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

So I received over 200 reviews for chapter 96, which is phenomenal, and really appreciated, apparently Dumbledore's death was a big thing, who would've guessed!

I am puzzled by why some are surprised Harry was expelled. He killed a student, the child of a suspected Death Eater, in cold blood, hung his mutilated body in the Great Hall, and everyone who was willing or forced to see the obvious knew it was him that did it, even if it could not be proved. There's no way McGonagall would leave a known murderer in a school full of the children of suspected Death Eaters. That's like asking Hannibal Lecter to do the catering for your party and introducing him to your sister...

Still, here's the next one, enjoy!

Chapter 98

Fleur's fingers slipped into his, their warmth the only comfort he had , for the cold pebbles of the lake shore, and the steady, cold wind that whistled across the lake only fed the numbness he felt.

'You could not have known,' she reminded him gently, 'this is the price of keeping secrets.'

Harry said nothing, but shuffled on the stones of the shoreline, the pebbles grating beneath his feet.

Across from their invisible bodies, a gathering of students, staff and many witches and wizards brave enough to attend bowed their heads as the eulogy ended. Harry could not have come here openly, the country whispered that he was a murderer, that he had succumbed to darkness, and he was reviled, and feared by as many as still held him in high regard for the result of his parents' blood magic.

The boy-who-killed, Harry thought, apathetic.

'I do not know whether I should be victorious or sad,' Harry said eventually, watching as the wizard raised his wand to surround Dumbledore in bright, white flames. 'He would have led me blindly to my death, but he would have done it so that I could live freely afterwards.'

'I would mourn the loss of an equal, of a great, pure-hearted man,' Fleur decided, 'but I would be relieved at the death of a wizard who might have killed me.'

The white flames rose high above the bier, swirling spirals of smoke shivered high in curling columns across a clear, cold sky, and, in a rippling flash of red, Fawkes appeared above the crowd. His song was muted, the cheerful trilling had become a long, mourning keen that cut at Harry's heart.

Sorry, Fawkes, he thought sadly, I did not wish to take him from you, only to stop him taking someone from me.

The phoenix keened once more, swooping low over the crowd, and flaring his wings to hang in the air over where he and Fleur were hidden for a moment's pause. A single, bright, crimson tail feather floated to fall at Fleur's feet, then phoenix vanished in a final flash.

The white flames flared bright, scattering the smoke, and Dumbledore's figure was encased within hard, cold, white marble.

'A phoenix's feather,' Fleur murmured, bending to retrieve it while it remained unnoticed, 'these are not given lightly.'

'Fawkes' farewell, we should not keep it,' Harry frowned.

'I was not going to keep it,' Fleur murmured, running an invisible finger along it's length. 'It is a farewell gift for you, I think,' she mused, 'not for Albus Dumbledore.'

'Are you listening?' Harry asked curiously.

'I am not so good as Gabby,' Fleur whispered, as the crowd began to leave, 'but the magic of a phoenix is strong, emotive, and easily sensed.'

'What do you feel?'

'It is not forgiveness,' she decided, 'it is a gift so that you might earn it. Your first wand, it had a phoenix feather, no?'

'It did,' Harry nodded.

'From the same phoenix,' she said, clearly certain. 'The shards of the heart of your first partner, consumed by basilisk venom,' she remembered absently. 'This is for a new wand, for a fresh start.'

Harry picked the feather from her fingers, considering it carefully, as he drifted towards the tomb. The suggestion was obvious.

Be as you once were, not as you are.

'I do not need a new wand,' he decided, 'nor a new start.'

'The phoenix would disagree,' Fleur commented, but he could hear the approving smile on her lips. She did not want the naive, sacrificing idiot he had once been. A child with a heart so pure he would have died for the first wizard or witch to lie to him. A child that would have died and left her alone.

'How would Fawkes know?' Harry raised an eyebrow. 'I made a mistake, and one that was not fully of my own making. I should be more careful, I was arrogant, complacent, and callous, but none of my dreams of have changed, and there is still nothing I would not do to achieve them.'

'You just intend to make sure that what you do is something you must do,' Fleur understood.

