Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.

To the occasional person who disagrees with my choice of speech marks. Single quotes remain an acceptable and common in British publications, and I really think if reading something with them in annoys you enough to review on solely that subject then it should irritate you enough to spend thirty seconds on wikipedia to actually check whether or not it's true before placing your proverbial foot firmly in your mouth.

To everyone else, I apologise for that small outburst.

And, because I noticed a lot of reviews have suggested Harry using one of the time-turners to go back before the Death-Eaters and escape I'll clarify things and throw out a few problems I felt didn't need spelling out in the last chapter. First, and most importantly, when he went back he'd be trapped in a Department full of Unspeakables employed by a hostile-influenced Ministry, that's exchanging two known enemies for many more unknown ones, then there's how hard it would be to make sure any action he takes leaves the time stream undisturbed so he can still get to the prophecy and come to the time-turner later, additionally, messing with something as complicated as time with so many important, extra variables on top when he already has a time-turner of his own, and merely wishes to stop Voldemort having one, is a bit of an unnecessary risk. If it isn't really feasible for him to go back in time, then he has to either destroy them all, or try and steal some and destroy the rest. It goes without saying that they're likely to be protected from theft and touching one is probably a bad idea, so in my mind casting something as magically destructive as fiendfyre to obliterate every enchantment in the area is the most sensible option. If Harry can't have a time-turner (another one) then nobody can.

But that's enough of that, nobody really ever does more than skim the author's notes anyway, so on with the story.

Chapter 65

The veil fluttered, trembled; its liquid-like surface flaring forwards to brush against his godfather's back as he fell, crumpling to the floor, mouth stretched in a soundless scream.

Bellatrix was laughing from within what remained of the doorway, giggling victoriously as Sirius curled into himself, shaking and shivering silently between the two pillars of the archway.

The ice flared to furious life within his chest.

His wordless banishing spell smashed Bellatrix back through the broken wall and down the corridor, sending her bouncing past her partner.

'Sirius,' he shouted.

His godfather didn't respond.

Harry summoned him, sticking out his left arm to wandlessly pull Sirius across the room to him as he leapt up the steps, ignoring Bellatrix's shriek of fury as he dragged his godfather towards the lifts.

A barrage of yellow curses sprayed past him, splintering the tiles and smashing ragged holes into the tiling around the lifts. Harry pressed the button with his left hand, letting Sirius slide to the ground to free his arm.

Bella had awoken Malfoy, and the two of them were advancing down the corridor under cover of the mad witch's hail of spells.

He had no choice but to shield or deflect them, Sirius was behind him. The brightly coloured curses flickered up and down the corridor as he sent as many as he could back in their direction.

'Avada Kedavra,' Lucius hissed, the weeping, ruined half of his face twisted into a vicious sneer.

'Papilionis,' Harry whispered, burying them all beneath the butterflies and watching for the wisp of smoke.

Behind him the lift door clanked loudly, opening painfully slowly. He went on the offensive, buying them some time to move by transfiguring his butterflies into thousands of shards of glass, and sending them whistling down the corridor in a wave of jagged points and sharp, slicing edges.

Under the cover of his attack he shoved Sirius into the lift, then retreated in after him, flinching back from the fire that Bella sent searing down towards them to destroy the glass. Malfoy flinched too. Fear flashing in his eyes as his fingers flew up to his face.

'Osassula,' Harry hissed through the ever diminishing gap between the doors, smirking at the hiss of pain, then the lift entrance shut with a metal-edged thud.

He pressed the button for the atrium, ignoring the voice, to regain his breath. Without the adrenaline he could feel how tired he was. The throbbing ache in his wand arm, and the slight heaviness of his eyelids was a testimony to how much magic he had actually spent in the corridor and before the arch.

The lift jerked upwards, acerbating towards the atrium and the exit, and a moment of silence fell across the small lift: it was deafening after the tumult of the duel.

The lower half of the doors shattered in a single, massive concussion that sent his head spinning and fragments flying across the lift.

