Chapter 12

The Snake Pit

Realization blazed in Harry's face. It locked his limbs and nearly shattered his chest. It even stopped the pain throbbing in his scar for a moment. Unable to move, stunned and debilitated by shock, he merely watched as a dozen Death Eaters turned around in their seats and peered very generally in his direction.

Voldemort knew he was in this room.

Breath stolen, senses stifled, and heart crush into arrest, Harry stood motionless, barely responsive as he stared straight at Voldemort's smile.

There was no hope for him.

Could Voldemort see through Invisibility Cloaks? Where were those red slits looking?

Those same eyes glinted. Voldemort raised his wand and hissed lowly, "Accio Invisibility Cloak," in Harry's direction.

Harry's breath caught at the back of his throat.

But nothing happened.

He barely sighed in relief.

"Search for him." Voldemort rose from his throne. "Do not kill him. Remain where you are, Lucius." His merciless, cold eyes looked down at the figure of Narcissa lying on top of the table. "Dinner, Nagini." And he swept into the depths of the manor with his Death Eaters, some of whom glanced behind them at the woman lying on the table with looks of disappointment.

Harry willed his limbs to move, and he went off down the lavish corridor, past many male portraits bearing the trademark pale complexion, white-blond hair, and proud expression. Voldemort and his followers were hot on his heels, and he could not move fast as it would alert them of his whereabouts. His breathe sounded like a jet engine and his body felt vulnerable to the smallest physical force.

The Death Eaters behind him, most passionate of whom was Bellatrix Lestrange – the deranged woman he had seen on the cover of the Daily Prophet in the article of the mass breakout from Azkaban – was firing spell after random spell at anything in front of her, causing great damage. Streaks of blue and red whipped past Harry's head as he hurtled down the corridor as slowly and soundlessly as he could without tripping on his Cloak.

Countless other Death Eaters destroyed everything in their path: pedestals exploded and doors were blasted off their hinges. Harry ducked through shattering glasses, ceramic and wood. He slung round a corner and took off down the broad hallway. Relief washed over him at this: with so much more space there was less chance the Death Eaters would strike him. He peeked over his shoulder and horror gripped him as he spotted the cloaked figures spilling into the grand hallway like a torrent of oil and water while some raced up the two spiralling flights of stairs into the higher floors. Doors were blasted opened to fleetingly investigate the room as other fired randomly at the open, trying to strike him by the slightest chance.

Then Voldemort appeared in the sea of black, the tallest of them, striding briskly but calmly, an expression of calm and mild interest in his face. Harry felt a sharp shard of pain slice through his head as his scar burst in agony at the mere sight of him. Barely suppressing a moan he coaxed more speed from his feet. A blue streak of light flashed past his Invisibility Cloak, close to his ear, almost singeing the heirloom. He was holding onto the Cloak so tightly to his body that he was nearly tripping on his knees trying to run. But he had to make himself as small as possible as he ran-crouched along another corridor lined with more paintings, pedestals and intricately carved doors.

He rounded another corner. A wooden splinter flew past him and he ducked down below a purple spell. He ran and ran for felt like forever until his legs suddenly locked and his heart swelled out of his chest. Beneath his panic, desperation and fear as he tried to escape the Death Eaters, ducking flying chunks of wood and ceramic and almost tripping over his own knees, had been a more desperate, subconscious hope: to come across an intricately decorated door with two intricate overlaid 'M' letters – and it stood right in front of him.

Incredulous of what he was seeing, and hearing barked incantations and the manor being blasted apart, Harry was propelled by a force into the room. He quickly closed the door, hands shaking, muffling the destructive noises outside. He turned around, and just as he had suspected, just as he had desperately wished and hoped – Draco's naked body lay on the green silk bed in the dark-lit room.

Immense relief washed over his whole body at the sight, rendering him motionless for a few seconds as he merely watched it. He finally moved towards to the bed. There he was – Draco. He was naked, the fire casting shadows of dancing tongues on his pale legs and thighs and arms and buttocks. And he was not moving. Harry's heart thundered against his chest as he inched towards the bed at the unmoving figure on it, feeling his throat closing up with each step forward. Finally he reached the side of the naked figure. Panic overwhelming him he shook the boy's shoulders. That peaceful, glowing face was so serene and, amidst this raging battleground, eerily unsettling as well.

"Draco." His voice came out only as a dismal, frightened whisper. It was so strange: he saw this person every day in school, he just saw him yesterday in the Great Hall in Hogwarts. And now that person laid here, somehow teleported to his home. Even though he had known it was true all along, that Draco was pleasing Voldemort, it still made it that much more real and glaring to see him in this room. This was real.

He shook the boy again. "Draco!" Another timid whisper, hushed by his stilted pulse. The boy's face moved slightly in a half-formed grimace. It was a victorious moment for Harry, and he rejoiced in it before he heard Bellatrix's psychopathic voice shrieking along the hallway outside the room: she was getting close, along with the other Death Eaters.

Harry's eyes widened in panic as he stared almost vacantly at the door.

Instincts overtaking him, Harry turned back to Draco, took a corner of his Cloak in each hand, holding it like a cape, and jumped onto Draco's back. He brought his arm and legs around the form, wrapping them with the Cloak. He rolled them both off the bed – smoothing out the beddings as he did so – fell onto the wooden floor with a thud, rolled across it and stopped against the wall.