'Exactly.'

Never again, he swore. I will do anything I must, but I will never make this mistake again.

Harry placed the feather on the top of the tomb, and watched, intrigued, as it crumbled to ashes, vanishing in the wind. The tomb itself shivered, shimmered, and reformed. A gleaming, glinting coffin of crystal encased Dumbledore, throwing rainbows over his face, and perfectly preserving the peaceful countenance he would forever wear.

'A fitting funeral and resting place for a great wizard, and a greater man,' Fleur said softly.

'He is the only Hogwarts headmaster to be buried on the grounds, and it is an honour he deserves,' Harry agreed.

'Umbridge,' Fleur reminded him, smirking slightly.

'She wasn't buried,' Harry chuckled grimly. 'She was suspended in the trees, eaten alive, and discarded as a desiccated husk.'

'That probably doesn't count,' Fleur nodded, discarding her disillusionment.

Harry did the same.

'I think I will do it now,' he decided, slipping the ring bearing the Resurrection Stone from his finger.

'Now?' Fleur inquired. 'Why?'

'It feels right,' Harry answered simply, turning it over three times.

Salazar Slytherin, Harry commanded.

'You found it,' the shade exclaimed proudly. 'I knew you would succeed where I had failed.'

'I do not know how it works,' Harry said, 'and I am starting to think that the only thing worse than having this stone would be for me to have it and then lose it.'

'It gives you an echo of those you knew,' Salazar said softly. 'Magic remembers the shapes of the souls it has been bound to, and the closer they are to the summoner, the stronger the memory.'

'I did not think you could be real,' Harry confessed.

'Too good to be true,' Slytherin nodded. 'You were right to be cautious; it was wise of you.'

'It's not often you accuse me of wisdom,' Harry grinned half-heartedly.

'If you spent less time acting like a brainless moron I would,' Salazar told him.

'I rarely do anything reckless,' Harry insisted, gaining wildly, Fleur raised an eyebrow at that statement.

How I missed this.

'I have grown strong,' he told the founder, 'stronger than I would have ever hoped before, even if I have made mistakes, and done things that others would condemn me for.'

'Revenge is a temptation few can resist,' Slytherin admitted. 'I could not, we are very alike in that regard, and in your perfect ruthlessness. Godric would not agree with your methods, you are more my heir now than his,' there was a touch of smugness as he spoke, 'but he would have approved of your heart, and for all his flaws, he was a great wizard too.'

'As great as you?' Harry asked cheekily.

'Not quite that great,' Salazar smirked, 'but close enough that he could dream of it.'

'Such modesty.'

'You are as powerful as either of us,' Slytherin reminded him dryly, 'the first wizard in history to unite the hallows alone, or,' his eyes drifted to Fleur, 'perhaps with united purpose would be a better description. Perhaps you will leave a legacy greater than my own,' he mused, 'I hope so, it is the dream of all parents to watch their children outshine them.'

'I do not think it will be enough,' Harry said quietly. 'I can destroy horcruxes, slaughter his servants, delve as deep as one can go into the study of magic, even push its boundaries further than anyone has pushed them before, but he will always have a head start on me.'

'You underestimate yourself,' Salazar told him gently. 'Magic is about intent, if you want it enough, then there is almost nothing you cannot make happen. That dream in the mirror is almost close enough to see, you need only find the strength to reach it.'

'I will reach it,' he told himself, searching for the conviction within. He found no belief, nor confidence but he didn't need them, such feelings were unnecessary motivation.

There is no other choice, he knew, I reach my dream, or I become nothing, and that will not, must not happen.

He could not bear it.

'The last enemy to be destroyed is death,' Slytherin told him wryly. 'I think it is more apt to say that the last victory is not to be destroyed by death, but to transcend it. We all must die, Harry,' he warned, 'but something of us can remain, while we are still known, remembered and respected, then we must still be something.'

Is that true, he wondered.

He hoped it was, the idea stilled a little of his fear of the emptiness, of the consuming, creeping void.

