Had we dared, we might have cautioned him for exposing himself too carelessly to danger at such a time…
Then, Maat, righteousness and order, will be returned to its place and Isfet, evil and chaos, will be driven away.
Translated from
the Egyptian by Maulana Karenga
When I reached the top of the tower, I noticed the sky overhead darkened considerably and that everything on the battlefield below me had become still and silent. I walked to the edge of the tower and looked down. The army of the enemy glared up at me but I strove to ignore them as I scanned the ground seeking their master. Seth-Ra glared up at me with such malice and hatred that I knew I would surely die but I went on with my plan, even though there seemed to be little chance for it to succeed.
"I, Draco of house Malfoy, chosen Heir of Osirius' power and at the behest of the representatives of Light do hereby challenge you to an honorable Wizarding Duel. I choose as my second the spirit of Harry Potter, the last Heir of Osirius and as my guardians I choose the spirits of the Potters and my two companions, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. You have one hour to…"
"I will not need the hour, insolent boy. I accept your challenge. I and my second and guardians shall meet you on the field of honor in one half hour. There you will feel the full power of Seth-Ra!"
I bowed in acknowledgement and watched him sweep passed his men, who were pulling back from the castle. I returned to the corridor below and led the others away before speaking. My heart was full of more fear than I had ever known before yet strangely I also felt a sense of peace that I had never experienced before going into battle. I knew I was doing what was right and somehow this comforted me more then thoughts of avenging a wrong done. I'm not sure when this change in attitude had occurred but it had.
"We have a half hour to think of a plan. The six of us are allowed on the field of honor but no one else. You are my second, Harry. I have called upon the right to have guardians standing at the cardinal points around the field."
"Now all we need is a plan…" Ron muttered.
"Did someone say 'plan'?" George Weasley's head peeked out from behind a slightly open door, followed closely be Fred's.
"Ron said 'plan', not 'prank'," said Harry, laughing.
"You have broken my heart, ghostly one." Fred clutched his heart melodramatically while George pretended to swoon.
"You have asked for a plan… Well we've already been thinking of one," Fred continued.
"Come with us and we will tell you," said George with a sly grin.
We followed them into the empty room and waited to hear the plan, hoping to would be of some help to us.
*
Seth-Ra was in a fury. His anger was white hot. How dare that young upstart challenge him! Control of the duel had been taken from him and his minions had failed to eliminate the one who held all the powers of the Light. Seth-Ra stomped around inside his tent and all left him alone with his anger. Wave after wave of fury washed over the prison in which the owner of the body languished and he hid behind the walls of his prison, crouching there behind them for the scant bit of protection they offered.
"Have no fear, the time of freedom draws near."
"When?" he asked, fear and desperation coloring his voice.
"Soon. Listen with your ears and see with your eyes."
Suddenly, for the first time in many months, he could see and hear everything around him at the same time Seth-Ra could. He waited and watched, testing the walls of his prison, only to find them to be as solid as before. This time he had hope in his heart.
"I will be ready when the time comes," he swore silently to himself as he watched Seth-Ra leave the tent and gather up his seconds and guardians.
*
A half hour later, I and my companions stood on the front steps of the castle watching Seth-Ra 's minions part as he came forward with his second and guardians, all of which were human. This surprised me but I tried not to show it. I pointed to a large, circular hedge that had been magically constructed. Seth-Ra swept passed me and entered the ring with his group trailing behind him. I followed with my own. Once we were all inside a glowing dome of light surrounded us preventing anyone else from entering.
We glared at each other across the intervening space while our seconds and guardians took up their positions. Harry floated at my right hand, while the rest of my companions took up positions at the cardinal points: James in the west, Lily east, Hermione south and Ron north. Seth-Ra's minions did the same. Several minutes passed in silence as each side tried sizing up their opponents. The overwhelming fear I had felt prior to entering the circle had vanished completely and was replaced with hope and a firm resolve to stop Seth-Ra once and for all time, no matter what the cost was to myself. We bowed to one another and the duel began.