His instinctive shield was too slow to stop the first few, they drew hot lines of pain across his legs and abdomen, but the others deflected away harmlessly into the walls. Gritting his teeth against the pain he turned to Sirius, who lay slumped against the back wall, eyes closed and pale, with more than a few shards of metal sticking out through his ragged robes.

'Rennervate,' Harry muttered, jabbing his wand at Sirius.

His godfather's eyes snapped open, his chest heaved, and he scrabbled through his robes for his wand.

'It's not there,' Harry told him. 'Bellatrix disarmed you and I didn't have time to summon it when we escaped.'

Sirius nodded, then cast an eye over himself and started pulling out the pieces of the lift door that were embedded across his left side. 'Any particular reason I feel like a pincushion?' He inquired through teeth clenched against the pain of his lacerations.

'They destroyed the door,' Harry gestured to the gaping hole in the side of the lift, 'I doubt we've seen the last of them either.'

'They'll come up the shaft once we're out of the way,' Sirius warned, 'we're not out of this by a long way yet.'

'You should get out,' Harry decided, 'without a wand you'll be an easy target. I'll cover our backs as we go.'

'I'm not leaving you,' Sirius shook his head, pushing himself up against the only intact wall. 'The Order will be here soon.'

'You said that when we first entered the department,' Harry commented with a frown, 'are you sure they got your message?'

'They got it,' Sirius confirmed. 'They should be here by now.' He seemed unsure, and Harry mentally resigned himself to having to fight his way out alone. It would hardly be any different to before, he'd always been left to save himself on his own.

'Vulnera sanentur,' Harry whispered, when the last fragment of metal slid out from under Sirius' skin to join the small pile of blood stained pieces on the floor.

'How did you come away unscathed?' His godfather complained, eying the small pile testily.

'Luck,' Harry grinned, glancing down at the thin tears in his robes where the fragments had hit him. He had already healed, the thin, shallow cuts from the debris were swiftly fixed by his new resilience.

'You're worse than James,' Sirius grinned, standing up unaided, 'he always came out of scrapes like this without so much as a scratch.'

Harry took Sirius' word for it, though he rather doubted his father had ever had to fight his way out of the Department of Mysteries.

'Atrium,' the dispassionate voice announced, and the lift ground to a halt.

They hadn't made it more than a few steps from the lift doors before collapsed in on itself, shrinking as it fell back down the shaft.

'Go,' he snapped as Sirius, raising his wand and readying himself to fight again. There was room here to use his more destructive spells without bringing eight floors of building down on his head.

His godfather ignored him completely, diving across next to the lift exit.

'Clever little Potter thought he'd escaped,' Bellatrix laughed, stepping out of the empty shaft, 'but you'll have to do more than that to stop me, only the Dark Lord has ever beaten me.'

'No more games, Bella,' Malfoy hissed, his leather encased fingertips pressed against the ruined side of his face. His partner just giggled, shaking her dark curls in little rippled about her head.

'It's all games,' she cooed delightedly, 'and eventually we all lose.'

Sirius hurled himself from the shadows next to the lift entrance, hitting Malfoy, and knocking the blond Death Eater's wand across the floor where it skittered out of sight.

'I guess I'll play with cousin Sirius later,' Bella remarked, almost sadly. 'It will be fun,' her expression brightened, 'the Dark Lord didn't say that had to keep him alive.'

The ice that had faded from him in the calm of the lift flared up anew, colder and tighter than before. It hissed and cracked somewhere in his chest, uncoiling as his rage awoke in earnest. He slashed his wand across his chest, and the indistinct form of the basilisk lunged forwards, tearing the floor apart as it swept across the atrium.

'Confringo,' Bellatrix sneered again, but this time her spell dissipated the instant it touched the outstretched fangs and with a small shriek of surprise she flung herself across the floor and out of harm's way. Harry's conjured basilisk hammered into the lift entrance, obliterating the golden gates, and wall completely. The flying pieces spewed out across the atrium, showering Sirius and Malfoy as they grappled across the floor and knocking Bellatrix across the floor.