'Let me go, Harry,' Salazar's shade suggested gently. 'Don't call on me again if you can help it, don't dream of the dead when the living stand beside you. Harden your heart, my heir,' he insisted softly, 'say farewell, step forwards, and don't turn back,' he smiled proudly, 'don't even look back.'

'Farewell,' Harry repeated hollowly, letting the shadow of his ancestor vanish.

'Are you ok?' Fleur asked carefully.

'I will be fine,' Harry assured, 'there is one last person I need to say goodbye to.'

Katie, he thought fervently, stomach twisting in anticipation as he turned the ring over. This one will be the hardest.

'Harry,' Katie beamed up at him.

Her shade shivered straight into a solid state, and her form was so strong that he almost reached out to touch her. Everything he had inexplicably been unable to see for so long was obvious now. The way she stared at him, moved herself, even as an echo of life, so that she was always as close to him as she could be, her eyes and hands lingering upon him.

'I missed you,' she told him, stepping closer, so close that her smoke-like, silver skin all but brushed against his own.

'I am sorry,' Harry whispered, unable to resist trying to touch her when she came within arm's reach. 'I should have kept you safe.'

'I think it's better like this,' Katie disagreed, and she was smiling still, but her smile was so strained and sad that Harry had to swallow the lump in his throat, and clench his jaw to still the hotness in his eyes. 'I'm not in the way now.'

'You were never in the way,' he promised her, flinching as his fingers faded through her form. Fleur's hand slipped into his in comfort, her eyes on Harry, watching his reaction to the spirit that she could not see.

'It's better this way,' Katie echoed stubbornly. 'There wasn't room for me, not really, and this way I don't have to watch you walk away,' she blinked long, and slow, something sparkling on her lashes, 'I prefer this end, to enduring that.'

'I would have never walked away,' Harry said, horrified, and so disgusted by the idea he slipped into parseltongue.

'Not quickly,' Katie replied, somehow understanding him, 'but slowly it would have happened, a little at a time, with each passing day, you would have forgotten me, and I would have had to watch it happen.'

'I won't forget you.'

'You will,' she said gently. Her tears were falling now, running in slender, silver lines along her cheeks, 'but I won't have to see it happen, and that is a kindness I am grateful for.' Her fingers drifted over to pat his cheek, but he felt nothing at her touch for her fingers ghosted through him just as his had through her.

Harry clenched his free hand into a fist, trying desperately to ignore the numbness of hollow hands around his heart, and the biting, bitter sadness that swelled within him.

'I can't do this,' he told her, his voice cracking. He knew now why this stone was so dangerous; it could drive any wizard or witch mad with longing. There was little he would not trade just to be able to touch her, for she seemed so close to life, yet he knew she was just out of reach.

'Don't send me away,' Katie begged, tears cascading now. 'I don't want to leave you, please,' she pleaded, eyes wide, 'let me linger with you just a little longer.'

'I have to say goodbye,' Harry told her forlornly.

'I know,' she agreed miserably, 'you were always going to have to say goodbye one day. I wish that I had never said a word to Roger Davies all that time ago,' she said distantly. 'Such a small thing, and it could have changed so much. I wish it more than anything, but,' she brushed away her tears with the heel of her hand, a bittersweet smile on her lips, 'we both know that wishes like that don't come true.'

'I don't want to say it,' Harry said. Even the idea of saying goodbye was too much. A harsh, jagged something was ripping and twisting in his chest.

'Then don't,' Katie smiled sadly, drifting so close all he could see of her was her bright eyes, and tear filled lashes. 'I dreamt that one day you would kiss me,' she whispered, 'but deep down I knew you never would.'

Harry said nothing; there was nothing he could say. He knew she had loved him, and that even though he would always be Fleur's, Katie would have remained silently his, pretending friendship, and crying quiet tears with each kiss given to the other girl.

Her silver face slipped closer, the shadow of her lips upon his, but neither of them felt anything, and, unable to endure it any longer, the ring slipped from his fingers onto the shore.

Fleur retrieved it, offering it back to him, but he shook his head, unable to squeeze any words past the swelling of sorrow on his tongue.

She stared at him for a long moment, then with a deft piece of magic, slipped the ring onto the necklace beside her locket, and pulled his head down onto her chest, wrapping her arms about him, and slipping her fingers into his hair.

