Many thanks to lubabpaul for the beta-ing!

1995-25 December

Tummy woke me from my slumber. I never really appreciated the winter holidays. That they began on winter's solstice, however, and at least that year, it had been a blessing.

I spent enough time listening to Potter talking to a snake that I was able to distinguish the strand of magic that made someone a parselmouth. Devising a ritual to learn it from the cursed Ravenclaw's diadem had been much more difficult. I performed it on the equinox, with Norse runes and the most brilliant application of Gubraithian Fire ever conceived.

I performed it under the stormy sky, over the Dover's cliffs. I transported my Eternal Flame in the centre of a stone circle before writing the runes in a blue fire on the wet grass. I put down the cursed diadem before storing away my wand in my iron trunk, that was left outside the stone circle along with my clothes. It was fucking cold. Raven left my shoulder after an almost kind nibbling of my ear. I didn't ask for suggestions; I didn't want to be spooked by something that wouldn't make sense anyway. I then cut my right palm before walking on each of the runes letting a specific number of drops of blood fall on them.

The first had been Raido. The rune for journey, with three drops of blood: one for me, one for Voldemort, and the last one for the one to win. My intent turned it into a promise, only one would complete the journey.

Then it came to Kenaz with Thurisaz. The first for inspiration, growth, creativity, revelation, the second for change, catharsis. With a single drop of blood: my end goal was to learn parseltongue.

It then came to Dagaz: dawn, breakthrough. With five drops of blood, my intent put my life on the line. Lightning, Wind, Water, Stone and Fire would forge me in this ritual.

Ansuz, like always, was the path I was walking, and the one that was more like me. Knowledge, Enlightenment, True Vision. Painstakingly, 21drops of blood found their way to the rune: seven for all the things that could not be truly hidden. Sun, Moon, Truth. That were also Life, Magic, Knowledge.

Lastly, I traced in blood the Isa rune on the middle of my forehead: psychological block to thought.

I grabbed the diadem with a bloodied hand and put it on my forehead, across the rune. I let the soul shard inside begin to seep into my mind, looking for the strand of magic that I recognized as parseltongue. I felt him crawling his way through my thoughts and my memories, but I couldn't let that distract me. He had been insidious, there was no pain while he invaded my mind and attempted to enslave my soul. When I recognized the potential twist that was parseltongue I listened to it so hard that I forgot what I was supposed to be doing. I wrapped myself around the twist-not twist, pressing my being against it until I felt it leave an impression on me.

But then I wasn't me any longer, who was I... Not-Tom Not-David stood there breathing slowly, trying to be.

Then he saw the Fire, and some of not-him wanted to enter it while some of not-not-him feared it. However Not-Tom Not-David knew one thing, it was that that instant in time wasn't a moment for fear. He felt the weight and the meaning of runes on which one part of not-him had spilled blood. They were part of a flow that wanted to bring him in a very clear direction. But the rune on his forehead was a stop on the road, was a wall of ice. Beyond that roadblock, there was the fire.

Not-David Not-Tom knew that not-him had been the one to prepare the runes, but not-not-him never used runes in this way. However, he knew that the greatest magic was often brought into being by an act of faith. Not-David Not-Tom didn't remember faith in what, or who. But something that both not-him and not-not-him agreed upon was that Not-Him should perform great feats of magic.

Not-David Not-Tom pushed forward, and entering the Flame, broke through the Isa rune. Then, Not-David only knew pain and scorching, annihilating flame.

I awoke naked in a stone basin, with my Gubraithian Fire covering me, warming me, protecting me from the rain and the cold wind. I rose, holding my head between my hands. I hurt.

"Winky" I grumbled. She appeared with a pop followed by her "Master called!"

"Put everything back home will you, and put me into bed, and this into the first floor of my trunk." I told her, handing over the Ravenclaw's Lost Diadem. There would be time to see if my ritual worked, but not immediately. Then I blanked out.

I spent the next few days hurting for being alive. But that happens, I supposed, when you entangle your soul with another, let the other leave an impression on your very being, and then set the other on metaphysical fire while you were still together. I meditated continuously just to feel like me once again. I didn't even want to think what my wand would do to me if I changed for the worst. Raven had been very complimentary of my stupidity. I checked myself thoroughly with one of the first forms of occlumency. I listened to myself, comparing what I found with what I remembered, but I couldn't be sure. In theory, the Perfect Gubraithian Fire is you, and while it does not actually behave like fire in the sense that does not actually burn, when put in conflict, however, it behaves like something alive (mirroring you) and consumes the not you.

