Cecilia looked around. In the chamber, dull, grey-black, illuminated by wands in the dim light a battle had been fought. It was not being fought now, however: a ceasefire of some kind was holding, more or less. She looked at the people, wizards holding wands to the throats of wizards; some prone on the floor, injured. Several probably dead. And, at the very centre of it all, Voldemort stood, framed by the stone archway of the veil, through whose threshold she had passed so many years ago.
I cannot hold this any longer...
Cecilia looked around again for Aloysius, but he was gone. She was alone.
But, not really alone. Others, others there would help her work out what to do. She just had to...
...trust...trust yourself...
Cecilia looked around again at the scene, assessing the Order and the ministry aurors: they were clearly overrun. Wizards that she had known for so long, the Weasley family, Bathsheba, the dark-haired auror; Benjamin Wergs, held up against the wall by a Death Eater with what looked like a sawn-off shotgun, Bertie Braddle on the floor, his face bruised; his eyes closed. And there was Sirius, whose place she had offeredto take, to go Beyond, to go to change a critical event in the life of his ancestor, Joseph Black.
The dark and terrible wizard once known as Tom Riddle looked as if he had changed his mind about what he had been about to say. For his eyes lit on the two arrived wizards, whose presence could not be accounted for in this world: indeed, Albus Dumbledore in this world seemed to be under the wand of Rastaban Lestrange.
A jolt of something came to Cecilia's stomach as she looked at the scene: wizards with whom she had come to work for in her world were so different to those in the world whence Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore had arrived, and her mind was beginning to feel hot and fuzzy.
"Have faith," Aloysius had said, and she turned around suddenly, in case he was still there, but any idea to plot and scheme was far from Cecilia's mind. From her position on the floor, out of the way of anything significant at all, she watched as Grindelwald placed her son on obsidian stone floor of the Department of Mysteries, just before the entrance of the veil. He looked at him analytically, and then, with his foot, made to push the unconscious boy through it, its ethereal undulations tempting, beguiling.
His arm was inches from the interface. Cecilia made to scream, to run, but her senses were imprisoning her in the shadows, compelling her to watch, observe. Around them, the defeated Order members still alive also protested: a child so casually dropped Beyond, being so casually killed. But Voldemort aimed a spell, which stopped Septimus's further progress.
"Now, now," he said, chiding the two wizards who had so suddenly appeared in his presence. "Do not be so wasteful. This child may yet be useful." He stepped over Septimus's body, his pale features still the same boy Cecilia knew to be her own, and screwed up her fists. He was alive, presumably. And Voldemort had preserved his life. For now. She looked around at the scene, as Voldemort stepped lightly, delicately over to first, Gellert Grindelwald, giving a bow, and then to Albus Dumbledore, to whom he also bowed, only after taking a swift look over his shoulder at the other Albus Dumbledore, still held to the wall by Lestrange. The look, Cecilia thought, was one of mocking, one of triumph. He had succeeded, somehow, in acquiring an Albus Dumbledore who would treat him like the powerful wizard he was, not compel him to remember his childhood, and to turn him to the good.
"It is a pleasure, a pleasure to welcome you both to my world," Voldemort continued. "Look," he said, holding out his wand and moving it around in an arc around the defeated Order wizards, "look, my dear friends. It would appear that dear Cecilia Frobisher has done it: brought me the greatest wizards, through time and space, to help me."
Behind him, Albus Dumbledore, at least the one who had accompanied Grindelwald, threw the letter into the veil, where it fluttered down, like a butterfly on a random meander and then made to toss through the locket. However, before it had chance to make contact with the interface, Lord Voldemort gave a low guttural sound and leapt for it, its gold chain spilling through his fingers, the locket enclosed in his fist.
"We have no need of these now," Gellert Grindelwald said, dismissively as Voldemort drew the hand containing the locket close to his chest. "We are, Albus, where we expected to be. And, we have found our ally."
Now would be a good opportunity to discuss the difference between a few words to describe Lord Voldemort, and indeed Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore: tyrants, despots, dictators, and autocrats. All very similar, but all with so very subtle in their meaning. And it is this difference that will determine how each of these characters will play out. An autocrat is a person who has been given authority, voted in, or inherited, and uses it to take full, singular ownership of his sphere of authority, whether for good, or evil. A despot is similar to a tyrant, but is probably more unhinged. Someone who is a despot will neither know the difference or care that there is one between sentencing a person who had committed a wrongdoing to imprisonment or some sort of terrible death somewhere in the stomach of a wild animal.
