The Eight of Prophecy, chapter 23. I just realised at this late stage that I haven't put in a disclaimer for yonks…if ever. OOPZ umm yeah if this were mine I'd be married to Orlando Bloom and/or Johnny Depp long before now. ie, no, I don't own Harry. I own Aurora, Morganna, Poseidon, Lindsey, Faith Black, and all the Animagiami. Err, yaah, did I mention the plot's mine? Mine. Mine. MINE MINE MINEY-MINE…heehee, um yes. swallows crazy pills ahem. Quite.

Dumbledore came rushing out onto the lawn with a furious expression on his face. Harry looked at him and felt chilled to the core, but at the same time comforted. He had only seen Dumbledore like this a few times, and it was scary each time. He was radiating white magic and power. The old man looked upwards.

"Rose, go back upstairs now," he said with his eyes fixed on the ice phoenix circling overhead.

Rose pulled a face. "But Professor, I - "

"Now!" he barked. She bit her lip, eyes wide, and complied.

Dumbledore took out his wand. "Tell me why she was left alone," he commanded, his gaze never leaving Ice. Harry looked towards Draco.

"Well…she said she could handle herself; that we were just being over-protective," her cousin said, panicked.

Dumbledore frowned. "After what happened? I had hoped you all had much more sense than that," he muttered angrily, and raised his wand. "Amima reverso arcana!" he called.

Yellow beams of light came bursting out of the tip of Dumbledore's wand. He aimed at Ice, and in an instant, she was transformed back into Aurora. Not normal Aurora, though. She was in her "nymph" form, complete with tail and shells. Except…she wasn't just that either. Her hair was a shocking shade of ebony, and her eyes were blacker than Hagrid's…much larger as well. A lot of the whites of her eyes had been covered in black. She was floating in the air with electricity crackling around her, just floating.

Her ebony hair was being blown by an unseen wind, and she had an eerily passive smile. There was a trickle of blood leaking from the corner of her mouth. Every now and then, her limbs would spasm horribly, and the electrical atmosphere around her would discharge with a crackle.

Harry watched in horror. He gasped and fell back onto his knees, feeling sick to his stomach. There was a raw, gaping wound in her mid-section. A hole in her torso. It was bleeding horrifically, and was blackened and rough around the outside. The flesh surrounding the wound looked burnt. Somewhere behind him, Harry heard someone be sick…then someone else. Clearly, they too had seen her.

There was silence apart from the crackling as Aurora floated in the air, being watched; her expression was vacant. Dumbledore raised his wand slowly.

"Miss Malfoy, I think you need to come down. It's safe now," he said clearly; but his voice was laced with caution.

"Think again."

Dumbledore whipped around to where the voice came from. He was too late. In an instant, Lucius Malfoy yelled out, "Impedimenta!" and the wise old man was frozen.

"Isn't this grand?" the white-blonde man said harshly. He stepped into the open and the light from the full moon illuminated his pale features – but even Lucius wasn't as pale as Aurora's deathly mask. He crept out from the shadows wielding his wand with fierce hatred written on his face. He looked rather battered, and his hair and clothes were quite wet. He was breathing quite heavily.

"I think it's quite handy, really, that I have you all in one place," he said sneeringly. As one, Harry and Draco raised their wands.

"You're not going to do it, Mr Malfoy," Harry yelled defiantly.

Draco just glared. "How could you?" he asked venomously in a deadly low voice. "How could you possibly do that to your sister's child?"

Lucius paused. He looked at the two boys again. "Potter," he drawled with contempt. "Enough said." Then his gaze flickered to Draco.

"Well, my boy," he said quietly. "You hardly turned out the way I'd expected. If you know what's good for you, you will go inside now," he hissed. "The Dark Lord is very angry with you indeed."

Draco shook his head furiously. "Can't do that," he said gruffly.

Lucius snarled. "Stupid boy." Then he threw back his head in a cocky manner. "You shall all face the Dark Lord's wrath later. You will not escape."

Draco stepped forward. "Two against one, father. Put down your wand now."

Lucius grit his teeth. It was visible from the strain on his face that he was fighting an internal battle – whether to yield or not. In the end, he let out a roar of defeat.