I raised my wand, letting myself meet her and waiting for her judgment. Everything felt right. Like it was always meant to be.

So, I performed an experimental blood ritual. And now I could even say it worked!

I was glad I prepared the Christmas gifts with weeks to spare. I went all out with those.

I transmuted and enchanted a cat made of obsidian for Minerva that should answer to simple commands in Feline-Tongue. It would also spit a hummingbird that would fly around for a little while if you pulled its tail.

Bathsheba Babbling received a Rubik's cube I made. It was of wood and held a rune on each of the 54 little squares. I managed to put seven enchantments on it that would mesh and shuffle with each other in a pattern that followed the different arrays that would take form on the faces of the cube. Along with it went a list of what I exactly had done to it. It should be safe, but enchantments were not meant to work that way and could become... explosive.

Flitwick received a bottle holding in it what looked like a thunderstorm. The note I sent with it said that the glass was charmed unbreakable, but to make sure to hold on the cork for dear life if he ever wanted to direct it against something he didn't want to exist any longer. I was proud of my military might.

To Ollivander I sent a necklace-portkey to a cave I personally dug and enchanted in the isle of Mann. There was all the necessary to live off the grid in a very comfortable way. With a few necessities to craft wands with a few cores and some wood, along with a project I copied from the professor library: a flute-wand. It was well over my head however, so it would be something that could keep him busy for the remaining part of the war. The word to activate the portkey was "Loki".

Luna received a seed along with a potion. Once the first got planted, and watered with the second, it would sprout quickly and become a cherry tree, already in bloom. I managed to send her present with a crane shaped origami. It was two meters tall and should have exploded in a cloud of origami butterflies after having dropped the Christmas present.

Flitwick sent me a glass fox that could sit in the palm of my hand. It contained fire that flowed into it.

Minerva gifted me a spear. Yes, a spear. Two meters of spell resistant polished white marble, that would shrink until it was five inches long. 'To hold my growing hair in a proper way'. Spending every second of my free time in my Time Room had his price: while my ageing wasn't being noticed, my hair grew abnormally fast. Well, I was sure Dumbledore noticed.

Luna sent me a necklace made of corks. It felt... like a smile. I decided.

Babbling sent me a steel plaque with a runic array on it. It collected the sunlight that crossed it and turned it into a rainbow. And while it doesn't look like much, doing shit like that using only runes was madness.

Ollivander sent me a few wand cores that he thought could work well together. Like hell I was going to try to do a composite core wand anytime soon.

We discussed our presents at breakfast. The new Inquisitor sat there quietly, pretending to not exist. And while obviously Umbridge was still working at the ministry, I taught them that nobody hurt my students, period.

I learned parseltongue and the Chamber had been interesting. I stored away the Basilisk and its shredded skin, leaving a fang with a note if someone ever needed to destroy an horcrux. I also wrote down the position of each one of them. The ones destroyed at the current date had been crossed out.

Turns out that the only secrets the Chamber held were a few very old tomes. All of them about rituals, explaining things I already had deduced the gist of, even if the one with the proper instructions to breed a basilisk was interesting. Hatching an egg under a toad during a full moon was bullshit. Why the hell would anyone believe shit like that? Obviously, there were runes and blood involved. The study on the 'pure art of necromancy' had potential. Otherwise, bones and a lot of collapsed tunnels.

In January Voldemort hit Azkaban. Our esteemed government blamed Sirius Black.

Ravenclaw's enchantments didn't survive the ritual. I would keep the artifact safe until after Voldemort was actually dead.

Our studies on parseltongue completed, I gifted Potter a dream catcher when I noticed the bags under his eyes. It should also have actually worked.

In March the ministry found out about a giant in the forest and used it as an excuse to throw Dumbledore out.

Potter almost went berserk there. I led him into an empty room and gave him a short one on one lesson on duelling. "Rage can help you on the short term. It makes you focused and it makes you act. But it also blinds you." I explained calmly, while slapping away a stunner. "Rage is the weapon of the fearful. You can learn how to use it, but it always attempts to lead you astray."

He calmed down after a while.