Tyrants are different. They have not usually inherited power, or had it given to them: they have seized it and are taking full advantage of the power they are enjoying, with their own interests firmly at heart and not caring how they achieve them. Dictators, too, have taken power by force. But these are the worst; these are the most terrifying. They enforce a will upon the people they have subjugated and believe, truly in their hearts, that this subjugation is for their own good. I'll let you work out to which of our three wizards these descriptions relate, for it is important to know the difference.
A laugh, hollow and cold as a night in Helheim with the Viking god of the underworld, echoed around the chamber. Gellert Grindelwald, holding the femur of Tom Riddle, soaked in the blood of Harry Potter, greeted him like an old friend.
"We meet at last, Lord Voldemort," he began. "And I must say, I do appreciate the welcome." He held out the bone, and then, when Voldemort did not take it, laid it on the ground between them.
"Had we not had this," he continued, gesturing to the femur, "had we not had the blood of...him, " he jabbed a long finger in the direction of Harry, "we would not have got to you. And, who have you here defeated?" Grindelwald looked around, at the Order, at the aurors. "Reciprocators?"
"The "Order of the Phoenix"!" Sirius Black replied, grinning strangely at Grindelwald. "You are familiar with them, Grindelwald?"
"And you are...?" Grindelwald eyed Sirius curiously.
"Sirius Black," Voldemort replied, smiling cunningly. "One of my most secret weapons. He has late been a spy, a very good spy, for me. He has infiltrated the Order and lured them down here. To welcome you," Voldemort added. "For you have long been in my plans to acquire, to carry out my desires."
"And you have been in ours. We have long been planning the removal of ourselves to your world, for your aid in helping us achieve domination, for the greater good of wizards has long been our desire."
"The greater good of wizards," Voldemort savoured the words, then strode over to Albus Dumbledore of his world and put his wand near his face. "The greater good of wizards, Dumbledore. There was a time that you so heartily believed in that too, like him!" He shot his wand arm back in the direction of Grindelwald's Albus Dumbledore.
"That day has passed, Tom," said Dumbledore, his eyes, despite his predicament, still firmly fixed on Voldemort. "And has stayed passed. Your single-minded desire to stay alive and preserve your evil has made it so." At this, Voldemort took a step back, and laughed, a hollow, icy laugh that seemed to make the temperature in the veil's chamber decrease quite suddenly.
"Then we are agreed, Gellert Grindelwald," Voldemort declared, "that you will help me, and I will help you."
Grindelwald did not reply straight away. Indeed, he seemed to give the matter a good deal of thought.
"What is it that you desire, Voldemort?" he asked. "Your horcruxes that remain can be kept secret. Is that it?"
"Indeed!" replied Voldemort, as if the secret of them no longer mattered. "I will rule wizards with terrible and unending power."
"To keep the maintain the power and superiority of wizards," Grindelwald finished, as if that was what Voldemort had meant to add. "But where to start. Where to start?" He paced around the defeated Order, looking first at Arthur Weasley, and then at Bill; then noticing the children, he glided over to them, Ginny and Luna, Neville, Hermione and Ron.
"Ah, the future;" he purred, as if in delight. "And you are students at the wizard school? Hogwarts?" He eyed them like a cat might eye its prey. He was toying with them. Cecilia thought, or was he trying to charm them?
He turned back, looking at the wizards, looking them up and down, the Order, underfoot; the Death Eaters, dominant, victorious.
"My, my, you have been successful," Grindelwald mused, as he looked into the faces of those present. "I see Rodolphus...Rastaban...Lucius, yes, yes," he nodded, "very useful, is dear Lucius, tell me," he asked Voldemort, you have managed to compel these wizards to obey you using the Imperious curse?"
"No he has not!" screamed a voice just beyond Voldemort. Stalking out from behind the Dark Lord, Bellatrix Lestrange raised her head. "He is the most dangerous, most powerful of all wizards. And I am his most loyal, most faithful servant!" She held her wand aloft, her eyes darting around, looking for any sign of dissent from one of the intruders.
