DISCLAIMER- I own it all. Especially Harry Potter.
For this last installment, I'd like to thank all of you for the tremendous support I've gotten on this fic, from those of you that have read and reviewed and those that have simply enjoyed. Thank you all. For those of you wondering what I'll do next, well… first I have to get through exams :O). Maybe a Sirius fic, who knows. A special thanks to my two beta readers, CLS and Rowena Alana, I couldn't have done it without either of you. So without further ado…
PHOENIX ASCENDING XI-- OUT OF ASHES
The Innocintus Wards gleamed silver in the misty light of predawn. Harry's faithful Locates Charm, which had led him so far across the desert gave a slight puff of air and dissolved, fading away into the nothingness of night. Harry had never felt more alone in his life.
Voldemort's fortress loomed several paces from where he stood. It's immense stone turrets spiraled up into the air, beyond any sight or comprehension. The Innocintus Wards clung to the fort like a misty aura, glinting silver and glittering in the rapidly fading moonlight.
Harry felt an incredible hole lodge itself at the base of his throat.
He had the sudden gut feeling that he was going to die.
Mere steps from where he stood, a huge iron gate loomed. A fence that would take him only seconds to climb. But Harry's fear had paralyzed him. What if Lupin's blood didn't get him through the wards? What if being a werewolf wasn't enough? What if he had written away his life for nothing?
Taking a deep steadying breath, he moved his fingers through the ward and placed his hand on the wrought iron gate. His fingers tingled slightly as they passed through the mist, but nothing else happened. No lightning bolts burst straight out of heaven ready to strike him down as he stood. Neither did any rampaging armies of bloodthirsty Death eaters magically materialize.
Biting his lip, Harry stepped through the wards.
A tingle ran up his spine, and then out through his scull, spiraling up through the clouds and into infinity. All in all, it wasn't that bad of a feeling. In spite of himself, Harry smiled. He had done it. He was inside of Voldemort's supposedly impenetrable fortress. All Harry had to do was figure out what he was going to do next…
"Who goes there?" Harry drew himself into the shadows of the fortress as a black cloaked guard appeared on the other side of the gate. "Lumos!" The guard's shadowy figure was illuminated by a ball of wand light.
"Stupefy!" Harry hissed, watching with satisfaction as a blast of purple light zipped through the bars of the fence, hitting the guard straight between his temples. He fell like a rock, unconscious before he even hit the ground.
It took Harry mere seconds to climb the iron gate. He landed next to the guard with a soft crunch. Cautiously he glanced around to see if anyone heard him.
The fortress was deserted.
Grinning at his good fortune Harry began to unclasp the guard's robe. He needed a disguise. Harry couldn't stop grinning as he pulled it over his Hogwarts uniform.
This was all too easy.
----
Lucius Malfoy landed hard on the smooth gray cobblestones of Voldemort's fortress. With a lurch, his knees gave out from under him and he sprawled across the floor, his face pressed flush against the cold rock. Slowly, his world gelled into something whole; the dancing shapes and colors becoming clearly defined fortress walls. Lithe as a cat, Malfoy was on his feet, sniffing the air as he wheeled down the nearest corridor. Rounding the nearest corner, Malfoy ran smack dab into a Death Eater who had been scurrying around the bend.
"God dammit!" Malfoy bellowed as his designer dress robes ripped under the Death Eater's boot. "Fool!" Grey eyes flashing, Malfoy hit Voldemort's minion across the lip, digging his signet ring into the servant's jaw.
The man did not cry out, his own eyes radiating almost as much fury as Malfoy's from underneath his hood. Coolly the Death Eater reached up and gripped his chin, trying to staunch the bleeding with his bare fingers. "You're not authorized to be here," the man said stoically, his words slurred somewhat from his swelling jaw.
"I need no authorization," Malfoy hissed, his gelled blonde hair falling into his eyes. "I am beyond petty laws."
"You can tell that to Lord Voldemort," the Death Eater said, not the least bit unnerved by Malfoy's outburst. "I am going to have to raise the alarm."
"Raise the alarm," Malfoy whispered, reaching out and gripping the wounded man by the collar of his robes. "Raise it for all I care. Then see what your master thinks of your incompetence for not noticing his most powerful supporter. See what punishments are dolled out because you failed to recognizing Lucius Malfoy!" He let go of the man who stumbled backward a few paces, blood running freely down his neck. "I am Lucius Malfoy!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, throwing his arms out as if trying to stretch beyond the confines of the corridor and encompass the world itself. "I am Lucius Malfoy, and I have arrived!"
The Death Eater said nothing; his head slightly bowed in reverence though his frame radiated utter contempt.
"Learn to live with me, slave," Malfoy said, gripping the Death Eater by the chin. "Or I will make life very miserable for you in the days to come." Gripping the Death Eater's hood he pulled it back so he could stare the imbecile straight in the eye. "Do you understand--"
Malfoy broke off, his voice paralyzed by complete and utter shock. He dropped the Death Eater, who lost his balance and fell to his knees, hands wildly scanning the floor for his glasses, which had slipped off his nose in the fall. Suavely, Malfoy reached down and plucked them off the cobblestones, twirling them between his perfectly manicured fingers. The Death Eater turned to look at Lucius, who met his horrified green eyes with a satisfied smirk. "Oh, Mr. Potter," he purred. "You're making it easy."
----
Romulus awoke by the giant's campfire, his head cradled in his arms. His body racked with chills, though not from any cold.
He ached on the inside; his body crying out for the one thing he must deny it. He was betrayed by his own person, immobilized by the never-ending lust for Dragon's Blood.
He opened his eyes, shutting them tightly as the mountains swam through his vision, multiplying and then curving away into nothingness. The all too familiar pounding began at his temples.
He tried to pull himself to his feet but slipped, falling down onto the grass. The early morning dew clung to his cheeks like artificial tears.
For no other reason than to inflict pain on something, he bit his tongue so hard that it bled. The blood turned acrid in his mouth and he swallowed hard, nearly retching as he choked on his own fluid.
Rolling over, Romulus's hand hit something hard and cold.
It was a gun. Wrapped around the barrel was a tiny slip of parchment. Without even touching the weapon, Romulus instinctively knew it was from Pettigrew. His fingers were trembling so much that it took him several tries to unwrap the note from the gun's muzzle. The words swam in and out of focus, their letters turning into squiggling lines that perplexed and escaped Romulus's agonized mind. "Stop!" he cried out without thinking. But the letters did not obey. Frustration at his own incapacity filled Romulus and he tossed the note away.
Slowly, he reached for the gun and lifted it to one of his throbbing temples. He could end it all now.