The Inquisitor was a paper pusher that nobody actually listened, even if he was officially the headmaster.

Minerva and I demonstrated that it was impossible to have more than one Animagus form, because you couldn't learn to speak more than one tongue. I technically branded my soul with parseltongue, so I could attempt it, but until I devised a safe method, I would not attempt to become a yellow anaconda only to find myself stuck among different forms.

I determined that the Curse on the DADA position had been tied to the Lost Diadem. And from there, I learnt about curses: they were an obscure branch of wards. Voldemort felt entitled to the DADA teaching position, and when he came to Hogwarts to hide Ravenclaw's artifact left a piece of him on the position. The gist of it was that his soul shard would challenge every professor for the 'ownership' of the teaching position. He had always been advantaged since the new professor would enter his 'warded space'. Ownership of something was the first requisite to ward it after all. Having said that, Voldemort was a genius of all things violent. The curse would simply be one of 'unluck'. Which, in a thousand-year-old magic castle full of hormonal teens that couldn't tell the tip from the bottom of their wands, along with being so close to a Forest in which everything with a limbic system only wished to, at the best send you away and eat-destroy you at the worst, turned out to be surprisingly effective. The truly brilliant part of it had been that the castle itself supported Voldemort's soul shard as the rightful professor. Why? Because Tom Riddle managed to bring the not-luck away from the students and tossed it on his own position. The castle was tricked into seeing it as a proper sacrifice made from a member of the staff to protect the students. Which was one of the more core intents that seeped into the castle while it was being built. In the 'eyes' of Hogwarts, Voldemort had protected the students for decades taking the unluck on himself. Only that he directed the unluck on the teaching position, that he held only in name. Brilliant truly.

That brought me to briefly study the idea of 'luck'. But I had my hands full at the time, so I left it alone. I would send a letter to Slughorn about liquid luck the next year.

I sent a letter to Fleur in which I explained my wish to travel, at least during the summer.

Raven started to teach other ravens how to properly curse in English.

With babbling I started working runes into my origami, it wasn't exactly something with great applications, at least at that level of development.

I started winning against Flitwick three out of four times. Sometimes he and Minerva would gang up against me, and there I could only try to 'survive'. We were having fun, and to Minerva's joy, I used the spear she gifted to me here and there. It was useful against conjurations, since it would dispel them, but I had to wield it with both of my hands since it was magic resistant. Used in conjunction with my wandless telekinesis when I was surrounded by conjured animals however, held good results.

In my Time Room, I would re-watch our duels into a Pensieve, and I started to experiment with the theory behind magic that could bend time without a static focus.

Meaning that I wanted to be able to make a 'Time Room' that worked without the Room. I called the project 'Chronos'. Yes, I was a mad scientist sometimes, but I believed it was possible.

Applying to myself an expansion charm would obviously not work. Gravity would probably make me collapse on myself. Perhaps if I stabilized it with runes on the body? No, I would need to carve them in my bones.

I played some more with space manipulation: if apparating was compressing a distance before taking a step along it, what would happen to a spell that crossed a compressed space? It was a complex thing to analyze since people could dodge a spell apparating away, the obvious answer would be nothing. However, I studied no-apparition wards years before, so I started wondering if such a ward could be used during a duel. It wasn't that it forbids the compression of space, it only gave it a rubber-like quality so that if someone tried to apparate in it, he would bounce back, violently. What I wanted to achieve was something along the lines of compressing the space on the path of a spell before placing a no-apparition ward on it. It should expand suddenly while keeping the rubber-like consistency, flinging back the spell. Filius and I played with this idea for moths, with Bathsheba's input from time to time. After a lot of gruelling work, we made it. The truly wonderful result was something that could be performed under a no-apparition dome someone else casted. There were, like always, limitations. On Hogwarts Grounds we could perform the compress-ward-release compression routine that would effectively throwback both spells and ordinary matter, but only because the no-apparition ward of the castle was a dome so vast that it didn't even notice it. In the same way a forest doesn't notice if a branch of a single tree is pulled back before it being let go. That routine didn't work when the no-apparition ward you cast was performed in the proximity of another of comparable dimensions. And some spells just cut through it, why that happened was still a mystery. If someone knew about it, could anchor himself (and avoid being flung away) with a process similar to the Determination Rowling spoke of in the books.

