Mr Pluck's terrifying proclamation was met by dead silence from all around him. It lasted for a long time as everyone looked at everyone else in disbelief. No one had seen this coming, least of all Harry.

"How is this even possible?" Bones finally asked as she ran a trembling hand across her cheek down to her throat. "Are you sure they're all dead, Mr Pluck? Dementors don't kill their victims when they suck their souls out."

Before Mr Pluck could reply, Harry said, "They can if they speed up the proceedings."

Even Tom gave Harry a questioning look at hearing that. "Please explain," Bones said, narrowing her eyes at Harry. It was clear from her behaviour that while she might not have any proof, she seemed certain Harry knew more about the whole mess than he was saying.

Sighing, Harry absently rubbed a hand on his chest as he spoke. "When souls are ripped from a body quickly, the body dies instantly."

"That's what happens when one is hit with a killing curse," Tom said quietly with a nod full of understanding.

"Exactly." Harry glanced at the people around him, to see if they also understood this concept. "Usually, dementors remove a soul slowly, drawing out the process, savouring it. The body then remains alive for a while longer, depending on how much magic is left in the victim. But dementors can reap a soul quickly enough to kill their victims. This is what happened here, I'm sure. I doubt you'll find anyone left alive."

"But why would they do such a thing?" the young Auror named Parker asked, looking like he wanted to cry, his bottom lip trembling. "They worked for the Ministry. They shouldn't have attacked us."

"They only went along with the Ministry's demands as long as it suited them," Tom said in a voice that made it clear he found Parker to be terribly naïve. "They were never loyal to anyone here."

Harry wisely kept his mouth shut, even when Bones gave him a searching look.

"Something must have set them off," Bones muttered, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. She bowed her head but once again glanced up at Harry. "Or someone ordered them to attack."

"Are you accusing me, Madam Bones?" Harry asked, jaws clenched. He wasn't about to let anyone utter any kind of accusations against him without a shred of proof. "Because I assure you, I did not order any dementor to attack."

"Are you willing to repeat that statement under Veritaserum?" Bones asked, not at all impressed by Harry's rising anger.

Harry whipped his wand out of its holster. "I can do better than that. I, Harry James Potter, swear on my magic that I did not order the dementors to attack anyone in Azkaban or in the Ministry of Magic today. So mote it be." A woosh of magic swirled around him, confirming the vow. Harry wordlessly cast his Patronus and the silvery barok loped around the room a few times before dissolving again.

Everyone stared at Harry with wide eyes, even Tom. Swearing on your magic was incredibly dangerous, because vows could be very tricky things. One never knew how certain words or phrases could be interpreted by the vow, so hardly anyone was willing to make them when their magic was on the line.

"Yes, thank you, Mr Potter, for clearing that up," Bones said, and Harry could at least appreciate that she wasn't giving him any false apologies about her earlier suspicions. Harry could well understand why she'd considered him a suspect in the first place. A powerful necromancer shows up out of nowhere and next thing the wizarding world knows the dementors go insane and murder innocent people left and right. If Harry had been in her shoes, he'd have been suspicious of himself as well.

"There he is!" Fudge said as he came storming up to them, his usual entourage following closely behind. "Amelia, arrest Harry Potter! He is behind this!"

"Cornelius," Bones said with a tired sigh. "Mr Potter has just sworn on his magic that he had nothing to do with the dementor attack."

That brought Fudge up short and he gaped at Bones. "Oh. Are you sure?"

"Yes, entirely." Bones frowned and all but turned her back on Fudge. She clearly wasn't in the mood to put up with the man's usual incompetence. "Thank you for your help, Mr Potter. As you can see, we are in the middle of a crisis right now and don't have time to entertain leaders of foreign nations."

Well, that was a dismissal if Harry had ever heard one and he shared a knowing smile with Tom. "Send us a message if you need our assistance," Harry said with a short nod at Bones. "Magica's resources are at your disposal during these trying times." Tom also gave a nod and then they headed for the exit.

Fudge gave Harry a faint sneer but otherwise ignored him. "We have to get on top of the press," Fudge said as Harry and Tom slipped past him out of the door. "I could lose my job if they spin this the wrong way."