Eyes scrunched shut, absolute fear and panic and desperation encasing him in a universe of his own, Harry held Draco's compliant, terrifyingly limp body tightly close and listened acutely over his erratic breathing at the roaring noise of exploding furniture and walls outside the room. He could barely hear Bellatrix's deranged giggling over the thundering of his heart but Voldemort's cold, high-pitched voice was unmistakable.

"Leave that door to me, Bella."

Evilly simple – evilly damning – evilly fatal.

The one door Voldemort had to go for was this one. He had been coming straight for this door all along.

Harry clenched his jaw shut, scrunched his eyes shut tighter, and held onto Draco more fiercely as he heard their door flung open. The excruciating pain in his scar surged up so much he seized up, tasting bile at the back of his throat, blasting stuttering breaths against Draco's neck.

It was quiet for a few seconds. Then Harry heard the tide of destructive Death Eaters passing the room, still decimating everything in front of them as they carried on down the passage. Then, he heard the heavy clink of boots – it was a stalking sound – it was stalking death. His quiet fear at the back of his mind drifted forward, and it was beyond measure. He thought his immense anger and rage at this man would keep that fear at bay, smother it. But now that Voldemort himself was walking into the room with that slow, clinking pace, he found he was perilously wrong. But perhaps the fear was so much because he was scared for more than himself but for another as well. Perhaps he feared for Draco.

The clinking boots stop moving. There was silence. Silence… Silence… Silence that carried a crushing weight, that made every breath of Harry's sound like clashing cymbals in a quiet funeral, that made every heartbeat feel like another stroke of his signature on his death certificate.

"Draco?" A teasing, singsong voice – a travesty of his merciless, loveless, high-pitched caw.

Draco suddenly shifted. Harry pulled him closer into himself, hugged him tighter, and crushed his chest against Draco's back and his jean-clad erection into the cleft of his bare buttocks. The pain in his scar was slowly killing him. It was a hot nail driving into his skull, robbing him of more consciousness with every throb. He was too scared to whisper to Draco not to move. He was too scared to do anything. He just held on as tight, simple terror and a new, fierce protectiveness waged war inside him.

"Draco?" A sweet, lilting call to doom. "Reveal yourself, my pretty catamite. You know you deserved your punishment, don't you? Show yourself this instant and I may show you mercy."

Harry felt Draco's breath on his forearm catch: he must have woken up. Perhaps he was responding to Voldemort's offer of mercy. Harry held onto Draco more fiercely, feeling betrayed for some reason. He tried to keep his breath as low as possible, tried to keep the both of them as motionless as possible under his Invisibility Cloak. Yet he shook all over, vibrating inside the cloak. His eyes were still shut, he could not see Voldemort – and he did not want to. He could not open them even if he wanted to – his scar was throbbing with blinding pain.

"Very well."

And those words, spoken so quietly and normally, elicited more fear than the highest shout from the Astronomy tower by that same voice. He heard the clinking boots head to the door: Voldemort was not even going to search the room. And before he caught the door clicking shut, he heard a low hiss.

"Incendio Maximus."

The room went up in flames.

The giant snake had given its master an obedient, pleased hiss before slowly slithering down the throne and up onto the table top. Lucius glared at it from his end of the table as it stalked closer and closer to his wife, who was not even granted an audience for her death. Lucius was to sit there and watch as his wife was engulfed by the Dark Lord's pet in his own home. The snake started to wound itself around her petite body, and Lucius' glare fell and gave way to an expression akin to resignation on his long, pale face. He dared not touch the great snake, for it would be tantamount to suicide if he did so. As much as he undoubtedly loved his wife he feared the Dark Lord and death more.

He could not just run away from his own home – his son Draco was in the Dark Lord's chambers for the night. There was not possible way out, he had chosen this life, so he all could do now was to stay put and attempt to regain his stature in the ranks.

His wife dying right in front of his eyes, and his son locked in the Dark Lord's chambers, a small smirk suddenly spread itself across Lucius' face. He drew his wand from his robes and gave it a twirl without taking his eyes off the scene atop the table. Then he pointed it at a cupboard, the doors of which opened and from it, out floated a contraption. He levitated it across the room until landing it softly on the table. He tapped the object once with his wand and his favourite classical music from Wizottini filled the air.

Coil after coil, note after note, Lucius remained with a wan smirk and hooded eyes. The music floated over the sound of blasted doors and exploding tiles and pedestals, over the shrill cries of his sister-in-law and the other Death Eaters, and over the pathetic, panic-laden stutters of his name from his wife's lips, "Lucius... Lucius… Lucius…" as the giant snake continued to wind around her.

He, Lucius Abraxas Malfoy, accommodated the Dark Lord graciously. His master lived under his roof, he raped his son, and now he was killing his wife slowly: the Dark Lord had his home and his family: the Dark Lord had mastered his life.

Lucius magicked over the wineglass from the table and a bottle of red wine that had been manufactured at one of the villas he owned stretched from Scotland to France. He poured it and, with a bleak smile, toasted to the snake and its countless coils, just as the snake swallowed her feet.

Perhaps his wrongdoings had caught up with him finally. Perhaps in a snake pit what goes around comes around.

The entire room was up in flames.