I also got started on Necromancy. Now that had been very complex to reconcile with my explanation of animism. While an inferius was a puppet and nothing more, it was possible to summon the souls of the dead. It was actually easy.

Well it was, once you had a solid grasp of what souls were. Our identities unravel in the moment of our deaths and become part of the Whole once again. Using something that held a strong bond with the dead soul, it was possible to use it as a 'shape' that the flow of the world-soul could fill. I understood it so fast because of the blood ritual I used to learn parseltongue. The difference between the thing you called back, and the real deal was that the thing only behaved like the dead person you wanted to summon. It was more like a silver of world soul in human shape than anything else. It could be done using something that had with a strong bond with the one you wanted to bring back. The more strong the bond, the less you had to focus on the 'shape'.The shape you 'forged' magically, was not a heart-beating, blood-flowing construct, and you summoned something centred on being alive. That was why it usually tried to swap with your soul: it didn't matter how good was the 'shape' you prepared, your living body was better, and since you used your soul-voice to string together that thing, it would try to 'jump' into you. That was why an inferius in which you bound a soul (again with runes and enchantments) became very fast a mindless hunger-machine, that knowing it couldn't be truly alive, settled for trying to dig its way into living humans. I couldn't summon Bat-Man soul. While with a deep enough knowledge of someone you could craft a very exact 'shape', it was the world-soul's memory of it that filled the homunculus you prepared. While assisted possession was explored in-depth, in this world I didn't know anyone (among the dead) well enough to perform a summoning and check on this theory.

Then I remembered about the resurrection stone. I suspected it was simply something that allowed you to bypass the 'shape' building part. But then, how to explain James and Lily potter appearing at Harry's side in the Deathly Hallows? Harry didn't grow up with them, he couldn't know them. And an inanimate thing couldn't forge a 'shape' to be filled in the world-soul. It wouldn't make sense.

Taking it would once more completely bullshit the potterverse plot. But I already went against it, so, in for a penny...

Strong emotions leave a 'hook' in the soul of the others. I thought. And it made sense: at his basis, your soul-voice (which is your magic) acts on your will. While reason is more often than not the one to steer us around, emotions are much more powerful, older things. They were primordial: without us noticing, they would make our soul flutter in this or that direction. After all your identity is made by all of you: thoughts, feelings, memories, dreams. Loving someone, hurting when he's gone, being in fright when he is in danger, could, at least in theory, make your soul-voice scream in the world-soul-flow. An identity unravelling could take a hold on this screams. And explained the whole 'those who love us never really leave us' routine. It was true in reverse: if a dead person held in life strong emotions-strong bond with you, he could probably use those to grab onto something without completely unravelling. Or maybe those emotions carved a 'shape' in the Whole that would fill itself on its own. The ones that first said that a man dies when he's forgotten were more spot-on than they could hope to imagine. While Lily Potter was obviously very much dead, and her soul didn't actually linger in the form of a ghost, there was a shade of her intent wrapped around Potter. Emotions are the pinnacle of the evolutive process: 'run from pain- do things that bring the opposite of pain'. Anger toward what hurts you, Love to what makes you feel good. It snowballed from there and humans now held a lot of possible emotions to link with everything, every single event or person of their lives.

That brought me once again to think about gods and heroes of old. Was there a shadow of Achilles' identity whirling its way in the Whole? Memories are powerful things after all. I slapped myself: tangling with gods would come when I was older. The possibility of losing myself in searching the shadows in the Whole was very real, and I didn't have the faintest idea about how to properly search.

1996-23 June

I had been vaguely concerned. I did a lot of stuff, completely thrown the script out of the window, and yet we were still very close to the canon version of the books. Really, the biggest changes had been me as a Triwizard Champion and me as a professor. There hadn't been a dementor attack on Potter during the summer, and Umbridge had been thrown out of school before scarring anyone. My students learnt a lot that didn't learn in canon and were far more capable that what they would have been if they had only Harry as a teacher. I didn't notice his efforts into learning occlumency, but I did notice that he vanished in the night along with the Weasleys before the actual start of the winter holidays. Even when engrossed in my research, I had been tense. I only relaxed when nothing happened on the day Harry Potter sat his History of Magic OWL.