As they walked out of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Harry thought that there was a very good chance that Fudge might lose his job over this mess, no matter how the press brought the story out in the open. Fudge was ultimately responsible for the Ministry and Azkaban. Something had gone horribly wrong under his leadership, so the right thing to do was for him to resign. Harry doubted Fudge would do such a thing, so the Wizengamot would probably end up voting for his immediately dismissal.

Ah well. Not Harry's problem. He had his own country to run.

Tom was unusually quiet as they walked through the hallways and up a few flights of stairs. There were still bodies lying on the floor here and there, but there were also plenty of witches and wizards levitating other bodies towards a makeshift morgue. Harry wondered if Tom blamed him for any of this. Harry had brutally obliterated a handful of dementors, which probably helped to set them off in the first place. Then again, Tom was the one who had verbally signed the dementors' death warrant right in front of them.

When it came down to it, they were both to blame, at least as far as Harry was concerned. He had no idea what Tom was thinking, because the man kept his mouth shut. He barely even looked at Harry. They used the visitor's entrance and once they reached the street, Tom apparated them back to Magica.

An older wizard sat behind the counter of the Transportation Terminal and Harry and Tom produced their passport without even being prompted.

"I'm going to spend the afternoon at Gaunt Mansion," Tom said, still not looking at Harry as they walked out of the building. The moment they were outside, Tom launched himself into the air and was gone in seconds.

Yeah, Harry wasn't going to chase after him when Tom obviously wanted to be alone. So Harry flew back to his own home, where V was eagerly awaiting him.

"What happened, what happened?" V demanded from his spot on the chandelier the moment Harry opened the heavy door. "Where is Tom, where is Tom?" V took wing and sailed down to land on Harry's shoulder, pulling on a few strands of Harry's hair in greeting.

"The rest of you is currently moping in his own home," Harry said as he scratched V's feathery breast. "Though whether he's pissed off at me or at himself, I haven't a clue."

"Stupid man, stupid man," V concluded with a clap of his beak. Harry grinned at him, wondering if V even realized that he was essentially insulting himself. Perhaps he did, and simply didn't care.

It was just past noon, according to the grandfather clock in the entrance hall. Harry thought about going down to the kitchen for lunch, but he didn't have much of an appetite. He felt restless yet listless as he stood in the hall, unsure where to go and what to do.

"Tea, tea," V insisted, pulling on some more of Harry's hair.

Harry really could do with some wine, but perhaps day drinking wasn't a good idea when he may or may not be having his first fight with his significant other. So tea it was. "Violet, please bring me tea in the library."

Once Harry was seated in his favourite leather armchair, a steaming cup of tea in his hand, he allowed himself to relax a little more. He really had bollocksed this all up, hadn't he? Dozens and dozens of people had been killed because he'd been careless, that's what it came down to.

Harry hated failing at anything, but especially when it resulted in lives lost. He'd made mistakes, plenty of them, back when he'd been in charge of Sildar. But none of those mistakes had resulted in so many lives lost all at once.

No, this time Harry knew he was to blame and he wasn't sure what to do with that knowledge. It sat like a heavy, bitter rock right in the middle of his chest, pressing on his heart. He considered visiting Sirius, perhaps talk to him, but no, Sirius might judge him. Sirius had been against the whole Azkaban breakout from the start, so Harry imagined that his godfather wouldn't find it difficult to blame Harry for this whole mess. As he probably should.

No, in the end, there were only two people Harry really wanted to talk to. It was funny, in a way. Here Harry was, a century and a half old, and he still needed his Mum and Dad to comfort him from time to time. As he brushed his thumb across his amulet to summon his parents, Harry wondered if that sentiment would ever go away.

"Harry, what's wrong?" Lily asked the moment she appeared. "Severus had just been summoned by Dumbledore about something happening in the Ministry."

"What?" James asked, looking between Harry and Lily a few times. "What happened in the Ministry?"

"Dementors attacked," Harry whispered as he sipped his tea. "They killed a few dozen people before I destroyed them all."

"Oh, darling, that wasn't your fault," Lily assured him as she crouched down beside his chair.

"But it was." Harry had to swallow a few times against a hot lump in his throat before he could tell his parents about what exactly had happened.

"I can't say I regret all the Death Eaters meeting their end," James said, arms crossed and a defiant look on his face. "Good riddance, as far as I'm concerned."

Lily ignored her husband and kept her focus on her son. "You didn't intend for anyone to get hurt, sweetheart."