For a moment, in the roaring blaze that threatened to engulf them, Harry did not move, irrationally hoping that something miraculous would happen to save them and the raging fire would never reach them. He vaguely felt Draco starting to move again. The other boy squirmed weakly against the cage of limbs in which he was locked, but they did not relent, and he could barely move in the suffocating cocoon of the Invisibility Cloak.

"Potter?"

The voice came as a low rasp swiftly swallowed by the roaring and cackling flames that were eating up the curtains and climbing the bed. Smoke was starting to fill the air, and a thin layer of sweat covered Draco's skin.

"Potter?"

The limbs suddenly jerked to life: Harry rolled them over away from the wall and opened his arms and legs wide. They felt cooler air hit their skins with relief. Draco was slowly getting off him onto his feet while Harry, still on the floor, could only watch the scarlet inferno dance around them. His scar still hurt but not as much as it had when Voldemort had been in the room. The fire was everywhere: it licked up the walls, the bed, the curtains, the furniture. It was not the behaviour of a natural fire – it was too efficient.

Wearily Harry stood up and waved at the air in front of him to clear the smoke so he could breathe. He folded the Invisibility Cloak and stuffed it in one of the nooks of his school robe. There were no windows in the room because they were in the heart of the manor. Harry turned his eyes back on Draco: the Slytherin was looking around in awe at the burning room, horror-struck, his arms folded around his torso protectively, legs bent slightly, and his white-blond hair illuminated by the surrounding flames. Harry noticed he was completely naked. Again.

"Draco!" he shouted through the raging fire and billowing smoke.

The boy turned to him squinting. "Potter!"

Harry nearly cried with joy when he heard his name through those lips again. He was assailed by an impulse to hug the boy. He had come all the way from Hogwarts to see this boy, to save him. And here he was. He might have been hurt but he was still whole and seemed to be sane still. And just as beautiful as ever… Harry was not in his right mind –hormones and adrenaline were pumping across his body in a furious battle. Nevertheless Harry felt vindicated and validated that he had found Draco.

But right now they were in danger. There was no way out other than through the door. They could not stay in the room and go down with it in a flood of flames. They had to go through that door – they had no choice. Curtains and curtains of flames swept across the room, more smoke furled against the ceiling, gathering and getting blacker the longer they stood there. Draco peered up at the ceiling as he coughed from the smoke: Harry caught a glimpse of an orange, extended neck. He religiously dismissed the little things he noticed in this perilous situation.

"Malfoy, we have no other choice, we have to go through that door!" he told the other boy.

And nobody was terrified of that more than he was. His scar still throbbed, which meant Voldemort was still nearby. Draco turned to him, and his face did not suggest he was going to argue the point because he looked simply terrified, silver eyes widened and dancing with fear. Draco had been traumatized by that twisted snake. Harry felt a rush of anger at Voldemort, and another impulse to hold Draco in his arms and comfort him.

"We have to get out of here, Malfoy! We have no choice. We can't stay here. Let's go!" Harry hand held Draco's arm. He slowly started leading them towards the door, swatting the smoke in front of him as he crept along. The pain in his scar stabbed deeper into his skull with every step forward, which could only mean one thing…

He was desperate and frustrated, and he realized they were at a dead-end. They simply had to keep moving towards the door. His scar grew unbearable the eyelid under it started twitching wildly, impeding his vision, whereupon he strengthened his protective hold on Draco, who crept along right behind him.

They reached the door. A stuttering gasp escaped Harry as his hand came up to the ornate doorknob. He twisted it and pulled open the door, hissing in pain at his scar. The door slowly revealed a tall shoulder. Harry's heart leapt in his throat and his grip on Draco's wrist turned crushing. He vaguely felt Draco's fingers scrabbling at his hand to try to lessen his grip.

Slowly pulling the door open, he saw the beginning of a hood. Opening further, one red, gleaming slit came into view. Then an evil grin. Then a flat nose with tall nostrils. And then another red slit. Harry started to shake. He had only been this close to Voldemort once before and remembered the horrible feeling of it. Harry opened the door fully, revealing the whole figure of Lord Voldemort standing in the corridor. A wand was trained at his chest.

It was over.

He schooled his features into an expression of defiance and held onto Draco even harder.

The gleaming, skull-white face grinned. "Harry, we meet again..." The slits looked beyond him. "...and my pretty catamite."

There was no one else stood in the hallway. Harry did not steer his face away from Voldemort but held those eyes. Perhaps they would be the last thing he would see.

"It was because of you, Harry, that I was able to sniff out a turncoat amongst my Death Eaters. A pleasant surprise, it was, when I found I could leap into your mind… So similar we are... So furious we are at the world… It can never satisfy. It can give us what we want – dreams, love, safety, power… more power… I imagine you were as furious at someone as I was with sweet Draco here. This can achieve so much for you, Harry. Imagine the power you could harness from it. Imagine your power with mine combined, how much we could achieve, how far we could go, how much we could acquire."

Harry continued to stare at Voldemort, his chin with anger and fear. What did Voldemort mean he had 'leapt into his mind'? He glared back at Voldemort defiantly. "Are you asking me to join you, Tom? I'm nothing like you!"

"Very well."

Harry's heart froze.

Flashing red slits, a lipless grin.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Emerald eyes went alight with incoming obliteration.

Green, absolute annihilation.

A swooshing, rushing, stalking death.

The colour of his eyes, where his soul blazed, the colour where his soul ceased.

Touched him in the sternum, so precise, so artful.

He felt nothing. It was a sweet close, a merciful separation, a wonderful lullaby.