Sunday, I left the castle and reached Hogsmeade, before apparating to Little Hangleton's cemetery. It took me a while, but I found the Gaunt's shack. I have already explained that enchantments fade in a couple of decades unless you layer them during the 'forging'. Wards work only for things you 'own'. Such ownership is built with time and effort. If molly Weasley learnt to cast wards, and put them on the Burrow, they would be better than the ones made by Bill. Why? Because that woman was always doing stuff in the house or in the garden, and the Burrow would feel her as more... 'rightful'. It would be a subtle difference, mind you, but a difference still.

Voldemort came to the shack, killed the ones that owned it, dropped a piece of him along with a curse or two, warded it and left. But while it was true the a horcrux held ownership of the house, and kept the wards in place, Tom made a mistake. Horcruxes are a way to live forever, true, I still wouldn't recommend it. The soul does not perceive time. Time, that obviously was not linear, was perceived through movement (be it physical or not). Better, time is perceived through feeling changes. Your souls perceive time as a reflection of what your body, and your mind, observe. While the soul shards where magically sensible, meaning that they would recognize and react to magic, they were also still. In canon, Hermione read in Magic Most Evile that the soul shard was one and the same with its body. The body of horcruxes, as objects, couldn't perceive anything, and so, the soul shard was, for a lack of better terms, frozen in time. This had the effect of making the wards quiescent. The horcrux kept the wards in place in the same way my Gubraithian Fire would hold them in Rabbit's Hole if I were to never go back there. The 'Harry must go to Little Whinging to recharge the wards' routine, wasn't bullshit.

The shack's wards were asleep and let me through without a fuss once I spoke to the snake nailed on the front door. Parseltongue was the best. I made my way through the shack, looking around without casting anything with my wand, the reaction of the wards could be... dangerous. I brought my occlumency quality focus on the forefront of my mind.

Take the ring out without touching it. Take the ring out without touching it. Take the ring out without touching it. Take the ring out without touching it. Take the ring out without touching it. Take the ring out without touching it. Take the ring out without touching it.

I came back to my senses once I was again out of the shack, with a stone box in my right hand. I blinked.

I made it! I would stuff the box into my trunk once back at Hogwarts. I apparated back and made my way to my office.

When Tummy gave me a hastily scribbled note from Granger that explained they went to the ministry, I cursed. The twins hadn't left school, so they went along with their youngest two siblings, Longbottom, Granger and Potter. They probably organized this shit in the Gryffindor common room, so Luna didn't go. A silver lining if nothing else.

Dropping the box on the first floor of my trunk, I quickly donned my dragonhide armor, took up my stone sword from the office and made sure the spear Minerva gifted me was still holding my hair. I close the trunk and donned in its necklace form; one could never know. In the meantime, I sent my Patronus to Flitwick: he was to warn Dumbledore about Potter and the Department of Mysteries.

I used the Floo in my office and soon I was crossing the ministry's atrium. I've never been so glad that Raven started teaching other birds how to curse. She was a loyal companion and a welcome distraction, but she had no place on a battlefield.

Patronus messages, sadly, work only between people that hold a somewhat strong emotional connection, or if you know the general position to send them, so I wasn't expecting help anytime soon.

I was also thinking about the nature of prophecy. What were the odds that Voldemort would trick Potter in the only hours I hadn't spent at school? Maybe Dumbledore is playing the long game I realized. Because really, if shit like this happened anyway, the whole 'let him take his blood to come back to life' thing held a whole other meaning. I probably owed the old warlock an apology. He was still a scheming old bastard, but a brilliant one. It was like being forced to play cards without really being able to choose your next move. So, he was cheating, manipulating the deck. I put that thought away. While revealing, and truly game-changing, I had to focus on my wayward students.

I cast tracks revealing charms and saw the afterimages of the students running toward the lifts. The death eaters were probably lying in wait for their ambush.

I always liked charms: they were a brief imposition of your will upon reality. Needed to grab something? Will it to jump into your hand. Needed people to not really notice you? Will the stuff around you to be unimportant. Need to know who just walked in a place? Will the ground to remember what stomped on it, the air to shimmer around the path they have taken. This peculiar charm was more like a transfiguration in my opinion, but hey, I only study this stuff, the names were already there.

In short, charms were a direct approach that allowed you to change reality without having to perform the whole 'change the physical manifestation' of something into something else that was required in transfiguration.

I ran forward.

