Author's Notes: Merry Christmas. It's short - no surprise there - but heavy enough on content that I am exhausted from writing it.

Though... it's amazing how easily this chapter flowed once I started writing it.

Chapter 14: The Soul of the Rites of Death, Part 2

Sirius sucked in a sharp breath. And stared.

His fingers clenched and unclenched around his tea cup while his brain attempted to process Harry's words.

Finally, slowly, carefully, he stated the obvious. "But you're alive."

"Good of you to notice," Harry replied, smirking at him.

"Don't. Just... don't fuck with me, Harry. How?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't have a mastery in magical theory, Sirius. I have... guesses. Loose ideas at best. And most of those... I can't explain right off. You need to know the rest of the story."

Sirius gave him an impatient look.

Harry actually grinned. For some forsaken reason he had actually relaxed with his confession.

Sirius growled, low in his throat.

"Alright, alright. I get the idea already," Harry held up his hands in defeat. "As you can imagine Severus threw a fit when I suggested using it. Said he hadn't been training me to see me throw my life away. Made me promise to never use it... luckily that promise wasn't unbreakable. Though...I couldn't use it at any rate. Not at that time. It needed what I didn't have, eight spirit energy focus points. Specifically, eight spirits, eight dead people who... who loved me. Who loved me with enough strength to leave an echo of themselves behind."

Sirius scrunched his forehead up in thought. "Not... not to sound crass here, Harry. But... with all the people who had died... surely..."

Harry shook his head. "I thought about. Obsessed over it. I could only come up with seven names. Mum and Dad, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, Remus and... and you."

"Surely Molly..."

"Loved me like a son," Harry said in confirmation. "But enough to leave an echo? A piece of her own spirit left to wander the earth like a ghost for the singular purpose of watching out for me? No. Not that much. Not her, or Arthur or Professor McGonagall or Moody... Not one of the people who'd died loved me that much. And it only needed to be one."

Harry looked thoughtful. "Sometimes I wonder if he knew that..."

"Harry?" Sirius asked.

Harry shook his head. "Nothing. Where was I? Things... grew steadily worse. Until one day Severus got caught while getting supplies. By Peter Pettigrew."

Sirius grew cold. "Peter?" he whispered.

"I still don't know what happened. How the hell Wormtail, of all people, got the drop on Severus. But he did. And Severus died. Just like everyone else."

Sirius swore. He could see it now, could see the shape of what must have happened. But it still didn't explain... "You used Severus as the eighth."

Harry grinned, all teeth. "See, that's the beauty of it. Severus didn't love me. Never had, never would. But... the ritual didn't specify love. Just a highly charged positive emotive connection. Strong enough to leave an echo. And Severus had dedicated his life to keeping me safe. Had sworn it to Mum, to Dumbledore. To me, even. Why would a little thing like death stop him?"

"Does that even count?" Sirius wondered out loud.

Harry shrugged. "It doesn't matter. It worked. I killed Pettigrew first –" Sirius shivered "- and then I went for Voldemort."

Sirius dropped his face into his hands and breathed. "Harry..." he murmured, strained. Is he even sane anymore? Could anyone go through that and stay sane?

Sirius looked up.

Right then, in that moment, Harry certainly didn't look it.

"And it worked damnit," Harry was saying. "I got him. Voldemort. I killed him with the damn connection and with the ritual."

Sirius eyed Harry carefully. There was something just a bit crazed in those green eyes. Something he'd never seen before.

"Those connections... There's a lot of power in human emotions, Sirius. I... took those echos inside myself. Combined them with myself, with my soul, and lashed out. That... I should have died then. I think... I think I almost did. But, you see, I'd promised Hermione."

"An Unbreakable," Sirius whispered.

"Exactly," Harry said. "All I've got at this point is conjecture but... I think... Normally if you do something counter to an unbreakable you lose your magic. But... what I had sworn had nothing to do with my magic. It was about my life. What I lost... what I lost was my chance at death."

Sirius swallowed. "Are you... can you...?"

Harry waved off his concern. "I'm pretty sure that I'll still die of old age at some point. But I can't be killed by anybody. Not even by myself. Especially by myself."

And you've tried, haven't you? Sirius couldn't bring himself to say it.

"Maybe... maybe this world's Voldemort?" Harry mused to himself.

"No!" Sirius shouted. Both his and Harry's teacups exploded.

Harry looked up, shocked out of his thoughts. Then he smiled. "Relax, Sirius. It probably wouldn't work anyway."

Sirius sat back down. When did I stand?

"Anyway," Harry said, still smiling, "I'm told that in the moment Voldemort died – my Voldemort, obviously – a backlash of magic got sent through the Dark Mark to all of his Death Eaters. It didn't kill them, but it was strong enough that it magically crippled most of them. In one moment they were reduced to little more than squibs."

Sirius shook his head, his mind reeling.

"There were consequences of course. My world still isn't over the losses. But... I was in no shape to help. Everything that had happened... and the consequences of the ritual, of course."

"Consequences?" Sirius asked, unsure how much more he could take in.

Harry beamed at him. "Of course. I'd taken in pieces of eight people. Literally sucked in left over bits of other people's dead souls into my own. They... are still there I think. Part of me. Indistinguishable really."

I really am going to be sick. "Is that why you're..." Sirius trailed off, not sure how to put it.

Harry laughed. Actually laughed.

"Oh no. I'm pretty sure I'm fucked up for my own perfectly valid reasons. Ritual or no."

Sirius stared.

How the hell am I going to explain this to the Order?

Then a second thought hit him, causing his stomach to churn.

How am I going to tell James and Lily?