"But they did," Harry muttered, turning the empty tea cup in his hands around and around as he stared off into space. "Lots of people got hurt, because I fucked up."

"You can't control everything," James said with a quiet chuckle. "I know this is hard to believe, Harry, but even you, powerful as you are, cannot control the actions of every living thing around you. At some point you're just going to have to accept that you're going to fuck up. Everyone does."

Yeah, Harry knew that in theory, but in practice it was a lot harder to accept when there was a Ministry littered with corpses because Harry couldn't plan two steps ahead to save his life. "I think Tom blames me, too," Harry whispered, finally confessing what probably bothered him the most about the whole mess.

Lily narrowed her eyes, ready to come to the defence of her child at once. "If he does, he's a toerag."

"Toerag, toerag!" V cawed in agreement, hopping up and down the headrest of Harry's chair.

"From where I'm standing, he holds more blame in this than you," James said with a firm nod, sounding as though he brooked no argument in this from anyone. "You should probably just break up with him."

Harry rolled his eyes, though he couldn't help a smile from pulling on his lips at his father's rather obvious attempt to get rid of Harry's paramour.

"Just talk to him," Lily said quickly, scowling at her husband. "Ignore your father and just tell him how you feel. You know that good relationships start with good communication."

"Yeah, I know," Harry sighed and poured himself another cup of tea. He wanted to talk to Tom, but he wasn't going to chase the man down, demanding his attention. He wasn't a bloody teenager. Tom would come to him when he was ready to interact with him again. For now, Harry would allow him the time Tom needed to come to grips with what had happened.

The rest of the afternoon, Harry spent drinking tea and telling his parents about everything else that was happening in Magica. Right before dinner time, Sabrina stopped by.

"Would you give me a quick interview about what happened at the British Ministry today?" Sabrina asked, a notebook and quill at the ready in her hands.

"Sure," Harry said and gave her the sanitized version of events, sticking to the story they'd told Bones. It was only now that he realized that there were probably at least a few inhabitants of Magica who had just lost a loved one in the Ministry that morning. "Perhaps we should have an extra town meeting tomorrow evening?"

"That's probably a good idea," Sabrina said as she scribbled in her notebook. "I'll include it in the article. People will want to hear from their leader in the face of such loss."

Harry nodded and walked Sabrina to the door. Sabrina strolled down the path towards Spellbridge as dusk fell around them. Harry looked in the direction of Gaunt Mansion but he detected no figure walking or flying in his direction. It seemed that Tom wasn't coming home for dinner. Harry closed the door, his stomach full of regret and sorrow. He still didn't have an appetite, but he forced himself to eat one of Violet's pork pies in the kitchen. Afterwards, he decided he might as well go to bed, since it had been a long day.

Harry had a soak in his bathtub but he was far too distracted to enjoy the hot water like he usually did. So he dried off and crawled into bed, pulling the covers up all the way to his chin. It was funny how quickly Harry had gotten used to sleeping beside another person. Now that said person wasn't there, Harry couldn't find the rest he needed to actually fall asleep.

The door to the bedroom creaked open, letting in some light from the oil lamps in the upstairs hallway. Tom snuck inside without saying a word and started undressing himself. He still ignored Harry when he slipped under the covers and turned his back to him.

Sighing, Harry rolled onto his back. Yeah, he understood that Tom might need a bit of time for himself to deal with everything, but Harry wasn't about to put up with any silent treatment in his own home. "I'd much prefer it if you just told me to my face that you blame me, instead of this passive aggressive bullshit that you're pulling now."

Tom also rolled onto his back and turned his head to stare at Harry. "I don't blame you," he said and then released a shuddering breath. "I blame myself."

"Toerag, toerag," V cawed from the headboard, ruffling his feathers in Tom's direction.

"I'm quite sure we both fucked up," Harry offered, because he didn't think it was fair for Tom to shoulder all the blame. "We both could have done things differently, but neither one of us intended for any of this to happen in the end."

"That's not…" Tom swallowed audibly in the near darkness. "I'm not used to not being the Dark Lord anymore. When I spoke in front of the dementors, I assumed they still feared me as they did during the first war. But I'm not Lord Voldemort anymore and the dementors knew that and it cost me a few people I considered friends once upon a time."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Harry said because he only now realized that Tom had suffered personal losses that day. To Harry all the victims were anonymous casualties. Their murders were regrettable, but they were not of personal interest to Harry. But Tom had lost friends.