Then, just as his finger was tightening on the trigger, his eyes caught a glint of glass. Wrapped in Pettigrew's indecipherable letter was a bottle of mercy.
The gun slipped through his limp hand. Fingers fumbling, he groped at the Dragon's Blood. He uncorked the top and slipped away into infinity.
----
Dumbledore's clear blue eyes gleamed with worry as he held out the Greyvillian Responder, surveying the haphazard crowd of giants and wizards surrounding him. "We must go as soon as we are joined by the others…"
Sirius cast a sideways glance at Romulus, for once the man was smiling, a look of euphoric pleasure on his face. Sirius's eyes narrowed in suspicion as Moony's twin gave him an euphoric grin.
"Dumbledore! I need to speak to--" the crowd parted as Remus ran through it, his robes askew and a look of absolute horror on his face.
"What is it, Remus?" Dumbldore took a step towards the shaken professor.
Remus opened his mouth once. "It's Harry-- Sirius, I tried to stop him. I--"
"What?" The horror that filled Sirius was beyond any comprehension. Slowly, painfully, a fourteen-year-old scene formed in his mind. Smoke rose from the remains of a cozy little cottage. The gray mist spiraled up into the cool night air, encircling the smoldering rubble that had once been walls, snaking around the upturned furniture, and hovering about a the body of a man lying in the grass. His glasses were askew, and his ashen face looked as if it was simply dreaming. Sirius had failed the Potter's once. He couldn't let it happen again. He owed it to Harry.
He owed it to James.
"He…" Remus's mouth opened and closed like a fish when he saw the look of horror on Sirius's face. "Harry left the camp; he's gone after Voldemort. He knocked me out when I discovered him and…" Lupin's voice failed him, so he simply held up his hand. The long jagged gash running across his palm spoke for itself.
Sirius gave a cry like a wounded wolf, he attempted to push his way through and out of the crowd, but a pair of strong hands held him still. "No yeh don't," Hagrid growled, his whiskers tickling Sirius's forehead. "Yeh no good to 'Arry liok that."
"Let me go!" Sirius spat, but his struggles against the half-giant were futile.
"Remus, Hagrid. Take him out of here." Dumbledore said, offering the giant and the werewolf his Greyvillian tube. "We'll follow on the next responder."
Before Sirius could protest, Hagrid had taken the tube and they were falling through a blur of color and sounds. Within a matter of seconds, the three men landed on the wet grass of the Hogwarts lawn, a matter of meters from Hagrid's cabin.
"Damn you!" Sirius yelled as soon as he had gotten his mouth out of the grass. "Harry's back there, don't you see--"
"If the giants don' leave now, they never will," Hagrid said gruffly. "I love 'Arry liok my own son. But its one life against 'undreds. You 'ave to understand, Sirius. You 'ave to see."
All Sirius could manage was a strangled cry. "James…"
"Is dead!" Remus grabbed him roughly about the shoulders, shaking him hard. "Do you think James would like to see you like this? Sirius, for god's sake, pull yourself together! You're wallowing in your own self pity…" the quietly he added. "This isn't about Harry at all."
"He's going to die back there!" Sirius wrenched himself from Remus's grip, his voice trembling with anger. "Dumbledore is just leaving him to die in the past!"
A sad smile had fitted itself upon Remus's face. "He's the Boy Who Lived."
"The Boy Who Lived…" Sirius said quietly, biting his lip. Even if he tried, he couldn't have kept the bitter malice from his voice. "Lived, while James died."
"This isn't about Harry at all," Remus repeated, shaking his head slowly. "It's James."
Sirius didn't say a word. Even if he had trusted his voice not to betray his turmoil, he wouldn't have been able to find any words to counter Remus. So all he did was shrug, slowly and quietly, averting his eyes from Remus's furious gaze.
"He's dead," Moony said quietly, before raising his voice to a yell. "God dammit, Sirius! He's dead!"
Once again, Sirius shrugged, but there was a lump in his throat that wouldn't let him disavow the truth of Remus's words. "I… I told him to switch--"
"Stop it!" Remus the calm-levelheaded peacemaking marauder was absolutely livid. Sirius had never seen him this upset before. "Stop all this goddam self pity! Wake up… it's over! James is dead!"
"Oh?" Sirius spat angrily, leaping to his feet. "Spoken by a true master of self-love, eh?"
"I'm not futilely trying to hold onto the past!" Remus yelled, kicking the Greyvillian responder across the lawn.
"You're right!" Sirius threw up his hands, his fingers clenched together in anger. "But you didn't have to live through what I did. You think you have it bad in you poor self-impoverished werewolf hell? You don't know hell, Remus. You don't have a clue about suffering! You didn't have to live thirteen years in a place where you relive your worst memories over and over and over…" his voice trembled slightly. "And you're there, wishing you could have done something better, wishing that somehow you can put it right. But you can't, because it's the past and you're trapped in a goddamn hellhole!" Sirius took a breath, his hands clenched in fury. "Don't talk to me about being fucked up! Don't talk to me until you've lived through Azkaban!"
The silence was almost as biting as Sirius's tirade. Slowly, he drew a breath. "Do you know how many times I've had to watch myself convince Lily and James to change secret keepers, Remus? Can you even begin to imagine?" his voice rose to a fevered yell. Remus didn't answer, his wan features closed and aloof.
Sirius's tone changed, until it was little more than a whisper, trembling with every word. "Harry can't die. I need… I need to set this one thing right."
"Maybe," Hagrid ventured nervously, "'Arry will find 'is way out."
Sirius jerked his head around bitterly, "And what if he doesn't?"
"'Arry's a clever boy, smarter than I ever was," Hagrid said, trying to smile behind his black beard. "At least 'e's not wit' Professor Snape."
"Where's Snape?" Sirius said, not really listening to what Hagrid was saying. His eyes were still focused on Remus. The expression on Moony's face was a mask of utter stoicism.
"'Aven't yeh heard?" Hagrid was plainly shocked. "Snape went to Azkaban."
Sirius stopped dead in his tracks. "Hagrid," he said quietly. "Do you still have my motorcycle?"
----
"I do not like Green Eggs and Ham," Voldemort's shrill voice seemed especially surreal when it dictated couplets. "I will not eat it, Sam I am. I will not eat in a hat. I will not eat in on a mat..." Slowly, he turned over the newest find from Pettigrew's bookcase and gazed at it with slight disgust. "Strange taste these Muggles have in literature."
Gabriel said nothing, chewing on his tongue as he stared blankly at the stone walls.
"What?" Voldemort snapped, gazing at him intently.
