Authors Notes: Because we did feel a little bad about the cliffhanger last time, here are two chapters for you!

Chapter 25:

"The splinters were caught at first by the Vault, but they have since escaped out into Earth. I have employed a similar tactic with this book. I have sent it back through the Vault, and with any luck, it will be spat out where I entered."

From the Secret Diary of Merlinus Caledonensis; Earth, 537 Common Era

Two years ago…

Ginny wasn't sure how long she slept in that horrible place, but when she woke up, she was still tired, cramped and incredibly sore. And the faerie was still there. It stood on the ground, staring up at her with eyes like burning coals.

"What's your name?" she asked the creature.

"Ember," she replied gleefully, before floating up in the air and grabbing onto Ginny's hair like she was climbing a rope ladder.

Ginny slowly rose to her feet, glancing back at the pool. It was perfectly still once more, though that rod of silver metal still floated within. She shook her head, trying to think, but her mind was all jumbled. She remembered… what did she remember? She remembered Tom. He had tried to come out of the Diary, tried to possess her using that evil faerie. There was a voice in her head… And Odium. She'd met the god of hate. That… was something she kind of wished she had forgotten.

Shivering, she made her way back down the passageway to the far end of the Chamber. Where was the Basilisk? She didn't know and didn't want to find out. She doubted she'd be able to control it without Tom possessing her and had no idea how to kill one.

Eventually, she reached the end of the passage and stared upwards at the hole in the roof. How was she… Ember nudged her, still swinging on a lock of hair, and Ginny felt an odd static sensation flood her body. Then she started floating. Has she done that? Had the faerie? Ginny didn't question it. She was too tired.

She concentrated on going 'up', and sure enough, she began to move in that direction. The tunnel was completely dark, it had sealed itself after her passing. Fortunately, as she neared the top it began to open on its own.

She floated up out of the hole and collapsed on the floor, even more exhausted than before. She began breathing heavily as the world spun around her. Okay Ginny, just breathe. You'll be fine. She just needed to catch her breath.

She sat there for a few minutes before the doors slammed open, causing her to shriek in fright. Professor Dumbledore was there, flanked by a dozen Aurors in their red hats and fancy robes.

Dumbledore looked down at her ragged form, and Ginny wilted.

"Miss Weasley? What happened to you?!" He exclaimed, kneeling down beside her and pulling her to his chest. Ginny, desperate for some human contact, buried herself in his chest and began to cry. She told him everything she could remember. About the Diary and Tom. About the monster it had forced her to unleash. How she'd fought against it, tried to stop it from killing. And she whispered of the terrible spirit she had seen. Odium. That name made even Dumbledore flinch.

She didn't remember him picking her up and carrying her to the hospital wing, nor did she remember falling asleep there. What she did remember was waking up several hours later and hearing her mother and father arguing with Dumbledore in the distance.

"I refuse to believe my Ginny was responsible for such horrors." Her father.

"I'm sorry, Arthur. I can only tell you what she told me herself. She did release the monster on the school, if by accident, and it did kill those people. It was her fault." Ginny shivered into her sheets. She had taken responsibility for her actions in the Chamber, but that didn't mean she wanted it rubbed in her face.

"I knew something like this would happen," her mother said in her stern voice. The one she used only with Ginny. Even when the twins did something naughty, she didn't use that voice. "I told you. She's not normal that one. I wanted to stop at six, but you wanted a daughter. I told you, a seventh child is always bad luck. All the stories say so. I tried to force it out of her, make certain she was as normal a witch as possible, but she's always been too powerful for her own good. No, I knew this would happen."

Ginny didn't want to hear anymore, so she buried her head in her pillow and cried herself back to sleep.

The school reopened the next day.

Ginny had tried talking to her mother, but she'd stormed off in a huff. Her father… he hadn't been able to even look at her. Madame Pomfrey had given her a clean bill of health, and when Ginny had asked about her rapid aging, the woman had simply said that it was common in pureblood children. Forced early growth acceleration was apparently a frequently performed practice in the old families. She supposed that was why the Slytherins always seemed taller than her. Well, they had at the beginning of the year at least. Now she was almost the tallest in her year. Madame Pomfrey said she'd probably be stuck at this height for a while, until her natural growth kicked back in at fifteen. Ginny had cried again at that.

Finally, Ginny had left the hospital wing and made her way towards Gryffindor Tower. That was when she learned that everyone in the school now knew what she'd done.

She'd encountered some of her Hufflepuff friends from the beginning of the year on her way up the stairs. They'd screamed and run away as fast as possible. The next people she encountered was a group of seventh years. Upon seeing her, they immediately turned their backs and fled, and Ginny hadn't been able to help the horrible feeling of dread that settled on her shoulders. She had won. She had beaten Tom and Odium and that evil faerie. So why did she feel just as sick now that she was free of him.

