They bolted between the shelves so quickly that they almost rammed into them and set off an avalanche of plates. Neither of them let their feet touch the ground as they leapt down the staircase which they eventually came to. One light. Two. Landing on the fifth step in ankle deep water. Tom motioned for silence, and then looked up at the ceiling above them. Back up the steps. Tilting his head slightly as he listened.

Harry did the same.

The RMS Titanic groaned. The metal whined, high and piercing, as the hull filled with hundreds of gallons of sea water which strained against the bolts which held the ship together.

"This is bad. This is bad." Tom seemed to be more adept at interpreting the sounds than Harry was. "We need to go. Need to move. At this rate…we have maybe ten minutes before this entire deck is underwater."

He left the stairway, drawing Harry with him, and both peered down the hallway to both sides. To their right, close enough to touch, was yet another locked grate. To their left, a handful of yards away, was a set of wooden doors through which barely-restrained water was pouring in a high pressure stream.

Once those doors gave way…

Water was now running down the stairs they'd taken.

"Come on!" The lights dimmed and brightened in time with the sparks which shot from the wiring. They ran as fast as they could while having to slog through waist deep water only to turn a corner and find their paths blocked by another surge of water. "Go back!"

Go back to where, exactly? They were trapped between a rock and a hard place. Or rather a rush of water and a pair of doors which were barely holding back what seemed like the entire ocean. And to make matters worse almost the moment that they turned around those doors gave way, unleashing a tsunami of glacial water.

"Go!" Tom dragged him into an off shooting narrow hall at random. Pushing him ahead of him as the wave came crashing down behind. "Run! Just run! Don't stop!"

It was almost as if it was pouring rain in the little hallway. The lights flickered and flashed like so many bolts of lightning in a vicious storm. Then went out entirely.

They couldn't outrun the water. It latched onto their ankles and ripped them off their feet. Icy salt water poured up his nose and down his throat and lighting his eyes on fire. His back hit the floor, scraping along the carpet with the vicious current. When he finally popped up again he was coughing spluttering and blind. Deafened by the roar of the water.

"Tom!" Frothing white water sent him flying passed another set of stairs. He coughed and cleared his throat before trying again. "Tom!"

"Harry!"

They were flung against the locked grate. More hissing sparks rained down on their heads. The force of the water all but crushed their bodies against the unforgiving metal and leaving them both gasping for air.

"Harry!" Tom's hand closed around his wrist and the other scrabbled at the molding of the wall. Gripping it and dragging his body forward against the current. "This way! Come on!"

The speed at which the water rose was horrifying. Waist deep. Chest deep. Over their heads. By the time they made it to the stairway they'd passed before they had to dive down to get through it.

Another locked gate met them at the top.

"No! Oh God no! Please!" Harry clutched at the metal and shook it as if hoping that, if he scratched at the lock enough, it would magically spring open.

"Shake it! As hard as you can! If we both do it together it might be enough to break the lock open!"

He'd seen ten men shaking it at once to no affect at the other stairwell. Adrenaline aside, Harry doubted that it would work out in their favor. The gate rattled about like dry bones but didn't budge.

"God damn it! I wish I had my knife on me; I could have broken the lock!" The water had reached their feet again. Harry felt like his heart was thudding out of his chest. "Help!"

The water was spilling over the top of the stairs and onto A Deck with the sound of a rushing river. There was no one left to hear them, certainly. No one coming to save them. Still, they both screamed for help at the top of their lungs. Their voices echoing off the walls. And then…

"Did you hear that, Songbird?" Despite their situation the brunet still managed to look hopeful. "Listen!" Harry straightened his ears to hear over the rushing water and groaning ship and caught a sound, just barely loud enough to be heard, that made his heart soar.

"Footsteps! Tom…Tom! Those are footsteps!"

"Yes, love, those are footsteps! We're getting out of here! Help! Help! Over here!"

The footsteps grew louder. And louder. And then a man came into view. A staff member, by the look of him, in a white shirt and black pants half soaked and with a wild look on his face. He threw them a short glance before starting up the stairs.

"No! No! Wait!"

"Please!"

"Stop! Open this gate! Please!"

"Help us! Please! Please help us!"

The man paused on the stairs, swore under his breath, and then came running back towards them with a ring of keys in one hand.

The water level had risen so high that even while standing on the lower rungs of the gate it reached their knees. The man fumbled with the ring. Hands shaking violently. Examining every key that he had.

"Come on! Come on!" Tom looked back at the water in a panic. "Let's go! Come on, man!"

The man shoved a key into the lock but it wasn't the right one. The emergency lights on A Deck spat orange sparks with a loud crackle. The man flinched. The keys slipped from his fingers.

He looked up at them with guilt in his eyes. "I'm sorry. I dropped the key."