'Let's go home,' she murmured, shifting their weight.

Harry nodded into her collarbone, taking deep, calming breaths.

I will never see them again.

Fleur apparated them silently back into their bedroom, sitting them down on the edge, and keeping her arms around him the entire time.

Don't turn back. Don't look back.

Harry took one last deep breath.

The only way their loss is ever going to be bearable is if Fleur and I free ourselves to live as we want.

'I'm going to test the wand,' he decided, gently pulling Fleur's arms away so he could sit up. 'I want to see its capabilities for myself.'

'You can test it with me,' Sirius said gravely from the doorway.

'What's happened?' Somehow Harry knew Sirius didn't mean he wanted to watch Harry cast a few spells in the meadow outside.

'Voldemort is going after your mother's sister and her family,' Sirius said flatly.

'If we know this it is because he wants us to know,' Harry said tiredly.

'You think it is another trap?'

'No,' Harry shook his head. He knew what Voldemort wanted.

It's a test.

The Dark Lord wanted to see what Harry had become now that Katie had been torn away, and Dumbledore was gone. He wanted to lure Harry out into the open to see the effect for himself, and in the process he intended to take away one more attachment that Harry might hold.

'Do you know anything more?'

'He's sending Fenrir Greyback,' Sirius snarled.

'You want revenge,' Harry realised.

'I cannot come with you,' Fleur warned, 'the polyjuice potion for Gringotts needs to be finished today, so I won't be there to watch your back.'

'I will keep Harry safe,' Sirius insisted, 'we duelled our way out of the Ministry together, we can handle one werewolf and his lackeys.'

'You're going to go, aren't you,' Fleur said quietly.

'I need to test the Elder Wand,' Harry said slowly, 'and Fenrir Greyback's death will be very helpful, for without him the packs will dissolve into chaos, and Voldemort will lose a good portion of his allies.'

'I'll get ready,' Sirius said eagerly, the shadows dark and vicious on his face.

'Sirius is not fully healed, he's barely even begun to recover,' Fleur warned, 'be careful, and don't take any risks.'

'I will test the wand, deal with Greyback, and return,' Harry promised, if he was lucky, then that might even happen.

'You do not believe that,' Fleur admonished him gently, instantly calling him out on his false optimism.

'No,' Harry smiled guiltily. 'Voldemort will be there, he will come himself, to see me, even if he does not decide to fight.'

'Why?'

'He is curious,' Harry whispered. 'He wants to see how losing Katie has changed me, to see how alike we are, if we are equal, and what the power he knows not could be. I do not think he wants to kill me yet, not until he was torn everything away and seen what I become in its absence.'

'How can you know that?' Fleur demanded, clasping him tightly as if holding onto his arm would prevent him from leaving.

'Because,' Harry smiled ever so slightly, 'I'm a little curious too.'

'If you are right,' Fleur whispered, hearing Sirius approach, 'then Sirius, Neville and I will be next.'

'I am not curious enough to play his game,' Harry said firmly. 'He will be dead before he ever comes close to harming you, and if he is not, then he will have to step over my body to do it.'

'In a few days there will only be the snake left,' Fleur said, half to him, half to herself, 'we are so close.'

'So is he,' Harry said grimly, clasping Sirius' forearm to apparate back to Little Whinging. 'Dumbledore is dead, the Ministry is under siege in London, and I am likely the only wizard in Britain he believes might ever match him.'

'We had best stop him soon, then,' his godfather grinned, shifting his robes over his bandage to try and hide the lightly damp spot upon his side. 'If you see the snake, Harry, don't hesitate.'

'I was going to tell you that,' Harry told him lightly, shifting his weight forwards and stepping onto the pavement outside the Dursley's home.

The Dark Mark already hung in the sky over the house, green and ghastly before a full, bright moon.

'The raid was meant to be in a few hours time,' Sirius gritted.

'This isn't really a raid,' Harry told him, slipping the Elder Wand from his sleeve and ripping the mark from the sky. 'Voldemort is satisfying his curiosity.'

