I am," Harry replied, and there was grim humor in his voice. "I want to make you suffer, Bella. I intend to make you suffer the way that Neville suffered, the way his parents suffered. Are you frightened, Bella? If you're not, you will be, I swear it. You see, while I was always Dumbledore's man, Tom was in my head for years, and I remember well the pleasure he felt while he tortured men and women in his quest for power." His eyes gleamed. "And I liked it."
"Crucio!" she cried, whipping her wand up as fast as anyone Harry had ever seen. He watched the curse speeding toward him; at the last second he motioned with his left hand, and it ricocheted harmlessly off the summoned shield. Harry's wand spat silver, and she fell to the ground, writhing in pain.
He allowed it to go on until she was on the verge of unconsciousness. "Rennervate!" he snapped, grinning as strength returned to the hapless woman before him. She lay on the ground, gasping as her nerve endings stopped firing. "Had enough, Bella?" he asked. Do you want me to kill you now?"
"You had your chance in the Department of Mysteries," she hissed. "You were too weak then, you're too weak now."
"Yes, well, Tom taught me a lot that night. He taught me about hatred, about revenge." He stared down at her, green eyes spitting with his rage. "Crucio!"
Bellatrix rolled out of the way at the last second. "You filthy half-blood!" she cried as a red glow flashed out, and Harry crashed to the earth with a grunt of pain as he felt a rush of blood spatter down his robes. She pushed herself to her feet, looming over him in triumph. "This time your death will be forever, Harry Potter. None of Mummy's magic left to save you. None of the Dark Lord's magic remaining inside you."
"They'll hunt you down, Bellatrix. Hunt you to the ends of the earth. The Ministry knows about your Horcrux. They aren't about to stand by and watch another Tom Riddle take control of people's lives."
"His name is Voldemort!" she screeched. "Crucio!"
Harry laughed wildly as he writhed on the ground, a mad sound. "You've lost already, you're just too ignorant to realize it. Do you think Kingsley is going to stand there waiting to see what happens? I'll bet that the Aurors are already here, waiting to see how our little game plays out. You're good, but not that good. They'll stun Ginny, take those pretty emerald earrings, and destroy them."
Bellatrix threw back her head and laughed, her eyes snapping with mirth. "Before my Lord died, he discovered how to make these immune to basilisk venom. You see, Potter, penetrating them with a basilisk fang would have destroyed them, but these have been soaked in venom for over two years. They are now immune to the poison."
Harry curled in on himself, and Bellatrix let the curse fade. She walked over to him, nudging him with her foot. "Stupefy!"
"Protego!" Harry whispered. Bellatrix staggered back, cursing as the reflected spell nicked her wand arm. The wand fell to the ground, and she rubbed her stinging hand as Harry stood. "Now it's over, Bella," he said. He raised his wand, and a tendril of fire snaked down from the top of the dome. It sizzled and spat as it wrapped around the slender white neck, and her hair (Ginny's hair, Harry reminded himself) glowed in the light, but did not burn.
"Your time will come, Potter," she said, and her eyes danced with mad glee in the unnatural glow.
"I truly hope you're right," he said. Pointing his wand at the woman he hated most, Harry let dark exhilaration fill his heart. "Expecto Patronum," he whispered. A stag erupted from the end of his wand even as he tightened the noose. The noose expanded until it engulfed Ginny's head as the silver form enveloped the girl. A violent explosion blew him back into one of the stones as the form of Bellatrix Lestrange grew, screaming as it attempted to escape through the Fiend Fyre.
Another explosion, this one of green fire, and ash rained down like snow. Coughing and wheezing, Harry went to were Ginny lay, her eyes wide open as they had been in the Chamber of Secrets all those years ago. The eyes were lucid now, the same clear blue that he'd fallen for in her fifth year. "Harry, I'm sorry," she said. "About Hermione, about everything. Bellatrix-."
"Shh, I know Ginny. I'm not blaming you, not anymore." He could hear yells and screams now; the fire was beginning to fade as his adrenaline waned. "But you have to do something for me. I-I can't do it myself." He stared at her, emerald eyes blazing in the dying light. Ginny saw blood dripping to the ground, and she stared in horror at the tacky feel of his blood-soaked robes. "She got off a lucky Sectumsempra," he said as he slumped to a sitting position.
"No," she said, backing away as his meaning became clear. "I can't."
"Yes, you can. Please, I beg you, Ginny. If you ever loved me at all, do for me what Professor Snape did for Professor Dumbledore. End my pain."
"Harry." Ginny was sobbing now. "Think of what will happen to me. They'll chuck me in Azkaban and throw away the key!"
"No, they won't." Harry spoke softly as he took her hand; he did not want to lose her now. "I left explicit documentation expressing my wishes. Tell Ron to remove this memory. Take it to the Pensieve in McGonagall's office. Show Kingsley, show Arthur. They will know the truth." He looked at her, eyes filled with an agony that went deeper than anything physical. "Please, let me go so that I can be with Hermione. We all owe the universe a death, Ginny. My mum sacrificed herself for me, but I'll never be whole until the circle is complete."
She nodded, kissing his lips, a light brush of skin on skin. "All right, Harry," she said. Tears were coming so hard now that he was doubled in her vision, but her wand was steady. "Take this," Harry said, lobbing his wand so that it landed gently bedside her. "Someday you can pass it along to your own son."
Ginny stood, her heart breaking, and Harry closed his eyes. "I love you," she whispered as she raised her shaking hand.
White hot heat on his leg caused him to open his eyes. As Ginny's lips formed the spell, Hermione appeared beside him. A phantom hand caressed his cheek, and Harry reached up, placing his own hand over hers.
Come home, love. Hermione's words, Hermione's voice, echoed in his head, and his heart filled with warmth. Come be with me forever. Green light flashed across the clearing. Smiling, Harry Potter went forward into the light.
A/N: This chapter has been incredibly difficult to write; I received word today that one of my best friends has died. Not a suicide, but natural causes, but very unexpected. I will miss him truly. He has always pushed me to write, even when I wanted to give up. So, James, this one is for you, my friend. I hope that you are now at peace.