'Potter knows how to play,' Bellatrix breathed, staring at him with something close to awe in her eyes. Her wand streaked up as she pushed herself from the floor, an array of coloured curses slicing through the air between them.

Harry flicked them away, sending them curving back towards her as they spiralled around one another. In the background behind her Sirius was driving his fist into Malfoy's face, doing his utmost to ruin both sides of the Death Eater's face.

'Lacero,' he whispered, melding the want motion seamlessly into a small string of other spells, pushing himself as fast as he could go.

It was faster than Bella could deflect, and stronger than her shield which flickered insubstantially in front of her briefly before shattering.

'You got me,' she giggled, pressing a finger to the cut across one cheek, then licking the blood from it. 'I never could understand shielding,' she sighed, 'why defend yourself when you can just attack?'

A fresh volley of painfully bright, yellow spells streaked from her wand tip, but Harry knew this spell, he had seen Sirius deflect it in the corridor, and he sent all five hissing back at her far faster than she had cast them. The first three splattered into the floor, leaving deep, scorched craters at Bella's feet, but the other two arced past her hip and shoulder, striking Sirius in the side, and Malfoy in the chest, scattering them both across the floor.

'Ooops,' Bella giggled. 'Were you expecting me to deflect them back,' her face stretched in a wide, bright smile, 'the rules of the game have changed.'

Neither Sirius nor Malfoy moved, and though he could see their chests rising and falling the ice tightened its grip at being tricked so easily. Something cold and cruel opened vast, dark eyes within him, staring out with open malice at the world. The fiendfyre swirled in the shape of a serpent past Bella, forcing her to the edge of the fountain before she swept it back at him in a formless wave and he was forced to extinguish it.

'Don't worry little Potter,' she laughed, 'Bella will nurse her cousin back to health, just give me the prophecy from your pocket, let me win, and I'll only prescribe the Cruciatus Curse when I'm bored.'

The golden centaur behind her shuddered as Harry's magic wrapped itself around it, then drove its arrow directly through the back of her knee. Bellatrix hissed, shattering every statue in the fountain with an angry flick of her wand.

'Crucio,' she shrieked, over and over again, sending a shower of red spells into Harry's hastily summoned cloud of butterflies. It was her trademark spell, Harry remembered. The one she'd cast on Neville's parents until their minds snapped under the strain, the one she'd cast on Sirius, her own family, and tried to cast on Harry.

'Osassula,' Harry whispered.

The curse shattered Bella's desperate shield and struck her fingers, sending her wand spinning into the water behind her.

'Perhaps Bella would like a taste of her own medicine,' Harry wondered aloud, summoning her wand to him and snapping it in his left hand. The witch screeched furiously, uncontrolled, childish magic rippling at him, melting its way across the atrium floor to crash against his shield, knocking him stumbling backwards onto the floor.

The glass orb shattered within his pocket, and the hoarse, rasping voice Harry recognised from hearing Professor Trelawney's prophecy in the third year echoed out of his robes. Bella fell quiet, tilting her head to one side, spilling her black curls across a face filled with childish curiosity.

'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…'

'Equal,' Bellatrix wondered childishly, 'the Dark Lord has no equals, he's the best player in the game, but better safe than sorry, better to still be playing than to lose, better to play than to be dead, so no more little Potter, and no more little Longbottom either, Bella saw to that.' She giggled gleefully, recalling her actions with obvious delight. 'That was Bella's favourite game.'

'Crucio,' he spat through clenched teeth, thrusting his wand forwards. The pale, red beam dissipated on the severed torso of the centaur as Bella twisted out of the way.

'You've got to mean it, little Potter,' she cackled, 'if you don't really want to hurt the other players, then you'll lose the game.'

A game.

The lips of the ice creature within curled back, revealing an insatiable maw of a thousand, needle-like teeth, and fury enough to swallow the world.

The naive cruelty of a child, wearing the face, body and power of a witch.