The spoken words that breathed life into his legend sought him again and took it back.

Draco watched as green luminescence toppled Harry, and weighed upon by the body, heard another heavy thump on the other side of the door.

Harry Potter had fallen.

And the Dark Lord had fallen…

There was dead silence save for Draco's heavy breathing and the consuming fire in the room and the distant noises of destruction as Death Eaters swept the manor.

Draco looked at Harry on the floor, and on the other side of the door, Voldemort's vacant, pale face through the gap of his pointed boots. Draco's arms visibly shook under dead weight as he pushed the body off before coming to his feet. With patent effort he tried not to look into Harry's eyes, for they were a vacant lime, a husk of their previous blazing emerald. And Voldemort, whose dark robes were spread out on the floor as though he had bled a pool of oil around him, his red slits nowhere to be seen but replaced by a cream opaqueness. His wand had rolled out of his pocket and stopped near his head.

Instinct seemingly fighting apprehension at holding a dead body, Draco crouched down and scooped Harry up from the floor. Large volumes of smoke suffused the room now and the fire was ravaging everything and it was everywhere, embracing the room in a hellish hold. Draco braced himself and pulled the limp body up and backward out of the room, clutching and minding Voldemort's body.

As soon as Draco laid down Harry's body on the hallway floor the warm flush in his face due to the heat from the room vanished, replaced by a pale, terrified expression: he spotted a dark figure descending the hallway, wand drawn at his side. It then stopped suddenly where he stood. Draco's eyes fell down at Voldemort's body and shot back upwards to see the Death Eater proceed towards him once more.

"I didn't do it, I swear! I didn't kill the Dark Lord!"

The Death Eater continued to charge down the littered hallway; Draco threw up his arms defensively, wincing in fear. But the Death Eater stopped suddenly again, and his mask swivelled downwards at the unmoving body of Voldemort. Perhaps the Death Eater could not believe what the slits of his mask were showing him, for he merely stood there and looked on at the body for several moments.

Then he looked up and caught sight of another body behind Draco, and tentatively he stepped over Voldemort and looked back down at Voldemort again as though he did not believe he had done what he had – step over the body of a seemingly dead Dark Lord. The Death Eater finally tore his eyes from the sight and faced Harry's lifeless body. Snape took his mask and hood off, whereupon Draco's breath rushed out in visible relief. Snape peered down the length of his hooked nose at Harry's body with an unreadable expression. However, his Adam's apple bobbed for quite a spell. He turned to Draco.

"Are you all right, Draco?"

Draco gave a vague, silent nod and Snape returned it.

Voldemort started to rouse. His white slits gave way to a weak, scarlet gleam that squinted up at Snape.

"Severus…" It was a broken, raspy whistle.

Snape looked at Voldemort quietly. He must have been struck by the beauty of the irony: it was only weeks ago that Dumbledore, leader of the Order of the Phoenix, had looked so far-gone, kissing death as he slouched behind his desk. And now Voldemort, leader of the Death Eaters, slouched against the wall just as Dumbledore had, weakened from near death. Snape bore into the depthless slits silently before he brought his wand up and, his face twisting in absolute revulsion and hatred, yelled, "Avada Kedavra!"

Draco watched as green light hit Voldemort straight in his chest, just as it did Harry. Voldemort did not move the slightest as the heartless, scarlet slits rolled back once more. Draco turned an incredulous expression on Snape, who said, "Spy for Dumbledore."

As he noticed that questions were the last thing Draco was thinking about as he gaped at Snape, the Potions professor capitulated to urgent pragmatism.

"Draco, I want you to run to the drawing room and tell your father it's okay to kill the snake. Don't be so stupid as to faint at the sight that greets you there. After that, I want the three of you-" Snape was interrupted by a moan. He and Draco looked down a rousing Harry, and Snape bore in silence into those familiar green, oval-shaped eyes, his own jugular throbbing. "I revise: I want the four of you to flee the manor." His voice might have been cold as ever but there was an unmistakable sliver of relief in his face.

Dazed green eyes emerged and peeked at the two, blurry blobs above. Snape blankly looked down at Harry. He raised his wand.

Harry was rushed into the land of the living as a hose of cold water hit his face. Gasping, he was hauled onto his feet by a firm hand. He saw Snape in front of him, clad in Death Eater robes and holding a white mask in his hand. Snape waved his wand again and Harry's face was dry once more. Harry's body felt funny, groggy, and as though he had been born a few seconds ago and grew extremely fast but still never used his body. And Snape's wand-waving was not helping his disorientation. He turned to the figure on his left: Draco. He knew it was him because no one else he knew was this pale and this beautiful even as a smudgy blob. Before he knew it he had lunged at the pale blob and hugged it tightly.

Snape's eyebrow rose behind his curtain of greasy hair.

Harry held tightly onto Draco, feeling relief washing down his body. He was so glad to smell Draco's scent, so glad to feel his body, so glad to feel his heat, so glad to have him away from Voldemort. But in this wonderful moment he heard an intrusive and terse cluck of a tongue behind him.

"Yes, Potter, I'm sure Draco is now fully aware of your gladness at seeing him again," Snape drawled, trying his best to ignore the bulge in Harry's pants. "May we please proceed?"

