Voldemort laughed. "You are the most brutal Auror I have ever seen. You don't flinch at hurting people. Or killing them. The need, the lust to kill is in your blood. You know it is. You cannot deny it."

"I kill evil. Not innocent." said Lana.

"Evil people kill innocent people?" asked Voldemort. Lana nodded. "But you kill. So doesn't that make you evil?"

"No." Lana spat blood onto the floor.

"But you still killed someone. Stole their life." Voldemort said.

"You're just trying to confuse me." Lana shook her head, clearing images of all the people she had killed over the years.

Voldemort knelt down in front of Lana. "You're confused because you know that I am right and you don't want to believe it. Just accept it. You are a killer."

"I'm not a killer. Not a killer." muttered Lana, her hands over her head.

"You killed Sirius." whispered Voldemort.

Lanas brown eyes fixed on Voldemorts red ones. "Liar. Thats impossible."

"Nothings impossible." Voldemort stood up and turned to his followers. "Leave us alone. Bella, Lucius, Erica - stay. The rest leave."

Quickly and silently, the Death Eaters disappeared.

"Nothing you say can convince me." said Lana. although the nervous expression on her face said otherwise.

"You are aware of - all of your powers, are you not?" asked Voldemort.

Nodding, Lana, slowly stood up, not taking her eyes of Voldemort. "Then you should know," he continued, "that you can - astral project, in a fashion. And when you felt Sirius and Harry in danger, you snapped out of it - only for a few seconds, but it was enough for my Bella here to stun Sirius and send him into that Veil. He saw you out of the corner of his eye - and his focused shifted so much that you killed him."

Rolling her eyes, Lana said - "Is that the best you can come up with? Because, to be honest, I already knew. I know that I shifted his focus, and thats why he was killed. Do you really think I could feel MORE guilty? 'Cause I know I can't."

Tonks was still knocked out over the other side of the room - Bella, Lucius and Erica were to Voldemorts left. Lana was stood with her back to the Veil. A heavy silence hung over the room, like a thick blanket of dust that clogs the lungs. Lana knew that Snape, Moody, Lupin and Harry were on their way. She had to stall as long as possible - she needed Lupin and Harry there - and Bella. The change in the air; the shift of the space between the living and the dead; the change that made all things possible; was beginning now, and Lana had only a 10 minute window to do what she had to do.

Looking down, Lana saw that her leg was fully healed. She felt weak, but that was because Voldemort had her powers. But not all of them. Moving quicker than any of them could see, Lana plunged her right hand into Voldemorts chest, and he let out a roar of pain as Lana pulled her powers out of him and into her. Bella, Lucius and Erica flew at her, but with her left hand, Lana flung them across the room.

Voldemorts snake-like red eyes bulged in rage and pain and he pulled back his arms and smashed them into Lanas chest, sending her into the air and across the room.

At that moment, Lupin, Snape, Moody and - where was Harry? Lana thought briefly, knowing that they could never have held him back.

Bella cackled insanely and cried "Crucio", aiming it at Moodys chest, who fell to the floor writhing in pain. A jet of blue light from Snapes wand knocked Bella across the floor, breaking her hold on Moody.

"Watch out!" Moody called, as Lucius started shouting and jets of blue, green and red light came at Snape, who quickly muttered the counter spells and ran to the side.

Lana was laying on the floor, catching her breath, and Voldemort was bent almost double, waiting for the pain to subside.

~*~*~*~*~*~ HARRY~*~*~*~*~*~

Standing outside the door that led into the Veil Room, Harry couldn't quite make his feet move and just stood staring into the room in which his Godfather had died and it was certain his Godmother would die, if someone didnt do something. But for once, Harry couldnt play the hero. He was terrified. Voldemort was in there, almost certainly killing or at least wounding the people that he cared about. And then there was Ginny. And the Prophecy that Dumbledore had finally revealed to him chilled him to the very bone. "If its a choice between killing or dying, there no choice," Lana had told him once.

Harry had often wondered how Lana had gotten so hard. From what Lupin had told him, Lana used to be a caring person. but after all that happened, it had toughened her and it was hard for her to not look at every situation cynically. "You should go into every fight expecting to die. Because one day you will. Know it, not fear it," was something else that Lana had also told him.

A scream hit Harrys ears; someone had just been hit - and it sounded like Moody. He desperately wanted to run in and do something, but his feet felt like they were cemented to the floor. Echoes of Sirius falling through the Veil flashed through Harrys mind, him screaming for Sirius to come back, running after Bella, Voldemort appearing and almost killing him. His mouth was dry and Harry felt like he was going to pass out. Im just a kid, Harry thought, what can I do? If I die, no-one will ever beat Voldemort. But how do I know? How do I know when I can kill him? And how?

The pressure was starting to build on Harry, and at that very moment, he fully realised what he had to do. In that moment, he fully felt the pressure, the lives, the people that depended upon him.

I cant go in that room, I cant watch more people I love die. I cant go through it all again, he thought. But I have to. I have to know Im going to die. I have to know that people around me are going to die. Now was the time for Harry to stop being a kid and to start being an adult.

Harry gripped his wand tight in his hand, trying to remember some of the spells Lana had taught him. Some of them were Dark Magic - which Harry would never use, but Lana had thought it useful that he know them incase the worst came to the worst or he was ever confronted with them. He walked through the door and into the dust, screams and flashing lights of the Veil Room.