"Fine! I give up," he yelled. Slowly, he began to put down his wand. Slowly, slowly; his eyes on the two boys the whole time. Harry and Draco relaxed.

Once Lucius's wand was on the ground, they lowered their wands a little.

That was all he needed.

In a move so fast they barely saw it, Lucius grabbed up his wand again and yelled, "Petrificus Totalus!"

Draco, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Lindsey and Ginny were frozen instantly. Lucius threw back his head again and laughed.

"Trust! You stupid fools," he mocked. "You must tell me what it is like to see death before you. I never have," he said, raising his wand once more.

"Avada Keda - "

He was cut off by a clap of thunder. He looked upwards, and was surprised to see that the clear night sky was now totally obscured by thunder clouds. They were moving in a most alarming pattern. The dark grey thunderclouds rumbled threateningly and were travelling across the sky at an accelerated pace. They were heaving and unfurling and growing darker by the minute.

And they seemed to be moving towards Aurora.

The nymph floated in the sky. Her tail and shells had disappeared; she was now in her human form again. Except, her black eyes and hair and deathly pale skin remained. She was wearing a black gothic dress, with a tight laced bodice and a flaring velvet skirt. The clouds were drawn towards her, and she was crackling with sparks ominously.

" 'Oh, come, thou dear infant, Oh come thou with me,

Full many a game I will play there with thee,

On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,

My mother will grace thee with garments of gold.' "

There was a pause marked only by the crackling of lightning and thunder. Lucius stared at Aurora incredulously, appalled.

"What is wrong with you, child? If it weren't for you being so bloody important to the Dark Lord, I would have killed you long ago for the psychotic nonsense you insist on babbling all the time. You interrupted my murders, now," he spat, looking angrily at the prone bodies on the ground that he had almost killed if it weren't for the clap of thunder that distracted him.

Her blank eyes caught his. "Childhood trauma," she whispered, grinning mirthlessly. Another boom of thunder, and lightning cracked across the sky. Rain began to fall heavily from the forbidding clouds. Then, Aurora shrieked as her body gave another spasm, and jerked violently. She began to laugh, cackling like a stereotypical witch should. Her dress finished the image: she looked very much the medieval sorceress.

"Twisted Infinity takes away six; six before the Day of the Dead.

The remainder be arisen together; the Magician is filled with heart wrenching dread.

The wheels are turning, ever turning; Fate spins the Fool like a top.

Where he comes to, no one knows, we only pray this pain might sto-"

Aurora's ramblings ceased abruptly with a gurgle. She looked down at the new hole in her torso. In the few seconds that she had been talking, Lucius Malfoy had turned on his cattle prod again, and thrown the electric rod like a javelin up into the sky - into her body. This time, it had pierced her heart.

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Harry watched helplessly on the ground, soaked by the rain. He lay on the saturated grass, the muddy soil spattering up at him. He couldn't stand, talk, anything; he couldn't even blink. He stared up at the sky mortified as the sparking rod soared through the sky, as if in slow motion. He heard every word Aurora was saying, and didn't understand any of it. He yearned to yell out, 'No! Aurora, watch out! Move!' but he couldn't. He couldn't do anything.

He saw the rod bury itself in Aurora's heart and he felt his own heart was going to break. She was so sweet, so kind; how could she meet a fate like this?

Harry's memory flashed back to when he had first met her. He had thought she was so…vulnerable, it was just endearing. Looking up at her now, in all her black power, he marvelled how he could ever have made the assumption that she was…weak. That she was fragile.

He felt his heart break for her. She was fragile, but powerful as well. It was her overwhelming power that made her so fragile. Her strength that made her weak.

Aurora was a contradiction within herself. She was a contrary girl by many standards. Insane (at times). Half-human. Revered by some; capitalised on by others. But that hardly mattered now, Harry reflected. Nothing really mattered now. He had loved Aurora, as a friend and as…well, maybe something more. She mattered…had mattered. Nothing else really seemed to be important when the girl whom Harry loved was high up in the sky with an electric rod piercing her heart.