"What?" Gabriel blinked abruptly, meeting the Dark Lord's gaze.
"Something is bothering you," Voldemort hissed. "And I want to know what it is."
"Nothing is bothering me," Gabriel said quietly, his eyes never straying from Voldemort's reptilian slits.
"Lord Voldemort knows all," the Dark Lord hissed. "Do not lie to me, boy."
"What's wrong is that nothing is wrong," Gabriel said stiffly. "In the last twenty-four hours I've gone against everything I've believed for twenty-four years, and I couldn't care less."
A small smile curved across Voldemort's lips, a smile that would have made the old Gabriel shiver or even retch. But the new Gabriel felt nothing, returning the grin with a blank stare of his own. Before the Dark Lord had a chance to reply, the door flew open. It was Lucius Malfoy, his slick blonde hair horribly askew and an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips like a limp sausage. In his grip was Harry Potter.
Gabriel smiled.
Harry felt a shiver go up his spine.
----
Harry was the first to speak. "Gabriel?" his voice quavered slightly. Gabriel could sense Malfoy and Voldemort holding their breath.
"You're a long way from home, Harry," Gabriel said simply, his smile widening at Harry's look of untapped horror.
"You're.." the boy stumbled over his words, trying to wrench himself from Malfoy's grip. "You're being held prisoner. You're not with him…"
"Why would he hold me prisoner?" Gabriel said, his lids falling heavy over tired eyes. "I'm not anything special," and then with a touch of malice in his voice, he added. "I'm not Harry Potter."
"You're trapped, Potter," Voldemort purred, getting out of Pettigrew's easy chair as he dropped Green Eggs and Ham on the floor. It fell with a dissonant clatter. "What was began," he gave a slick dangerous smile. "Two thousand years from now will end tonight."
"Kill me if you want," Harry said firmly, straightening as tall as Malfoy's stranglehold grip would allow. "There will be others who will resist you."
"But no one will be able to defeat me," Voldemort hissed, gripping Harry by the chin. Gabriel saw him flinch, but the teenager didn't back down. "No one except you. And you're just an arrogant, foolish little boy." Voldemort said the last two words with such scorn that Gabriel saw Potter bite his lip. But when the Boy Who Lived spoke, his voice was even and steady.
"You've underestimated me before," Harry said.
"No," Voldemort sneered, gripping Harry's throat tighter. "No, I overestimated you. I expected you to stand and fight like a man in the graveyard. Instead you ran away… like a little boy. You fled from me, Potter, because you are a coward. Just like your father."
"My father wasn't a coward," Harry said, but it was as if his cool had simply shattered and melted away. He had gone pure white and his lip was trembling as he spoke.
Voldemort's catlike smile widened as he ran a red tongue over his palsied lips. "Oh my boy…" he gave a sinister chuckle. "There are more things in heaven and earth than your small view of the world allows."
"What do you know about heaven?" Harry spat, a flush rising to his tan cheeks.
All trace of emotion suddenly dropped of Voldemort's pure white face, his red eyes voids of untraceable emptiness. "And what do you know about hell, Harry?"
Harry said nothing. He bit his lip so hard that a thin trickle of blood dripped down his chin.
Reaching forward, Voldemort wiped the blood away with one slender skeletal finger. Harry flinched as the Dark Lord's hand passed over his flesh. "Surrender to your darker nature, Harry. It lurks in all of us. It lurks in you."
"No," Harry said quietly, trying to back away. Malfoy held him still.
"Oh yes," Voldemort contradicted. "You killed Diggory, didn't you?"
"You killed Diggory," Harry said, but Gabriel noticed his trembling hand.
"How do you know I am not you…" Voldemort purred, running the tips of his bone white fingers over his wand before slipping it into his pocket. "How do you know that I am not just a mask you wear?"
"I…" Harry shook his head slowly. "You're insane."
"Or maybe it's you that's off your rocker," Voldemort hissed, placing his hand on Harry's chest, just above where his heart beat. "Maybe we're one in the same, Potter. Like a diamond, with many faces."
"You're evil," Harry said forcefully, his flesh burning where Voldemort's hand lingered.
"Pleasure and pain, Potter," Voldemort replied quietly, staring far beyond Harry, gazing at something no one else could see. "Where is one without the other?"
Harry said nothing, a look of absolute horror on his face. "If it's any consolation, Harry," Voldemort said, "There wasn't a single day I didn't think about you." His voice abruptly changed tone as he waved a hand at Lucius Malfoy. "Take him away and kill him. It's time to shatter the diamond."
"No."
Gabriel was jerked out of his apathy as he spun around to stare at Malfoy in absolute shock. Voldemort's face had taken on a dangerous pallor. "What did you say, Malfoy?"
"No," Malfoy replied, letting go of Harry so he sprawled across the floor wildly. "do not take orders from half-blood scum."
"What did you say?" Voldemort hissed, groping through his robes for his wand.
"Looking for this?" Malfoy's voice was syrupy as he held up a tiny stick of wood. "I pilfered it during your wonderful chat with Potter here. Face it, Riddle, you're completely at my mercy."
"I am at no man's mercy," Voldemort spat, rising from his chair in fury. "Least of all a foppish hypocritical--"
"Crucio!" Malfoy shouted, his curse grazing past Voldemort's ear and hitting the wall behind him, rending an enormous hole in the plaster. "Next time, I won't miss, Muggle!"
If this insult had any effect on Voldemort, his face showed no emotion. "The Oedipii Curse is complete. You can't kill me, Malfoy."
"Oh I have no intention to," Malfoy sneered, twirling Voldemort's wand between his fingers. "I have enchanted this room with a reverse ward spell. As long as you live, you will not be able to leave its premises. Any other soul can come and go as they please. It would be an even greater punishment for you to be trapped here, watching as I resurrect dark magic to its former glory. You will watch as I become great and your name is slowly forgotten, until you become little more than a fairy tale to send snotty children to bed. You will sit here and rot," he proclaimed, before adding with a touch of sarcasm, "…My lord."
"Fool," Voldemort spat, gripping Pettigrew's bed so hard that his nails dig holes in the bed posts.
But Malfoy did not have a chance to reply. At that moment, Potter made a wild dash across the room, diving for Pettigrew's mattress. Gabriel made a wild grab for his legs. He was rewarded when his hand tightened around Harry's shoe. The boy scrabbled wildly through his robes and Gabriel began to drag him off of the bed. Suddenly, Harry lashed out, driving a penknife into the soft skin of Gabriel's hand. Giving a cry of agony, Gabriel let go. The penknife slipped through Harry's fingers and skittered across the floor as he lunged onto Pettigrew's bed again. Harry scrabbled across the bed. At that instant, Gabriel saw what Potter was after. His heart gave a lurch in his chest.
