On Saturday, Petunia drove Harry over to Stephen's place. Since Harry would be staying at Stephen's until Monday evening, she decided to take Dudley on an overnight trip to the seashore at the same time. They pulled up at the house and Harry got out with his overnight bag in hand. "Thanks for the ride, Aunt Petunia," he said. "Have fun at the seaside, Dudley."

"You're welcome," Petunia said. "Good luck with the scar removal."

"Yeah, good luck," Dudley echoed, following a covert poke from his mother.

"See you on Monday," Harry said, waving as he headed up the walk and the car pulled away.

Sirius had the door open before he reached it. "Hey, Pup. Ready to do this?"

Harry sighed. "As ready as I'll ever be," he said. He entered the house and set his bag down before pulling out the concealer to cover his scar. While he had gotten much better at controlling his metamorphmagus abilities, his hair still sometimes changed colour when he was nervous or stressed about something, and Stephen and Sirius both agreed that he should keep that ability a secret until after school started. "Who's going to glamour me?" he asked. "I know we'll have to undo it before the Unspeakables look at me, but better we get into the Ministry without the entire wizarding world recognising me."

"I've got it," Stephen said, wand already in hand. Moments later, he, Sirius, and a nondescript brown-haired and brown-eyed boy stepped through the floo into the Ministry atrium.

"I'm going to go file the paperwork and meet you down there," Sirius said in an undertone once he and Stephen checked in with the security guard.

Stephen nodded. "We won't start without you, I promise." He nudged Harry towards the lifts, wanting to get out of the atrium before any of the Ministry workers or Wizengamot members he'd met spotted him and came over for a chat. But he smiled when he saw Healer Jason Abbott waiting by the lifts. "Good to see you, Jason," he said.

Healer Abbott smiled back. "Good to see you as well, Stephen, it's been far too long." His smile widened into a grin as he asked, "I don't suppose any more of those books about Brother Cadfael have come out yet?"

Stephen laughed as the two of them plus Harry stepped into the lift. "As a matter of fact, yes. One came out this spring. They said at the bookstore, the author of the books isn't well, so it might be another long wait for the next one."

Healer Abbott looked eager. "And you didn't tell me until now? Can I borrow it? What's it called?"

"I wanted to read it first, yes, and it's called Summer of the Danes," Stephen said with a chuckle. "I'll owl it over tonight, if you'd like."

"Please do," Healer Abbott said as they got off the lift at the Department of Mysteries. "So, can you tell me what it is we're doing here?"

"Not yet, we're waiting on one more to arrive," Stephen said. "He'll be along in a few moments, he just had to file a few things before coming down, in case this takes longer than we think."

An Unspeakable slipped out of one of the doors leading off the area they were in and spoke quietly. "I need the boy to come with me for a moment. Croaker wants the boy to retrieve the prophecy orb before we start, so we can determine if this will complete it or not."

Stephen gave Harry a nudge. "Go ahead. Only people involved in a prophecy can touch the orbs, that's why they need you to get it."

Harry looked nervous. "What if everyone's wrong, though, and it's not about me?"

The Unspeakable shrugged a bit and said, "There are protections on the orbs. If it isn't about you, when you reach for it, you'll get a feeling of being repelled by it. If you take it anyway, you'll spend a few days singing nursery rhymes, because you're a child. An adult would have more severe consequences, as they're old enough to know better than to take what isn't theirs."

Stephen laughed. "That sounds like the sort of consequence the Marauders would have come up with," he commented.

"Filius Flitwick suggested the charms, based on something a student of his said, or so he told us," the Unspeakable said, guiding Harry through a doorway.

Sirius got off the lift a moment later. "Where's the Pup?" he asked, looking around nervously.

"Fetching the prophecy orb," Stephen said. "Jase, this is Lord Sirius Black, Harry's godfather. Sirius, Healer Jason Abbott. He's treated Harry before, which is why I invited him here today.

