Song for this chapter: All I Want by Kodaline

APOV

It could be argued that my life had fallen apart the moment I had become involved with Gellert Grindewald. Perhaps it had been broken beyond repair the day that Ariana died. Maybe the end was that heated battle when I turned my wand on the man I thought to be the love of my life and sent him to prison. There was a chance that the defining moment of decent was the day that I fell in love with Rufus rather than what his uses were to me and my mechanizations. All of those points could be argued, but I believe that everything fell and my life well and truly ended when I heard the sentence, 'only a few small steps from there to murder the one, and subjugate the other.'

Honestly, I didn't even care about the subjugation aspect. Maybe I ought to have felt rage about that, but I didn't. I couldn't feel anything beyond the utter destruction held in the tiny six letter word that branded itself into my psyche the second it had passed through his lips. The world felt like it no longer had air in it for me to breathe as the realization that Rufus was gone settled in my chest. Between the moment that the illusion had shattered to reveal Lucius Malfoy and the moment he spoke those words I'd held onto the hope that it had been a modified Polyjuice potion or some other magical trickery and that Rufus was a prisoner somewhere.

I had visualized sneaking away from this impossible duel and finding Rufus and running away with him somewhere that no one would ever look for us. I held onto anything that was hopeful from the second that I realized the man that had tormented and violated me so fully in the last few months was not Rufus at all. However the comedown from the healthy dose of reality about what would actually happen when I left here came with the even more awful realization that I was the less than satisfactory party in our pairing.

It did nothing to improve my outlook on life and the world to watch Grindewald, a man I had decried as evil, duel Lucius Malfoy who was evil while thinking about the fact that I was amongst the people that I should be with. I was considered the great power for the side of the light, but that wasn't me was it? I was a man who had knowingly and with intention manipulated a man who was now dead. Arguably it could be said that he would not have been murdered if he had not been involved with me. I felt a plethora of emotions with the primary two being devastation and guilt, but as I watched Gellert advancing on Lucius the maelstrom within me coalesced into rage.

That rage propelled me up from where I had fallen on my knees by Hermione Snape. I was surprised to discover that she and Severus were gone, but that held little room in my mind as I picked up my wand from where it had fallen in my distraction. I let that rage run through me because it burned every other painful feeling out of my system. I harnessed that rage as I stalked forward toward Lucius. I didn't care that Gellert was throwing curse after curse at him and I could be hit as I moved closer. I didn't care that a crowd had gathered and would witness what I was about to do. I didn't care about anything other than the blinding rage that was boiling up from my stomach, through my chest, into my arms, and out of my mouth as I cast a spell that only Hermione would have recognized.

"Belülhalál," I snapped in an icy voice that sounded nothing like the friendly old man persona everyone was used to seeing from me.

The rage within me took joy from watching how all motion stopped from him when the spell hit Lucius. He couldn't speak as the air was crushed from his lungs. He couldn't move as the muscles in his body began to rapidly degenerate and eat themselves under his skin. He could do absolutely nothing as every system in his body designed to give him life died without his mind initially following suit. The spell was dark, and while Hermione would have recognized the language I doubted it was a spell she'd really be familiar with. It was designed to torture before death.

My rage allowed me to believe that Lucius deserved every bit of anguish that came from being mentally aware while his body died a painful death. The rage carried me beyond his messy death in the dirt outside the gates of Hogwarts, and beyond the realization that Gellert had fled in the face of the magic that had led to our most devastating fight. It burned like a fire within me until it carried me to stand in front of Minerva McGonagall who was amongst the crowd that had gathered on the edges of Hogsmeade to watch this whole debacle. Looking into her shocked face was when the rage deserted me and all of the other emotions came rushing back to the surface.

"I would like to formally tender my resignation as the Headmaster of Hogwarts," I told her as confidentially as I could manage with an audience. "It really ought to be that you are present while I give it formally to the board, but I imagine I'll be well on my way to Azkaban within the hour and I'd like to have all of my ducks in a row."

"Albus," she choked, her eyes glassy with unshed tears as she looked at me.

"If you could do me the favor of destroying my personal things from my chambers so they don't find themselves in the hands of nosy reporters or worse I would be forever in your debt," I said quietly as I started to reach out to give her one last hug, but thought better of it at the last moment when it occurred to me that she had just watched me commit murder. "I am headed to the ministry to turn myself in so I will be sure to mention that Gellert Grindewald appears to have broken out so they can send aurors to deal with that promptly."

I did not give her time to respond after that. Instead it was the desperate need for things to end that drove me to turn on my heel and apparate directly to the ministry. There was a part of me that wanted to run, or find someone to remove all of my memories, or just jump off of a cliff, but ultimately I knew the best thing I could do for everyone involved was turn myself into the ministry and let the Wizengamot decide my future.

MPOV

I wasted precious moments entering the Headmaster's suite at the castle to follow through with the request to destroy personal artifacts, and I did not make it to the ministry in time to intercept him before he left. Instead I was left to seek out any ministry official that would be willing to part with the story. If I waited until morning I would get a sensationalized version that had been cooked up by the papers and I was desperate to know what had happened to my friend and colleague. The first ministry worker that I saw with an open face that I thought might give me the truth was a former student. I reached out to grab her without much more thought than that.

"Marlene," I said, concerned that my brogue was coming through and may tip my hat to the panicked feeling in my chest. "What happened with Albus?"

"Minerva... his trial was quick and efficient," she whispered, steering me into an alcove to give us a bit of privacy. "He was found innocent, though there was some debate over that amongst some of the senior Wizengamot members as they left the court room."

"They aren't sending him to Azkaban?" I asked, still clutching her arm.

"No. No he was free to go at the end of the rather rushed trial that he demanded," she explained. "Sirius barely made it in time to give testimony in his defense. Severus couldn't make it, nor could Hermione, but Sirius argued that they would have testified on his behalf as well."

"Thank heavens," I murmured before the rest of what she'd said sunk in. "I don't understand though. Why was Sirius there?"

"To give testimony about the fact that Dumbledore has been under the imperious curse for several months now." She said quietly. "It's why he was found innocent and let go without much issue. Sirius said he told them he resigned all public positions he held and that he intended to leave the country after the verdict was given."

"Why would he do that?" I asked, feeling as if I were going to cry.

"Sirius said he pinned it down to having just committed a murder whether or not they were going to hold him accountable for it," she said, her eyes drifting over my shoulder rather than meeting my gaze. "But he was so… completely devastated that we suspect it has more to do with the fact that Rufus Scrimegour is dead than anything else. He's like a man with his tethers cut and apparently he is going to drift right out of civilization."

"Not if I can find him," I assured her with a grimace. "But where is Sirius anyway?"

"He's already gone ahead to St. Mungos, I'm just on my way to meet him actually," she said stepping away from me. "I hate to just leave you in the lurch like this but we still don't actually know if Hermione is going to make it."

"What's happened to Hermione?" I asked, suddenly remembering that I'd seen her collapsed on the ground beyond Albus during the commotion before Severus disappeared with her.

"We aren't sure," she called over her shoulder, already hurrying off to the floo. "Sirius couldn't really see when they came up the drive from shopping, but he said there was a lot of blood and she wasn't conscious. I've got to go."

"Please send me word when you know," I called after her retreating back. "A patronus will do."

"Of course," she called, her voice echoing a bit off the walls of the fireplace before there was a flash of green and she disappeared.

"What the hell has happened to this day?" I asked the empty hallway around me as I began going through a list of different tracking spells in my mind and quickly crossing off the ones that I knew Albus was block against if he truly meant to disappear from civilization.