Harry pulled back from the pale Slytherin but did not step back and remained at an intimidate distance from him. "Draco…"

Said person appeared utterly flabbergasted at all of this attention. "Potter," he said, so as not to be rude in his silence. He stood there blinking in a nonplussed way at Harry, not understand why he was acting so strangely and sounding as though he were addressing his long-lost lover. In fact, Draco did not seem to have recovered from Harry standing up again just after taking Voldemort's Killing Curse in the chest.

Draco stooped down to pick up Harry's glasses from the floor in a plain attempt to do something other than look at Harry and be stared at with boundless fondness in return. He blinked a few more times as he nervously slipped the round spectacles onto his face after Harry's hand failed to grasp at them when he tried to give them to the Gryffindor.

There passed the slightest moment of silence and inaction before Snape boomed, "For Merlin's sake!" It seemed Harry's continued staring after he received his glasses had exhausted Snape of his patience. Or perhaps he was desperate for a distraction to break the awkward pause, something of which Harry appeared entirely unaware.

The nearing cacophony of cries and destruction told them the rampaging Death Eaters were close by. Snape could not be seen with a lifeless Dark Lord at his feet – his fellow Death Eaters would undoubtedly presume he committed treachery and would strike him down without a second to spare.

Harry did not know what had just happened to him. The last thing he could remember was his world blazing green, a rushing, swooshing noise like a speeding train ringing in his ear. He felt normal now but slightly different – something was off. But he cared less about himself; as long as Draco was safe he was happy. Snape had then flung them apart and started to drag them, but he had stopped short suddenly.

After yelling in ostensible frustration, Snape grabbed both boys by the scruff of their necks, spun around, and made to set off down the corridor. But he suddenly froze.

Harry looked up at Snape, whose temple was pulsing horribly and whose eyes Harry noticed had widened at something ahead of them on the floor. He frowned and squinted at that spot, unable to make out anything, but a moment later he saw a flat, square piece of wood sliding forward, being dragged by a thick creature Harry had mistaken for a dark split liquid. But it was actually a giant snake cutting a clean trail on the debris-strewn floor as it slithered nearer to them.

With the corner of his Harry watched Snape's legs threaten to give way for a moment, shaking, for the man could not believe what he was seeing. Draco blanched and immediately took refuge behind Harry, who now suddenly spotted the body on the floor. Voldemort lying on the floor was a sight which he could not fathom. Was it not supposed to be him lying there? It was he who had taken the Killing Curse…

He raised his eyes at the snake, which he had last seen in the Little Hangleton graveyard when Voldemort was reborn. Yet the sheer size of it was even more awesome: it had grown tremendously since then. Harry could not even follow its length to its tail, which was hidden between the dust hanging in the corridor and the debris on the floor.

Harry stepped around Snape and slowly approached the giant snake. Snape grabbed his shoulder but he wrestled out of his grip and told the man he knew what he was doing. Snape must have been believed him – probably recalling his Parseltongue from second year – because he let him free. Harry frowned at the snake, its head reared off the floor, tongue flicking. It was hissing at Snape but... it was doing just that – hissing. Harry could not understand it but heard exactly what Snape and Draco was hearing. He opened his mouth and tried to speak to the snake but the sounds he wanted to make hung at the tip of his tongue. They would feel foreign if he let them through his lips. They did not make sense. They were simply noises without meaning… He could not speak Parseltongue any longer. But why not?

Suddenly the snake recoiled and lurched forward. Harry could only catch a thick train of flesh whip past his eyes as the snake's massive body took flight and attacked Snape, who fell to the floor with blood gushing through his fingers from his neck. Snape jerked furiously on the floor, trying to shake the snake off him. Draco streaked to Harry, and the snake turned his eyes on them both, hissing furiously.

Heart thundering furiously in his chest, Harry inched away the snake, shielding Draco with his body as he did so, as they watched Snape bleed on the floor, his limbs shaking and stuttering, the crimson pool swelling fast around him. Then they heard Draco's name being shouted from somewhere within the manor. Looking up, Harry made out Lucius Malfoy standing at the other end of the hallway carrying his wife in his arms. Malfoy made his way towards them through the rubble strewn on the corridor floor.

Snape turned bloodshot eyes at Harry while the great snake slithered towards Voldemort's body. Snape's hand grabbed at the air in front of Harry, who cast a wary eye at the great snake before he crouched down to him. Harry took Snape's arm and tried to pull him away from Nagini, but Snape's hand suddenly caught his shirt in a vice-like grip, and Harry's alarmed eyes saw Snape's own blood-shot eyes, nose and mouth starting to pour out white wisps of mist. The gossamer tendrils floated up to him, invading his nostrils and flooding his eyes.

Lucius Malfoy's eyes widened slightly in disbelief at what seemed to be the lifeless body of his master before they swept across to the giant snake. Sitting in the drawing room he had watched as it looped coil after coil onto his wife and started to swallow her from the feet up. It had been a slow, harrowing process to witness. But when the mouth of the snake reached her lower thighs the snake had made a strange, strangled noise before it pulled itself rapidly off his wife's frame, uncoiling incompletely before it slithered down to the floor and disappeared into the manor. It had gone with such haste Lucius had to run to his wife before she fell on the floor as the rest of the snake's body dragged her slightly after disentangling itself. Narcissa had lost consciousness most likely when she had stopped moaning his name.