"Bellatrix." Grindelwald considered her. "Yes, yes, so different to your namesake from our time. I do not suppose you have developed the game of quibball, are you? And your son?"
"Son?" squawked back Bellatrix. "I have no son!"
"No," nodded Grindelwald, "I don't suppose you have. Yes, there are such a lot of differences. Still, Albus, I am sure we will reconcile them." But his Albus was busy inspecting the bodies of those who had fallen, who had been killed, who were unconscious. Cecilia chanced a toe forward, stepping out of her half-hidden shadow, and sliding her way along the wall in the direction of Severus, the potions for Harry in her hand.
"So many missing, Gellert," she heard Albus say. "So many gone. The book was right. There is no Longbottom family; there is no Potter family." He looked over at Voldemort, accusingly. "We are missing so many esteemed families."
One step, and another, Cecilia thought to herself. Just a little closer...just a little closer...
Just a little closer, Cecilia Frobisher, thought Tabitha Penwright, from behind the veil, her hand pocketing the letter that had once instructed Cecilia to go Grimmauld Place for work. Get to Harry; get to Severus.
"They defied me; they stood in my way!" roared Voldemort. "On my path to greatness."
"Then, you admit this was a mistake?" Grindelwald oozed. "That these families were murdered? All magic is sacred, Voldemort; that's what makes it so valuable. All magic is valuable."
A little further...a little more. Cecilia looked ahead. But, there was a large gap to cover between her and Harry. And, even now, while Sirius was looking intently at Voldemort, absorbed in the conversation between him and Grindelwald, she noticed there was some sort of communication, nods, gestures, between Harry and Snape. If they were to launch a counterattack, the chance of getting over to Harry, so Snape could adjust them for background magic would be impossible.
"You have heard of breaking the sound barrier?" Aloysius's voice replayed in her mind. "I have broken the time barrier. You have time..."
I have time, thought Cecilia, and then her eyes were drawn towards the veil, the enthralling dance of its air, tempting her to it.
"And the non-wizards here?" Grindelwald demanded.
"Oblivious to it all," Voldemort laughed. "They live alongside us; they are in total ignorance of our world!"
He was clearly happy with that explanation,Cecilia thought. Voldemort in the same way that he had paced around the children, keeping eye contact, his wand dormant in his hand.
"You are telling me you already have the non-wizard population ignorant, and you have spent your time persecuting the magical?"
Cecilia looked across to Harry again. And then a thought occurred to her.
But no, surely it would never work! She looked again. Harry was taking the opportunity to shuffle further towards Dumbledore, pinned as he was against the grey wall.
"My first act in this world will be to instate Albus Dumbledore - " he pointed his wand-tip to his lover, "- as Headmaster of Hogwarts, to best guide the young to the best education that they can acheve." He stalked back over to the children again, Hermione glowering openly at him. He smiled at her, as if she were a mere misguided child. "The second – to remove you to our world, so that you may learn to respect the magical, and perhaps your skills as an arbiter of magic would be useful post-separation?" He turned to Albus Dumbledore, who nodded as Grindelwald grinned.
"Remove?! Respect?!" roared back Voldemort, striding past Grindelwald. "This is my realm! My domain! It was organised that you would come to me and - "
"Us, come to you? No, surely you joke," Grindelwald continued. "You can see, can you not, that this path to self-destruction, in your quest for selfish endurance, can only come to naught?"
Voldemort screamed, the sound like the back-rush from a jumbo jet, ending in a babel of words which eventually ended in, "I will kill all those who oppose me!" and thrusting his wand in Grindelwald's direction.
"Incognito!" declared Cecilia. It was one of the more basic spells she had picked up, absorbed, in the chalet, a she slept a dreamless sleep as her thoughts were stolen and turned over in the Prime Pensieve by Albus Dumbledore. Not invisibility as such, more a glamour, an illusion. A spell of the family to which "Felix Felicis" belonged, which put the consumer in the right place at the right time. "Incognito" ensured that she was unlikely to be spotted when she crossed the open ground between the shadows, past three Death Eaters and to Harry and Snape.
"No, you will not, Voldemort," retorted Grindelwald, coldly. "Do you not desire a untopia of wizardry above all?"