"I'm not sure who I even am anymore," Tom mumbled, sounding as though he was talking to himself far more than he was to Harry. "This morning, in the ministry, I was practically useless because I couldn't even cast a Patronus charm. It's absurd."

"I'll help you learn," Harry said quickly, because he hated how despairing Tom sounded. "It's really not that difficult to learn. You've got more than enough power."

"And then what?" Tom asked him, eyes opened wide but staring at nothing. "I'm a Dark Lord who no longer demands any respect or obedience. Before, the dementors wouldn't have dared to touch any of my marked followers."

Harry reached out a hand and placed it on Tom's arm to offer him some quiet comfort. "Perhaps you need to establish your new identity without relying on people fearing you."

"Perhaps," Tom whispered, though he didn't sound convinced at all. "I am simply lost right now. I don't know who I am and I have lost some of my oldest friends because I forgot I am no longer Lord Voldemort."

Harry blinked as he realized something. "If we can get our hands on some of the bodies within the next day or so, I can probably resurrect your friends."

Tom sat up at once, staring down at Harry with widening eyes. "Could you? Truly?"

"I should be able to," Harry said, before raising a hand to cut Tom's reply off. "Unless the souls were damaged by being devoured by a dementor. I've never resurrected a soul like that, so I cannot be sure."

"I could procure one body and we could try it out first thing tomorrow," Tom said, his voice full of hope again. "Dolohov only has one elderly brother. I should be able to convince him to release the body to me. Or else I'll just use the imperius curse."

"That's the spirit," Harry said with a chuckle, glad to see his partner shed some of the grief that had cloaked him before. "You get the body and I'll get the ritual room set up. If Dolohov's resurrection is a success, we'll do the rest as soon as you get those bodies as well."

Tom rolled closer to Harry and pressed a firm kiss against the corner of his mouth. "We could even offer resurrection services to those who have perished in the Ministry. It would be a daring way to ensure people's acceptance of Magica, if we can give them back their loved ones who died before their time."

"Oh yeah," Harry said with a snort, though he wound his arm around Tom anyway to pull him into a hug. "I'm sure Fudge won't mind that at all. He'll probably claim I orchestrated the whole ordeal just so we could steal his citizens, dead or alive."

Tom leaned his cheek on Harry's shoulder as he burrowed closer still. "We can decide tomorrow, after we bring back Dolohov. Now let's get some sleep. I'm truly exhausted." Neither one spoke anything else as they waited for sleep to claim them.

After a quick, simple breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast, Tom went out to procure Dolohov's body while Harry prepared the ritual room. He was quite surprised when Sirius strolled into the dungeon, a paper clutched in his hand.

"Intruder, intruder!" V crowed as he turned around on Harry's shoulder to glare at the newcomer.

"Your dead butler let me in," Sirius said by way of explanation when Harry looked at him in shock. "What the fuck happened at the Ministry? James told me a bit last night already, but he insisted I should let you get an early night in."

"Basically, the dementors got wind that I planned to destroy them in the near future and they staged a revolt that ended in lots of people dead," Harry said matter-of-factly as he went back to his work. Having a clear goal in mind to undo some of the damage certainly helped keep his previous melancholic mood at bay.

"Merlin's sweaty socks," Sirius muttered, rubbing a hand vigorously across his face. "Those fucking things. But they're all gone now, aren't they? The dementors?"

"Yep, and there won't be any new ones immigrating here either," Harry said absently as he tapped various runes with his wand. "Since I closed the portal in the Department of Mysteries."

Sirius shuddered, probably remembering his very brief time in the deathlands after he'd been tossed through the veil. "And what are you doing now?"

Harry turned around to give Sirius a happy smile. "Resurrecting some of Tom's friends. He's getting one of their bodies, so I can hopefully put their soul back into it."

Sirius blinked. "If you're bringing back my crazy cousin, I'm cursing you, Harry, just so you know."

"Nah, not her, don't worry." Harry gestured at the Daily Prophet in Sirius' hand. "What's the paper saying?"

"That there are 71 casualties, including the whole of Azkaban's population," Sirius said with a shrug that did nothing to rid him of the obvious tension in his shoulders. "They're demanding Fudge step down since he obviously had no control of the dementors. Fudge is trying to blame everyone but himself, you included. Dumbledore's saying it's Marvolo Gaunt's fault, though he couldn't provide any evidence for his accusations."