The water was up to their chests now. The man swam back up the stairs, leaving them behind.

"No! Please! Come back! Please!" It wasn't just sea water burning his eyes now as he reached futilely through the gate towards the now empty stairwell.

"Fuck!" Tom plunged under the water and thrust his own hand through the grate. Blind between the flickering light and the murky water. Feeling about until finally managing to find the hard metal of the ring of the keys.

He shook out his hair and pushed his dripping bangs out of his eyes, holding up the ring like a trophy of war and spitting out a mouthful of sea water. "I've got it!" The keys rattled around in his grip. "Which one!"

Much shorter than Tom was Harry was forced to cling to the grate just to keep his head above water. "I…uh…the small one! Try the small one!"

"Small one. Small one. Right." He flipped through them quickly before locating the key Harry had mentioned. Reaching back through the bars. Trying to slide the key into the lock. Missing once. Twice. Finally getting it inside.

"Come on, Tom!"

"I'm trying! I've got it in but it's stuck!"

"I'm scared, Tom! I'm scared. I don't want to drown! I don't want to drown!"

"You're not going to, Songbird! Stop panicking, it'll only make the situation worse!" With both hands he tore at the key. Turning it with all his might. And then.

The lock gave way with a clang. And not a moment too soon; Tom threw the grate open just as their heads touched the ceiling.

"The stairs! Go for the stairs!"

They swam, desperately, forwards. The stairs so close, yet still so far away. The water level had reached the pipes. Like before they had to dive down in order to reach the way out. Dripping wet and freezing they hauled themselves upwards with death grips on the rails.

The lounge room was nearly tilted vertical; many of the tables and chairs which hadn't been bolted down had already slid against the far wall and the massive grand piano look about ready to do the same. Running through it was like running up a steep hill, the slant so extreme that Harry thought for sure that he'd go tumbling backwards at any moment.

He caught sight of Dumbledore standing in front of the grand hearth, staring fixedly at the painting hung above it just as Tom dragged him through the doorway.

"Wait!" The raven dug his heels into the carpet. "Tom, wait! Please!"

The brunet shook himself out of his daze and blinked at him. "Songbird?"

"Wait. I just…come here." He tugged him back towards the fire place; the other man still hadn't noticed them. "Mr. Dumbledore."

He looked over at them. "Harrison." The twinkle was gone from his eyes. "This is Tom?"

"I am."

"I'm glad that you got to him, Harrison. Now you must both go. Hurry and get off this ship."

"We must?…But what about you?"

The ship let out a thunderous cry before Dumbledore could reply. Tom took his hand again.

"Come on. We've got to move!"

"But-."

"Listen to him, Harrison. This is my choice."

"But Sir-."

"When you are older, and I hope that you survive to become so, you'll understand."

He turned back to the fireplace as Tom dragged Harry through the revolving glass doors and back out into the room of the main stairwell.

"Why are there still so many people here when all of the life boats have been launched?"

"Because most of the boats were launched half full, if even that. Not to mention that even if they had been full there was only half of the necessary number of boats to begin with."

"Who's the idiot that thought that was a good idea? No, better yet, who's the idiot that let it happen! If it can float than it can sink!"

"You're preaching to the choir, love." Harry told him as they ascended the grand staircase.

Even the upper decks were beginning to flood. The orchestra still played but, to Harry's horror, it was no longer the upbeat tunes from before. All facades of trying to keep calm were gone as the ship began to lift entirely out of the water.

"What is that?" Tom demanded as the voices around them began to crescendo into screams. "What song is that and why are they playing it?"

"It's a hymn. Nearer, My God to Thee." Harry watched the men continue playing even as they began to lose their balance. "Ironic. That it's that one in particular they've chosen to play."

"Why would that be? I'm not a particularly religious person, love, so you'll have to enlighten me in that regard."

"In hubris they said that even God himself couldn't sink the Titanic. Now they beg him for mercy as it does." The rush of water was loud behind them. "We need to keep moving, don't we?"

"You're right. Before this slant gets any steeper we must find something that we can hold onto." They resumed running. Passing the people who were frozen in shock and minding their surroundings so that they didn't risk being trampled.

Glass shattered. Wood broke. Ropes snapped with the sharp sounds of a drawn bow string and one of the giant chimneys fell to the deck with a resounding crash. Crushing the people who weren't quick enough to get out from underneath it.

"What about Seamus? What about Regulus?" They hadn't seen either of them since the fiasco with the life boat.

Tom looked back at him with dark eyes. "People like me, we're used to hardship. Hardy. They'll be fine. My concern is you. Now come over here."

He tugged him over to the railing. The same railing, some part of Harry noted, where he and Tom had had their spitting contest.

"Should we jump?" Harry didn't like the thought of how far that fall was.