Seriously, I spent the whole year teaching them to mistrust the appearances and to think before acting. So, what is it the first thing they do when Potter has a vision? Act on the assumption that it's true. I sighed, reaching the spinning room. I tried a track revealing charm to see which not crossed outdoor they opened but the charm unravelled when it touched the doors' handles. I opened an unmarked one. Nope. I crossed it out before closing it and trying again. The marks on the doors had vanished.

Stupid security measures

I opened a random one: The Veil Room, I listened for a second. That thing was a scary mess of unravelling threads that gave me a headache.

On my third attempt, I had been successful.

Cloaking myself in shadows I crept forward. A silencing charm covered not only my steps, but also the brushing of my hair against the high collar of my armour, and the sounds made from my legs hitting the folds of dragonhide. It was more like a coat than anything else, really, cut à la assassin creed, with dragon bone plaques over my shoulders, and a flexible but sturdy stuffing made from dragon sinew protected my spine.

I reached the students when Potter was starting his pre-battle banter with Malfoy.

My students were surrounded. Knowing I had a little time, I started weaving illusions and transmuting several ice needles from the water in the air. I had no qualms about killing, why should I have? I would sooner be saddened by having killed the sphinx. Silently, I made my way to the backs of two death eaters, took a deep breath and unleashed death under the form of almost invisible ice needles. They hit them between the first and the second cervical vertebra, killing them on the spot.

In the following half-second, several things happened at the same time: my students were wrapped in a sense deprivation dome, my 'Aurors' started throwing spells at the Death Eaters and I unleashed a bolt of lightning that deep-fried one of the masked turds along with a huge thunderclap.

After the first half-second, I dropped the sense deprivation dome while landing between my students and the bulk of the death munchers.

"Stay together, guard high, reach the atrium, Floo to my office." I ordered Potter. I couldn't look at him, but I felt in the magic of the kids that they were calmer. I gave them orders in the same format I used during the 'war games' I held every two months during the year. It was just another exercise.

I couldn't look at him because I was busy. There were a lot of them and only one lonely me. Sure, three of them were already dead, but I had to give time to the kids holding off 11 wizards and witches very adept at the art of using magic to destroy stuff and people. I didn't dare to bring fire into the equation for fear that one of them would wrestle its control away from me. I had to adapt and do it fast.

With a push and a twirl, I compressed the space between us and the death eaters, before placing a no-apparition ward on it, at the same time I pressed my soul-voice on me and my students, anchoring us all to where we stood. I let go of the space-compression. The death eaters around my students, along with the shelves of prophecies in the immediate proximity, were flung away like thrown by a sling. I didn't stop, I gave them space, now they needed time. I lifted my weight from my students while, with a feat of finesse anyone would be hard-pressed to match I used the humidity of the air to create microscopic crystals of ice in a pattern I liked, before letting the thunderbird feather in my wand sing.

From the spruce tip, a net of lighting exploded outward, each strand running toward a specific target. I threw myself forward with a controlled compression-ward-release combination where my feet were anchored. I slammed my bone covered right shoulder in the sternum of a death eater, before slashing my stone sword upwards and cutting off his right arm. Something flashed in front of my face and I only my trained reflexes allowed me to flick my wand to lift a section of the floor to intercept whatever that flash-thing was. I pushed myself back, protecting my only eye with my left arm: shrapnel in the eye would have ended the battle very quickly.

Probably the death eaters were either barking orders at each other or cursing at me or taunting the mudblood professor that came to save the wayward students. I never really understood why anyone would talk during a fight. If your focus wavers you could die! Get a grip people.

So, I kept going. I flung my stone sword in one direction before snapping another lightning in another direction. They threw at me concussive, cutting, bone-breaking, blood-boiling curses and one idiot even tried to use lightning against me. Parts of the floor or prophecies moved around me in a whirlwind, intercepting their spells before being transfigured in goshawks and attacking the little shits in black. I realigned the ice crystals in the air and the lightning the idiot used against me hit his own comrade.