How he wanted to make her understand, but he knew without having to use legilimency that Bellatrix would never understand what she had done. In her mind this was all the game of a little girl, every spell a move, every death the defeat of another player, another person tagged, and the only people she truly hated were those who hadn't the magic to play her game with her.

'Crucio,' Harry repeated, his lips twisting into the same smile he felt spread within himself.

Bellatrix screamed, flailing and thrashing in the water, as the crackling, crimson beam joined them together in an instant of understanding as pain overwhelmed Bella's mind, proclaiming in the only way she understood that Harry was the better player in her world of games.

Did I mean it enough for you, Bella, he wanted to demand.

'Potter does know how to play,' she giggled between gasps, violet eyes alight with excited glee. The pain had only driven her further into her delusion. Her mind hid from the horror of her reality too completely for it to ever fail or falter.

'Master,' she breathed reverently, suddenly ignoring Harry completely.

Harry spun, half-crouching defensively in front of the Dark Lord.

'Bella's sorry,' the mad witch tittered, 'Bella lost her game, little Potter was better than Bella, but Bella heard the prophecy-'

'Avada Kedavra,' Harry whispered, ending Bella's game before she spilt something he'd rather Voldemort not hear.

'Harry,' the Dark Lord murmured in quiet fury, anger flashing in his crimson eyes as he watched the body of Bellatrix Lestrange sink into the fountain. 'Bella was one of my most useful servants.'

'Not anymore,' Harry smiled, 'she lost.'

'Yes,' Voldemort's lips curled back in a cruel grin. 'She lost her great game at last, but I'm sure she enjoyed every moment of it while she still played.' He surveyed the ruins of the room, tracking the spell marks across the atrium, the shattered statues and scorch marks.

'What was so important about the prophecy?' Harry asked, glancing across to where Sirius lay, still unconscious.

'The wards are still up,' Voldemort laughed softly, 'the only way out is past me, I'm afraid, and your chance of escape would be small enough if you were fresh to the fight, but I will humour you. The prophecy tells of a child born with the strength to eclipse me, a wizard I can't allow to live because he will always be a threat.'

'Me,' Harry deduced.

'Perhaps,' Voldemort murmured, 'but I never heard the entire thing, and now I know you I wonder if there isn't more to this prediction than I originally thought.'

The pale, yew wand snapped up, unleashing a trio of curses far faster than Bellatrix had been capable of. Harry jumped back, narrowly avoiding the three spells that slammed into the floor showering his feet in fragments of stone.

'Avada kedavra,' Voldemort murmured smoothly, only smiling when Harry's silently summoned butterflies swallowed the spell. 'Confringo,' he continued, tearing great, gaping holes through Harry's swarming shield, forcing him to deflect the curses ineffectively back at the Dark Lord.

Harry retreated, curving round past the fountain to try and lure Voldemort further into the atrium and open an avenue of escape.

The golden statues melted around his feet, seeping across the floor to take the shape of vast serpent that coiled across the floor, blocking his exit. The only way was through Voldemort, and the Order was not coming, not if they were taking so long to arrive.

'Ardens flagello,' Harry hissed, remembering the power of the spell that Sirius had cast in the room beside the veil.

A vast swathe of purple-edged, ebon flames lashed from the tip of his wand, melting through the golden serpent Voldemort had transfigured as if it were butter, but the fire guttered against the swirling, silver shield that the Dark Lord conjured, then vanished completely when Voldemort unleashed flames of his own.

The red, raging tongues of fiendfyre swept across the atrium from floor to ceiling, obliterating the elegant golden runes and gleaming green tiles in a wave of destruction.

Harry clenched his jaw, knowing that he had little energy left to spend, and that he had to either escape soon or die. He slashed his wand forwards, and the the fiendfyre swirled about, flowing into the form of the basilisk he had envisioned then surging back down the atrium, fangs agape.

Voldemort laughed, a cold, high sound of genuine delight, then the floor shuddered and vast spires of stone burst from the floor, impaling the basilisk to the ceiling even as they melted, showering the floor in hissing droplets of glowing, molten rock.