Lucius stepped over Voldemort's body and then looked down at it again, as though not believing he just done this. He turned back and watched something strange happen between Snape and Harry: Snape, bleeding to death, was holding fiercely onto Harry, who kneeled in front of him as motionlessly as a gargoyle, tendrils of mist connecting their faces. Lucius turned towards his son and took in his naked but unwounded person.

"Draco."

There was unmistakable relief in his voice, and it seemed Draco did not know how to react to this rare display of emotion from his father.

"Father," was all the youngest Malfoy could say.

Lucius visibly struggled to curb his tongue against uttering more sentimentalities. He glanced down at the sleeping face of his wife in his arms. "She's still alive," he told Draco, on whom he turned a sober eye. "We need to get out of here. Now, Draco." He made to go down the corridor but was stopped by Draco's voice.

"What about Potter, Father?"

Lucius shot an irritated glare at Harry, and his lips curled upon itself at the sight of him bending over Snape.

"If we must."

Lucius then heard the other Death Eaters coming their way. "We need to go, Draco!" he growled. "I couldn't care less for Potter. As you can clearly hear the Death Eaters are delighting hugely in destroying our home, and we will surely suffer the same fate when they reach us. We're going to the Apparition chamber in the foyer now. Follow me." Lucius thundered down the hallway as quickly as he could with his wife's weight in his arms.

Draco whirled around and went over to pull Harry off Snape, at whom he tried not to look. Harry staggered a bit, and his face looked vacant and dazed. Draco took his arm and led them down the corridor behind his father and mother. But dark-cloaked figures suddenly sprung into the hallway, filling each end. Lucius' swift strides stopped abruptly. The Death Eaters prowled into the hallway from each end.

More Death Eater spilled into the hallway, bubbling forth like a sea of oil. Lucius backed away slowly. He looked behind at the other end of the entrance to find more Death Eaters closing in from there as well.

Harry was confounded beyond anything. His mind was muddled and shaken after he experienced a stream of millions of images flit past his mind's eye. He did not have the time to look at them and unpack them, for the Death Eaters were stalking nearer. He glanced down at the sight of the giant snake and Voldemort's body. In at that moment he suddenly heard a crazy shriek amongst the incredulous mutterings of the Death Eaters at the sight of their leader on the floor. Bellatrix Lestrange exploded out of the dark mass, her face contorted in disgusting shock, and howled in agony at the body of her master on the floor. Harry took out his wand.

"Expelliarmus!"

His wand jerked out of his hands, flew in a graceful arc in the air and landed in the hands of a Death Eater with a patched eye.

"My Lord!" Bellatrix cried, as she threw herself back on her feet and leapt towards Voldemort.

Harry, extremely dismayed at the loss of his wand, backed up from the demented woman but did not take his eyes off the Death Eater with his wand.

Harry heard the sound of breaking wood before he even heard it, and saw it before he even saw it: his wand was snapped cleanly into half. The painful sound pierced his chest. It was a sound that brought physical damage, snapping his soul in half as well. He could not believe it – it did not just happen. His wand… Four years he had it. It was part of him. The two pieces of wood clinked against the floor after they were dropped carelessly. Harry only realized his left hand was clasped with Draco's when he felt the other boy squeeze him. He turned devastated emerald eyes to him and saw his pale face frowning in disgust down at Bellatrix sobbing over Voldemort's lifeless body.

…Or it was supposed to be lifeless.

"My Lord! Let me help you up!"

"I don't need any assistance!" Harry heard behind him. He heard Draco's gasp as his grey eyes bulged in terrified incredulity. Horror softly trickled into every bone in Harry's body, from his nape down to his toes as he slowly turned his head to look, and his grief over his broken wand was washed away in the light of once-again-rising evil.

Voldemort was rising from the floor.

This seemed to overwhelm Draco, who had witnessed Voldemort collapsing immediately after he shot the Killing Curse at Harry and later had it cast on him by Snape. Breathless, the silver-eyed boy watched Voldemort take his wand from the floor and rear to his impressive height, the folds of his dark robe falling into place. Voldemort's lipless mouth curved in a twisted smile at Harry, who pushed Draco behind and shielded him. Silence descended upon the filled corridor so absolute it bore a physical weight.

"It seems I've miscalculated," Voldemort said a little breathlessly – a first for Harry to witness. Voldemort's red slits fixed upon Snape's dead body. "We had more traitors amongst our ranks than we had known. Severus dared to cast the Killing Curse on me." His flat face swept between his Death Eaters at each end of the hallway, and a grin spread across it. "But I lived."

So it was true: Voldemort was truly immortal. Harry saw those hated red eyes turn to him. Voldemort had risen again, and his wand was broken: this had to be the day the legend of the Boy Who Lived died…

"And you, Harry, are an interesting anomaly. I fell just as you did when I killed you. Can it be that your scar is more than what it appears to be?"

Harry was slowly backing up with Draco from Voldemort's slow prowl towards them.

"I say again," Voldemort gasped, "how is a boy, who possesses no special powers, able to do such feats? This is the second time I fail to kill you." Voldemort then looked at his scar.

Disgusted at hearing his name through Voldemort's absent lips, Harry felt the strangest sensation: it was as though cool tendrils were careening through his mind, stirring his memories in their path and leaving them to flutter back down into place again in their wake. He realized, from what Dumbledore had taught him in his first Occlumency lesson, that Voldemort was performing Legilimency on him. He subsequently tried to block the intrusive force out of his mind by raising his amateur shields, but he found he could not lift any of them fast enough. But then he felt the tendrils leave him at once.