'You'll never be free of me,' A voice whispered.

Through it all, Ember just kept swinging on her hair.

When Ginny stepped through the portrait hole, the entire common room went silent, and Ginny was certain everyone would be able to hear her heart trying to jackhammer out of her chest. Ron rushed down the stairs, then, spotting her, his face contorted in rage. He stormed forward, and punched her in the face.

"That's for Hermione," he hissed. She staggered back, Ember flying free of her hair. She raised a hand to her face, then gritted her teeth. She had gone through all of that, just to get punched by Ron?

"Stay away from me," she hissed, making her voice low. The static energy swelled to life within her once more, and a collective gasp flooded through the room. Ron shrieked, then ran back the way he'd come.

Ginny held onto the static as she rushed up the stairs to her dorm, trying desperately not to cry again. Ember glided up behind her. She reached her door and slammed it closed, sinking down to the floor behind it.

The room was drastically different to how it had looked the last time she had been in here. Before the beds and wardrobes had all been spaced evenly. Now they were all crammed together next to the window. All except Ginny's bed. At the point furthest away from the others.

Ginny couldn't help it. The tears burst free, and she ran to her bed, sobbing. She threw herself atop the mattress and screamed. It was so unfair! Why!? Why did her life have to suck so much?!

The familiar rush of wind tickled her hair, and Ginny looked up at the crack in the wall. It was a small thing, large enough for a bug to fit through, and at the end of the passageway was what Ginny thought was an old cupboard under the stairs. She'd found it when she first chose her bed, thinking that perhaps she could hide something in there if she wanted.

Maybe she should hide herself in there, she thought, sinking down into her threadbare pillow. Ember fluttered down beside her and lay her head in front of Ginny's eyes. She reached out and whipped a tear away. Trying to be as delicate as possible, Ginny cupped the faerie and held her close to her chest, weeping for a girl lost in the darkness of the world.

Now...

"GINNY!" Harry screamed, heart trying to tear itself free of his chest. He cast aside his wand and the sphere of Decay Force he'd been planning to use against Voldemort while he was distracted by the shockwave, running full tilt towards the pool. He dropped to his knees beside the waters, but they were perfectly still. Not a ripple to be seen.

"No, no, no, no, nononononon. Not AGAIN! GINNY!" He splashed at the water, trying to see into the depths, but his hand barely submerged before it hit stone. Where had she gone? Where had Voldemort gone? Gabrielle dropped to his side, grabbing his shoulder.

"I only saw the end," she said frantically, "I was too far away to help…"

"Ember!" Mak called desperately, flying around the pool edge. She couldn't seem to get closer to it than that. "Ember!"

The air around Harry and Gabrielle began to vibrate, and they spun around in time to see a refraction of rainbow light crack the sky. Harry tried to see into it, and the rainbow light pulled at his mind. Drawing him further and further in… He saw balance eternal. Like a set of scales held in perfect equilibrium. It wasn't frozen; on each side of the infinite scale things were constantly increasing or failing away. It was the scales job to hold them in balance. The guardian who protects the door from both sides.

He was shoved out of its grip by Gabrielle, and he hit the ground on his shattered shoulder. He screamed, and Gabrielle immediately began to apologise.

"I'm sorry! You were moving closer and closer and I… I can't lose you two." Harry carefully looked back to the refraction, and for the first time realised that Mak was clinging to his clothes, face dazed. As he watched, her form seemed to blur, her essence being drawn towards the opening.

"Ember's splinter," Harry breathed. "Oh, God. That means Ginny…"

The refraction vanished as if it had never been. In the distance, a woman screamed.

Daphne hobbled into the Second Floor Girl's bathroom just in time to witness Emily scream, falling to her knees and throwing her hands to her head. Fred and George, who'd had their wands trained on the giant hole in the ground, spun around searching for threats. Daphne dropped to the ground beside her, wincing as the pain in her knee flared up, but as she did so, a silver mist began to condense around Emily's feet.

"Get back!" she yelled, her mind jumping back to that day in Harry's room. Not bothering with trying to stand, she scooted back across the room on her ass.

"What?!"

"Do as I say!" she snapped, and the twins, who'd moved towards Emily, backed away, though they still held their wands at the ready. Emily's scream faded away, and her eyes glowed solid gold. She let out a long, ragged breath as the mist rose up around her. Emily thrust her hand forward, and a cyclone of energy erupted in her hand. Then it solidified into the shape of a young girl with golden hair so long it actually wrapped around her body to form a dress of sorts. She giggled, spinning around several times, then face planted into Emily's hand.

