The battle raged, inside the crumbling ministry walls the resistance force was barely holding their own. The attack had been swift, the casualties high. Several were missing. Severus Snape was believed dead, someone claimed to have seen him fall five minutes into the skirmish. Lucius Malfoy was also unaccounted for. The Aurors were loosing their last legs, the Death Eaters also seemed to be falling. Harry pushed his way through the noise and blood, over the fallen of friend and foe. He paused, unsure of which way he should be going. (I thought I would be prepared, when the time for this came. Had it been any other night…) a curse whizzed past him, ricocheting of a wall and down the road until it hit a window and exploded.

The death eater that had fired it slumped, like a rag with all the water rung out of it, and fell. His mask cracked on the pavement, his wand rolled free from his hand, coming to rest at the entrance to the sewer. The street was deserted. The noise, the sobbing of those too weak to move, in pain, in fear, the forms twitching in their last spasms, The fresh dead that lent a stale quality to the air around them…

Footsteps, growing louder as they advanced up the street, a limp? One step seemed to be lagging, leaving a hole in the pace of the stride. Then he was there. His eyes flickered, like a candle all but extinguished, but they were focused yet. Focused on him. His robe was torn, blood, both stale and fresh, matted his boots, his cloak… in one hand he held his wand at the ready. The other lay useless at his side. Shoulders held high, but his legs were unsteady, and Harry seized that as swiftly as he could. "Mobilicorpus!" The spell flew, wrapping about the Dark Lord. He twitched, and toppled to the ground.

"Accio wand!" Harry stumbled as the wand flew from his grasp and into Voldemort's crippled hand. Harry leapt behind a wall, waiting for all hell to break loose. …when it didn't, he rose to his feet and peeked around the corner. Voldemort still lay unmoving, their eyes met, and he struggled anew. But could not break free. The battle had worn him too far down, taken too much from him for this last fight. His wand hand twitched, and his breath came in an angry hiss like a cobra in a jar. "…You think… you think this is over… don't you Potter." Harry's eyes narrowed, he moved forward, until he could look down at the fallen Dark Lord.

"Yes, I do." Voldemort laughed, and struck. His boot connected solidly with Harry's knee. Torn and in pain Potter crumpled with a cry and screamed as sharp nails closed around his throat. A shot flew past them, startling Voldemort into releasing his hold and Harry rolled away.

The ache in his throat, the smells, the sounds, somewhere the scent of smoke…fading as the pain pulled him under, fading into darkness…

"…Harry..? Harry are you okay? …common mate get up. Harry? …Harry?"

"…Where, am I?" The world seems to be coming back into focus, and I see a lot of white tile… oh bugger. "Did I get beat up again? Or am I having a recurring nightmare?" Ron looks down at me like I've been stupefied.

"Well hello to you to! Nice to see you buddy! How's everyone else? Did we win? That I might have expected, but recurring nightmare? Oy Harry!" I smile, "Okay, maybe my wording was a little strong. Did we win?" Ron grinned. "…well, not WON, parse. But we had less casualties, and…" I curse and sit up, then hiss at the pain in my knee. "So he got away again…" Ron shook his head no. "We captured him Harry! We got him! The ministries holding him in… well, I'm not allowed to say it out loud actually. But we got him!"

"If we got him than why is he still alive! Ron!"
"…cause you're the only one who can kill him Harry. Why do you think?"
"Oh for the love of…"

Call it intuition, call it paranoya, call it anything. But I had a feeling in my gut, that this capture would prove far more dangerous to me and mine, than even his avada kedavra.