"You could see what I could see. I was able to possess you. You could speak Parseltongue your entire life." Voldemort continue his slow progress towards Harry, calculation and realization glinting in his red eyes. "I had overseen this, miscalculated. All this time you had harboured a piece of me inside you. But now you cannot speak Parseltongue as you have shortly realized, and you rose again from my curse... You were the seventh, my seventh! I planted it in your head the same night I tried to kill you! You stole my powers then, and you lost them now for you've lost that part of me when I tried to kill you again tonight. And now… surely you stand completely naked in front of my wand..." Voldemort's slit nostrils flared, and his eyes flashed scarlet. "Shall we find out if the famous Boy Who Lived will survive my wand thrice?"

Without warning Voldemort slashed his wand through the air.

"Avada Kedavra!"

A green streak blasted out of Voldemort's wand and coursed straight for Harry, and a whooshing sound whispered his surely coming death. But then a scarlet flash intercepted the spell, and Harry saw Fawkes' cursed form explode into a shower of golden light before he heard a popping sound near him and pandemonium ensued.

Figures appeared into the hallway and began to duel the Death Eaters at once: Moody, Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and a squat, plump wizard, who, after catching sight of Voldemort, gave a shrill squall and Disapparated away as instantly as he had appeared, eliciting grunts of fury from Moody and Sirius. But the gang formed a protective line in front of both Harry and Draco and Lucius and his wife. Harry had been prepared to take Draco aside and take out his Invisibility Cloak to cover them both before he caught sight of the man whom he had sorely missed ever since he found him, a man who had eluded him ever since.

"Sirius!" he cried through the commotion of flying debris and flashing spell-light. Sirius was too busy duelling and too far away to hear him. Harry, with difficulty, pushed down his urge to be with Sirius and felt around for his Invisibility Cloak under his robes.

Voldemort had been distracted by the chaos for only a second. He turned back to Harry and Draco as the former frantically pulled out his Invisibility Cloak. Voldemort waved his wand at the snake, encasing her in a protective shield that hovered in mid-air.

Draco tugged on Harry's arm. "Potter!"

Harry looked up to see Voldemort and Bellatrix raising their wands at them, behind them the great snake's length swirling inside a protective sphere which rose high towards the ceiling. Then suddenly the door of the room from which they had emerged minutes before flew off its hinges and, in a mid-air path to them, broke into two pieces that landed in front of their middles, flashing scarlet: they now shielded them from Voldemort and Bellatrix, while Lucius and his wife were in turn protected from behind them.

Voldemort and Bellatrix stared dumbly at the two pieces of the door for a second before raising their wands again in what appeared to be experimental gesture, as though they wanted to test these apparently protective doors halves before they could have a good laugh about it. A Killing Curse issued from Voldemort's wand aimed straight at Harry's face. Bellatrix fired a Cruciatus Curse at Draco's bare feet. The two parts of the door did not cover their entire heights and left bare their lower legs and upper body. They flinched. However, the floating halves of the door suddenly slid up and down like adjacent elevators, and the two spells were absorbed on their surfaces.

Voldemort blinked at the door halves. "This is ridiculous!" he shrieked, and his slit nostrils flared indignantly. Voldemort was infuriated by this. How can the Dark Lord be stopped by two parts of a door? He fired another spell, this time at Harry's trainers while Bellatrix fired another Cruciatus at Draco, which now sailed for his head. Again, one door slid up and the other down.

Voldemort looked speechless. Bellatrix's heavy-lidded eyes darted between the two halves of the door, looking soundly confounded herself. Then Voldemort exploded, firing spell after spell at Harry, Bellatrix following suit beside him, raining spells on Draco. But the doors held to their function and slid this way and that, absorbing spell after spell: Killing Curses, Cruciatus Curses, Blasting Hexes, Charring Curses, Flaying Curses – they were all nullified.

Harry and Draco shared astounded expressions and appeared to be on the verge of laughter at the ridiculous idea of a defensive door and Voldemort and Bellatrix's inability to harm them. Only one person was capable of this fabulous strategy…

Voldemort released a furious shriek without warning. Its force swept the duellists in the hallway off their feet and shattered the two door parts protecting Harry and Draco into five or six pieces that fell to the floor as though it were made of glass. Now bare and unprotected, Voldemort raised his wand again to try to kill at least one person tonight.

Then, in a whirlwind of golden dust and a haunting phoenix song that filled the hallway, Dumbledore appeared in front of them, midnight-blue robes swirling ferociously. Bellatrix, chest rising and falling rapidly, scrambled to her feet after catching sight of Dumbledore and took her leave, the other Death Eaters skittering right behind her, clearing the hallway. The members of the Order of the Phoenix, Lucius and Narcissa (who had awoken after landing on the floor when Lucius was thrown off his feet by Voldemort's powerful bellow) slowly got on their feet.

Dumbledore and Voldemort began duelling. Nagini, swirling in her protective shield, shot down the hallway and disappeared behind a corner. Immediately after it whipped out of sight another door down the hallway broke off its hinges and snapped in half. Its two parts zoomed above the heads of the Order and parked in front of Harry and Draco once more and began shunting them backwards insistently towards the adults.