"What I desire is to live forever," Voldemort returned.
"But what for?" Grindelwald argued back, his wand coming slowly level with his ear. "What would it all be for if your power is not used for the nurture and promotion, of the glory of wizardry? Do you hear him, Albus?" he turned to his lover (and now, potentially, the new headmaster of Hogwarts), "to think, we came here with an offer of ruling an empire, divided by time and space," he wheeled back to Voldemort, who himself now had his wand raised, "with your power, and you say you do not believe this is valuable, or of a worthwhile purpose?"
And, she had made, it, Tabitha noticed. She was just a foot away from Harry now, and was whispering close to his ear.
"Cecilia," Snape intoned, and she pressed the vials into his hands.
"They are done, as agreed with Aloysius Lupin," she hissed back, the illusion of her presence by them absent from all unless she herself chose to speak to them. "You need to adjust for background magical influence. They will work perfectly then."
And then she stepped back, the burgundy-coloured match betraying its colour to the half-light; the green base, the first that Harry needed to drink, glimmering too, and behind one of the obsidian-bricked pillars, behind which Tabitha had once dropped, injured in the shoulder. Snape retreated too, shuffling a little further away from Harry., his wand raised at the two otherwise innocuous-looking bottles lying flat in his hand. From her position behind the column, Cecilia saw one vial flare up and dim, and then the other.
Nearly there, thought Tabitha, and I will be back there, nursing a shoulder-wound. And then a shout sprang up from one of the aurors, who had once been lying near Harry and was now back on his feet. Mad-Eye Moody was alternating his wand between Grindelwald and Voldemort.
"You think I will let you three evil biggers pass by me in this Department?" But Sirius was beside him within seconds, pressing his wand to the old Auror's throat.
"You have done well, Sirius Black," came the words of Lord Voldemort. "I have to admit, I did not believe you had turned. You sent the muggle, yes, that was well played. And, she has clearly succeeded in bringing me two wizards who will aid my cause. Now, once you have disposed of him, it will please you to find her."
"Her?" Sirius replied, holding his wand tighter. "The muggle misborn?" He looked confused. "She went Beyond the veil, my Lord; she has...gone..."
"She is directly behind you," replied Voldemort. "Bring her to me, Sirius Black."
Cecilia felt her breath catch in her throat. Sirius had turned and his confused face had dissolved into one of delight. He grabbed her clothes and hauled her behind him. Next to him, Vincento had Neville who had in his hands Mysterious Mythology. Cecilia looked at it, her heart sinking. It was unmistakeably Remus's copy.
But then, her mind added, what was the point of it? The wizards Voldemort wanted to find, using Mysterious Mythology to find them in a different dimension, were here, having found him. Her heart began to take an upwards trajectory. And then eyed Dumbledore, still pinned against the wall.
There was something more to this, more, that he had planned. Albus Dumbledore, the one she knew from this world, would not just stand by and do nothing. Cecilia looked back to Harry. Already, the boy looked alert, unlike how she had first seen hjm, defeated; broken.
"Dear Aloysius," murmured Voldemort, as Sirius handed him the book. "Really, he should not have trusted Oswald Avery. But then...he so short sighted as to leave it with his son, and then his son...pity the werewolf could never retrieve it for me..." His eyes washed over Cecilia, and she felt vulnerable, for the first time in a long time: Voldemort was staring at her, looking at her as one might look at a beetle just before one squashes it.
"It matters not," Voldemort concluded, throwing it onto the floor. Cecilia watched Remus's book skitter across the vast, obsidian stones. "It would have given me the knowledge to know it is true, a window to another dimension, "for I have already got what I would have sought," he looekd back to Dumbledore and Grindelwald; the latter had lowered his wand. And then, he shot his attention back to Cecilia.
"So, you have been..." Voldemort began. "But, have you done it? Brought...him?"
"I...don't know what you - "
"Silence! You know perfectly well who I mean: Aloysius Lupin! For he, he alone, is the only one who can show me those which once belonged to the Brothers Peverill! Speak, or I will begin with those whom you care for the most."
"They're dead; all of them!" shot back Cecilia. "Every one of my family you murdered." She glanced down at Harry, her mond racing, putting pieces together as if doing the world's fastest jigsaw puzzle. "And I did: you have what you want: you have Gellert Grindelwald. Aloysius Lupin brought me to him, and now, he is with you."