He slowly began to feel…detached. What was the point of him going on? His mind swam in helplessness, but it wasn't defeat. It was a- a-

It was a revelation. An…an epiphany? Yes, an epiphany: enlightenment. Aurora was gone, and there was nothing that he could do about it. He felt indignation. Why?

Why was she taken away from him so…so cruelly? Her bloodied end should have been graceful, painless: should have been better. Anything was better than being impaled by a metal pole. Her end should not have been so young, either. Harry's indignation turned to hot anger. Furious fire built deep in his chest.

No. It wasn't right. It shouldn't have been so. Aurora was sweet and young and beautiful, and she was good. Good. Her heart was good, and she was loved. Harry seethed inwardly. The flames burned inside of him. No. This wasn't right.

It was wrong.

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This was it.

The End.

Aurora choked, and jerked violently. Her body's spasms were far, far worse than before. Well, they had a right to be: the rod was still in her heart. She closed her eyes with effort and screamed as she wrenched the sparking rod out of her torso. The blood pouring out was absorbed by the black gothic dress she was wearing, but not all. There were dark red droplets falling down from the sky to the grounds, and splattering over some of the towers and roofs. It mingled with the rain falling from the clouds.

"If I go," she roared over the storm that her own power had created, "Then I'm damn well taking you with me!" she reached out her hand. Her ebony eyes expanded, and there were soon no whites showing at all. The electricity around her intensified.

"Poseidon, Neptune, hear this cry.

You who let your daughter die.

Anubis, Osiris, Lords of Death true,

Necromancy I ask from you.

Now: Isis, Hecate, Queens of all,

To you I put my baleful call.

Weave your arcane spells at last,

My legacy: vengeance curse is cast."

Then, she started to speak in a tongue that none, not even Dumbledore lying prone on the ground with the others, could recognise. He knew, however, that the spells Aurora was using were not…well, not exactly on the curriculum at Hogwarts. The Goddess that Aurora had addressed mainly, Isis, was not one to be trifled with. She was the Supreme Mother in Ancient Egypt, and very powerful. The arcane magicks of Ancient Egypt were…well, mystical. They were mostly forgotten. And Hecate? Dumbledore shuddered. The three-faced goddess of destruction and death was definitely of the Dark. Dumbledore wondered what language Aurora was chanting in. Three of her deities were Egyptian. Was it ancient Egyptian? Babylonian? Romany, Phoenician, or Futhorc perhaps? He brought himself out of his reverie to watch what was happening.

With a howl, Lucius Malfoy was thrown up into the air. Like being sucked up by a straw, Lucius was pulled into the forbidding depths of the placid lake. It took him down, down, down. There wasn't even a ripple as he entered the water. Far beneath the surface, there was a burst of blue light. "Now see what it's like," Aurora rasped, drained, "In another dimension."

She closed her eyes with the pain and grit her teeth. She let out a long, shrill wail as she fell to the ground. Slowly, at first.

But as she fell, she began to gain speed. Momentum and gravity, two supreme masters of nature, were exercising their power as they pulled their dying daughter towards the ground.

Her body was plummeting to the ground. From a distance, Draco felt his heart stop. He closed his eyes and waited in horror for the sickening thud as she fell to the earth. There was no Dumbledore to save her now, and everyone else who could have helped was either dead or frozen.

The sickening thud never came. Instead, there was a deep, male grunt, a moan and another wail.

Draco opened his eyes disbelievingly. Instead of lying dead on the ground, Aurora was being cradled in the arms of none other than Harry Potter.

Who was being beaten up by none other than the girl he had just rescued from a painful impact on the ground. He pulled a face as she scratched him again. "Let go!" she said piteously. Harry noted with relief that her hair had gone back to being blonde with blue bits, her eyes were almost back to their beautiful blue colour again. Her complexion, though, was just as dangerously pale. Harry gulped, and realised that it wasn't the magic. She was fatally wounded. It was a wonder she was still moving.

" 'My father, my father, and dost thou not hear

The words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?'

'Be calm, dearest child, 'tis thy fancy deceives;

'Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves.'"