He's likely already here somewhere.

'He'll be paying for that satisfaction with Greyback's life,' Sirius spat angrily, drawing Moody's wand, which he had adopted as his own since Azkaban had fallen.

'Homenum revelio,' Harry muttered.

Almost thirty red outlines shone brightly around them, skulking in the shadows of the streets, behind bushes, bins, fences and hedges, and a small cluster further back, at the end of the street.

'We are quite outnumbered,' he warned his godfather.

The more the merrier,' Sirius grinned. 'Greyback's followers don't use wands, they revile wizards, but they're very strong, very fast, and quite bitey.'

'Don't get bitten,' Harry said dryly. 'I'm not going to walk you every full moon.'

The red figures hurled themselves forwards, howling with furious glee.

'I already like my steak rare,' Sirius grinned, unleashing a barrage of curses at the onrushing werewolves.

The werewolves dodged with unnatural speed, resistant to most of the weaker spells an auror might attempt, but neither of them were using spells that could be considered weak.

Sirius' wand gushed vivid purple fire, thin streams of it lashing from it to force back the creatures around them, keeping a rough perimeter while Harry, whose casting was significantly faster, hurled piecing hexes, bone-splintering curses and worse at the werewolves who lingered too long in one spot.

One by one the pack dwindled.

'Where are you Greyback?' Sirius yelled out angrily. 'Come out and face me.'

'I am right here,' a deep voice growled from the Dursley's porch.

Harry whirled, unleashing another piercing hex, but Greyback simply twitched his head out of its path, gazing contemptuously down at them.

'You are good at killing weak wolves,' he snarled, standing up before the moon. Harry frowned, for while Greyback's body was deformed, and twisted, his nail claws, his teeth long and sharp, he was not truly transformed, and it was the full moon.

'I do not care for killing muggles,' he spat, tossing something off the roof towards them.

It landed with a wet thud on the street below, and Harry recognised the limp, dead form of his cousin.

'They have no magic,' Greyback continued jumping down from porch easily, as if the ten foot drop was nothing, 'so they cannot become one of us.' He bared his teeth in a feral grin. 'They are fun to hunt, but nothing more, and that one,' he looked vaguely disgusted, 'that one did not run very fast, or very well.'

'You killed Remus,' Sirius hissed, stepping towards Greyback, ignoring the other wolves that slunk about them.

'The Lupin boy,' Greyback remarked, running a clawed hand over his teeth. 'He was the strongest child I ever turned, the stronger the magic in the child, the greater the wolf, but he was a disappointment.'

'He was a greater man than you will ever be,' Sirius yelled, 'you're barely even human!'

'He was pathetic,' Fenrir Greyback snarled in response. 'He tamed his wolf, caged the monster, and buried strength he should have embraced. He was so afraid of who he really was the the wolf never even stirred,' Greyback ran his tongue over his teeth hungrily, 'not even when I ripped out his throat.'

Purple fire splashed across the front of number 4 in a wave, hot enough to melt the glass of the windows. The bricks burnt, and his aunt's prize rosebushes were reduced to ashes in an instant, but Greyback simply stepped through it. Fire that should have let him a charred skeleton set his skin to burning, and blistering, and Harry could see it peeling from his flesh in a shroud of black smoke, but it had healed in moments.

The unnatural werewolf let out a low, gravelly chuckle, and hurled himself forwards, only to be stopped dead by Sirius' banishing charm that hit him hard, hurling him back into the burning building.

'Greyback is mine,' his godfather demanded, throwing spells into the house of a progressively darker, and more vicious nature. 'That won't have killed him, not after whatever he has done to himself.'

Blood magic, Harry recognised, a ritual to make him magically resistant and resilient, no doubt a gift from Voldemort to win his loyalty.

'I'll deal with the others, then,' Harry said, shifting his grip upon the Elder Wand. It let out a delighted rush of power as he thrust his magic through it and into the air, imbuing it with his magic, and his intent.

The other werewolves hurtled from the shadows, transformed fully, with long limbs, elongated snouts, and furious yellow eyes.