There was a silence you could sharpen a knife on as Cecilia dropped silent. That potion needs to work, Aloysius, Cecilia thought, as hard as she could. But she kept her eyes fixed, as difficult as it was, on Voldemort.
"Yes," replied Voldemort, as if he had worked something out. "Yes, yes, of course." He raised his wand from the direction it had been, towards Cecilia's chest, and pivoted round to look at Grindelwald. "You have them, do you not? You've brought them to me? Oh, very good, very good!"
"He means the Hallows, Gellert," Albus Dumbledore, of the other world stepped next to his lover. "Which, of course, never existed in our world. The woman was right; he is not interested in an alliance; he is not interested in collaboration."
"Then, you are not Gellert Grindelwald?" Voldemort began to stalk around him, wand outstretched. "You are of no use to me?"
"I am indeed, Voldemort," Grindelwald replied at length. "Albus is right: there was not need for the Peverill brothers to make the Hallows in our time. But, I have the objects that you desire, and should you come with us, as a faithful disciple, Tom Riddle, you will, in time, have them."
"Ahh," savoured Voldemort, dipping his wand a little. "I have long desired these."
"And the greatest wizard of all time brought them to you," Cecilia added, feeling Sirius's arm tighten around her neck.
"That is where you are wrong, foolish muggle! I am the greatest wizard who has ever lived! Here, and anywhere! I have summoned you here to serve me!" he declared triumphantly, looking between Grindelwald and Dumbledore. "It is only fitting, and you, Albus Dumbledore." Both the Albus who had Come and the Albus who was still pressed against the wall, ,looked at Voldemort.
"Then, I believe we will never agree, Voldemort," replied Grindelwald, his words sorrowful, his voice cold. "You must be brought round to our way of thinking!"
And then, Albus Dumbledore of Voldemort's world pulled the trigger. A flash of light narrowly avoided Cecilia's ear as he overcame Rastaban Lestrange, winding him with an old-fashioned elbow in the ribs. At the same time, an aquamarine flash of light surrounded the children, leaving them shielded from the spella that were beginning to fly now, between Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore, and the Death Eaters.
Amongst themselves, the Order and the Aurors looked at one another. What should they do? Enemy's enemy ruled that they should take the side of the wizards fighting Voldemort. But when those wizards were Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore, this caused a condflict of interest.
And you're just standing by, Tabitha told them. Time is passing and the three most powerful wizards of all time are in direct conflict with one another. And then senses were come to. Dumbledore leading the way. If the Death Eaters were busy supporting Voldemort, it was up to them to kill or injure as many Death Eaters as they could. Snape had, already, stunned Rodolphus Lestrange and even now, he and Dumbledore were busy duelling with Lucius and Bellatrix.
However, Cecilia was not fighting; instead she had elbowed Sirius in the chest, looping behind him and
seizing his wand, which clattered to the floor.
"Go to Harry!" Cecilia declared, the shoe well and truly on the other foot. Sirius., without argument, stepped towards his godson. Harry was on his feet, bottle with burgundy drops were all that was left of the base potion. He had done it. Well, half of it.
"Sirius will not stop you!" Cecilia whispered to Harry, and she pressed his own wand into the small of his back. Harry had staggered to his feet, but looked across to his godfather anyway, his eyes narrowing.
"Harry, don't do it!" Sirius replied. "This will kill you, I know it will!"
"What do you care?" Harry asked, coldly. "It is pretty clear whose side you are on!" But Sirius had tears in his eyes.
"Harry!" he hissed at Harry's retreating back. "I have done all that I could to keep you out of this! I thought...you and James...so alike..." But Harry wheeled back and hissed, "Dad would do what I'm doing, Sirius! He would fight, like he did...like he did when he died!" And with that. Harry left a sobbing Sirius Black on his knees, Cecilia stioll pointing his wand at him.
"You know power," Grindelwald was argung back to Voldemort, matching every attack that he was giving. "And you don't have an idea of its strength and potential; of how it can be harnessed for the greater good!"
