The sun was setting and the craggy spires of Hogwarts stood out starkly against the orange and purple streaked sky. Professor McGonagall was leading them on a circuitous route through the snaking back-alleys of Hogsmeade, but they hardly noticed, their eyes fixed on the castle. One moment the Hogwarts appeared large and imposing, only a short walk away, but then after a few twists and turns in their path, it shrank until Luna could cover it with the pad of her thumb.

It was less than two weeks since the last time Professor McGonagall summoned Luna to Hogwarts to fetch the last horcrux. Back when an eleven-year old Luna Lovegood ceremonially burned her Hogwarts letter, she could never have imagined that she would eventually visit the school her mother maligned so much at least half a dozen times, and never under happy circumstances. As Luna watched the castle loom larger and larger on the horizon, she wondered if she would ever be done with Hogwarts once and for all. Were they making a mistake? Was she leading them all astray?

Eventually the entrance gate flanked by garish statues of flying boars came into view. McGonagall ushered the group off the path and into a copse of scrawny birch trees, out of sight of the school's thousands of windows.

"Here, take these," she summoned a stack of neatly folded Hogwarts uniforms, "You'll all have to be Gryffindors, I'm afraid. It will be easier for me to keep an eye on you if you are students of my own house."

The school-aged girls and a transformed, deaged Tonks donned the uniforms in the shelter of the spindly trees. Here was another thing Luna never thought she'd do: wear a Hogwarts uniform.

"There's a first time for everything, huh?" Ginny said, clearly thinking along similar lines as she stepped back to inspect Luna and straighten her collar. Luna had to swallow a lump in her throat when she saw Ginny wearing black, crimson, and gold again. The first time she had seen Ginny dressed like this, she had been an excited eleven year old full of hope and excitement. And the last time Ginny wore the Hogwarts uniform she had nearly died, in the thrall of the Dark Lord and one of his horcruxes.

Stars were beginning to pepper the darkening sky as they passed through the gates into the Hogwarts grounds. Luna licked her lips. She could taste the magical traces of the new defensive enchantments Dumbledore had added to the castle, a slight metallic tingle hovering in the air. She wondered if the Dark Lord would care to notice. To the invincible, the armor their victims wear is nothing but a trifling detail.

"This is as far as we should go, I think. It's a clear night so visibility will be good, especially from the towers." Mrs. Brown said as she pulled her daughter into a quick, tight hug. Her eyes never stopped scanning the castle even as she cupped Lavender's face in her hands to brush away her tears.

"Bye, Mum," said Luna, leaning into a one-armed hug with her own mother.

"Be safe, my love! We all have the utmost faith in you," Cressida gave her daughter's shoulders a squeeze that was clearly intended to be reassuring. Luna bit her lip.

"You too. I mean, please be safe."

"Oh, don't worry about me. I'll just be along the edge of the Dark Forest, hardly at the center of the action! I wish we could be there to help you girls, but alas."

"It's safer this way." They all agreed there would be no point in trying to sneak the adults into the castle as well; it was one of the very first decisions they made when beginning to plan. A few extra Gryffindors were easy enough to camouflage amongst the hundreds of other students in the bustling excitement of the End of Term Feast, but it was something else entirely to masquerade as a teacher or staff member who did not exist. Instead, all of the adults apart from McGonagall and Tonks would be patrolling the perimeter of the grounds at designated intervals, ready to head off ambushes and provide backup if things in the castle didn't go to plan.

"I know, love." Cressida fussed with Luna's hair. Luna instinctively reached up to bat her hand away, but instead placed her hand over her mother's and squeezed.

Mrs. Brown cleared her throat and clapped her hands to break up the tearful goodbyes.

"Alright! Does everyone remember the signals? Goldfinches mean you need backup in a fight, white doves mean you need a healer, magpies mean something has gone horribly wrong and we need to abandon the plan and regroup here, and ravens mean that all has gone according to plan and we're ready to go home."

Most of them nodded. A few of the girls gripped their wands or blood knives, reminding themselves of the requisite incantations.