"Good to meet you, Healer Abbott," Sirius said. "And please, call me Sirius. You've helped Harry, so I consider you a friend I just haven't met until now."

Healer Abbott smiled. "In that case, call me Jason. He's a great kid."

Harry returned with the Unspeakable, clutching a glass sphere that seemed filled with silvery-white smoke. He looked relieved to see his godfather. "Is there anything else that needs doing, or can we get this over with?" he asked.

"We can get started, now that everyone has arrived," the Unspeakable said. "Please follow me." He led them through a different door, into a spacious chamber with two concentric circles of protective runes etched into the stone floor. "Mr. Potter, I'm afraid this won't be the most comfortable for you. For the best possible outcome, only the magic involved in the ritual may be used, at least until your scar has been dealt with. Unfortunately, that does mean you'll have to lie on the floor without cushioning or warming charms. First thing, though, please go through that door there," the Unspeakable added, pointing to a door opposite the one they'd entered through. "It's a shower. Wash yourself thoroughly and put on the robe you'll find hanging in there. Only the robe, please, and come back out when you're done."

Harry wrinkled his nose but headed into the shower. He washed thoroughly but quickly, having already showered when he'd first gotten up that morning. The floor under his feet was cool, but smoother than he expected as he made his way back to the others. He noted that Stephen and Sirius looked resolute, while Healer Abbott looked appalled. They must have talked while he was in the shower, and told the healer exactly what they were here to do. He also noticed that several other people in Unspeakable robes had entered the room as well. "I'm ready," he said. "Where do you want me?"

The Unspeakable who'd escorted them to this chamber continued to act as spokesman. "Please lie down in the centre of the runic circles. Lord Black and Mr. Coyner, please take positions kneeling at his sides, while Healer Abbott should stand at his feet. I will be at his head, performing the ritual. My colleagues will keep watch to make sure the soul shard doesn't attempt to possess anyone."

Harry made his way to the centre of the circles as directed and lay down. Sirius moved to his right side and Stephen to his left and they dropped to their knees.

"All right, Mr. Potter, you need to hold as still as possible," the Unspeakable said. "As the ritual to transfer the soul shard has never been done on a living being before, I cannot say if it will hurt or how badly it may hurt. We also don't dare hold you still with a body-bind spell, on the chance that would prevent the soul shard from moving out of your scar. Lord Black and Mr. Coyner, be prepared to hold him down if necessary, to make sure he doesn't move until I say so."

"Wait, someone take my glasses off and put them somewhere safe," Harry said. "If anything happens that might break them, I'd rather they not be on my face where the glass could get in my eyes."

Sirius gently plucked the glasses from Harry's face and passed them to one of the silent Unspeakables. The hooded figure silently strode into the shower, depositing the glasses with the rest of Harrys clothing before rejoining the other Unspeakables keeping watch just outside the outer ring of runes.

Once everyone got back into position, with Stephen and Sirius poised to grab and restrain Harry if necessary, the Unspeakable in charge of the ritual set a polished piece of jet on Harry's head beside his scar and started to chant. Sirius recognised it as the same one used to pull the soul-shard from the locket and the cup.

As the chant started, Harry felt an almost unbearable pressure in his scar. Gritting his teeth against the increasing pain, he held himself rigidly, trying not to move. He barely felt Sirius and Stephen grabbing hold of his shoulders and thighs as the scar burst open, an oily-looking cloud of black emerging from it. He screamed.

The Unspeakable switched to the chant designed to pull the soul-shard into the jet, smiling in grim satisfaction when the cloud sank into the stone. Picking up the piece of jet, the Unspeakable motioned for Healer Abbott to tend to Harry's bleeding forehead.

Sirius released his godson and wiped his own forehead with a shaking hand. "Merlin," he said. "I think that's the hardest thing I've done in my life. I am so sorry, pup, you know I never wanted to hurt you."