'Ever you surpass my expectations, Harry,' he murmured. The tip of his pale wand flicked back down from the ruined ceiling to point directly at Harry's forehead. 'Legilimens,' he ordered.

Harry had only an instant to clear his mind. Focusing on the feeling of utter nothingness that had so successfully expelled Snape, he determined that he would not lose this contest. He might be tired, but his will was as strong as ever, and Voldemort was the one expending energy to link their minds together.

A flicker of images assailed his barriers, emotions, desires, feelings and dreams that Harry knew would have drawn him from his defense had it been anything less. Instead the emptiness swallowed them all, consuming every thought and feeling Voldemort sent at him until the Dark Lord lowered his wand, a fascinated smiled upon his lipless mouth.

'Interesting,' Voldemort murmured. 'Even I cannot claim to exceed your gift for legilimency, not when you defend your mind as perfectly as I guard my own.'

'Then you know that the knowledge of the prophecy dies with me,' Harry smirked.

'If you die I will have no need to fear it at all.' Harry had to concede that Voldemort did have a point. 'So,' the pale wand flicked back up, tracing a small semi-circle in the air, 'contusio,' he whispered.

A scatter of pinpricks of silver light flared from Voldemort's wand, tracing delicately through air towards him. Harry mustered the dregs of his magic, sweeping the water from the fountain across the atrium to intercept them in a thin veil.

A succession of rippling concussions tore through the air, hammering at his ears as the delicate, silver drops of light exploded against the veil of water and spraying Harry with scalding water.

'What,' Harry began, as green flames flared in all the fireplaces along the hall, 'if I told you the prophecy?'

'Then I would not need you alive,' Voldemort countered, but his gleaming crimson eyes were also watching the fires, and Harry knew that he had his attention.

'You would have no reason to kill me either,' Harry persisted.

'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord,' Voldemort intoned almost mockingly. His wand curved up, reforming the golden serpent Harry's fire had destroyed, and sending it careening down the atrium, smashing through the fireplaces on the opposite wall.

'Power is directed by intent,' Harry smiled, aware now that his life hung from his tongue, every and any word could be his last, because his magic was all but spent.

'I should trust in your intent, then?' The Dark Lord laughed softly. 'A foolish risk to take, those who trust are betrayed, aren't they, Harry?'

'A trade then,' Harry proposed, as the fireplaces' emerald flames billowed bright, threatening the arrival of others. 'I will take Sirius Black, and leave, you will learn the last line of the prophecy.'

'Tempting,' Voldemort mused. 'You are interesting.' He twirled his wand thoughtfully in his fingers, just as the shade of the younger Tom Riddle had in the chamber. The pale, yew wand spun around and around his forefinger, trailing silver sparks, and twirling hypnotically.

'I accept,' he decided at last, and the wand vanished into his sleeve.

Harry flicked his back into its holster, wandlessly summoning Sirius to him.

'The prophecy, Harry,' the Dark Lord prompted.

'And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal,' Harry repeated confidently, 'but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not.'

'Interesting,' Voldemort mused, 'it does not say if you are fated to defeat me.' Harry's smile was not entirely benign. The prophecy's last line was known only to him. He had lied to the Dark Lord, and as long as Voldemort had not lied he would escape with the truth still a secret.

'No,' he lied, 'it doesn't, though I must wonder what the power you know not is.'

Voldemort's wand was in his hand again, and Harry tensed. 'I was going to kill you anyway,' he remarked casually, 'but I'm curious, Harry, to see what you will become. Someone once told me that I should find an equal to stand either alongside or opposite, I never really believed it, but I wonder if he might have been right after all.'

'You did mark me as an equal,' Harry added dryly, running a forefinger along his faded scar. The Dark Lord looked at him carefully, a surprisingly human fascination across his inhuman features.

'Self-fulfilling prophecy,' Voldemort agreed softly, 'and now there is this power I know not. Until next time we meet,' his lips curled cruel, 'and I'm sure our paths will cross again, Dumbledore will insist upon it. He is the only other who knows the full prophecy.' Harry could hardly disagree, especially if the old wizard knew the real last line.