A line of melting white light raged between Dumbledore's and Voldemort's wand. Voldemort flicked his wand numerous times towards Harry Draco, sending shards of cement from the walls and ceramic from the floor exploding and showering over them and the Order. But Dumbledore's doors continued to protect them. The Order huddled amongst each other, and Lucius covered himself and his wife with his robe.

"Sirius!" Harry flung himself into Sirius widespread arms, and they hugged.

"It's good to see you, Harry!" Sirius shouted over the noise of the intense duel.

But they could barely hear each other talk as the fight between Dumbledore and Voldemort grew more epic and furious. Voldemort broke the connection of their spells and siphoned its power into his mouth, which released a sucking, whistling shriek that manifested into a ball of fire furling larger and larger towards the high ceiling, and somewhere in the tower of fire reared the large head of a serpent. It recoiled and descended upon Dumbledore, who swung his wand at it and the enormous fire serpent exploded out of shape, its bellowing flames bulging out towards their maker, who waved his wand and the flames were no more. A thousand gallons of water spilled out Dumbledore's wand and encased Voldemort in a churning ball, across the surface of which five white gashes appeared as a pale, rippling hand clawed past.

Then came Voldemort's muffled scream, and the sphere of water exploded in all directions, releasing him. Rising from the floor, wet and furious, slit eyes blazing scarlet, Voldemort cast a spell at Dumbledore and all the debris in the hallway shot towards him. A liquid, transparent shield poured out of Dumbledore's wand at which the shards of ceramic, glass, wood and cement hurtled but on the other side of which were reduced to dust, giving Dumbledore no more than a light spray on his face like a kind sandstorm.

Growing frustrated, Voldemort held his wand to his chest where he concentrated the magic of the spell and his own inherent magic. He released it, together with this fury, and the entire hallway erupted: devastation swept every surface as doors and portraits and pedestals and tiles were obliterated, and their pieces fell to the floor. Everyone went for cover. In the sharp quiet that descended after smithereens hit the floor, Voldemort gave a baleful glare at all of them, and a most heated one at Lucius, Harry and Draco, before he swept down the hallway and fled to the Apparition chamber in the foyer.

Harry watched Dumbledore stand in the middle of the hallway after Voldemort fled and did not attempt to stop him. He saw his old mentor fall weakly to his knees and heard the others calling Dumbledore's name, worry rife in their voices. Sirius, Mad-Eye, Tonks and Kingsley jumped to their feet and ran over to Dumbledore. Harry turned to Draco and wrapped his Invisibility Cloak around his pale form, giving a brief look into his grey eyes for only a moment before joining the Order around Dumbledore, whom he watched being hauled up and rested against the wall.

"Dumbledore, what's wrong?" Sirius asked. Concern creased his brow as his dark, waist-length hair fell over Dumbledore.

Dumbledore gave them all a warm smile, and before he even spoke the Order already looked irritated. "Just getting a little late on my duelling moves," Dumbledore chuckled. Harry felt his eyes smart with tears. Dumbledore, his beard thrown across his chest onto the floor and picking up the dust there, turned to him. "Harry." His voice was so faded…

"Yes, Professor?" Harry's voice broke a little and his eyes shone even more.

"It was a brave feat you did tonight, rescuing Mr Malfoy there. I deeply regret having angered you, Harry, but you have to understand where I was coming from."

Harry shook his head wildly. "I understand, sir. You didn't want anybody to be in danger. I understand that. I'm sorry."

Dumbledore gave him a smile and blinked slowly. "It's all right, Harry. I should never have underestimated the heart of a Gryffindor." He gave another but more shallow chuckle.

Harry smiled with his mentor.

Dumbledore's smile fell, and he blinked slowly again. His eyes wandered to the pile of rubble burying a black robe. "Oh, Severus, my dear boy…"

Harry and the Order swivelled their heads to the black robes peeking out of a pile of debris. Each face confessed varying degrees of regret for the sight, some less than others.

Harry turned back to Dumbledore. "Snape, he—he loved my mother. He was looking out for me secretly this whole time..."

Dumbledore could barely raise his silver eyebrow. "Indeed, Harry. He did care for you. He swore on Lily's memory to protect you."

Harry struggled to swallow a lump in his throat. He had caused all of this mess. "I shouldn't have come here tonight."

Dumbledore hushed him and waved his healthy hand at him dismissively. "Forget about that, Harry, it's no use dwelling on the past." He cleared his throat and adjusted himself slightly on the wall as though trying to find a comfortable position. His eyes had become slightly sharper. "So you've seen Voldemort tonight for the second time after he was resurrected."

"Dumbledore, we have to get you to school," Tonks said urgently, her voice fraught with worry. Mad-Eye grunted in agreement.

"Ah, yes of course," Dumbledore said, as though he had just discovered something interesting. He made to stand, and the four adults assisted him to his feet and carried him off.

Harry did not want to see Dumbledore like this! He did not want to see him weak – he wanted to see him healthy and omnipotent and twinkling his blue eyes and being Dumbledore! He could do nothing but just watch Dumbledore's entourage assisting him down the corridor. He turned around and spied the butt of a wand peeking out of an upturned tile. He strode over to it and flipped the tile over. His wand lay in two pieces on the floor, and they were connected tenuously by Fawkes' phoenix feather.

Harry sighed and carefully took the two pieces of his wand delicately, folding them in his hand. He straightened up and joined Sirius' side as they all trudged to the Apparition chamber, followed by Draco and his parents.