Don't Tabitha tried to shout back to Cecilia, as she also knelt by Sirius. We are there, so nearly there! But, Cecilia had, and that had been her mistake. Tabitha tried to climb one-handed out of the veil, and very nearly did, but then slipped back down on the twine. She too had memories to deliver. But now she felt her hands dislodge around them.
She looked up. Aloysius Lupin had taken them from her. Tabitha smiled with relief. They could finish this together.
"Harry!" shouted Cecilia, as she struggled with Sirius to regain control of his wand, "take the match! Finish this!" Whether or not Harry heard Cecilia she didn't know. But what was clear was that through the individual skirmishes, battles and conflicts, he strode his way right to the centre of the room, where Voldemort and Gellert were parrying blows. Raising his wand, Harry flicked off the cork from the vial, its yellow-green liquid swirling as he held it in his hand.
"You wanted me," Harry said, when Voldemort realised he was there. "You wanted me, here, you wanted me dead." He held his arms out, casting his wand to the floor. Voldemort, his grey-white face twitching in the semi-darkness, lowered his wand to Gellert Grindelwald, and turned, very slowly, to Harry.
"I don't know why you wanted me," Harry continued, as a shout from the children near the back – Ginny, and Hermione too, protested at Harry's actions. "I don't know why I was so important, except some dumb propecy told you I would never be able to live if you lived, and nor would you, if I lived." He turned to Grindelwald. "Believe me," he said, "I have never lived, not properly. This wizard has claimed my life. I do hope that the Harry from where you came had a better one. So," he concluded, turning back to Voldemort, "I am ready. Kill me now, and have this over with." Silence returned. Harry raised his hands. Nobody moved, in fact, it was doubtful that much breathing was going on, either.
"That is the bravery we came to find, Albus, is it not?" said Grindelwald, his voice oily. "Oh, Tom," he continued, smiling as if this was all one big joke that Voldemort just hadn't got yet, "I know you do not want to kill this boy!"
"Oh, but I do," Voldemort replied. "I do, very much. And you, Gellert Grindelwald, would do well to keep your promise of handing me the Deathly Hallows."
"Oh, biut I don't think so," Grindelwald continued. "You see - "
But what Grindelwald saw, no-one ever found out. For actions, events, as perfectly choreographed as if a ballet took place.
Cecilia, whose neck was being held by Sirius close to the ground "accio'd" Harry's wand. At the same time, she used it to stun Sirius, a weak, and inaccurate stun, but enough to get him off her. She then ran full pace towards Harry, throwing him his wand.
Below them, Aloysius Lupin and Tabitha Penwright emerged from the veil and, at the same time as releasing the memories, heard Harry declare, "Well if you won't kill me then I will have to kill you! Avada Kedavra!"
Green light shot from his wand, hitting Voldemort in the chest. But, for the first time in its evil use this did not kill him, for the last part of his soul, the part residing within Harry was released. A noise like a million kettles all coming to the boil on the stove of the universe filled the veil's chamber and the horcrux was released, finding its way back into the body it had left sixteen years before. Harry was recoiled, but managed to stay on his feet. He tried to say the spell again, as a stunned Voldemort also staggered back. Because, as Harry did this, the Horcuxes from every other object Voldemort had created also returned to him.
And then suddenly the earl-splitting sound, the energy, the rushing of air, all stopped. Voldemort was returned to as full-souled as he could be. From his hand dropped Slytherin's locket, now devoid of its contents.
Harry raised his wand to try again. "Avada Kedavra!" he declared. But this time, no green light, no spell, nothing.
"You have removed his power!" Sirius screamed at Cecilia, who turned her head from the figure of Aloysius Lupin in the company of Tabitha Penwright next to the veil. Could everyone see them, or just her.
"Accio!" Sirius declared, and Cecilia felt herself being dragged across to him, her feet scoring against the black obsidian.
"I did as I was asked," Cecilia protested as Sirius pointed his wand at her, answering the accusation that he had harmed Harry, which she predicted would be the next thing he said. "I made a successful potion, part of a much bigger plan." But Sirius pushed her to the floor with one hand.
"Sirius!" shouted Snape, his position by Tabitha, the next part of the plan beginning. "Stop being a fool and join us!" But Sirius would not take his wand from Cecilia.
A long laugh came from the body of Voldemort. He glared down at Harry, nudging him with his foot, then laughed again.