"Good. Well, I suppose there's no use waiting around. Come here, all of you."

They all huddled together, too frightened to say much but whispered wishes for luck and speed. Luna could feel her mother trembling beside her.

Professor McGonagall led the girls into the castle and directed them to their posts - Lavender in the Astronomy Tower, Padma just inside the front doors, Parvati in the dungeons, Radha on the second floor, Sylvia outside the Library, Tonks on the seventh floor, Ginny in the North Tower.

"I should go in, the feast will be starting soon. Will you be alright waiting for him here?"

"Of course I will," Luna said with a shrug. McGonagall cocked her head and gazed at Luna for a moment, then gave one of her brisk nods and thin-lipped smiles.

"Yes, right. Of course you will." The heavy oak doors slammed shut behind her. Luna fiddled with the strings of her mokeskin pouch, tucked safely under her robes, directly beneath the Hogwarts crest emblazoned on her chest.

A few moments later, the doors to the Great Hall creaked hesitantly open again and Harry Potter's head of messy dark hair emerged. He had somehow grown even taller and lankier than the last time Luna had seen him, if such a thing were possible. His face was drawn with heavy careworn lines, making him look much older than his fifteen years.

"What are you doing?" Luna hissed.

"I saw Professor McGonagall come in. That's the signal, isn't it? Does that mean they're here?" Harry peered into the corners of the Entrance Hall as if expecting to see Death Eaters crouched behind the gigantic hourglasses filled with yellow, blue, red, and green stones like children playing a game of hide and seek.

"Don't be silly. Do you think Dumbledore and McGonagall would let them just walk through the front door?"

"Well, I don't know. Dumbledore and Aberforth didn't tell me very much about the plan." Harry shrugged.

"That's because the less you know, the better. If everyone knows the whole plan, it just takes one person being compromised to wreck the whole thing. Dumbledore said you know about Legilimency and Occlumency, yeah?"

He shrugged again. Harry shrugged a lot for someone who was supposed to be the Chosen One. It didn't exactly inspire confidence, but it did make Luna feel less alone. In her experience, being a Chosen One had nothing to do with your abilities and everything to do with other people's expectations.

"Well?" Harry prompted her, speaking much too loudly.

"If you must know, Draco's figured out a way to get them in and out. Even I don't know exactly what it is," she whispered.

"Hmph," Harry crossed his arms, and Luna had to suppress a sigh. Harry's hatred of Draco ran deeper and burned hotter than Luna's own. Much as she sympathized, it had been nothing but a nuisance during the planning, with Harry questioning the Malfoys' trustworthiness and resisting Draco's involvement at every turn.

"I don't see why there needs to be all this fuss," he continued, "letting Death…" Luna shushed him and flapped her hands until he dropped his voice, " them into Hogwarts."

"Well, if you have any other ideas, I'm happy to hear them," Luna hissed, trying without success to lead Harry to a more private corner behind a few statues.

"I would have done it, you know. Dumbledore's plan. Things would be so much easier that way. End things once and for all, like the prophecy says."

"Forget the prophecy!"

"That's a bit rich coming from a Seer, no?"

"Just because there's been a prophecy, that doesn't mean that's what's going to happen. It doesn't even mean that's what should happen. The only reason prophecies about death come true so often is because everyone dies eventually, so they're already half-right. You're going to die some day and the Dark Lord is going to die some day, that's true. But that's not the answer . Death isn't the solution to everything. If there's a way where no one has to die, not even you, isn't that better? Shouldn't we try that first?" A soft breeze of air ruffled Luna's hair, and she pushed it out of her face impatiently.

"We don't know it's definitely going to work, though. It's just a guess."

"No. But we don't know that Dumbledore's plan would have worked, either. His guess is to just kill you both and see if that makes the problem go…hey!" A ball of parchment came soaring through the air, hit Luna on the back of the head, made an unlikely bounce, and struck Harry square in the face.

Draco was crouching around a corner, his wand in his hand and a thunderous look on his face. Once he knew they saw him, he turned on his heel and set off at a rapid pace down a corridor.