There were only six, and they died instantly, crushed into in an unrecognisable pulp of splintered snapped bones, and mashed flesh, spreading red across the road.

He had only meant to knock them back.

The wand shivered delightedly in his fingers, openly exalting in the power it wielded through him.

Aspect of death indeed, Harry thought, twirling it in his fingers.

Greyback smashed his way out of the house, hairless, smoking, and hideously burnt. His face was little more than bone, melted, twisted, seeping flesh and burning yellow eyes. Sirius' spells were hitting him, but most were simply dispersing against his skin, or knocking the werewolf back. His godfather didn't seem to mind too much, and was grinning savagely as he hurled spell after spell into Greyback's teeth, but Harry could see all too clearly the way Sirius' wand arm came up far more slowly, affected by his injured side, and the way the damp patch spread across the side of his robes, soaking through the bandage beneath.

'Time to go, Sirius,' Harry warned. He'd tested the wand, tasted its strength, and while Greyback was likely resistant to much of the magic cast in duels the Killing Curse would still prove fatal to him. It would be best they left now, before Sirius, whose injury was already taking its toll upon him, tired any further.

Four distinct cracks interrupted any further attempt to persuade his godfather.

'Just as the Dark Lord predicted,' a smooth voice remarked, 'our failures will be forgotten if we are successful here.'

Three blank, white masks, and one silver one. Two stocky, short figures, two slender ones, all four cloaked in black robes, wands outstretched.

'Avada kedavra,' the nearest of the shorter two grunted.

Harry simply sidestepped the beam of green light, summoning his butterflies about him. They swirled, ebony winged, swallowing the barrage of unforgivable curses, then hissing dangerously back past the Death Eaters, transfigured into steel spikes, and impaling themselves into the neat, white-painted fences, tearing through straight-edged shrubbery, and smashing shards from hard brick.

I will win this, he decided.

The silver masked Death Eater was inner circle, and a threat, but the others, they were slower, less skilled. He could see it in their steps, the way shuffled rather than strode, it was evident in their choice of spells, powerful, but disjointed, they knew what to cast, but not how or when was best.

'Lacero,' he said calmly in the lull, casting a wordless, motionless piercing hex in the instant between that spell and bending his wand into the wand motion for the seceding bone splintering curse.

The cutting curse decapitated the azalea bush, deflected away by the silver-masked wizard, but the piercing hex, unexpected, and too fast to be dodged, bore straight through the other slender wizard who hissed and fell fortunately to one knee, letting the bone splintering curse strike his ribs, rather than his pelvis.

Now he understood how Voldemort cast so many curses so quickly. Not only had he undergone rituals, learnt to twist his wand motions into one another, but he was capable of casting many of his curses without words or gestures, slipping the spells into his string of hexes.

'Crabbe, Goyle,' the silver masked wizard spat, 'stop acting like fools. Rookwood, use that mind you are so proud of.'

Rookwood pushed himself back to his feet, weight all on one side, and the fingers of his left hand pressed into the chest of his robes where Harry's spell had struck him.

'Legilimens,' he snapped, meeting Harry's eyes.

He received a flicker of images, dark hair burning slowly, red liquid spilt on snow, bright brown eyes in a pale dead face, and the greenish glint of glowing opals.

How dare you.

Rookwood froze, the impressions he sent faltering, swallowed by nothingness, consumed.

Fool, he thrust into the wizard's mind, smiling as he flinched from Harry's fury, but unable to clear his thoughts, or push Harry from his head.

Legilimency was a double-edged sword.

Harry slipped his own images in among Rookwood's, glowing crimson eyes, the whisper of black silk along wet grass, the sibilant hiss of parseltongue, then, as Rookwood relaxed, his assault less dangerous than the wizard had expected from Harry's wrath, he drove the pain of the torture curse deep into Rookwood's head, and filled his thoughts with every iota of his rage.

He twisted Rookwood's mind with his fury, bent it beyond all recognition, anger seared cold and sharp though the Death Eater's thoughts, obliterating everything else away, reason and recollection fled from it, and Rookwood crumpled, screaming to the floor, hands pressed against his temples, shivering and shaking as blood ran from his nose, ears and eyes.

