A/N: Just to clarify, the potion messes with Draco and Harry's minds. They remember growing up with Ron and Pansy, but the potion makes it seem real, so they don't realise that they've stayed sixteen for over ten years. Hope that makes sense.
Draco woke at around 6:50. He noticed Harry wasn't there, but after what he had said last night, Draco didn't really care. He stayed in bed for a minute or two, before the door opened and Ron came in.
"Hey. We've got to take you two to see Dumbledore." He looked around. "Where's Harry?"
Draco shrugged.
"I think he left not long ago. I was half awake but I don't know where he went." Ron looked worried.
"We'd better find him. Get dressed; we'll have to look for him."
Grumbling, Draco pulled on his robes, putting his wand in his pocket. He wandered around the castle without really looking properly, as he was still fired up about the middle of the night.
He met up with Ron and Pansy after about twenty minutes, after having covered the whole castle together. They'd found nothing. Draco began to get a prickle of fear. What if Harry didn't return? Where could he have gone?
Suddenly, Draco thought of something. Without waiting to tell the others he raced off, leaving them shouting after him. Draco had remembered Harry talking in his sleep that morning.
'Fourth floor, portrait of a knight with a red horse; touch the bottle' he had murmured and Draco, caught between sleep and wakefulness had heard the words, though he hadn't registered them. If Draco was right, Harry had been having one of his dreams, and was most likely in terrible danger right now.
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Harry had crept out of the room that morning and gone straight to where he'd been told. The bottle was there as promised and Harry wasted no time in stretching out a finger to touch it. He had felt the pull behind his navel that signified that he was off, and when he opened his eyes he found himself in the same graveyard he had seen Voldemort in.
Without being given a chance to fully register where he was, Harry felt arms grabbing him and looked down to see long, white fingers gripping his shoulder. Panicking, Harry struck out, but Voldemort was much stronger than he was, and easily tied him to a headstone.
Harry looked up at the man, the first prickles of fear and doubt stabbing at his stomach.
"You came sooner than expected, Potter," Voldemort told him. "And I have some business to finish. I'll be back soon, don't you worry." He smiled cruelly. "Don't move a muscle," he said, smirking, and with a crack was gone.
Harry sat still, his mind working furiously. Had this been a trap? Was he now condemned to die here, tied to the headstone without even a chance of fighting back?
It was almost January and the weather was bitterly cold. Harry tried to huddle tighter, but was tied so tightly that he couldn't manage it. By the time Voldemort returned it was twenty minutes later, and Harry was almost blue with cold.
Voldemort didn't approach Harry immediately, but hung back, so that Harry knew it would be useless to try to talk to him. He simply watched as Voldemort rolled up his sleeve and pressed his finger to his forearm. Harry wondered what he was doing for a minute, and then gasped, horrified as the place Voldemort touched glowed red then black. He rolled his sleeve back down and came over to face Harry.
"My faithful Death Eaters are coming Potter," he said. "This is a special occasion. I am finally going to kill you."
Harry looked around, and saw that the Death Eaters were indeed appearing. There seemed to be dozens of them. As each one arrived they kneeled respectfully in front of Voldemort, murmuring, "My Lord," and then formed a semi-circle facing Harry.
When they were all there, Voldemort began to speak.
"Do you remember this place?" Voldemort asked, gesturing to the graveyard around him, and then added, "Perhaps not. Poor Potter doesn't remember anything of our – recent – encounters."
"Where's my father?" Harry asked immediately, not even bothering to ponder what this sentence meant. A ripple of laughter spread through the watching Death Eaters.
"Aw, baby Potty wants his Daddy. Isn't that sweet?" The mocking voice came from somewhere in the circle. Voldemort simply smiled lazily at Harry.
"Your father is dead, Potter," he said, sounding amused. "You know that. You have known that for years. I simply created an illusion for you. I must say, it was very amusing."
Harry felt hot anger curse through him.
"You promised," he said, his voice shaking with rage.
"Ah," Voldemort said. "But you have to understand, Harry that my word is not always the one to trust. Am I right?" He spoke to his Death Eaters, who laughed cruelly. "However," Voldemort continued, "You are trustworthy, so I assume you held up your end of the bargain?" He reached down and pulled Harry's wand from his pocket, flicking it between his fingers idly. "Excellent."
Harry was definitely feeling worried now, though he did his best to hide it. He was surrounded by Death Eaters, tied to a headstone and had no wand. He didn't see how he could possible escape from this.
Then suddenly something happened which made him forget that.
Draco Malfoy appeared in the place where Harry had arrived half an hour before, clutching the bottle that was used as a portkey.
Harry's mouth dropped open. Apparently the Death Eaters were in shock too, because none of them moved, giving Draco time to undo Harry's bonds with his wand and cast expelliarmus at Voldemort.
Harry scrambled to his feet and grabbed his wand which had landed near him.
"Get them," he heard Voldemort shriek, and the Death Eaters began to close in. Quickly, he and Draco began to fire off spells.
"Stupefy!" Harry roared desperately. "Avada Kedavra!" Out of the corner of his eye he saw green light flash and a Death Eater went down. Another fell to the ground after being hit by Harry's stunning spell. Draco was doing the same, as the Death Eaters closed in, pulled out their own wands. In desperation Harry cried: "Sectumsempra!" He waved his wand around, as he'd never cast this spell before, had never heard of it until Wormtail had cast it at Pansy. Red light streamed from his wand and as Harry kept waving it, it went straight through three Death Eaters coming towards them. Harry barely saw that their legs collapsed to the ground and their torsos a second later, in different spots. Harry had cut the three in half.