"Look, I have to go. I'll see you later, okay?" Luna shooed Harry back into the Great Hall.

"Fine. Er, good luck, I suppose." Harry conceded with a grunt, but Luna was already sprinting to catch up to her cousin.

"What in the devil's name are you doing?" Draco hissed as soon as they were out of earshot of the raucous celebrations in the Great Hall. The corridors and staircases were deserted because everyone was at the feast - this gave them free reign of the castle, but it also allowed Draco to berate Luna up seven flights of stairs.

"He's the one who came out and started talking to me! There was nothing I could do!" Luna protested.

"You could have been seen! The entire operation could have been compromised!"

"Go yell at Harry, then!"

"Oh, believe me, I'll relish it. But Potter is an idiot. You should know better, Lovegood."

"I'm flattered you don't think I'm an idiot, Draco."

"Shut up," Draco rolled his eyes, clearly too nervous for banter.

"Fine. Truce?"

"Truce."

They fell into an uneasy silence for several minutes as they walked through the cavernous, empty corridors. Luna practiced Hogarth's construct until her head hurt and her eyes crossed. Eventually Draco pulled her into a small alcove behind a suit of rusty armor.

"Do exactly as we've practiced. Be deferential. Call him 'my lord.' Talk as little as possible. If you don't know what to say, just be quiet and let Mother cover for you. And above all, always, always look him in the eye. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Luna nodded. That was the number one rule of surviving an encounter with the Dark Lord, she had learned. He required everyone in his presence to have their gaze fixed on him at all times, so he could flit in and out of their minds as it suited him.

"Come on, then."

They crept round another corner, then down a corridor. Draco paced in front of a patch of blank stone wall across from a moth eaten tapestry three times. Step, step, turn. Step, step, turn. Step, step, turn. Then a door appeared out of thin air, just like the entrance to Diagon Alley behind the Leaky Cauldron. Luna knew that this was big magic, difficult magic. Someone must have gone to a lot of trouble to make this room invisible to passersby. What acts were so sinister that they needed a secret room in a place as vast, mysterious, and magical as Hogwarts? She shivered.

Draco gripped Luna by the collar of her Gryffindor uniform and shoved her over the threshold into the dim room beyond. Luna knew he had to put on a show for the Death Eaters, but he was clearly enjoying this. There were jeers and roars of approval from the crowd as he shoved her to the ground and trod on one of her hands for good measure before crossing the room to join his parents. Luna stifled a cry of pain, which only made the Death Eaters cackle more.

Luna stole a quick glance at her surroundings as she struggled to her feet and rubbed her stinging hand. It felt like a large space but was lit by only a few small candles, which made it difficult to discern the precise shape of the room or how many people loomed in the darkness. The Death Eaters kept their distance from Luna and from each other, crowding around the edges of the room so their faces were obscured by the flickering shadows cast by the candles.

What Luna could see of the room looked like the villain's lair in a fairy tale. Pressed against one wall there was an ancient ebony armoire with silver skulls for door knobs. It was huge, large enough to hide several people or, as Luna thought grimly, bodies. An assortment of peculiar metal instruments hung on the walls, cages and wheels and implements festooned with rusty spikes. The only possible use Luna could imagine for any of them was torture. Why did such a room exist at Hogwarts?

At the center of the circle was the only chair in the room, a throne carved out of dark wood where a tall, pale man sat. He had red eyes and a gigantic snake draped over his shoulders. This must be the Dark Lord, Luna knew. She had expected a flicker of recognition, something about his demeanor or posture or gaze which would awaken her suppressed memories from the Triwizard Tournament, when she had witnessed his return. But there was nothing; this man was a total stranger to her. He didn't even seem like the same person who had possessed Ginny with the diary. It was terrifying to see how he had managed to disfigure himself beyond recognition, and unsettling to realize how completely and irretrievably her memories had been taken from her.