Either must die at the hand of the other.

He could be many things, a hero, a martyr, as Dumbledore intended for him, or he could simply be the one who walked away from the aftermath, as he intended.

There was a very soft double snap and Voldemort was gone, flickering from one side of the room to the other, then vanishing, ripping through the anti-apparition wards like so much wet paper. Harry was instantly grateful for the Dark Lord's curiosity, and even for Salazar, from whom the words that had stayed Voldemort's hand had originally come, because he had not had a fraction of the strength left to accomplish such a feat.

Harry glanced around, taking in the ruined room, Bellatrix's body, and the shattered statues. Voldemort had taken the maimed Malfoy with him while he was still unconscious on the floor.

If this does not convince the Ministry that something is afoot then there's no point in continuing to try.

He pulled Sirius more tightly to him and focused on the Chamber of Secrets. His godfather could be trusted with the secret of its existence, though Harry would only be showing him the main chamber.

The world twisted back away from him, but he was sure, in the last moment he gazed upon the atrium, that he caught a flash of phoenix flame and heard Dumbledore's sorrowful sigh.

He staggered across the smooth, black marble of the chamber, laying Sirius' body down on the cold floor to catch his breath and rest as the adrenaline abandoned him. The ice thawed from his veins, receding back into a single, cold, hard point in his breast.

The Order of the Phoenix never came.

He could not convince himself that it was coincidence that Dumbledore had appeared when the duel should have long since ended, nor that the Order's mysterious failure to help Sirius was not a result of his machinations.

We were meant to be martyrs.

'Renervate,' he muttered, tapping Sirius lightly on the head, and ordering the bridge back into the waters of the pool.

'What hit me this time?' Sirius asked, grinning up at him weakly.

'Bellatrix tricked me,' Harry answered apologetically, 'she manoeuvred herself between us and when I sent her spells back at her she let them go on to strike both you and Malfoy.'

'She was always dangerous,' Sirius reassured him, 'what about the prophecy? And the Order?' He glanced around curiously. 'This isn't Grimmauld Place either.'

'I'll tell you the story from when you started your impromptu nap,' Harry quipped. His godfather chuckled and sat up, propping himself against the nearest snake-encircled pillar.

'Go ahead,' he gestured.

'After you and Malfoy were knocked out I duelled Bellatrix across the atrium, and disarmed her, but the orb containing the prophecy was broken, and we both heard the words.'

'So Voldemort will know what it says,' Sirius concluded. 'What did it say?'

'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 told him. 'Bellatrix heard the whole thing, but when Voldemort turned up I killed her before she could tell him.'

Sirius flinched.

'She deserved to die, if not worse,' Harry pointed out patiently, knowing Sirius' reaction was more down to surprise than distaste.

'I didn't expect you to be capable of it,' he apologised. 'James and Lily were too kind-hearted, they believed wholeheartedly in Dumbledore's proclamations about purity of heart. You don't seem too upset about killing her?'

'I'm not,' Harry shrugged. 'We could hardly send her back to Azkaban if I stunned her, and I'm not letting Voldemort know the whole prophecy, her life is not worth as much as mine, nor as much as those whom I care about.'

'He knows part of it?' Sirius inquired.

'We duelled again in the atrium, made a bit of a mess of it actually,' Harry grinned, 'but I told him the rest of the prophecy in return for being able to leave with you.'

'You told him!' Sirius exclaimed furiously.

'I told him one line,' Harry interrupted, 'enough of the truth to mislead him, but not enough of a lie for him to notice. We'd both be dead otherwise.'

'The Order would have come,' Sirius persisted, but there was tangible doubt in his tone.

'They never came, though I'm sure I saw Dumbledore just as I apparated us away. I'll let you draw your own conclusions as to why the members of the Order never came and why he arrived at the scene long after we should have been killed, but before the Ministry could have arrived.'

'I sent the warning,' Sirius muttered, 'they should have come, they all know what it means.'

'The last line of the prophecy,' Harry stated bluntly.