Harry grunted as she lashed out at him again. She was pretty fight-y, for a girl who was quickly dying. He put her down gently, ignoring the blows raining down on him. He found his wand lying a few feet away on the muddy grass and quickly used it to de-freeze everyone lying on the ground. Everyone got up slowly, and came nearer.

Meanwhile, Aurora was still talking to herself quite vividly, raving and hitting out and waving her arms expressively.

"Why," Draco said, his voice strained, "Does everything she says in this state always have to bloody rhyme? Bleedin' poetry."

Hermione, from the background, bit her lip. "He's in shock," she whispered to Ron.

"Potter," Draco said. "I…how?" he was staring at Harry with alarm. The dark-haired boy was standing back, and –

Yes. It was official: Harry Potter was glowing. He was illuminated in exactly the same way that Aurora had been before, except not blue. Harry was swathed in red, yellow and orange light. He looked down at himself with alarm, and shrugged helplessly.

"Don't look at me! I don't know," he said quickly. "I just…got up."

Dumbledore furrowed his brows. "You must be the other one. Good." After that baffling statement, he knelt down next to Aurora. She was still raving, although her eyes were beginning to cloud over a bit. She was growing tired, and it was obvious that she didn't have a lot of time left.

Harry and Draco both gathered around her. Harry buried his face in his hand in a clear attempt not to let his grief show. Draco's breaths were ragged and uneven. He put out a hand and stroked her hair softly. He jerked back when he got a static shock from her.

Dumbledore tutted. "She needs to get to the hospital wing," he said with authority. He put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrieked and lurched away from him. Draco tried to pacify her, but she wouldn't be touched by anyone.

She opened her eyes dimly, and frowned while pulling away, muttering. Harry only caught a few words like 'sovereign' and 'where I came from'.

A few feet away, Lindsey was suddenly aware of many people behind him. He felt a prickling at the back of his neck and turned around. He made a strange guttural sound as he found himself face to face with a Merman bearing a long, sharp spear. A tribe of Mermen, in fact.

Lindsey tapped Professor Dumbledore on the shoulder, but the old man shrugged him off. "Not now, Mr Black," he said quietly.

Lindsey raised an eyebrow. "Tell that to the spear-wielding seaweed-worshippers behind you."

Dumbledore got up quickly. He turned to the lead Merman and started talking very fast Mermish. Harry looked up to see Dumbledore making animated gestures with his hands, but the Merman was beginning to look angry.

Dumbledore turned away, looking tired and angry. "They want to take Miss Malfoy away."

He was startled by a voice. "Let them." He looked down.

Harry spoke again, fuelled by the fire inside him. "It's the only way for her: the waters. It's what she'd want."

Harry nodded at the Merman. In a flash, six Merman came forward and picked her up gently. They raised her high above their heads and began to carry her off into the waters.

"NO!" Draco yelled desperately, jumping up. He was held back by Harry. The platinum youth was fighting tooth and claw to get to his cousin, but by the time he broke free it was too late. She was fully submerged under the water. Gone.

Draco, came a voice in his head. He gave a start when he realised it was Rose. Have faith. I've been scrying in my crystal, and I know what's happening. Don't forget what Aurora is. But if you want her back, it's all up to Harry.

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A/N HEY THERE wow you people are certainly reviewing a lot more now. Yayayayay for me!!

So, the cliffy is now resolved.sobbing poor Aurora! Yikes, her end was a bit gory, wasn't it? I mean, one hole is abd enough, but the poor girl had TWO holes in her troso! I mean, ouch. Awww, and Harry didn't even get to tell her how he felt… But what is Rose talking about????? And what is WITH the poetry? Well, Aleana asked about it, so now I'm further inspired to rhyme. Also, what is up with Harry? I mean, glow-y? And Dumbledore's comment, he was the other one?? HUH??

If you wanna find out, review and I'll write the next chappie extra fast. Heehee I love ancient Egypt. It's ultra hip. Disclaimer there is another verse here from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Erl King, written with quotation marks.

Perry, what you said is very true indeed. Curses. Everyone else, pleeeeeease ReViEw!! And if anyone can dig up any extra info on Hecate, I would be a very happy chappy. : )