A slight breeze tickled the ends of Luna's hair and raised goosebumps on her arms. Was it just a drafty room, or was she feeling the whisper of the Dark Lord's mind brushing, barely perceptibly, against her own? He was a masterful Legilimens, several orders of magnitude greater than Narcissa's clumsy dabbling. He could be invading Luna's mind at any moment without so much as a twinge or whisper to betray his presence.

"This is the Seer?" His voice was high and much raspier than it had sounded in the Chamber of Secrets. She worked to slam the door on that particular memory as quickly and quietly as she could. Thinking too much about the diary would naturally lead to...other topics she did not want the Dark Lord to see.

"Yes, my lord. Our sister Cressida's child." It was Bellatrix who spoke. Out of all his followers, she stood the closest to the Dark Lord's throne, apparently restored to pride of place after their squabble. Bellatrix had her head cocked at an imperious angle so she could look down her thin Black nose at everyone in the room. But she looked uncomfortable, like it was a constant effort not to shift and fiddle with her robes. Narcissa had forced her into a dreadfully restrictive corset and slipped thick pads over her breasts to hide the leaking milk.

"Lovegood's the name, yes?" He sounded disinterested, almost lazy, as he inspected his hands without looking at her.

Luna nodded.

"Are you a simpleton, girl?" His red eyes bored into her blue-grey ones and Luna knew that she could not look away again. Her life depended on holding his gaze for as long as she needed to, as long as he demanded. She knew he was reading her mind, although he had uttered no incantation and was not even holding a wand. Luna could sense no intrusion; she couldn't feel anything at all but the pulse and current of her own thoughts.

"No," she cleared her throat, "I mean, I don't think so, my lord."

"I asked you for your name. Do you know your own name?"

"Yes. Luna Lovegood, my lord."

"Your aunts tell me you've had a prophecy that you think is about me."

"Well, they think it's about you. I didn't really understand what I Saw." Luna found the kernel of truth buried deep in the lie and clung to it: she'd had many prophecies she did not understand over the course of her life, too many to count.

"And what did you See?" Impatience crept into the Dark Lord's voice. Luna flinched and felt her heart begin to race. If she failed this interrogation, or if he simply grew bored of her, he could kill her stone dead with a single flick of his wrist.

But this was all part of Narcissa's plan. It was only natural that a fourteen year old girl would be frightened in the Dark Lord's presence. Of course her heart would race and her breathing would be unsteady and her eyes would dart and her thoughts would be a jumble. It would be suspicious if she were too calm and composed, if her thoughts flowed coherently from one to the other. Use your fear as a shield, another tool in your Occlumency arsena l, Narcissa had advised. Let him think you're a moron and a bore. It's better than if he realizes you're a liar.

"Well, it was all hazy. But there was a woman with dark hair, and she had milk coming out of her...er, her breasts." Luna could hear several of the Death Eaters titter, but she kept her eyes fixed on the Dark Lord as she conjured the false memory she had spent days stitching and tinkering to perfection.

"And there was this snake slithering on the ground where the milk was falling, and all of a sudden there were lots of snakes, dozens of them, and standing in the middle of it all, with the snakes crawling all over him, was a man."

The first part was easy enough to summon to her mind's eye, since it was based on her mother's raven queen prophecy. Luna must have heard it described in minute detail hundreds of times, and had developed such a vivid mental image of it from such a young age that it felt more like one of her own memories than a figment of her imagination. The bit about a pit of snakes was cribbed from a recurring nightmare she started having after her encounter with the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. In the dream, Luna was watching helplessly while the snakes devoured their victim. But with the right twist of the mind, it could just as easily be a person being reborn, embraced by the snakes. As a finishing touch Luna imbued the entire tableau with a thick mist which often appeared in her prophecies, which would add a dreamlike quality and hopefully obscure any gaps or weaknesses.

"This man, what did he look like?"

Shit. Luna had intentionally left the face of the human figure blurry, and the Dark Lord had noticed immediately.