A single piercing hex stilled his shrieks, and Harry turned to face the remaining three.

'Shit,' Goyle swore, 'Dolohov what do we do now?'

'We do what we would have done if we hadn't been lumbered with that useless spy,' Dolohov snapped, 'curse him. You two pin him down, and force him to shield, I'll break through and finish the duel.'

Too simple, Harry smirked. They are used to fighting aurors of equal or less strength than themselves.

Harry repeated his attack, using Grindelwald's adopted tactic as effectively, and frequently as he could, burying the Death Eaters beneath a hail of spells so they couldn't retaliate, pinning them between the skeletons of the cars Sirius had set ablaze and the column of flames and smoke that had once been the Dursleys' home.

The half-molten, charred chassis screeched to life under the tip of the Elder Wand, writhing in sharp, tipped tendrils and striking towards the Death Eaters.

The stockier of the two, Crabbe, swore, blasting them away, but Goyle was slower, and the creeping metal vines ensnared him, slicing deep, thrusting through his stomach, slipping between his ribs then stretching wide, tearing him in two.

Dolohov tore the metal vines apart, then banished the cars back across the street so the two of them would no longer be in each other's way.

The silver-masked Death Eater seemed to be the only one of the four with any idea of duelling tactics.

Crabbe tore the white mask from his face, hurling it aside, and unleashed a torrent of fiendfyre in Harry's direction to avenge his bisected companion, but he was no master of the piece of magic. A simple flick of the Elder Wand and the raging chimera dissolved, the hungry, red tongues slumping low and spreading to swirl back around him, melting tarmac into sticky black pools beneath their feet.

Harry ushered the fire forwards in a wave, obscuring their sight. Dolohov banished it with a simple slash of his wand, but Harry had already taken his opportunity. The melted tarmac slid from beneath Crabbe's feet, slithering swiftly up his legs, setting his robes alight.

None of his desperate attempts at magic freed him from the tar, so he dropped his wand to claw at hit, burning his hands and fingers as it spread up his throat, spilling over his lips and down his throat.

He banished the fiendfyre; it was unnecessary now. Dolohov would not be killed with such a spell, and Crabbe was already dead.

The stocky Death Eater hadn't realised it yet, but both Harry and Dolohov had.

A string of brightly coloured curses burst from the Death Eater's wand, and the silver-masked wizard, moved swiftly and erratically around Harry, casting all manner of magics from every angle, but where he was fast, Harry was faster, where he was powerful, Harry's puissance was greater, and every spell fizzled out into the congealing tarmac.

Brilliant, white sparks spiralled around the Elder Wand, condensing with a crackle, and the smell of burning ozone.

Harry did not unleash the spell as a single bolt this time, but flicked the tip of the wand, sending thin tendrils of lightning out in long, flashing whip.

It cut through Dolohov's conjured copper barrier, and his hastily cast Shield Charm as easily as it did the air, severing his wand arm at the elbow, and cauterising the cut instantly.

'I was assured that the four of us would be more than enough,' Dolohov gritted, clutching the stump of his missing limb, and watching with Harry as Greyback finally succumbed, exhausted, and unable to heal.

'Did Voldemort tell you that?' Harry asked, amused at the wizard's ignorance. 'I think you failed him once too often, now he wants to see what I will do to you without the attachment he has torn from me to hold me back.'

'I am Inner Circle,' Dolohov wavered, 'I'm not as expendable as those idiots.'

'You all look quite expendable to me,' Harry smirked, teeth flashing in the viridian light of the killing curse that finally put down Fenrir Greyback.

'Crabbe and Goyle were inept,' Dolohov agreed, 'Rookwood thought himself smarter than us all, but a spy is useless after being revealed.'

'And you are simply a sacrifice,' Harry finished.

'Unfortunately for you, Antonin,' a calm voice whispered, 'Harry is right.'

'My Lord,' Dolohov stuttered, horrified.

'Fulminis,' Harry dismissed.

The white beam of lightning leapt from his wand, striking Dolohov on the forehead with a violent flash. The street lamps above him burst, small shards of glass scattering across the street, and the wizard burst first into flames, then into ashes, leaving only a warped, melted silver mask to smoke on the floor where he had knelt.