Harry's voice sounded a little strained but also cheerful. "It's okay, Uncle Sirius," he said. "It had to be done. And you know, I feel… huh. Better's not quite right, because I didn't feel bad before we started this. Lighter, maybe? Something. I mean, it hurt horribly when the scar broke open and that smoke came out, but now it just stings a bit, like any cut would."

"I'm just glad it's out of you," Stephen said.

"Would you like the scar removed altogether?" Healer Abbott asked. "It will hurt more, because the only way I can be sure it will work is to cut out a little more of the skin around it and then heal the whole thing by re-growing the skin. If I try to do that to the original scar, it might not work because of the dark magic involved in creating it in the first place. Curse scars often can't be healed well, if at all."

"If you can put up with more pain, pup, I think you ought to do it," Sirius said. "And won't that confuse all the idiots who are going to look for a James Potter lookalike with a scar."

"Can you do magic on me to knock me out? I like the idea of getting rid of the scar, but I don't like the thought of more pain," Harry said.

Healer Abbott facepalmed. "Of course I can. And why I didn't think of that is beyond me."

"Wait a moment," the Unspeakable said as Healer Abbott raised his wand. "Let me make sure the scar is completely cleansed before you heal it." The hooded figure tossed the piece of jet to one of the others, to be sure its presence wouldn't interfere, then cast the horcrux detection spell on Harry's forehead. "The boy is free of the soul-shard. Cast whatever you wish on him."

"Good to know," muttered Healer Abbott as he stunned Harry and deftly sliced away a fragment of skin from both sides of the famous scar, leaving an oblong wound where the lightning bolt had been. He poured a disinfecting potion into the wound, and when it stopped bubbling, he cast the spell to grow new skin over the wound. When he finished, only a slightly pink patch remained where the scar had been. He enervated Harry then. "All finished. It will likely be tender for a few days, and you'll want to apply this salve morning and evening for a week, to make sure it heals completely." He handed Harry a small jar.

Harry beamed. "Thank you, Healer Abbott." Stephen retrieved his glasses so he could see again, and he put them on and turned to the Unspeakables' spokesman, adding, "And thank you, all of you, as well. I was really freaked out when Uncle Sirius told me what was in my head."

"I don't blame you, Mister Potter," the Unspeakable said. "However, I see the prophecy orb is still active. Might I suggest you listen to the prophecy to find out if it gives any clue as to what needs to be done?"

"How do I do that?"

"Just tap it with your wand… oh, you don't have one yet, do you? I forgot, you're not quite eleven yet," the Unspeakable said.

"Mum's wand is in my backpack," Harry said. He grabbed the pack and rummaged inside for the sturdy wooden box containing his mother's wand. Once he had the wand out and in his hand, he tapped the prophecy orb lightly.

A misty projection of a woman wearing glasses and a rather ridiculous number of shawls rose up above the orb, reminding Harry of the Princess Leia projection from Artoo-Deetoo in Star Wars: A New Hope. The projection spoke in an odd, harsh tone.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."

Harry gulped. "Wait… I have to kill You Know Who?"

The Unspeakable shrugged. "It may be that you need to be the one to destroy the final soul-shard which now inhabits this stone. Normally, one of us would burn the stone with Fiendfyre, but as the prophecy suggests that it must be done by you, I would suggest using basilisk venom."

"Oh, and you happen to have a basilisk around?" Sirius asked, covering his worry with sarcasm.

"This is the Department of Mysteries," the Unspeakable said. "We do not have an actual basilisk here, but we do have some venom available for some of the experiments that take place here. I'm sure a small amount can be spared in order to make sure You Know Who cannot return."

Sirius facepalmed as Stephen hid a wry grin. "Of course you have basilisk venom on hand," the animagus muttered. "Merlin forbid there be any item on the earth that the Department of Mysteries doesn't have on hand." He almost laughed when one of the silent Unspeakables slipped into the ritual chamber carrying a vial of basilisk venom, as he hadn't noticed the hooded figure leaving.