Apparently, Malfoy had put two and two together as well. "No! Stupid boy!" He yelled, grappling at Harry's shoes, dropping the Dark Lord's wand in the process. But it was too late. With all the deftness of a Seeker, Harry's fingers has found Voldemort's Greyvillian Responder. Without so much as a puff of smoke, the two of them disappeared.
----
The baby lay before him, bawling its tiny lungs out. Lord Voldemort's red eyes glittered maliciously at him over the tiny infant's body.
"There you go," he said, offering the delicate child to Severus.
Snape gave it a distasteful stare. "What am I supposed to do with it?" he said angrily.
Voldemort's manipulative smile widened. "You said you wanted to become a Death Eater… so eat."
Snape blanched and backed away, revulsion creeping over his entire body.
His master laughed derisively. "It's a Mudblood child. The thing is better off dead."
"I don't want--" Snape began.
"I don't care what you want," Voldemort smiled so that all of his teeth showed. The infant gurgled happily and began to play with the strings of Voldemort's cloak. The Dark Lord gave the tiny child a look of utter disgust. His face dripping with petty revulsion, he rounded on Severus. "You belong to me now." Without another word, Voldemort raised on of his razor sharp fingernails and thrust it into the infant's neck. The child's strangled cry was quickly silenced as a wave of blood filled its tiny throat, dripping out through its delicate lips. The baby's blood stained Voldemort's fingers pure red. It dripped onto the floor as the Dark Lord rubbed his hand across Snape's face, the infant's blood filling his pores, insinuating his body with the grossest of sins.
He retched.
Voldemort laughed, reaching into the cavity of the child's body he took out a small red orb. It quivered in his hands like a living thing. With a sickening shock, Snape realized that it was the baby's heart. Dropping the infant's corpse, Voldemort slipped the fragile heart into Snape's hands.
He raised it to his lips.
It was still beating.
It was still warm…
Snape gave a wild sob as he rushed to the door of his cell, clawing at it with his bare hands. His fingernails snapped and filled with slivers but he didn't care, didn't care as the blood ran down his hands, didn't care as his heart lodged itself in his throat, just as the baby's had done decades ago. He had to get out of here…
But there was no escape. The memory was already beginning to replay itself…
The door swung open.
There, a figure was holding two dementors at wandpoint. When Snape's limp body fell out into the corridor, they glided away, leaving the figure to kneel down and take Severus's head in his arms.
Snape broke down in sobs, gripping at the figure's shoulders as he was rocked back and forth, forth and back, trying to shake his head clear from the sins of the past. Sins that could never be washed out.
"I threatened the dementors with a Patronus," the figure said, his voice cracking slightly. "They won't trouble us."
Severus raised his head, bloody and stained with tears. As his eyes widened in recognition, Severus's parched lips formed one word. "Why?"
Sirius was here because he understood.
He understood too well.
"Come on," Sirius whispered, supporting Snape as he drew him to his feet. "Let's go home."
----
He rubbed the hard metal of the gun across his cheek, shivering as the barrel dug into his flesh. All he had to do was move his little finger and he'd blow half his head into eternity.
Smiling, he lowered the gun. There was work to be done yet.
He saw the scene in front of him through a red haze. It was a whole world moving in an opposite reality, directionless and drifting. Silently, he watched as a motorcycle dropped out of the sky.
Two people rode it.
The first leapt off, his black hair waving slowly in the wind. The second collapsed into his arms, hardly able to stand.
More figures rushed forward, surrounding the initial two, supporting the second figure and murmuring indecipherably to the first one, who replied. He didn't want the first man to reply anymore.
He raised the gun.
He moved his little finger.
The gun fired.
The bullet flew through the air.
The tall figure fell.
Sirius Black was dead before he hit the ground.
He sunk to his knees, the red mist still swimming before his eyes.
Why wasn't anything ever easy? Why did life have to be so damn hard?
He needed
Escape.
Romulus Lupin raised the pistol to his head and fired.
----
"No!"
Remus's voice echoed across the silent Hogwarts grounds as he fell to his knees.
Sirius lay at his feet. His black blood ran through the baby grass.
Halfway across the field, Romulus lay gazing up at the rising sun. His eyes didn't see a single thing.
There was a hole through his head.
There was a hole through Remus's heart.
Sirius words echoed in his ears.
…You're there, wishing you could have done something better, wishing that somehow you can put it right. But you can't, because it's the past…
It was then that the Great Hall exploded.
----
"Why?" Gabriel said abruptly, staring as Voldemort threw another futile curse towards the door again.
"Why what?" the Dark Lord spat angrily, wrenching himself away for the unrelenting door to face Gabriel.
"Why twenty years of absolute horror? Why two decades of holding the world in terror?"
A bitter smile cut across Voldemort's pale feature like a scythe. "The world never gave me anything but terror." Gabriel said nothing, making eye contact with the Dark Lord for the first time. Those tiny red slits held nothing. They were vats of absolute nothingness, a mirror to Gabriel's own soul. "Do you know how I grew up, Lucifer?" Gabriel shook his head.
"I was in an orphanage. My Mudblood father was still alive. He threw my pregnant mother out onto the street upon finding she was a witch. They never married." Voldemort's voice sounded toneless and dead, purged of any emotion. "He left her to die."
"So this is what it's all about," Gabriel said, unable to keep the raw malice from his tone. "Your father."
"He abandoned me," Voldemort said mechanically.
Gabriel's voice rose to a derisive laugh. "You hate Muggles because your Mudblood father left your mother on the street!"
"Don't presume to question my motives, boy!" Voldemort's calm cracked, and his high voice rose into a shriek. "Don't mock what you don't understand!"
Gabriel remembered his own childhood years, growing up a burden on his uncle, a man who flinched at the sight of him. A man who had never once directed a kind word at him… never once given any sign of love. "I understand more than you think," he said quietly.
There was a long pause. "I never had a father," Voldemort said quietly, sinking into Pettigrew's easy chair.
"Neither did I," Gabriel's hiss was dangerous, as he took a step towards the seated Dark Lord.
A tiny smile crept across Voldemort's wan features. "I suppose that was my fault, but how could I not hate Sejanus Cox? Your mother was my favorite mistress long before he walked into her life."
"What?" Gabriel stopped dead in his tracks, a freezing fear coming over him.
Voldemort ran his pale tongue over his lips, as if savoring a taste. "Your mother was an insanely attractive young woman. She was…" he gave a small chuckle. "Magic. My very first Death Eater. It was your mother who came up with the finer parts of the order… the Dark Mark, eating our victims…"
"What?" Gabriel repeated, the implication of Voldemort's words hitting him like a bolt in the chest.