"You have failed, Harry Potter. And now you are dead!"
"Abasora!" Grindelwald declared, and their fight continued again. Like a puppet show at a fairground, those who had been fighting one another, Mad-Eye and Pettigrew; Arthur Weasley and Rodolphus Lestrange, sprang back to life.
"I did not put a blood deed on you by accident," Sirius hissed amid the fighting. "And it is still out to be claimed."
"Stand aside, cousin," snarled Bellatrix, her wild hair moving as she walked, her long fingers around her wand, like an extension of her own arm, pointing it at Cecilia too. "
You went in search of Auld Magic, muggle." Bellatrix spoke to Cecilia in statements, rather than questions. "You went Beyond, and now you have returned. See what your meddling has come to. Harry Potter has lost his life, for nothing, because of you. My Lord is still trying to make the two wizards see reason. And, although you can do magic, you are neither a wizard or a witch, so I will be delighted to carry out my cousin's blood deed. And she trained her wand on Cecilia, white light, not sparking out or streaming out, but illumunating out of her wand, bathing Cecilia in it. She felt cold, like a door had been opened on the coldest of winter days and she was lying right by it. Sirius folded his arms, triumph in his stature.
But Cecilia's death was not noticed by many who were there. For now, Tabitha Penwright and Aloysius Lupin strode out from behind the veil, cloudlike formations behind them. Harry shrank back into the shadows as the two of them took centre stage before the veil.
"Aloysius, we meet at last!" Gellert Grindelwald greeted the timesmith as if they were old friends.
"Grindelwald," Aloysius nodded. "As you expected, you have found the universe where you think your "Greater Good" policy can be best used. But, you have not found Voldemort co-operative?"
"Indeed not," Grindelwald replied. "Tell me, do you have the memories?"
"No!" shrieked Tabitha, suddenly. "No!"
"Oh, but yes," replied Grindelwald. "You have the memories of those people killed by you, Tom Riddle. They should serve as a reminder that you do not abuse wizards. You treat them as friends."
And Aloysius Lupin released the memories. The chamber was filled with confusion, much as the other chamber, in the other universe had, when Tabitha Penwright had performed a similar action.
Around them, voices spoke, long, drooling voices, taking their time to talk, but when they did it was easy to work out what they were saying.
"...now, I am warning you, don't point that wand to me..."
"...no! Not Frank...!" From the back, Neville went pale at the sound of his father's voice.
"...please, I beg you, I tried to get the book..."
"...Harry, not Harry, please!" Harry looked up. He had known about his mother's love saving him, about her sacrifice. But this was the first time he had ever heard her voice so clear, so definite, her sacrifice was definite in her desire to save him. He looked around the dim chamber, at the wisps of the memory clouds, racing and moving, writhing and dancing, fancying that he could even see her face.
Cecilia opened her eyes, as Bellatrix, so intent on her task of murdering her, turned to look at the memories. Cecilia remembered them, such as they were, when she went Behind. Sections of memories were preserved here, like animate tape recordings, to be replayed and replayed all the way through time and space.
"Now!" But this time, it was Albus Dumbledore, ex-head teacher of Hogwarts who shouted the instruction. As one, all of the Order turned wands on Aloysius, then around at the wizards in the centre, near the veil. In one synchronised motion, they herded the memories together, like sheep, back towards the veil.
Try again! A voice came into Harry's mind, and he stood up again. Who had said that? But then, he caught Dumbledore's eyes, and rtraised his wand again.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Harry's voice rang out in the veil's room, and he was once again recoiled as a stream of green light darted once more from his wand tip. His powers, though gone, had only been a temporary loss, and he gripped his wand tighter, as if he remembered what to do with it.
Later, much later, when the Order were trying to recall the pivotal moment in the Department of Mysteries, it was pudent to note that no one member's memory was the same as anothers. But what they all agreed was that there was an implosion. Not a fast one, certainly. But the memories that were being moved by their wands was creating a boundary between them and the three wizards inside.
Harry's spell was enough, this time, to hit Voldemort. But where Voldemort had been, a body was now in its place: Bellatrix Lestrange had hurled herself towards her most beloved master, the Unforgiveable Curse rebounding off Voldemort and hitting her in the head. She fell through the memories, and through the veil.