"Er, well, I couldn't see him very well. I could tell it was a man, and he was tall." Luna tried to become the idiot girl he thought she was. She made her thoughts dull and slick as a fish, so slippery that the Dark Lord could not sense the cogs of her mind whirring just beneath the surface.

"Could you see his face? Was he handsome?"

"Um, I'm sorry, I don't...I don't…" What was she meant to say? Did he want her to say he was handsome? But that felt like a trap because he wasn't handsome, at least not in his current body. Should she say the man looked like the handsome version of him from the diary? Luna longed to steal a glance at Narcissa, but she didn't dare look away from his piercing gaze. She took a long, slow blink. A bead of sweat ran down the nape of her neck.

"Idiot girl!" Bellatrix screamed and brandished her wand. The next thing Luna knew, she was hanging upside down ten feet in the air, the only thing keeping her aloft the whims of Bellatrix Lestrange. Luna's heart dropped into her stomach and she had to swallow an acidic wave of bile rising in her throat.

"Now, Bella, there is no need to be rude to our guest," the Dark Lord murmured, but there was a smirk tugging at the edges of his thin lips.

"This girl is nothing but a vessel for the prophecy of your greatness, my lord. She does not understand the importance of what she Saw, and she disrespects you with her ignorance. You can have no more use of her," Bellatrix said with equal parts delight and derision. She twitched her wand and let her niece fall several feet in the air before catching her with a rough jolt. Luna shrieked, a raw, animalistic sound that echoed horribly off the stone walls.

"Put her down, Bellatrix." The Dark Lord raised a warning hand. Bellatrix obeyed and sent Luna catapulting across the room. Luna screamed again and rolled into a tight ball as she careened towards a wall at the back of the room, prepared for a painful impact. She landed with a loud thud but to her surprise it did not hurt at all, like something invisible had cushioned her fall. Stealing a glance at her aunts, Luna saw that the two women were determinedly not looking at each other.

Narcissa raised her eyebrows for a fraction of a second, then turned to fuss with Draco's tie. Luna got the message, and she certainly did not intend to waste the opportunity her aunts had given her. She stayed splayed in the awkward position she landed in, pretending she was stunned from the fall but peering out from between her eyelashes.

"Did I say I was done questioning her?" The snake on the Dark Lord's shoulder uncoiled itself and hissed at Bellatrix.

"No, my lord." Bellatrix averted her gaze and took a half-step backwards before remembering herself and lifting her eyes to meet her master's.

"The girl is clearly a fool. How are we to know this prophecy is even about me?"

"She came to me because she did not understand what she Saw, my lord," Narcissa cut in smoothly, "I instantly made the connection, especially considering my sister's...former condition." Several of the Death Eaters shuffled their feet. Bellatrix flushed and rested a hand on the small fleshy pouch of her sagging belly, which still showed despite Narcissa's corset.

"What does that have to do with anything?" he snapped. The snake was growing restless, and it slithered down his arm and onto the floor, between him and Bellatrix.

"The blood and milk of a woman who has recently been with child are particularly potent. Its life-giving power can be used for healing and even the creation of new life. A new body, with even more power and protection. We are all familiar, I'm sure, with the potent protections the Potter woman gave to her boy."

It was a master class in Occlumency, and Narcissa was truly a virtuoso. She wove together half-truths, statements, and suggestions into a tapestry that was not quite true but not quite a lie. There was a confident but still deferential edge to her voice, and her hand remained rested every so casually on her son's shoulder. The Dark Lord brought his fingers together to form a steeple under his chin as he considered her.

"It is no secret that I have found my new body...disappointing, to say the least. It is frail and ugly."

"You deserve a body worthy of your powers, my lord. Tonight could be remembered in history not only as the defeat of Dumbledore and Potter, but the glorious return of the Dark Lord, restored in the body that is rightfully yours!"

"It's true that my return was not what it should have been. Although you have no one to blame but yourselves."

The room grew so silent that Luna could hear the Death Eaters' ragged breathing. Narcissa nodded to concede the point but held the Dark Lord's gaze.