"No. We're not jumping unless we have no other choice. We need to stay on this ship for as long as possible, understand?" He nodded. "Good. Come on!"

They resumed their flight across the upper deck. Running until they ran out of deck space.

"There aren't any stairs here!"

"Bugger stairs! I'll help you over the railing; jump down onto the roof. I'll be right behind you." Tom was hauling him over the railing even as he spoke. Harry's feet hit the roof with a clang and Tom's following a moment later. More people followed their example, swarming over the railing like agitated spiders. "Down again! Come on!"

Another jump. This one smaller than the last. They were on the deck of the stern, now, and kept running.

The tilt of the deck was now approaching forty five degrees. Harry clung to Tom's hand as he forged onwards, grabbing hold of everything that he could reach and using it to haul them both further towards the stern. The raven looked to the right. A priest clung to a winch with one hand and bore up a chain of people with the other as he stood midway through a prayer: a prayer for the dying.

"Watch yourself!" Tom called back to him over the sound of screaming cracking wood and grinding metal. People were sliding by. Ramming into things and each other with the awful sounds of giving flesh and breaking bone. Grabbing at everything they could in an effort to arrest their fall. "Don't let them grab onto you, Harrison!"

Men. Woman. Children. Officers. Passengers. Furniture. Everything that wasn't nailed down or fast enough to catch hold of something that was rocketed passed at an ever faster speeds. Falling into the water. Being sucked down in the vortex caused by the ship.

People throughout the ship were falling. From the upper decks. From the sides. From the stern itself just as they finally reached the peak of the ship's tail, clambering past them over the rail and throwing themselves down into the dark waters far below. Some narrowly missed the great propellers. Others weren't so lucky.

Harry looked on in horror as one man slammed into one of the metal blades, snapping in half like a broken twig before spiraling down into the water below.

"Grab the rail!" Tom was clinging on just behind him. Clutching with his hands. Locking his feet under the lower rungs. "Hold on as tight as you can, Harry! Don't let go!"

"I won't let go!" Fear was blurring his vision. Blood racing so quickly through his veins that he felt his head might explode. And then, just when he thought that things couldn't possibly get any worse, all the power to the ship went out. Plunging them all into pitch black.

What Harry first mistook as more gunshots he soon realized was actually the sound of the wooden boards splintering as the deck began to snap in half.

And then all at once they were falling.

The stern plummeting back down into the water. All those who had jumped before them disappeared beneath the girth of the couple thousand ton ocean liner as it slammed once more against the ocean below.

The respite of being back to horizontal brought no relief and barely lasted moments. The bow hadn't broken off completely. It was still partially attached, and its weight was dragging them back upright. Up. Up. Up. Far past where they had been before. Thirty degrees. Sixty degrees. Almost ninety. More people tumbled, their grip dislodged by the seesawing ship.

"We have to move!" Tom clambered up an aft pole with the speed and skill of a monkey and swung himself around to the other side before he reached over to Harry. "Grab my hand and I'll pull you over!"

Harry's feet were slipping backwards. His grip wouldn't hold out for much longer.

"Come on, Songbird! I'll pull you over!"

It took effort, he could tell that much from how his muscles clenched and bunched, but between the two of them and their adrenaline they managed to get Harry up onto the railing beside him just as the stern rose to become entirely vertical.

"What if it falls over?" people were dangling from the aft pole. From the rails. Looking like the ornaments of some macabre Christmas tree.

"It won't. The likelihood of that is extremely low!"

"I'm sure that they said the same thing about the Titanic sinking to begin with!"

Bodies thudded and pinged against the walls and rails of the other decks below them. Screaming as they tumbled down and away. Harry looked on unable to help as a terrified woman lost her grip and disappeared.

With another groan the tail end of the ship began to sink. Down. Down. Rapidly picking up speed as the pressure inside of it built. Water spewing in geysers from the shattered windows and busted doors. The frothing maw of the ocean drawing closer to them with nowhere left to run.

"This is it, Harry!" Tom pushed himself up onto all fours, anticipation evident in the set of his shoulders. "The ship will suck us down; when I tell you to, take a deep breath. The deepest that you possibly can!" The sea had consumed the railing just beneath the once which they were clinging to. The ravenous spray hitting their faces. "The minute that you're under head for the surface. Do not stop kicking! Do not let go of my hand!"

The water was close enough to touch now and had it not been so agitated Harry felt certain he could have seen their reflections in its surface. The other people who had been surrounding them had disappeared. Swallowed by the sea.

"We'll make it, Songbird. Trust me!"

"I trust you!"

The railing that they clung to slipped below the water.

"Now!"

Harry sucked in air until his lungs threatened to burst, squeezing his eyes shut and latching onto Tom's hand just seconds before the RMS Titanic dragged them down into the North Atlantic's blue abyss.