For days the sparks from our wands and amulets lit up the sky with flames of red and ebony. Days began to melt into one another, as neither side was willing to give in to the other. Seth-Ra seemed little winded by the continuous battle but I was beginning to come to end of my power and strength but I would not allow him to defeat me. I would sooner die then allow him to take me down. I continued to grow steadily weaker, while my enemy seemed to grow stronger by the hour and there was nothing that I could prevent it.
Suddenly, without warning, I fell to my knees, to weak to stand any longer. Everything around me was beginning to drift in and out of focus and darkness hovered at the edges of my vision. My body was racked by intense pain as if I was on fire. I could hear Seth-Ra laughing in triumph and the others screaming but all sound was strangely muffled. I glared up at Seth-Ra through a haze of pain and for the first time saw the face he had kept hidden under the hood of his cloak. I blinked my eyes trying to clear them of the red haze that was clouding them but the haze would not leave my vision and the still the face remained the same.
"Bill…?" Ron's voice was full of shock and I recognized the Weasley features at once.
"There is no 'Bill' here. Only Seth-Ra and now I shall destroy all of you."
Seth-Ra pointed his wand at the Amulet of Osirius that I wore and began an ancient incantation in words that I could not understand. I looked into his eyes and knew the end had come. There in his eyes was written my death and the needless deaths of thousands of others. I stared into his eyes as if transfixed, listening to the spell that would end my life, as it created a glowing ring of darkness around all of us who stood within the dome. There was a humming in the back of my mind and a quiet voice spoke to me out of the darkness.
"The powers must be joined before it is too late."
I made no move from my position in the ground. I felt warmth spreading through my body and my strength returned. Somewhere deep inside me I could feel power that had slumbered long stirring to life, resonating with the five other poles of power nearby. The humming crescendoed and became a song; the most beautiful song I had ever heard before.
"Phoenix song…" I heard Harry whisper above me.
I closed my eyes and allowed the song to move through me. I felt the Amulet grow warm and Harry's wand began to glow with a bright golden light. There was an answering glow from the Amulet, the sword, which Ron held, the cloak Hermione had draped over her shoulders, and the three ghosts. The light intensified until it drove back the darkness. The entire dome became full of light and Seth-Ra's companions vanished from within it. Seth-Ra charged me but following some inner prompting, I raised the Amulet and wand together, pointing them at Seth-Ra.
"Rapere anima reddere!" I cried, unsure of what the spell I'd been compelled to utter would do but somehow sensing that it was our last hope for victory.
The spell hit Seth-Ra mid-stride and he froze, a look of utter horror on his face. I watched, squinting through the brightness of the light, as his spirit was ripped from the body he'd stolen. Bill slumped to the ground. Hoping he would be all right, I rose to my feet, my wand and Amulet still pointed at Seth-Ra's spirit.
"You cannot stop me…I will rise again!" said Seth-Ra's hollow voice.
I walked over to Bill's unconscious body and took the Amulet of Set from around his neck. Seth-Ra's eyes widened in fear when I touched it and for a moment I enjoyed that look. I looked at him and then turned my attention to the Amulet of Set.
"No," I said calmly. "You will never rise again. I will now complete the spell that my ancestor was unable to."
I placed the Amulet of Set on the ground and pointed Harry's wand at it. Seth-Ra tried to escape but the dome he had conjured prevented it. I looked around me and saw the others were point their wands at the Amulet as well. The glow around Harry's wand and around the Amulet of Orsirius grew brighter still, blinding in its intensity. I saw Seth-Ra shadowy spirit trying to flee the light. Then I saw him try to inhabit both Ron's and Hermione's bodies but he was deflected. As he moved toward me, I could feel the power inside me gathering and heard the same voice I had heard before echoing as if from a great distance; prompting me to finish what Gryffindor had begun. A spell came to me then, the same spell I had started to use when we were attacked at Castle Gryffindor, only this time the spell had power behind it.