"If you still have doubts about the prophecy, we could have it looked up in the Hall of Prophecy, of course." Luna nearly gasped aloud at her aunt's daring, offering to find a prophecy in the Department of Mysteries that categorically did not exist. What was she thinking? But then Narcissa spoke again, and Luna saw the brilliant coup de grâce her aunt had orchestrated.

"I'm sure Lucius would be more than happy to arrange another incursion for you, although we'd need to bring the girl to retrieve the orb, and that will require additional preparations. But then we'd lose the fortuitous timing with the feast tonight. And who knows how much longer Bella will be producing milk. It really is such a small window, a terribly delicate matter..."

"No, no," he spoke quickly, and Luna knew he had made up his mind, "That won't be necessary, Narcissa. Imagine the old man's face when I announce myself in the Great Hall of Hogwarts on the last day of term and present him with Harry Potter's dead body. And me in a new body of my own, younger and stronger than he has been for a hundred years!" Voldemort clapped his hands in delight.

"Yes, this will be a much more fitting return, a homecoming of sorts. They will welcome me with open arms and when they see my full power, they will kneel before me!" The Death Eaters cheered, and Luna's chest tightened with relief and apprehension. If things didn't go according to plan, the Dark Lord's prophecy might come true after all.

"Draco, fetch the Potter boy. If anyone gives you any trouble, Severus will help you. Narcissa, prepare for the ritual."

The preparations were simple and quick. Narcissa issued instructions, apparently not directed at anyone in particular. The room began to rearrange itself to accommodate her requests, although Luna could not see anyone holding a wand or uttering an incantation. Dozens of candles appeared out of thin air, along with a cauldron and four stones representing each of the cardinal directions. The Dark Lord's throne even widened so that it was more like a bench, wide enough to accommodate two people sitting side by side.

Narcissa had brought a few supplies of her own: herbs, salt, a small vial of the mother's blood Bellatrix had insisted on keeping, and four boxes which she claimed contained stones and dirt from the birthplaces of Bellatrix and the Dark Lord, but which Luna knew contained the cup, diadem, locket, diary, and ring. These she placed on top of the four stones to the north, south, east, and west of the throne.

It looked like an entirely different room by the time Draco returned, dragging Harry in tow. They both wore expressions of grim annoyance from the ordeal of having to tolerate one another's company for several uninterrupted minutes.

"Ah, finally. Welcome, Harry, welcome. Do you recognize me?"

Harry's eyes darted between the Death Eaters, Draco, and the Dark Lord. He had been instructed to look surprised by the sudden reemergence of his archnemesis, but all he could manage was a determined grimace.

"It's you."

"There! I have a new body, you see, but I know you aren't a stupid boy."

"Dumbledore will stop you! He'll notice I'm missing and he'll find me here and he'll stop you!" Harry blurted, and Luna could tell he wasn't acting. He must be secretly hoping that Dumbledore will intervene before the ritual is over, or that it fails and he'll have to sacrifice himself after all , she thought. Ron really wasn't kidding about his saving people thing.

"I'm sure it's a comfort to think that," derision dripped from the Dark Lord's voice, "But we have more important things to attend to. As you know, I have gone to great efforts to kill you because of the prophecy about us, but I have been thwarted at every turn. You have been living on borrowed time, Harry, and that comes to an end today."

He paused for dramatic effect, and they all waited for him. Draco said the Death Eaters were so used to their master's theatrical ways that they often stayed quiet until he grew impatient and commanded them to speak. It was better than the alternative: being caught interrupting the Dark Lord.

"There has been another prophecy, a prophecy that foretells my glorious rebirth in an even better, stronger body. And once the second prophecy comes to pass, I want the very first thing I do in my new body to be fulfilling the first prophecy: killing you. Then I will announce my return to Hogwarts and the world!"

"You wish. You're nothing but a…" Harry began, but the Dark Lord interrupted him.

" Silencio. Ah, dear Harry, don't you see? Your time for talking is over. It's my turn now. Come here," he beckoned Bellatrix with a snap of his fingers, as if she were a dog.