Slowly, Voldemort stood up. He reached out one spidery hand and ran it over the curve of Gabriel's throat. "You look so like her," he purred, so close Gabriel could feel his breath on his neck. "Especially when you're angry." Voldemort traced his fingers up and down Gabriel's neck, his thumb lingering longingly in the hollow of his collarbone. "Your hair… your voice… your eyes. They say eyes are the windows to the soul."
"Don't touch me," Gabriel hissed, wrenching himself from the musings of Voldemort's fingers. Revulsion crept over him like a great wave, as he raised his own hand to his throat, trying to wipe away all traces of the Dark Lord.
Voldemort only laughed. "You can't escape me that easily, boy. I'm inside you. I'm inside of everyone," he hissed, tilting his head to one side in a purely reptilian motion. "Your mother tried to flee, but I wasn't about to give up my little Lucifer."
Gabriel's hand tightened around his own neck, his fingernails digging into the soft flesh like daggers. Slowly he took a step backwards, transfixed by the Dark Lord's mocking smile. "No…"
"Yes," Voldemort purred, taking another step forwards. He was riding Gabriel's terror like a favorite stallion. "In the end Liv, my Lucifer, turned on me. She loved Cox," he spat the word like a curse. "Or so she said. That idiot Alastor Moody, who you most kindly disposed of, had arrested your father as Lucifer, and she began to feel pangs of a conscience that had remained silent during twenty-two cold blooded murders. She had the idiot idea of turning herself in." Voldemort's eyes gave a flicker of emotion as his voice lowered in anger. "Naturally this was something I could not allow. I killed her. I framed your father for the murder," a smile twisted itself around his ravaged face. "Appropriate," Voldemort hissed, tilting his face heavenward. "Appropriate," he repeated in a whisper as the smile dropped off of his face and a shiver racked his pallid frame.
Gabriel didn't speak.
He couldn't even think.
His mouth hung open slightly as his father reached out and gripped his hand. "Your entire life has been a lie, hasn't it?" the Dark Lord hissed. "Let me fill the void, boy. Belong to me." He squeezed Gabriel's blackened hand so hard that the wound reopened, oozing black blood all over Voldemort's deathly pale fingers. The Dark Lord didn't even flinch. "How your father would roll over in his grave to see his son in the service of Lord Voldemort," Voldemort's face held a disjointed smile as he let loose an equally unstable laugh.
"He's fifteen years dead," Gabriel whispered, pulling himself out of Voldemort's grip, sensing the other man's eyes lingering upon his throat.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say that you felt pity for that filthy Mudblood-lover," Voldemort hissed, his voice a low rumble.
"He…" Gabriel fixed his gaze on Voldemort, the lie feeling more right than the truth. "He is my father."
"I'm your father now," Voldemort said, a feral glitter in his red eyes. "You will feel no pity for that fool!"
It was then that Gabriel cracked.
The icy wall erected the night before, the bulwark that had aged him twenty-four centuries in a mere day, collapsed before his eyes-- shattering all over his heart, and like splinters of glass rending its surface, causing him to cry out in pain, fear, anguish. He gripped the side of Pettigrew's bed, his fingers grappling at the post and grinding into the wood. He felt the pain in his fingers, the hurt inside his heart and the gaping hole torn in his psyche by Lord Voldemort.
He felt it all.
His mother was a serial killer.
His father was a cannibal.
He was little better than either of them.
Gabriel, the archangel.
Born of darkness.
He couldn't stop laughing. "Fuck you," he spat, his fingers tearing a hole out of Pettigrew's bedpost. "Fuck you!"
Crack! Voldemort's hand was across his face, raising a trail of brilliant red welts where his fingers had scathed Gabriel's skin. Gabriel only laughed harder as the pain exploded through him.
He could feel it.
He could feel.
"Foolish boy!" Voldemort shrieked, gripping one of Pettigrew's self help books and throwing it across the room as Gabriel, who dodged it easily, falling to the floor in a crouch. He smiled as the rough cobblestone scathed at his wounded hand causing a new wave of pain to shoot through his body. After apathy, pain is a sweet sedative.
"How dare you defy me so!" Voldemort spat, pulling his wand from his cloak. "Crucio!"
Gabriel easily rolled out of the curse's way. He saw see it hit the floor and burst into a shower of red sparks. All he could do was marvel in its beauty. As Gabriel tried to rise to his feet, something sharp slipped across the flat of his palm. Through the the fresh wave of pain and new trickle of blood, Gabriel recognized it as Potter's penknife that Harry had dropped after promptly jamming it into his hand. Feeling the Dark Lord's preying eyes upon him, he furtively slipped the knife up his sleeve.
"I may not be able to splinter Malfoy's wards," Voldemort hissed, raising his wand. "But I can break you, Cox." His voice was a few degrees below a hiss, and with every breath it tightened the tourniquet fixed upon Gabriel's bleeding heart. "Stupefy!" Gabriel dodged the shot of purple light, watching as the curse blew a gaping hole in the stone walls of the room. Bits of rock flew across Voldemort's cell like shrapnel, embedding themselves into the ruins of the furniture.
A haphazard plan was forming itself in Gabriel's mind. "You've lost!" He called out, suddenly leaping onto the four poster bed, dodging as Voldemort slashed at the curtains with a fresh curse. He still cradled the penknife between his fingers. "Admit it, you were mistaken--"
"I don't make mistakes!" Voldemort shrieked irrationally, his white fingers gripping his wand even harder.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Gabriel jerked aside the ruined bed curtain so he could meet Voldemort's gaze. "You've killed just about a thousand people. How is there any perfection in that?"
"They were Mudbloods," Voldemort's shrill voice was full of scorn, his wand still pointed directly at Gabriel. "They did not deserve to live."
"You're a Mudblood!" Gabriel spat, hate filling him like a tsunami.
"I am no--"
Gabriel cut him off, leaping off of the bed and landing on the cobblestones. He reached out and gripped Voldemort by the shoulders, ignoring the welts that arose on his hands as they touched the Dark Lord's flesh. "You're a man, my lord," he added with a touch of malice.
"I… I am not a man," the Dark Lord said quietly, stumbling over his words.
"Then why do you hate your father?" Gabriel whispered, sidling up next to Voldemort and pulling back the other man's hood, exposing his bald white pate for the first time. "Why did you kill all of those people? Why do you love my mother? Why are you lonely now?"
"I'm not--" Voldemort began, suddenly breaking off.