And then, an almighty sound filled the Department of Mysteries. A sound like all of the air particles rushing at the same time towards the veil, the memories, the wizards,: Voldemort, Grindelwald and Dumbledore.
"As you requested, Albus," Aloysius declared loudly, as the archway and the veil crumbled to dust, crumbled in on itself trapping the memories and taking the wizards wiithin the veil. "I have arranged for this way to memories in all timelines to be destroyed. As we speak, other Tabithas are destroying their veils. There will be no way to the souls through any veil again."
"Aloysius watched. They all watched, watched as the veil folded around the three wizards, the pressure of the memories swirling and dancing, alive with energy, until they too were sucked baclk in as the veil folded in on itself. Until there was nothing.
At the wall near the doorway Harry Potter collapsed.
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"Where is Cecilia!" demanded Severus Snape, who had taken it upon himself to run to Tabitha Penwright as she crumpled, with the weight of the memories, of the task she had done removing all her energy. "Where is she, Sirius?" he demanded, striding over and poking a toe into Sirius's ribs. Siriius looked up from his own tending of Harry, and frowned. "I saw what you did, you little..."
"But there is no body," Dumbledore pointed out. "A blood deed always leaves evidence. It has to, to prove it is done."
"Then, where is she?"
"I believe Aloysius Lupin can answer that. If we ever find him."
"You mean, he's gone as well?" asked Snape, frowning. But Dumbledore clapped him on the back, then turned to Sirius.
"You did your part, Sirius Black. Played your best. You are redeemed for your mistake at Christmas." But Sirius looked away, sadly.
"Remus – he's dead," he muttered, half to himself. "Cecilia is dead, Benjamin, Bertie, Bathsheba, all dead."
"And it's Mrs Frobisher we all need to thank." Dumbledore reminded him, pointedly.
"But where is she?" Snape asked. Dumbledore turned to his most loyal supporter and narrowed his eyes.
"Think carefully, Snape. What does your logic tell you? What does your soul tell you?" In the same place where Aloysius had left her, he held Cecilia's hand.
"You did so well, Cecilia," Aloysius Lupin said as they watched the clean-up operation, the arrests of the Death Eaters, the tending of the injured, and of the dead.
"But, are they...real?"
"You are in your own place at nearly - " Aloysius looked down at his time turner, then smiled at her, " - the right time." Cecilia made to step forward, and back to the wizards, but Aloysius took her wrist.
"Now, you don't want to be spoiling the timelines, just when we have managed to trap three dangerous wizards Beyond for all eternity, do you? Listen," he added, crouching down and holding the time turner to her ear. "What do you hear?"
Cecilia listened, straining after a few seconds to hear something. And then, she was sure, she could hear words, words and phrases, the beeping of a car horn. Even an ambulance siren?
"Your timeline was put into a loop, in order for you to help Albus Dumbledore, me, Severus Snape, and a whole lot of other people get the result we got today. So, to complete it all, you must..." Cecilia closed her eyes, as the feelings began to fill up in her chest, of loneliness, of despair, of futility.
"...you must...return to the place it was thought that you were desouled; Little Whinging, Great Hangleton." Cecilia turned her head sharply to him, her gold-red hair illuminated in the wandlights of the Order and the Aurors. "Aloysius," she begain, "Lindvald. What if I don't want to?"
"You want to," Aloysius said. "I did not perfect the timelines for my great-grandson not to come into this world."
"But, Remus..." she tried. But Aloysius just raised up her hand and kissed it, gently.
"Go. Go and find him. You should find there was a reprieve. I am off to find Bessie, and spend some hours in her company."
"All will be well," he said, smiling to Cecilia. "Thank you for everything, Cecilia. Now, Are you ready?"
"Aloysius, I..." she began. But, as she tried to speak, she blinked. Around her, trees, standing tall and upright, their green canopies framing a blue sky overhead told her she was not in the Ministry any longer.
People were running, screaming, talking, all too fast for Cecilia to understand. She closed her eyes again.
It's like little loops in time, Cecilia's mind thought, the plane of her mind forever allowing random thoughts to skate over it at inopportune moments.
"That's why the physicists that I know so well call it string theory." Aloysius's faint voice called back, through many layers of time. "And, until my last, I will be tying off some more loose ends."