Emily blinked away the light in her eyes, and slumped against the stone wall, staring at the newly born faerie in her hand.

A rush of wind burst free of the hole, and Fred and George spun back to the entrance as Harry shot up into the room, dropping to the ground, electricity pumping along his arms. Then he spotted Emily. He let his power bleed away as Emily looked up at him, completely baffled. Then, to Daphne's amazement, he sat down on the ground, pulled Mak to his chest and began to sob quietly to himself.

Harry didn't really say much for the next few hours. He just sat on the steps leading up from the Entrance Hall, Mak nestled in his cloak. He'd changed out of his blood-soaked school robes, and a nurse from St Mungo's had looked at his wounds. He hadn't tried to accelerate their healing with the Life Force. He hadn't felt he deserved it.

What did you do, when the girl you'd come to love sacrificed herself to kill a genocidal magical terrorist? The same man that had killed his parents. Twice now he'd been saved from Voldemort by someone who loved him, and he couldn't help but think he was living on borrowed time.

He should be out there helping Emily adjust to her knew faerie companion. He should be helping with the wounded. Flitwick was dead. The man had started Harry on his journey to discovering the truth about his powers and had been a steadfast friend during Harry's imprisonment and after. Sirius Black, his godfather, was barely clinging to life. Harry had led them both to the slaughter. James, his friend for years, his partner in crime in the Bunker. Butchered by Nicolas Flamel. Hogwarts, a place that had come to feel almost as much a home to him as the Bunker did, had suffered extensive damage. He could be helping repair that.

Instead he sat on the stairs, and all he could think about was Ginny's smile. That infectious grin that had created a bubbling warmth in him every time he saw it. He would never see it again. He remembered that day in the sky, when they'd first flown together. When he'd first realised that he was truly falling for Ginny Weasley. He'd never told her that he loved her. He steered clear of the night they'd explored one another for the first time. He'd cherish that, but right now the image of her face thrown back in ecstasy only served to stab deeper into his chest. It might have been Flamel who died by the blade, but Harry felt as though he had an Aluminium dagger of his own slowly twisting into his chest.

So he sat there, unseeing, until Gabrielle sat down beside him.

"She wouldn't want this," she said softly, and Harry hung his head in shame.

"I know," he whispered, "that's what makes me hate myself even more."

"Don't. Hate is Odium's domain, not ours. Ginny didn't spend three years of her life fighting against that fucker Voldemort just so he could get to the man he loved after she finally finished him off."

"Is it finished, though?" He asked her, turning towards her. Her cheeks were lined with tear stains, her hair a literal rat's nest. "The world is still broken, Gabrielle. The axial tilt is just going to keep swinging from good to evil, plunging the world into chaos. Voldemort might be gone for good this time, but the prejudice he espoused remains ingrained in society. Look at Malfoy. Can you tell me honestly that he's not going to grow up to become just like his father?"

She couldn't. Vel climbed out of the pocket of her fresh white cardigan and made his way over to Mak. He sat down beside her, and she laid her head on his shoulder.

"That's to say nothing of what's going on out there in the rest of the world." He threw his hand forward in a grand gesture, though what he was pointing at he wasn't sure. "Voldemort wasn't wrong. The Earth is dying. How much longer do we have before chaos consumes the world, and Odium reigns eternal over a planet of ashes?" Gabrielle was silent for a long time until, eventually, she spoke up.

"We could try and fix it," she suggested faintly.

Harry just laughed. "How?"

"By restoring Equality," Daphne's voice said. The pair turned around to see Daphne standing atop the stairs with a crutch.

"Dumbledore had a plan. Use the splinters to restore Equality and bring balance back to the Earth. I don't know if she can fix what humanity broke, but I imagine it would help. Dumbledore said there were seven pieces of Equality's power still missing. The Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone, the Invisibility Cloak, the Sorting Hat, the Philosophers Stone, Mak and Ember. We released Vel from the cloak, and Ember's splinter is now bound to Emily's faerie. That makes seven. We have them all."

"But we don't know where the Vault of Dreams is," Gabrielle pointed out.

"I do," Harry realised, the pieces fitting together in his mind, "there was a map with Dumbledore's notes. It had the Vault on it."

Harry jerked to his feet.

"We finish this and restore Equality to the world. That's what it means. What Ginny sacrificed herself to give us. A chance. Let's go." He grabbed Gabrielle's hand in his, then raced down the stairs looking for Emily, Daphne following behind on her crutch. He would do this for her. He could put his grief into something that mattered. It was a distraction he knew, but at that moment, he didn't quite care.