"Yes, you are lonely," Gabriel said quietly, running his hand up the side of the other man's face.
Voldemort's voice wavered hesitantly. "All I ever wanted was a father."
"Me too," Gabriel whispered as the other man gripped him hard about the shoulders. "Me too."
Gently, he reached around his father until he had him in a tight embrace. He felt the first tears slide down the side of his face.
Now was not the time for crying.
Not yet.
Closing his eyes, Gabriel slid the knife into Voldemort's back.
His father gave a strangled cry halfway between a gasp and a sob.
Gabriel broke, and for the first time since Hilly's lab, the tears ran freely down his face.
His father's fingers tightened around Gabriel's shoulders, rending deep into his flesh. Riddle's pale white lips were red with blood. The older man turned his eyes to meet Gabriel's own. "Like father, like son," he gasped, retching up a fresh wave of blood.
"I'm so sorry," Gabriel whispered.
So died Tom Marvolo Riddle.
The embodiment of all of the hate, fear, and desperation that had haunted the wizarding world for a quarter of a century was finally dead. His passing was mourned by one alone.
After what seemed an eternity of crying and bleeding and healing, Gabriel laid his father down upon the cobblestones. Gently running his fingers over the dead man's face, Gabriel closed those red snake eyes for the last time.
He reached down to his father hands, pulling his wand from those fingers before they stiffened with death. Gabriel turned the tiny stick over and over in his hands, marveling at the fragment of wood that had caused to much death and destruction. This little twig had torn countless families asunder, including his own. This wand had changed history and corrupted one man, lying one before him, released only in death. A smile that could only be described as relived graced his father's lips.
Gabriel gripped the slender stick between his two fingers and pulled. It snapped without hardly any resistance, letting loose a shower of green and silver sparks. Gabriel smiled. Green and silver were Slytherin's colors.
Then something tremendous happened. From the two fragments of his father's wand one quavering note emerged. It began soft; rising in a crescendo. Lingering. Haunting. Healing. And then, as quickly as it had come, the note died away into nothingness.
Gabriel had never before heard Phoenix's song, but it was unmistakable. Slowly, he got to his feet, dropping the fragments of his father's wand next to the corpse.
He walked out of the door. He had his whole life ahead of him.
----
Harry almost fell over as his feet hit cobblestones with a resounding clatter. Lucius Malfoy was cursing up a storm, rocking back and forth as he gripped his bleeding knee. Apparently Malfoy had knocked it upon the great table that stretched just to their side, running the length of the hall in which they were standing. Jerking his head up in surprise, Harry's jaw dropped. They were crouched in Hogwart's great hall, knuckled down in the space between the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables.
Slowly, in shock he reached out, brushing the side of the Slytherin table. The hard oak remained solid and real. This was not a dream.
But Harry didn't have the time to marvel at his situation any longer, for an acid blue curse whipped past his left ear, searing a ragged hole through the air. Harry threw himself down against the Slytherin table, once again assured of its reality as the hard wood knocked the wind out of him.
Malfoy just smirked and raised his wand for another go. He was on the rampage.
Biting his lip Harry dove under the Slytherin table and began to crawl. He could see Malfoy's patent leather boots following him under the edge of the green and silver table runner. He was rapidly approaching the end of the table, a place where his protection would end and he would have to step out into the openness of the hall, where certain death awaited him. His mind remained a blank, and try as he might, he couldn't even begin to think of any clever plans. All he could hear was Voldemort's mocking words, echoing through his panicked brain: "You fled from me Potter, because you are a coward…"
Harry felt the sudden urge to cry. Voldemort was right. He was a little boy, and in far too deep, playing games he hardly even understood. His heart was beating in his chest like a hummingbird on crack while his mind wallowed in the depths of fear. He stopped crawling, and simply crouched under the table, clenching his fists against the cold stone. The silver scar on his palm glinted maliciously up at him. A half smile, mocking his sacrifice. It had all been in vain.
"You can't win, Potter," he heard Malfoy hiss from far above him. "Why don't you come out and let me quietly kill you? Believe me, my boy, it's all in your best interest."
Harry said nothing, still paralyzed, crouched between indecision and terror.
"Have you ever read the words of Grindelwald?" Malfoy's sudden change of topic, caused Harry to jerk his head up in surprise, knocking it against the underside of the Slytherin table and causing an overwhelming pain to fill the space between his temples. He took Harry's silence as a negative. "Mr. Grindelwald brings up some very interesting points about life, one which I think, applies especially well to your case, my boy." Malfoy paused for dramatic silence, and Harry could hear him inhale through clenched teeth, the air making a whistling noise over his pursed lips. "Mr. Grindelwald states that because of genetic inferiority, the Muggle-born or half-blood wizard doesn't deserve to live. They're little better than speaking apes. Mr. Grindelwald calls for complete Mudblood extermination, for their own good of course. So view me as a benefactor Harry, I'm only trying to help."
"Like hell you are!" Harry surprised even himself as he leapt out behind the Slytherin table, jerking off the green and sliver cloth that was covering it in the process. The snake embroidered on it gave a dangerous hiss as the table runner fell to the floor in a heap. Harry's heart was thumping. He couldn't believe what he had just done, but Malfoy's words had awakened an anger in him that he hadn't before believed existed. He could take any insult to himself, even sometimes agree with it, but Malfoy's cut at Muggle-born wizards had been too much. Dean, Hermione, even his mother had fallen into that category. They were people nearest and dearest to his heart, people that Malfoy, with his designer dress robes and snotty smirk, couldn't even begin to equal.
Then Harry's heart fell. Across Malfoy's patrician face, was a dangerous smile. He leveled his wand…
ZIP! Another curse whizzed toward Harry, but he ducked down to the cobblestones just in time. Instead, the spell hit the Hufflepuff banner, causing it to burst into violent purple flames. The great embroidered badger gave a desperate cry of pain and terror as he was consumed by Malfoy's spell.
Harry shuddered. The badger's violent death was only a foreshadowing of what was in store for him. Once again, he bit his lip so hard that it bled. Harry had given up his hope, happiness, humanity, to save wizards from the horrible fate that awaited them if dark magic and bigotry held the reins of power. He'd be damned if one man, one rich foppish racist, would cause all of his sacrifices to be in vain.
Leaping to his feet, Harry vaulted over the Slytherin table, towards Malfoy, who was leaning against the Gryffindor banner with a very smug smirk on his face. "Going to face me, Potter?" he sneered, twirling the two wands between his fingers. "Oh, my boy, I'm trembling, I'm trembling…" he laughed at his own mockery. "Avada Kedavra!" Malfoy cried, raising both Harry's wand and his own. The curses hit the floor inches from Harry's feet, blasting two potholes each the size of Hagrid's head. Harry stumbled backwards, the impact jarring him.