Luna watched the proceedings from her corner at the back of the room. She felt curiously disconnected from the scene in front of her; it was as if she was watching it happen to someone else in a dream or a prophecy.

Narcissa tapped each of the four boxes with her wand and cast a circle of salt on the floor around the chair where the Dark Lord and Bellatrix sat. Then she brewed a concoction of herbs and the blood from the vial. The last ingredient was fresh blood from the Dark Lord and from Bellatrix. Narcissa offered him the knife first, but he refused. Bellatrix cut into the flesh of her arm with a practiced hand, and her blood flowed steadily into the cauldron. When it was the Dark Lord's turn, his hand trembled and he seemed reluctant to spare more than a few drops of his own blood. Nevertheless, as soon as the three bloods of mother, father, and child blended in the cauldron, the potion instantly came to a roiling boil and unleashed a puff of smoke.

An ornate golden goblet appeared out of thin air in Narcissa's hand. She dipped it into the potion and offered it to the Dark Lord. His hands grasped at the cup greedily as he drank.

"Now just the milk," Narcissa murmured.

"Yes, yes." He reached out to Bellatrix and ripped at her dress without ceremony, exposing her breasts. She shrank in her seat and tried to cover herself with her hands, but he slapped her fingers away.

As he positioned himself and took Bellatrix's nipple into his mouth, Luna was filled with a hot stab of revulsion for him. This man refused to acknowledge his own child and cast out its mother, a true believer and the most loyal follower of his cause. He had not even cared when she lost the baby, for her sake or the child's. But now he was happy to use their blood and milk and defile the sacred bond of a mother and child for his own benefit. The coward.

As he drank of her mother's milk, a great plume of violet smoke engulfed the Dark Lord and Bellatrix. The four boxes began glowing, growing brighter and brighter until it was blinding to look upon them. Harry was screaming, and he too was glowing, and the snake was hissing and the Death Eaters were chanting and there was a high, piercing wail.

Then all was quiet.

As the smoke began to clear, they could only make out one figure hunched on the bench. The Death Eaters were clamoring and shoving each other to get a closer look, but they could not cross the line of salt which Narcissa had cast to protect the ritual.

"What's happened?"

"My lord? Show us your true form!"

Finally someone thought to cast a spell to clear the mist from the air.

There was only Bellatrix on the throne, clutching something tightly to her chest.

The wailing started again, but it stopped as soon as she reached down to kiss the head of the infant clasped to her breast.

There were a few moments of fragile, dumbstruck silence, and then it shattered like glass. Some of the Death Eaters were shouting and some were weeping and some were trying to reverse the spell. Narcissa wiped her blood-stained hands on the front of her robes and began cleaning. She retrieved the smoking boxes and dumped the horcruxes onto the ground. They were charred and twisted, husks left to shrivel and die.

Some of the Death Eaters seemed to recognize the horcruxes. A stout man with a large nose dropped to his knees and reached out as if to touch the ring, but his fingers stopped just short of the mangled metal.

"Are these…? Does that mean…?"

"Yes. His soul has been mended and he is mortal once more. But as you can see, he won't be issuing orders any time soon. He won't be issuing orders ever again if I have anything to say about it. I'd suggest you all clear off before Dumbledore gets here."

None of them moved. Luna hadn't really expected them to give up so easily, but she certainly didn't expect what happened next. One by one, several of the Death Eaters raised their wands and pointed them at the child cooing in Bellatrix's arms.

"You wouldn't dare," Bellatrix whispered. It was the first time she had spoken since the ritual began.

"I would dare, and I will!" one of them shouted, "He killed my wife and children!" Several of the Death Eaters nodded and moved a few steps closer to the salt circle.

"Come now, let's not be rash," Narcissa said. She was doing her best to sound cool and unruffled, but Luna could hear a shrill note of anxiety creeping into her voice.

"And my child has been restored to me. And if you lay so much as a finger on him, I will rip your guts out through your eyesockets!" Bellatrix shrieked as she stood up. She still had the child clutched tightly in the crook of her arm, but her other hand was reaching for her wand.