'Either must die at the hand of the other,' Sirius recalled, 'but surely Dumbledore would want to make sure you killed Voldemort.'

'That's not very pure of heart,' Harry reminded him, side-stepping a long discussion about horcruxes. 'Surely a martyr's death to ensure Voldemort's end is preferable.'

Harry had never seen his godfather so angry as he seemed in that moment. He half expected his magic to lash out and sear the world around him.

'That meddlesome old man,' Sirius hissed. 'That's why he won't let me take custody of you, that's why he sends you back to your relatives, why he pushes you into acts of heroism and acts like you risking your life for others is the most you could ever hope to do.'

'He wants a malleable, naive child to throw into Voldemort's path,' Harry explained. 'No doubt he believes that the power the Dark Lord knows not is something abstract, pure-hearted and perfectly heroic.'

'Love,' Sirius ground out. 'He has often made references to your ability to love and risk yourself for others. He expects you to die like Lily did, only with a more permanent effect.'

'He will be disappointed,' Harry smirked. 'I have no intention of dying.'

'As you shouldn't,' Sirius half-shouted. 'I'm going to tear that wrinkled, old snake apart with my bare hands. I'm done with his Order of the Phoenix. I bet Snape knew about the attack tonight and poor Mundungus was just another sacrifice he decided to make.'

'No,' Harry shook his head. 'We need to know what he's doing if he intends to make a martyr of me.'

'So I should stay and spy,' Sirius realised, regaining his calm.

'I don't trust Dumbledore or his Order and I don't need them either,' Harry declared. 'I was strong enough to defeat Bellatrix. I've survived Voldemort alone and by my own efforts twice. We'll be fine without him.'

'We just need to make sure he isn't trying to throw you into harm's way at every opportunity,' Sirius said slowly. 'You can't stay with your relatives, you can't come to Grimmauld, he's the secret keeper, and you can't stay here, wherever this is.'

'The Chamber of Secrets,' Harry said, chuckling at the look of shock on his godfather's face. 'It's one of two rooms in this castle not on the Marauders' Map, and my backdoor in and out of the castle.'

'Clever,' Sirius grinned, 'sneaking in and out right under Dumbledore's nose without him realising, but you can't live here for the summer.'

'I'll sort something out,' Harry assured him. He'd wait to talk to Fleur, something he really had to do soon, before he told Sirius anything about their plans together. She wouldn't mind sharing them with him, not if she knew Harry trusted him, but Fleur wouldn't like not being asked first.

'Do you promise?' Sirius asked gravely.

'I promise,' Harry nodded. 'I won't be spending a single night with the Dursley's again.'

'I guess I should go back to Grimmauld Place then,' Sirius sighed. 'What do I tell Dumbledore?'

'Ask him what was going on and find out what he knows before telling him as little as possible about what really happened. It helps that you were unconscious.'

Harry wasn't actually sure that it mattered if Dumbledore knew the truth or not, but the more he knew that the old wizard didn't improved his chances of not ending up as a sacrifice, willing or otherwise.

'I'll tell him that I felt something was wrong, snuck in, and destroyed the prophecy when I found Voldemort coming to take it,' Sirius decided. 'Will he know you were there?'

'He might,' Harry mused. 'I don't know if he saw me before we apparated out or not.'

'I'll say nothing I don't know he already knows,' Sirius grinned. 'It's like trying to avoid detention with McGonagall.'

'Only you would compare getting out of detention to lying to the strongest wizard alive,' Harry laughed.

'They're not that different when you get right down to it,' his godfather shrugged, rising to his feet. 'I should go, this Chamber of Secrets of yours is creepy, it's the sort of place my mother would dream about. You should go to bed,' he quipped, 'don't you have exams?'

Sirius stuck out a foot in preparation to apparate and closed his eyes, only to reopen them in confusion when nothing happened.

'You can't apparate out of here,' Harry chuckled. 'You'll have to sneak out via Hogsmeade, I'll open the entrance into the castle for you, follow me.'

AN: Please keep on reviewing and reading, guess who isn't dead... yet.