"Next time, I won't miss!" Malfoy hissed, shaking his blonde hair from his eyes. Harry said nothing in retort, his mind was blank of any witty or scathing replies. Only a raw determination kept him going, a guttural need to know that all of his struggles would not be in vain.
"Impedimenta!" Malfoy's curse hit Harry full in the chest, causing him to stagger backwards and fall into a nearby suit of armor, which gave a disgruntled cry as it fell to pieces.
His heart thumping in his chest, his eyes on nothing but Malfoy's wand, Harry grabbed the nearest thing to him, the armor's old plate metal shin guard, and threw it hard at Malfoy. All of Harry's Quidditch training had not been in vain. The piece of armor flew through the air like a boomerang and struck Malfoy in the abdomen. The dark wizard gave a strangled wail of pain, fell to his knees and gripped the cobblestones. Harry's wand flew out of the man's hand, skittering across the stone floor to land at his feet.
Harry picked it up, running the smooth wood between his fingers. It had never felt more welcome in his life.
A sudden absence of any curses made Harry turn and look at Malfoy. He was curled up on the floor in a fetal position, black blood bubbling from his open mouth. Harry felt like he might be sick as Malfoy raised himself up onto his trembling arms. He had a giant slash across his middle where the serrated edge of the plate metal cut him. Gazing at the wound in morbid fascination, Harry saw a glint of white that could only be Malfoy's spine. He was looking at a dead man.
Malfoy knew this also. He opened his mouth to speak, but only a bubble of blood came forth. Slowly, he tried again. "You've… killed me, Potter," he rasped, red fluid trickling down his chin with every word. "I won't go… alone." Summoning every ounce of strength in his dying body, Malfoy lifted his wand, pointing it at the rafters. "Incendio!"
The roof instantly burst into flame. Harry could hear the screams of people outside of the hall and he raced towards the door, only to find it bolted. Frantic pounding with his fists could do nothing, and the walls were catching on fire. With a giant roar, Gryffindor's lion banner burst into flame. Panicked, Harry ran towards Malfoy's body, skidding on a piece of plate armor in the process. He fell flat on his face, rolling out of the way as a flaming rafter fell down upon him. An incredible agony took a hold of him as he rolled across the floor, trying to suppress the fire eating away at his flesh. But it was impossible, everywhere there was flame. He was trapped in his own pyre. Somewhere along the line, his glasses fell off, leaving the world in a blur of orange and red and… silver?
A giant rush of hope leaped in Harry's throat. He ran forward, his cloak still smoldering. Frantically, he managed to pull off his flaming robes as he leapt forward and caught Malfoy's Greyvillian responder in his hands.
The world dissolved.
----
The great hall was a ruin.
A thick blanket of white ash covered the blackened remains of tables, chairs, and banners. Remus pushed his way through the crowd of students, faculty, and ghosts, all in their nightcaps, expressions of equal bewilderment and horror on every face.
Dumbledore was already at the forefront of the crowd, supporting a weeping Minerva McGonagall on his right arm. His blue eyes were twinged with… something. Fear, worry, anger… it had all muddled together into one cohesive glance of pain.
For a long time, no one said anything. There was nothing to say
Then a glint of silver caught Remus's eye. Walking forward, he picked pair of glasses from the rubble. The crowd held their breath. "Harry…" he began, choking on his words. "Harry was here."
He turned to Dumbledore, who said nothing.
"Harry was here," he repeated. "Harry is now… there!" Remus gestured wildly at the smoldering rubble. "Harry is… dead--"
Sobs cut him off. Hermione Granger was openly crying on the shoulder of Ron Weasley. Ron had a shocked expression on his face as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.
Still, Dumbledore remained silent.
Remus shook his head, all the mindless death, murder, and destruction of the past few days coming to a head and bursting from his lips. "Is it worth it?" he yelled, rounding on the old man. "They're dead! All of them: Romulus, Harry, Sirius--" he broke off, his voice cracking. "All for your stupid war! Does it matter? Does it really matter?" He sunk to his knees in the ashes, Harry's broken glasses dangling limply from his hand. Someone ran out to comfort him but he pushed them away, turning again to Dumbledore. "He was a child!" Remus yelled. "They are all children!" He gestured at the shocked crowd of students. "He had so much to give, so much to.. he didn't deserve this… didn't ask for it, and he sacrificed everything for you! You and your goddamn ideals!" Remus broke off again, running his fingers listlessly through the ashes. "You spoke of them once, honor, love, freedom. Now you have your chance to make the world anew. Are your ideals worth the life of one innocent boy, Albus?" There was a silence in the burned hall. "Make me believe they are," he whispered, tossing the broken glasses at Dumbledore's feet. "Make us believe they are."
Ever so slowly, Dumbledore bent down and picked up Harry's glasses. He ran one gnarled finger over the lens, wiping it free of soot.
----
Viktor Krum became the driving force behind the new wizarding world, instituting ground-breaking reforms to raise it truly out of the ashes. He was elected the youngest Minister of Magic in Bulgarian history.
Lucius Malfoy's body was never found.
His son Draco grew up and squandered the entire family fortune by engaging in several shady business ventures. He never spoke out in favor of pureblood supremacy, though.
Hermione Granger became an award-winning author and mother of four. She still meets her lifelong friend Ron once a year to lay flowers in the ruins of Hogwarts great hall.
To this day, it has never been rebuilt, standing as a tribute to those who had made the choice between what was good and what was easy.
Severus Snape never fully recovered Azkaban, though he returned to his teaching post at Hogwarts. Late at night, he can be found roaming the corridors of the old castle, mumbling to himself and weeping for something he has never really lost.
Remus Lupin would decide to abandon his memories. Along with Vix Su, he would spin a globe, trying to randomly choose a place to start life anew. Ironically, the globe stopped on Morocco, the modern day name of the Roman province of Numidia.
They would open a restaurant there. Its name is Padfoot's.
Albus Dumbledore would remain headmaster of the Hogwarts school until his death. In his last years, he would continue to promote Muggle tolerance and unity between the many magical races. Upon his death, Minerva McGonagall took up the running of the school. When she was cleaning out Dumbledore's office, shortly after he passed away, McGonagall happened upon an old book, paperback and dog-eared. It was written by a teenage Muggle who had been exterminated in a factory that manufactured death. Her name was Anne Frank and she died in the greatest genocide of modern history, known among Muggles as the Holocaust. When McGonagall opened the book, and she did very carefully, as its pages were very old and yellowed, she came across a single page marked by one of Fawkes's feathers, brilliant and red, flaming forever. On that page, Dumbledore had underlined a single quote. It read: In spite of everything, I truly believe that all people are good at heart.