They were good, don't get me wrong, without the enchanted dragonhide armour I used they would have won in the long run. But I fought Minerva and Filius at the same time to a standstill (Only once, but it still counts). The death eaters also weren't used to having someone using lethal force against them and were probably spooked a bit by my feral smile. I was trying to regulate my breathing, but my howling laughter was making it difficult. And like against the sphinx, part of me noticed I was having fun. There is something incredibly refreshing into giving your all against someone or something that wanted to kill you. It was... honest. No tricks, no lies, no plans. Well I was trying to lure them in this or that trap, but they were doing it too and we all knew it. Researching was interesting, and it forced you to think in a lot of different ways. When you solved a difficult problem... it was like having found the nirvana, if only for a second. Fighting for your life was exhilarating. I had to reign myself in from time to time, collapsing the ceiling on our heads was a bad idea, but it was brilliant animating their clothes so they would try to strangle their owners.

Alchemy was my best friend. Redirecting my momentum kept my movements from being predictable, and that kept me ahead of them. They were almost painfully easy to read: curses and shields. One among them tried to use a flame whip. Idiot.

His understanding of fire was nothing compared to mine, so with a wave of my wand, the whip turned into a flaming phyton that ate its original caster.

I stopped when the last of them fell. However, out of the 11 I still had to remove; I only took down 3. Meaning 8 of them run after my students. Among the missing, Bellatrix and Malfoy. I lost my sword, but there was a left-arm I cut off at the beginning of the fight.

Good enough.

The 14 death eaters became 11 after mi first assault, and they fought me while slowly leaving the room to run after the kids, trusting in the last three to put me down. There still were 8 of them.

I found them in the Death Room, they were far enough from the Veil that it didn't particularly put me on edge. I mean, I was tired, I had a broken rib, I couldn't properly move my right arm and still had to protect my 7students from dark wizards and witches. Once again, my students were surrounded by 8 death eaters.

The kids were battered, but all breathing. The twins were keeping a ward on the ground... marked with their blood? What the fuck? Oh, probably they thought about it after our discussion on warding and ownership.

I thought they were asking about it only to learn how to prank better, I foolishly believed it was their only angle. Granger and Ginevra were back to back, keeping their wands raised holding several rocks afloat, to block killing curses. Those are my girls. Longbottom and Ronald were propped one against the other, spent, but with a fierce glint in their eyes. Potter had broken glasses and an ugly cut on his right cheek but held his holly wand proudly in his right hand, the prophecy clutched in his left.

"When we'll give our statements to the Aurors," I started, causing everyone to look at me "we will describe that ward as Family Magic ok? No need to spend seven years in Azkaban for experimental and highly volatile blood magic."

The twins snorted. "You're a tad bit late professor." they chimed.

"Where are them!?" shrieked Bellatrix. I turned my gaze on the crazy witch, pretending I didn't notice her until that moment. Psychological warfare is in the details after all.

"Oh, they earned their Acceptable, for the effort you know. But if you're looking for them, you'll have more luck checking behind that thing." I replied, rising the arm I cut toward the Veil. To spook them some more, I animated the hand with a twitch of my wand. I was holding it from the elbow, and then the fingers moved to point at the Archway of Death. The dark mark on the forearm was there to be seen by everyone. The kids looked a bit green. I once again cursed at my missing eye, winking at them would have reassured them but... Maybe I could use it.

We were still in the banter-phase of the battle, so I went on ignoring Bellatrix outraged scream: "I know that a friendly wink in this kind of situation would probably reassure you, but you couldn't distinguish it from my blinking, so I really don't know what kind of secret signal I should use." the limb I was holding in the meantime circled through an OK sign, thumb up, and it even moved the fingers mimicking a duck's beak. I was keeping an eye on the death eaters that were stunned by my display, but I grinned when I heard Longbottom guffaw. I bought them two minutes to rest while calming them with the sheer absurdity of the show they were looking at. Only using words and a parlour trick. I needed all the time I could buy too, even if my head was starting to ache, I kept weaving enchantments into the rocks.

"So, who do we have under these shiny tiny masks, I wonder? Our beautiful ickle little Bella doesn't need one, and with that princess hair Lucy would be recognized anyway... Ah the Carrows twins perhaps? No? Then we must have the three Lestranges all in the same room! Who are the last two..." I left my voice stall for a second.

That blood ward looked solid, so I spoke: "New plan, hold the position, don't leave the ward, guard raised, break the prophecy if they come close to one of you or they kill me. Your lives are the priority." The last tidbit was to stop the death eaters from using lethal force against me, it would make everything easier.

When fighting with the intent to kill, spells that would be acceptable even in a friendly duel would be twisted a bit and hold the potential to kill, it brings the whole fight on another level. After a certain level, when you must not kill someone, you need to be careful to each of your stunners, because they could fling someone to crack open their skulls against a rock. Ant that it's only an example.