The spokesman of the Unspeakables took the vial, handed Harry a pair of dragonhide gloves, and instructed him, "Put these on to protect your hands. Then, take the vial and pour a few drops onto the stone. If there's no effect, add a little more. But be careful, basilisk venom is extremely corrosive. Also, if you can, stay outside of the innermost rune circle."

Harry pulled the gloves on slowly and took the vial with hands that trembled just slightly. Unlike most potions vials he'd seen since Stephen introduced him to the wizarding world, this one was made of some sort of metallic substance and had a screw top rather than being made of glass and stoppered with a cork. He unscrewed the top and stood as far back from the stone as he could – which put him outside the inner circle, but only just – while still being able to pour the venom over it.

He wasn't sure it was working at first, but then he heard a sizzling sound and the top surface of the stone started to bubble. He hastily screwed the top back on the vial as he backed away, unsure what was going to happen. Suddenly the surface of the stone cracked, and a figure of oily smoke emerged with an unearthly scream. The smoke dove towards Harry, who was closest to it, only to hit some sort of barrier when it got to the inner edge of the circle of runes. It screamed once more as it began to fade out of existence.

Somewhere in Albania, a similar scream sounded deep in the forest that the locals knew to be cursed. A wraith with glowing red eyes frantically tried to force itself into the nearest animal and wailed in despair as it realised nothing remained to anchor it to the world. Instead of possessing the squirrel in question, the wraith passed through the creature's body and dissipated into nothingness.

Harry stared in shock as the smoke lost form and then slowly drifted away. "W-was that supposed to happen?" he stammered.

"I think so," Sirius said. "The ones I helped destroy earlier didn't try to get at anyone, but then again, we were using Fiendfyre, so we weren't anything near as close to what we were destroying as you were."

"And your task is complete," the Unspeakable said. "The prophecy orb is no longer active. Look."

Harry turned to look; sure enough, the orb no longer glowed silvery-white, but instead had turned nearly black. He handed the vial of venom and the dragonhide gloves back to the Unspeakable. "Thank you for your help," he said politely.

"You are most welcome, Mr. Potter," the Unspeakable said.

Healer Abbott, who'd been watching Harry the entire time, spoke up. "Stephen, Lord Black, I suggest you get Harry home as quickly as possible. He might seem calm, but it's a false calm caused by mild shock. When it wears off, which will most likely be no more than half an hour, he's likely to become quite upset."

Sirius frowned. "I'd better go separately from Stephen and Harry," he said. "Too many people know me thanks to my Wizengamot duties and are likely to want to stop me to talk about some bit of politics or other. Stephen's been around a time or two, but not frequently enough or regularly enough for most people to recognise him."

"This should help as well," the Unspeakable said, casting a notice-me-not charm on Stephen and Harry.

"Thank you once again," Stephen said, guiding Harry towards the door. Harry offered a distracted wave, but he could see the boy was focused on his own thoughts and not really paying attention to them. He hurried them into the lifts and made straight for the public floos when they got off in the Atrium.

Harry stumbled out of the floo at Stephen's house and lurched for the toilet with a hand over his mouth. Stephen, following hard on his heels, gave a silent thanks that they made it back before Harry got sick. He rubbed soothing circles on Harry's back as he retched and ran a flannel under cold water for when he was done.

The floo whooshed again and Sirius called, "Pup? Stephen?"

"We're in the loo," Stephen called back. "Harry's not quite feeling his best." That bit of understatement earned him a faint grin from the child still hunched over the toilet.

Sirius appeared in the doorway and took in the situation. "Okay, I can help with this," he said. "Dobby!"

The elf appeared with a pop. "What cans Dobby be doing, Master Sirees?"

"Harry needs a stomach-soothing potion," Sirius said. "Please get one from Grimmauld Place and bring it here."