"Don't leave the circle, Bella," Narcissa warned.

"Oh, get over yourself, you mad bat! Your child's dead ! That is nothing but a mess that needs to be cleaned up. He could incriminate all of us!" said a woman with wide-set eyes and a nose like a pug.

"No. I won't let you." It was Harry, who had fallen writhing to the ground during the ritual. He was wincing in pain and his hand was pressed tightly to his forehead, but he forced himself to his feet and hobbled to place himself between the Death Eaters and Bellatrix.

"He's just a baby. The Dark Lord might have done all those things, but this isn't the Dark Lord anymore. He's just a baby."

Stupid, brave, wonderful Harry. Luna felt a pang of guilt for her part in their argument in the Entrance Hall. She had accused him of using death as the solution to all his problems, but here he was defending the life of his parents' murderer.

"He's right," Luna said as she moved to join him at the center of the room. Several of the Death Eaters whirled around and pointed their wands at her. They must have forgotten she was there at all. Harry grinned at her, their bickering forgotten in the shared cause of saving the child.

"Do you really think you need to kill a child to punish him for things he doesn't even remember doing? Do you really think they're going to put a baby on trial? Or figure out a way to make a baby who can't even talk testify against you? Or throw a baby who can't even walk in Azkaban? Come off it. This can be a fresh start for all of you, a clean slate. With the Dark Lord gone the Ministry will be off your backs, so long as you stay out of trouble. Are you really going to throw that away by committing a needless crime? Because if you hurt that baby, I swear on my father's grave I will shout it from the rooftops and report you to every quill-pusher at the Ministry with an ounce of authority until you're locked up in Azkaban for the rest of your miserable lives."

Narcissa beamed at her niece, but Luna was too busy glaring at the Death Eaters with their wand still pointed at the infant.

"You wouldn't like that, now would you? Go on then, get!" Harry said with some satisfaction.

There was nearly a stampede in the Death Eaters' race to leave. Luna was surprised to see that none of them exited through the door; instead, they all seemed to be pushing and shoving to queue in front of the black cabinet. One by one they stepped inside and disappeared. It must be a Vanishing Cabinet, she realized, Draco's clever scheme to get them in and out of the castle undetected. How in Morgana's name had he managed that?

Eventually the only people left in the room were Luna, Harry, the Malfoys, Bellatrix, and the baby. Narcissa pointed her wand at each of the former horcruxes.

"Reducto. Reducto. Reducto."

They watched in silence as the last of the Dark Lord was reduced to ash before their eyes.

It was over. Things had not gone completely to plan, but it was over. No one had been injured or killed, not even the Dark Lord himself. That had to count for something, right?

Luna realized that the others must be worried sick, waiting for news of Death Eaters rampaging the castle and watching for birds in the sky, auguring victory or doom. As soon as she thought this, a window magically appeared on the wall beside her. Luna opened it and considered which spell to cast. She didn't need backup in a fight, nor did she require a healer. Magpies meant mission abort, which wasn't exactly right. No, she supposed in the end, it would have to be ravens. Ravens meant victory, and that was true, in a way.

"Avis corvi!" A flock of ravens emerged from her wand and took to the sky. Luna watched their flight in dreamy silence, her eyes half-focused. She could hear the distant cheers of the women stationed on the grounds celebrating the good omen, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Something had been nagging at the corner of her mind for some time now, some idea or realization that she had not had the capacity to fully process in the rush of the ritual and the fight.

She turned to watch Bellatrix breastfeeding the child, her midnight black hair hanging like a curtain over the milky white flesh of the babe's skin.

"Oh," Luna whispered to herself, "It was never about me at all. Of course. I was never the raven queen. She is."

AN: Well, there it is folks, the chapter we've been working toward since the beginning! I hope you were surprised, or maybe you had some inkling! We're quite near the end now and I'm confident I'll be able to finish this story in the next few months. I'd really appreciate any comments to help keep me motivated as I wrap this up.

Thanks for reading!