----
Harry opened his eyes.
He closed them again.
Then opened them. With a sickening shock, he realized he wasn't wearing his glasses. The world swam in front of him like a wet watercolor. There was a vague blue shape, bobbing up and down inconsistently, which he supposed must be the ocean. Behind him were several pink blobs, running around and squeaking at random intervals. Harry was rather glad he couldn't discern what they were. Slowly he lifted up his hand, and saw the vague gray shape that he held within his grasp. His vision was nowhere near articulate enough to discern the moving colors and shapes weaving within it, but he knew what it was. Malfoy's Greyvillian Responder. All of the hate, pain, and death he had experience since he had first traveled through time came to a head. He saw Anan's village, burned to the ground, he remembered Sirius's face, contorted with loathing as he looked upon Romulus, but the most vivid memory of all was Malfoy, doubled over by his death blow. A blow Harry had given him… Harry shook his head, trying to clear away the awful memories. Instinctively, his fingers tightened around the Greyvillian Responder. Nothing good had ever come of it. On a wave of impulse, he grit his teeth and threw it into the sea. The Responder hit the waves with a silvery splash and then submerged, lost forever in the watery depths.
"What did you do that for?" Harry turned around, a blurry shape about his height stood in front of him, radiating indigence. Whether it was girl or boy, man or wombat, his eyes were so bad he had no way of telling.
"I… I'm sorry," Harry said quietly, rubbing his temples. "I can't see all that well--"
"Here," the figure said, their voice softening. "Occulus!"
Harry felt a flash of blinding light wash over his eyes and he blinked rapidly. When his vision cleared he found himself faced with a rather sunburnt girl a few years younger that he was, covered head to toe in muck, chewing on the brunt end of her wand as if it were hay. But it wasn't the girl that had set him off guard. Malfoy's responder must have been set on random, for he had been catapulted into a time beyond his wildest imaginations. He was on the edge of a rocky coastline, with various patches of scrub growing in the cracks. The vague pink shapes he had seen earlier, snuffling amidst the grass turned out now to be pigs, munching on everything from the grass, to the rocks, to the girl's skirt.
"Where… where am I?" Harry stammered rather abruptly.
"Hello to you too," she smirked, giving her wand a good gnaw. It let out a wild shower of blue and silver sparks in retaliation. "This is Scotland. You're a Brit, I can tell from your accent. My father says Brits are dirty cheating liars."
"Really?" Harry muttered, rubbing his head. Still smarting from the heat of Malfoy's blaze, the little girls' torrent seemed all to much to take in. He wanted Ron, Hermione, Sirius, arms in which he could lay down and unabashedly cry. But those seemed denied to him forever now, sunken beneath the Scottish sea with Malfoy's Greyvillian Responder. "What year is it?" Harry said quietly, turning his gaze from the future and to the girl at his side.
"What?" She gave a him a quizzical look. "How thick are you? Do they have a different calendar in England?" Then she added, with a gleam of mischief in her eye, "Do you really eat babies for dinner down there?"
"No," Harry grit his teeth, beginning to feel annoyed. "No we don't eat babies and yes, we do use the same calendar. I've just been… away for a while."
"Well you're by the far the most interesting thing that's ever happened to me so I think I'll tell you," she said, scratching her muddy scalp. "Its 1001 Anno Domini. July 31, 1001 if you want me to be exact."
His birthday. Harry almost smiled, Dumbledore hadn't been wrong about the Responders being sentient. They had their own sense of ironic humor.
"I'm a pig farmer," the little girl was blathering. "My father's a wizard, he owns a big farm over that hill," she pointed to a hill on the nearby moor. "But he makes me take care of the pigs. I don't care, I get to get a dirty as I want, but it gets boring sometimes. All the people I meet are boring, except for you. You're the most--"
Harry cut her off, running a sooty hand through his coal black hair. "How did you cure my eyes? Did you go to school? We didn't learn healing charms until the fourth year and you don't look much older than ten."
"I'm twelve," the girl gave him an extremely condescending look. "My father taught me the charm. That's how everyone learns. There is no school to learn magic, but since you're British, I'll assume you're stupid and don't know anything about anything."
"Look," Harry held up a hand. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I just wanted to know."
She bit her lip and gave him an appraising look. "Alright then. A school for magic actually wouldn't be that bad of an idea. No one really knows a lot of charms, we just go by what our parents know and they go by what their parents know and they go by what their--"
"Yeah, I get the idea," Harry said, sinking onto a large rock beside the pig girl.
"A school needs a name," she continued, still chewing at her wand.
"Oxford?" Harry ventured, hardly listening to her.
"No!" she gave him a look of extreme disgust. "Who would go to a school with a name like that? Everyone hates oxen. Pigs are much better," she gave one of her hogs an affectionate pat on the head.
"Well, you don't have to name the school after an animal…" Harry began.
"I like pigs." she said firmly, the glare in here eyes daring Harry to disagree. "Boarhaven… Snoutscratch… Pigpimples…"
"Hogwarts," Harry said quietly, his heart stopping.
"Hogwarts," her eyes lit up. "It does have a certain ring to it, doesn't it?"
"It does indeed," Harry said quietly, trying to control the frantic beating of his heart. Unbidden, Dumbledore's words rang in his ears. "…when the Responder is put on random, it places you where it thinks you can do the most good. It has all of time to choose from…"
"My name is Rowena Ravenclaw," the girl said brightly, extending her mucky hand. "What's yours?"
Harry didn't answer her for a while, turning his eyes to the sea. Images of Ron, Sirius, Hermione, flashed by his eyes, people and places more dear to his heart than his own soul. People and places he'd have to wait a whole lifetime to see again. But it wasn't his place to look back. The Responder has given him a second chance. He had his whole life ahead of him, and there was work to be done. Choices were never easy, Harry could only hope he had done what was right. Slowly, he looked up from the waves, rolling back and forth onto the beach, just as they had done since the beginning of time. His eyes then wandered to the sun, rising just above the water's horizon, its beams of light kissing the Scottish moor. "You can call me Godric," Harry said quietly, feeling something lodged in his throat. "Godric Gryffindor."
He wanted Ron. Sirius. Hermione. Even Draco's face would be a welcome reprieve. But all of that was closed to him now. Sometimes all you could do was move on.
Sometimes all you could do was let the sun rise anew. A phoenix ascending, born from the ashes.
----
finite incantatem.