Voldemort stepped forwards, placing a foot either side of the mask, and wandlessly summoning it to his hover over his hand.

'Oh shit,' Harry heard Sirius mutter.

'I gave these to those who swore themselves to me,' Voldemort said evenly. 'I would lead them, give them power, fame, and influence, and in return they would stand beside me until death, after death, even.'

Harry glanced at Sirius, who leant forwards slightly, then shook his head.

Anti-apparition wards, Harry realised.

There was no snake, no followers, he was already slightly tired from duelling, and the cup still languished in Gringotts, but this was the best chance he had been given so far.

'Antonin betrayed me,' Voldemort seethed, shivers of heat washing across the few feet that separated him from Harry. 'I, the greatest wizard who has lived, offered him a chance to stand beside me, and he lied to my face, indulging himself whenever he pleased, harming whoever he wished, ignoring my instructions, my orders, and the loyalty he owed me.'

He dropped the mask onto the floor, kicking it spitefully away into the burning house.

'I despise traitors,' he hissed in parseltongue.

'Have you not seen what you wished to see?' Harry asked warily.

A glimmer of amusement flickered through Voldemort's crimson eyes.

'I did not expect the old fool to die,' he said slowly. 'The younger Malfoy made his choice, succeeded, and then faced the fate he chose, but Dumbledore,' Voldemort spat the name in hatred, 'how did he die, Harry?'

'Not well,' Harry answered calmly, 'but better than Malfoy.'

He twirled his wand in his fingers, throwing a warning glance at his godfather.

'What are the lives of a few ordinary wizards compared to one extraordinary one,' Voldemort's lips curled into a cold smile, 'or the population of the wizarding world's greatest country. You must see that I have won, Harry. Dumbledore is dead, the Ministry is bleeding away in London, and soon it will all be mine.'

'They hate you,' Harry reminded him, shifting his weight to apparate. 'To them you will never be great, only terrible.'

'Let them hate me,' Voldemort hissed, suddenly incensed, 'it does not matter so long as they fear me.' His words sounded oddly rehearsed, as if he had repeated them to himself, over and over. 'To be great is to be powerful, to be powerful is to be feared, and none of them dare to even speak my name anymore.'

'Voldemort,' Harry said dryly, tearing down the wards Voldemort had cast without a word. The Elder Wand flared with power, and the Dark Lord's eyes widened almost imperceptibly in surprise at their shattering.

'Avada Kedavra,' the Dark Lord hissed, but the Killing Curse did not fly towards Harry. Instead it flashed past him, over his shoulder, to crackle through the air where Sirius had stood only moments before. Had Harry not warned him that he should be able to apparate his godfather would be dead.

'I will take them all from you eventually,' he promised coldly. 'And when they are gone, we will see if you're truly my equal.'

'I will be your better,' Harry told him furiously, watching the brilliant, white pinpricks of power swirl around Voldemort's wand, and matching the spell with his own.

'Your lies did not, and will not deceive me, Harry, and they will not help you deceive yourself,' the Dark Lord told him, amused. 'There is no veela girl waiting for you in France, your smokescreen may have fooled other, lesser wizards and witches, and kept Katherine Bell's true value to you from being realised by them, but I know better,' he murmured. 'And now she is dead. Sirius Black will be next, then Neville Longbottom, should he ignore what the world has come to think of you, Harry. I will tear them all away,' crimson eyes gleamed cruel, and curious, 'we will see then what power you have that I know not.'

'Fulminis,' Harry spat at the same time as Voldemort.

White lightning clashed between them, swelling bright for an ominous moment, as their spells struggled against one another, then, as Harry's proved itself equal, there was a blinding flash, and he was hurled back across the street away from Voldemort.

He glimpsed the Dark Lord's figure similarly spilled across the street as he picked himself up.

'Run, Harry,' Voldemort whispered hungrily, staring past the burning house that Harry had never called home, 'flee from death. I will see you soon enough.'

AN: Please read and review, thanks to everyone that does!