"Set Sepens Mordre Eternus!"
There was a burning sensation as the power coursed through me from the other five in the circle. The power was focused in Harry's wand and was released in a bright sheet of scarlet and gold flame. It hit the Amulet of Set and an explosion rocked the entire area. All of us were thrown to the ground by the force of it. The dome around us dissolved and the armies of Seth-Ra disappeared in a shower of ash. The last thing I remember seeing before everything went black was Bill moving and Seth-Ra's spirit writhing and twisting until it disappeared forever from this world.
*
Bill watched the battle from his prison through the eyes of Seth-Ra. He marveled at the strength of the one who carried the Osirius Amulet. The face was hidden from him but he didn't care as long as they saved him. Everything happened so quickly. First the prison that Seth-Ra had created began to vanish until it existed no more. Then Seth-Ra was forced back by the power behind the spells being cast at him. Finally, with a sensation that felt as if two groups were using his body in a game of Muggle tug-o-war, he felt Seth-Ra's will leave his body and his body slumped to the ground.
"Now! Reclaim your body now," he heard a voice cry.
He moved forward then and felt for a moment dizzy and like he was falling. Then he was back in his own body. He moaned and heard a cry from above him. Looking up he saw Seth-Ra vanish. Bill tried to rise but found that his body was too weak to move. He lifted his head and looked in the direction of the one who had saved his life. He saw before him the slumped form of Draco Malfoy and, floating above him, the ghost of Harry Potter.
A simple life, they live in peace.
Phil Collins
Two Worlds
Disney's Tarzan
With one look
They'll forgive the past…
With One Look
Sunset Boulevard
~~~~~~~
The phoenix song had become a part of me now. I heard it in the deep sleep into which I had fallen. It sang to me of hope, life, honor, courage and love. It saw of a world that was free of the darkness that Seth-Ra would have plunged it into. The music was beautiful, unearthly so, and it seemed to strengthen both my body and soul. I wandered down the sunlit pathways it led me in and knew nothing of the world I had left behind, except that it was at peace again and safe.
How long I wandered down these pathways of light, I wasn't sure. The land around me was shimmering and seemed to have a golden glow around it. I tried to look at everything around me at once and wondered briefly if I was dead. I could still feel my body and the softness of the bed in which I lay but that feeling seemed to be coming from a great distance. Suddenly, the light seemed to grow brighter and from it emerged a bird of brilliant gold and red. A phoenix had been born of the sun. I watched it until its flight path intersected with my own path.
It called to me and I followed it down the path until we came to a shimmering castle, which somehow looked familiar to me. I followed the phoenix into the castle through golden doors covered in runes of power and hieroglyphics. The bird flew to the Great Hall and landed in the arm a man dressed in silvery-white robes trimmed in scarlet and gold.
I entered the room with some trepidation. I walked the length of the hall, paying attention to nothing, and knelt down before him. I recognized at once who it was. It was Godric Gryffindor. I knelt there some moments in the still and silent room, my head bowed and my eyes downcast. A swirl of robes to my right made me look up. I saw Harry there but not as I had last seen him. He was dressed in clean robes of gold with red edging that echoed Gryffindor's own and he seemed more alive then had ever before. I was still dressed in the tatter black robes edged with green that I had been wearing during the battle, which were covered in dirt and blood. Self-consciously, I tried to clean them up but then a soft voice began to speak and all though was driven from me and I looked up.
"My twin Heirs of Dark and Light," began Gryffindor. "You have now fulfilled that which destiny has required of you. The threat of Seth-Ra is no more. The Prophecy has come to pass and now the world will know peace."
He smiled at us and I smiled tentatively back.
'I now confer upon you both all the powers and titles you have been meant to receive since your birth. Use them never for your own gain but only to help those in need. The world still has need of the twin Heirs of Gryffindor and it is to that world you must both return for a time. When it is time, you will again join me in this Hall, the Hall of Ancestors."