Yeah, of course Dumbledore would seek to blame Voldemort's spawn, no matter any evidence to the contrary.

"Was there anything in the paper about the Department of Mysteries? And the collapse of their veil portal?" Harry asked with a small frown, wondering if the Unspeakables had even reported that event to Fudge yet. Or perhaps the Unspeakables had been so busy with the fallout of the dementor attack they themselves hadn't even noticed the collapse yet.

"No," Sirius said with a curious look at the paper. "Nothing about the veil." He stared at Harry, his grey eyes full of stormy emotions. "Did you really do away with that bloody veil?"

"Really," Harry told him in a calm voice, understanding that this must be bringing back lots of traumatizing memories for his godfather. "It's gone and it's never coming back. I promise."

Sirius squeezed his eyes shut. "Good fucking riddance."

"Toerag, toerag!" V cawed, announcing Tom's arrival.

"I'll leave you to it," Sirius said with a wrinkle of his nose, clearly not interested in seeing a dead body being brought back to life. He hurried out the dungeon, studiously ignoring Tom and the wooden box he levitated behind him.

"I got Dolohov's body." Tom enlarged the box and levitated it into the ritual room.

"Put his body in the middle of the circle. It's only been twenty-four hours, so the body should still be in good enough condition to resurrect." Harry rubbed his hands together, focussing his magic as Tom got the body situated. "I'm going to summon his soul and then guide it back into his body. It shouldn't take long."

Harry brushed his thumb over his amulet to summon Dolohov's soul. Harry had briefly met the man when he was still alive and he had his body laying on the stone floor in front of him, so summoning the right soul wasn't difficult.

Dolohov's translucent form looked twitchy and vaguely frayed. Harry frowned as he looked Dolohov up and down.

"What's wrong?" Tom asked, clearly realizing something was going on by Harry's reluctant reaction.

"This will sound funny, probably, but Dolohov feels wrong," Harry said, carefully extending his powers all around Dolohov. "He feels dead."

"That is funny, considering the circumstances," Tom said in a dry tone of voice, giving Harry an unimpressed look while he curved an eyebrow.

Dolohov's soul twitched again a few times, as though it was flickering in and out of existence.

"Was his soul damaged by the dementors?" Tom wondered out loud.

"That seems to be the case. Dolohov's soul did spend time inside of a dementor. Who knows how it was affected." Harry shrugged, unsure what to do, if anything. He'd never seen a soul like this before. "Well, let's bring him back and see what happens." Harry cut his hand with a small knife and smeared blood over a specific set of runes, activating the whole ritual room. He wrapped his power around Dolohov's soul and pushed it into the waiting body. At once, the body started convulsing, limbs flailing in all directions.

"Is that supposed to happen?" Tom asked with a dubious frown.

"No." Harry leaned over the body and smeared a streak of his blood across Dolohov's cold forehead, so he could get better control over the resurrection magic inside of the body. Dolohov's eyelids sprang open, revealing bloodshot eyes. His lips drew back from blackened teeth and he released a chilling shriek Harry had only ever heard in the deathlands before.

"Fuck," Harry whispered right as Dolohov jumped up, pushing Harry aside and launching himself at Tom with outstretched arms. Harry pulled his wand out and cast a silent Patronus. His silvery barok jumped between Tom and Dolohov, but much to Harry's shock and horror, Dolohov barged right through the barok and pushed Tom to the ground, following him down. A blast of wild magic from Tom threw Dolohov back to the other side of the ritual room again, where Dolohov crouched down, eyes now dripping blood while his mouth remained opened as though it could physically not be closed again. Dolohov's shrieked again, body twitching before he launched himself forward once more.

"Fiendfyre," Tom said, wand aimed at the thing in front of him as he crawled back to his feet on unsteady legs. Harry ducked out of the way of the monstrous flames, quickly joining Tom's position as they watched Dolohov's twitching and shrieking body burn to ashes. Tom drew the flames back into his wand while sweat beaded on his forehead, and he released a deep sigh when all that remained was smoke and ashes.

Harry waved his own wand around to ventilate the dungeons, drawing the smoke outside of his castle. "So," Harry said while his own body trembled now that the adrenaline was ebbing away. "I think it's safe to say that dementor victims cannot be resurrected."