"Anythings for Master Harry," Dobby proclaimed before popping out. He returned a moment later with a vial of stomach soother.

Sirius took it and handed it to his godson. "Bottoms up, Pup. You'll feel better and get the nasty taste out of your mouth."

Harry obediently downed the potion, grateful that stomach soothers were some of the few potions that didn't taste like half-burned used trainers. He pushed himself to his feet and flushed the toilet and washed his face before following the men back to the sitting room.

Sirius gave Harry a hug, sitting next to him on the sofa. "I'm proud of you, Pup," he said. "Honestly, what you faced today… that's more than most adult wizards ever face in their lives."

Harry shivered. "But I killed someone," he whispered. "I know, he wasn't exactly alive, but he wasn't dead either and I killed him."

"Harry, what happens if a dog gets rabies?" Stephen asked, sitting on his other side.

"It gets put down," Harry said. "Because rabies makes it dangerous."

"Exactly," Sirius said, instantly seeing where Stephen was going. "You Know Who pretty much was a dog with rabies. Dangerous as hell, and most likely insane besides, due to how often he split his soul."

Stephen quickly did the maths in his head. "Assuming he tore the part of his soul left in his body in half each time he made one of those things, you probably didn't destroy more than 1/32 of his soul at most," he said, "since the one in your scar was the last made as it was the accidental one. Even then, that's assuming the rest of the soul he had left wasn't already destroyed by whatever your mum did to protect you. If it did, what you destroyed today was 1/64 of his soul. So really, the Unspeakables already took care of the vast majority of him."

"Also, Pup, think of how many people won't die because now he'll never come back and start killing again," Sirius said. "In October 1981 alone, he and his Death Eaters killed over thirty people and that's just the ones I know about. There may have been more; there were quite a few open cases when I got tossed in prison, and some of them may have been confirmed as Death Eater attacks after they put me away. If he came back, I have no doubt he'd pick right back up where he left off. Stephen would be a target because he's muggleborn, you know, and so would the Malfoys because Lucius turned in one of the horcruxes. So think about that, okay? That's five people that you know, that you've kept from dying by doing what you did today."

Harry considered that. "You mean… he'd even kill Aurora? What did she ever do?"

"She was born," Stephen said. "Terrorists don't care if babies are victims. In this case, he likely would have killed her painfully while making Lucius watch, just to torture Lucius."

"Oh," Harry said. He shivered. "I don't want to think about it right now."

Sirius nodded. "Fair enough. Why don't you pick out a film to watch? I'm going to make a quick call to Diana, as she wants to know that you got through the ritual all right."

"All right," Harry agreed. He slipped off the sofa to peruse Stephen's video collection as Sirius moved towards the phone.

Sirius had a quiet conversation with Diana, during which she agreed to speak with one or more of the muggleborns on her security detail, to inquire if any of them knew of muggleborns or squibs who'd gone into psychology. He knew Harry should speak with a mind healer, much as aurors were sent to one if they'd killed in the line of duty, and also knew he couldn't for a number of reasons. But he also knew Harry would need to see someone aware of the wizarding world, and figured the security people could probably find one faster than he could do on his own. After he hung up, he joined Stephen and Harry to watch Erik the Viking, followed by Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

And at Malfoy Manor, Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape stared at their no-longer-marked left forearms. Half an hour previously, while enjoying brunch with Narcissa, Draco, and little Aurora, both men had grabbed their arms in pain. Their first thought was that the Dark Lord had managed to return and was summoning his faithful, but the expected pull never came. Instead, the Dark Marks glowed red, turned white, and seemed to almost explode off their arms in a blinding flash of light.

Blinking the spots from his eyes, Lucius looked at his now unmarked arm. Not even a faint shadow of the Dark Mark remained, unlike in 1981, when the mark faded but did not disappear completely. "Dear Merlin," he breathed, "He did it. He really did it. The Dark Lord… is gone."