Gryffindor waved a hand and I saw hundreds of people gathering around us. Among the crowd I saw Harry's parents, who were beaming at him, and my own, who smiled at me, their eyes full of the love they had never shown me in life. My heart forgave them for all their misdeeds in that moment.
"You must now return to the land of the living until I call for you again. Go in peace and live in love."
The room began to fade around me but not before I caught sight of my parents again, waving at me wildly from among a crowd of well wishers. There were tears streaming down their faces as they slowly faded from view. I waved in return, wishing that I could stay with them, until they faded completely from my sight.
*
For three months, I had no strength in my body and I hardly
left my bed. The battle had taken a terrible toll on my body, sapping it of the
strength it once possessed. In that time I had many visitors, many of whom
wanted to know what had happened out there. Professors McGonagall and Snape had
come to thank me for saving their lives on the tower as well as the lives of
countless others by my heroic actions. The remaining Weasleys had also come to
see me. Bill had thanked me for freeing his body from Seth-Ra's control. I must
confess that nothing made me happier than to see the Weasley's happy after
having suffered so much grief and sorrow in the last year. Over the next few
weeks there was a steady stream of visitors to see me as well as cards and
letters from hundreds more but still I felt the need to do something and the
ache of the loss of so many friends.
It was the summer holidays again and preparations were being made for the second anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. I was finally strong enough to leave my bed and I found myself standing at the grave of Albus Dumbledore, which lay under a spreading willow tree. I stared at its flat marble surface, its smoothness broken with the engraved letters that spelled out his name and titles on the day before the Remembrance Ceremony. I stood in silence for some moments, letting the breeze relax me.
"You once told me, sir, that there was something more to me…something special…and that I would do something that would balance all the evil my family had wrought…"
"And so you have," said a voice and I looked up to see Harry regarding me with a strange look on his face.
He was floating on the other side of the grave, his robes once more in tatters and his hair as wild as ever. He looked at the grave and frowned, tears pooling like silver in his eyes. He placed a ghostly hand on the grave carefully and when he took his hand away again there was a lily on the stone. I looked at Dumbledore's grave and then up at Harry, who was looking at me expectantly.
"What do I do now…with this second chance?"
"Whatever you feel in your heart."
"And you? What will you do?" I asked, curious about the choices he had made since had refused Gryffindor's offer at renewed life.
"I think I will return to Castle Gryffindor and explore it farther. It still holds many secrets." He looked back at Hogwarts and smiled. "Hogwarts will keep and the world is safe. You could come with me now that the battles won."
I thought about his offer as we walked toward the lake. I watched its sparkling surface and remembered Castle Gryffindor as it had looked in my dreams and visions. I felt the castle calling to me, demanding that I return there and restore it to its proper glory.
"I will return there as well," I said after a few moments thought. "The castle shall be restored and the line of Gryffindor will continue, with me. The Malfoy name will, at last, be known for something other than the Dark Arts."
Together, Harry and I returned to Hogwarts. A new life had begun for me in that time and place and I have written this so all may know and learn. History is littered with the repeated mistakes of others. I have written this so you may remember.
A/N: I want to take the time to thank all of you who have been patient with me during the writing of this story and to thank also those of you who have reviewed. I have enjoyed my time in this section but, after thinking some months on it, I have decided to retire my quill, at least in this section and under this name. I am having trouble with spending so much time on a story and then feeling, because of lack of reviews, that no one is reading what I have spent most of my spare time working on. I am sorry if this angers anyone but this decision did not come easily to me. I will continue to beta read for Cairnsy and to read fanfic, reviewing when I want to. I'm just tired of putting the effort in something that no one is reading. I will continue to write and post Harry Potter fanfic on a website that two of my friends run if anyone is interested in reading more of my stuff or the rest of my unfinished Sirius Black fic. The site is called The Marauder's Place and it is run by TheMischiefMakers who have a link to it on their profile. Good luck to those of you who continue to write in this section. I wish you all the best. ~WeasleyTwin2~