The number of Death Eater was diminishing rapidly.
"Come on," Voldemort screamed. "Are you going to be outwitted by a pair of teenagers?"
The Death Eaters were casting spells too now, and Harry and Draco were ducking and weaving, doing their best to avoid them. They'd taken out at least three quarters of the Death Eaters now, and were still casting spells as they dived behind tombstones and out of reach of the Death Eaters' spells. More and more of them were falling to the ground as Draco picked up the Sectumsempra spell and took out a few at a time.
Unfortunately, the Death Eaters were using this spell too. There were only a couple left now, and Harry rolled out of the shelter of the tombstone, casting stunning spells at wherever he could see Death Eaters. To his surprise, he saw only four left.
"Sectumsempra!" Draco roared, taking out three of them. The final one lifted his wand.
"Sectumsempra," he cried, aiming at both of them. Harry threw himself behind the tombstone and then looked back for his friend.
Draco lay on the ground. He hadn't been quick enough. The spell had cut through his shoulder, almost halfway through his body. His face was very pale.
Anger replaced the fear Harry had been feeling. This man had killed his friend, his brother.
"Sectumsempra!" Harry roared. The Death Eater's eyes widened in surprise as the spell swept through his body, then he feel to the ground, dead.
Voldemort cam forward, clapping slowly.
"Well done, Potter, well done," he said quietly, and there was no amusement in his voice now. "So you managed to get through my Death Eater forces. Very clever of you. However, you did have help from your friend, didn't you? A friend who could have helped you with so much more… But won't now."
"What?" Harry stared at Voldemort. What was he talking about?
"Oh, of course… I forgot you didn't know," Voldemort said. "How rude of me."
He continued to smirk at Harry who was growing steadily angrier by the second.
"So, it's just you and me, once again, Harry," he said softly. "But of course, you don't remember that."
Harry squinted. Memories were stirring from deep inside his brain… He had been here before. He had battled Voldemort, here, before, in fourth year. Cedric had been killed. 'Wait,' said a voice. 'Who's Cedric?'
And there was another memory… a good looking teenage boy down in what looked to be a dungeon… and a man with two heads staring into a mirror… what was happening? Harry shook his head to clear it.
"Well then, Potter, I suppose it's time for us to duel?" Voldemort's tone was mocking. "You may remember – or perhaps you don't – that last time this happened, our wands refused to fight one another."
Harry had a vague memory of this; a golden light connecting two wands and people climbing out of the other one: Cedric, an old man, a woman who'd been missing and – Harry remembered painfully – his mother and father.
"So," Voldemort continued. "I've given up my wand in favour of another one. This time we will have a real duel."
Harry swallowed. He knew he was no match for Voldemort. He knew he would be killed. But he was determined to be killed fighting, like Draco, not cowering, hiding from the spell.
"Ok," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. Voldemort smiled.
"I see you still have courage, whatever else you may have lost recently. You will die standing up to me, just as your father did."
Harry raised his wand, ignoring Voldemort. Voldemort did the same, and bowed ironically to Harry. Then he brought his wand down shouting:
"Crucio!"
Harry dodged just in time, and stood up roaring: "Stupefy!" Voldemort moved lazily.
"You'll have to do better than that, Potter," he called, sounding amused once again. Harry gritted his teeth and fired every spell he knew at Voldemort, who deflected them with his wand almost lazily. By this time Harry was staggering with weariness, having used all his energy in the many spells he had been casting.
"Come on, Potter," Voldemort called. "You know you have nothing left. I can make it quick, or I can make it painful. It's your choice." Harry tried to muster up some energy but failed. It was no use. If he cast another spell he knew he'd faint. He simply stood, struggling to keep his head up, waiting for Voldemort to deal the final blow.
Voldemort stood in front of Harry, smiling.
"To think, after all these years," he said softly. "This is what it came down to. It's almost disappointing. Oh well." He raised his wand, and brought it down crying "Avada Kedavra!"
Harry waited for death to overtake him, longed for it even, just to be with people he loved again. He waited for it to hit him, waited for the spell to come…
But it never did. Instead, a body flung itself in front of him, a blonde haired boy whom Harry had thought was dead, threw himself in front of Harry, taking the spell for him.
As it hit, time seemed to freeze and the spell turned around and headed back where it had come from, back to Voldemort, whose eyes widened in surprise as he was hit by his own spell… and then both he and Draco gave tiny sighs and sank to the ground and didn't stir again.
Harry couldn't think, couldn't feel. He shook his head again and again, trying to clear it. At last he looked down at the crumpled form of Draco Malfoy and picked it up in his arms, staggering over to the bottle Draco had brought with him. He snatched it up and again felt the jerk that was taking them back to Hogwarts… back to life… back to normality. They hit the ground at Hogwarts and as voices surrounded them so did blackness… Harry sank into the cool darkness, and thought no more.
A/N: Only one more chapter! It'll be up a little late next week as I'm away on school camp but I'll get it up as soon as possible. Thanks for reading!