Gabrielle followed Harry and Emily down a cement-lined ridge backing onto the River Thames somewhere in eastern London. It wasn't a particularly poor area, and the houses on the promenade above the river looked nice enough. Still, neither were any streets save the two closest to the river home to any particularly impressive buildings. It was not a rich neighbourhood by any description.

Harry and Emily guided them to a large drainage pipe slightly taller than Gabrielle, and Harry pulled the grate open, ushering Gabrielle and Daphne inside. Gabrielle moved to summon a light of Charge Force, but Harry held up his hand, and she refrained. He replaced the grate, and Emily led the way through the tunnel.

They walked forward in total darkness, being extra careful not to disturb the silence of the tunnel any more than was necessary. Gabrielle was thankful that there was no actual refuse travelling the down the pipe. Finally, after a long walk in the dark, they came to a bend, and Emily knocked somewhere on something metal. A peephole of light appeared, followed by a curse and the creaking of gears. Then a section of the wall swung outwards, bathing Gabrielle in warm light.

They slipped through the tiny opening, and Gabrielle started. It was an underground bunker full of sleeping bags. They had emerged onto a metal gangway that ringed the space, which was easily two football fields large. She spotted a small kitchen, a firepit… and was that a hot tub?

Harry nodded his thanks to the young boy who'd opened the door. The boy saluted, and the group of four made their way down a set of stairs to the ground floor. Gabrielle glanced to Daphne, who was taking everything in with a look of stunned shock, jaw hanging open slightly and eyes wide.

"You grew up here?" Daphne asked softly as Emily ran towards several ratty old couches surrounding the firepit.

"Dad!" She called, and Gabrielle spotted a head swivel around.

"It's not much, but there are thousands of people in London alone who have it far worse. I'm lucky these people were good enough to take me in." He sighed, drooping his head. "So much good it did them in the end. This place used to be packed. Now there are only fifty or so occupied beds. The rest are back on the streets, too scared to come home, because I brought the Aurors here." He walked off, giving Daphne and Gabrielle no time to reply. They hurried after him, Daphne on her crutch. He eventually stopped by an old sleeping bag near the corner of the room, beside one of the walls. It was red and extremely thin, but beside it was a tiny mattress Mak's size made from bubble wrap and what might have been a shirt sleeve, with a pillow of cotton buds stuffed inside a baby's sock. It was both adorable and gut-wrenching at the same time.

Daphne looked like she wanted to be ill. Harry sat down and leaned his head against the wall, and Mak fluttered down to her makeshift bed with glee. Gabrielle placed Vel on the bed beside her, and Mak began showing him around, narrating where each piece had come from with an intense pride that Gabrielle couldn't help smiling at.

"Harry!" A voice exclaimed, and Gabrielle spun around to see a man in his middle years – presumably Emily's father – rushing towards them, Emily, Sammy and Fleur behind him. Harry waved to the man, and Fleur pulled Gabrielle into a hug. She had to admit, despite their estrangement, it was nice just to be held. They separated, and Gabrielle nodded softly to her sister. Fleur smiled and they turned their attention back to Sammy, who was wearing Hogs the Sorting Hat on her head.

"What happened?" she asked.

Harry didn't answer, and Daphne didn't seem to be paying attention, still staring out at all the ragged people moving about. The young boy from before was rushing about gathering a group of about fifteen kids around him.

Gabrielle gave them a barebones explanation, and Hogs shivered atop Sammy's head.

"So, it is time," he whispered.

"It is," Harry confirmed, pushing to his feet. Sammy swung her backpack around and unzipped it. Inside were the notes Harry had stolen from Dumbledore's office, the Elder Wand, and a small ruby stone. The Resurrection Stone. Gabrielle reached into her own pocket and withdrew the Philosopher's Stone Ginny had given her, then dropped it into the bag as well.

"I checked the notes," Sammy said, "The Vault of Dreams is at Glastonbury Tor."

That finally seemed to jolt Daphne back to awareness. She spun around, staring at Sammy.

"As in the gateway to Avalon, mythical land of the faeries in Arthurian legend Glastonbury Tor?"

"The very same."

Harry chuckled under his breath. "Then let's…" he trailed off, watching as the group of kids made their way over to them.

"Harry!" One of them cried, and several others repeated it.

"You're back!" a young girl in pigtails exclaimed, bouncing up and down. Harry smiled, the first real smile he'd had since the Chamber.

"Not yet, Mary. I have to go and save the world!" 'Mary' gasped, and the kids all began whispering to themselves.

"Don't worry, I promise to come back and tell you all the whole story when I'm done." They cheered, rushing forward to envelop Harry in a group hug. Mak fluttered around him, and Vel climbed Gabrielle's jeans to return to her pocket. Then, Harry wading through his crowd of kids, they made their way to another exit on the far side of the room.