I once again became the whirlwind, conjuring white ravens to misdirect or take a spell in my stead, rising spears from the ground to impale someone while smothering the fire that would have otherwise swallowed my students. The death eaters in this room were on another level from the ones I faced in the Prophecies Room. And while there I could move freely, here I was forced to shield the children from ward shattering curses that would probably end up killing at least one of the Twins. When I was just about to kill one, another would force me to shield, either myself or the students. However, I bitch-slapped one death eater with the limb I was using like a baton at least twice, so I was somewhat happy.

Then the Order came. Breaking down the door and raining spells on the death eaters. I didn't stop running and left the death eaters alone, finding myself on the border of the twins' ward. I started raising my own shield: five pillars of rock rose from the ground in a circle around the kids. Runes in blue fire found their way on each of the columns, while a golden flame burned bright over my stupid students.

Only when I felt it take, I took a deep breath, while I was reorganizing my thoughts I spoke again: "Miss Granger and Weasley keep your levitation charms active." I stopped to grab Potter for the scruff of his neck. The idiot was running into the crowd. I shook him: "We don't have time now for your stupidity, Potter, stay put! Messers Weasley, this ward is going to kill you if you are not careful, I can help, but my influence on it is brittle. Slowly, let it go, first the ownership through the blood, then the intent. Steady, yes, just like that." I guided them through the process, trusting my five-pillar shield and the two witches to keep an eye out for killing curses. When they finished the work, they fainted. I pulled out a blood replenishing flask and ordered Longbottom to make them drink two gulps of it each, before closing their wounds with a tired wave of my hand. It was then that I noticed two things: Potter was no longer where I put him, and Dumbledore was late. Ronald too fainted. Fanfuckingtastic. In theory, I didn't know about the Order, so I could hardly show trust in someone belonging to a group that counted among his members Sirius Black. I couldn't just leave my students on a battlefield under the care of one of the Order, only to go after Potter.

I noticed Black on the ground, with a knife handle sprouting from the right side of his chest. While he looked dead, and that was probably why Potter ran away, I could feel the fleeting spark of his dying magic. I sneaked at him a variant of the stasis spell I developed while working at the project Chronos. Same principle of my Time Room, sadly, it slowed down everything, if cast on myself would turn me in some retarded golem. Every seven minutes of real-time would be one single second for the unconscious form of Sirius Black.

I turned toward my students; I still didn't know what to do. Then I blinked: I am an idiot.

I removed my necklace and turned it into my loyal iron trunk before telling the kids that could hear me to jump inside. Hermione looked at me like I was crazy, but Ginevra just nodded before walking down the staircase. Longbottom and Granger followed, then I floated down the three unconscious students. Lastly, I threw my head inside, shouting: "They just need to sleep, I put a river in that direction, if you're thirsty. STAY ON THIS FLOOR, the shit I put downstairs is lethal for anyone but me. And for the love of Merlin do not cast spells, you could destabilize it and make it collapse. Are we clear?"

Granger appeared a bit startled, and I suppose they were still a bit out of it, but after having seen me raining death on the death eaters and use one of their arms as a club, she looked to be taking me seriously. That's enough for me.

The second floor wasn't actually dangerous, but it was my place, I didn't want people poking their unwelcome nose around it. And I wanted even less to have students throw magic around in it. It could be used safely, it was obvious. But I felt safer by spooking them.

I closed the lid before putting it once more around my neck. I cast another glance around. There were still 8 death eaters around. That is what happens when you don't kill them. At least cut away their legs. No, we prefer to be noble, and let others die for it. Idiots.

When I reached the atrium, it was just in time to see Voldemort disarming Potter with a slash of his wand. What's wrong with this universe and the canon story? Seriously it's like I didn't even exist!

Even while I was thinking this, I was already casting. I yanked Potter toward me with a wandless summon from my right hand. My right shoulder was locked in place by something I didn't have the time to check. With a wave of my left hand, the statues on the fountain came alive, rushing to protect Potter, that was safely tucked away near the lifts. I sprouted a jet of water to my own face, to wake myself up a little. It had been a long day.

I got a grip in time to see Lestrange finish her whispering, and Lord Voldemort red gaze locked on me.