A/N: Two chapters left after this one.

There are no author's notes at the bottom of today's chapter, so I will say everything here. This is the longest chapter to date. My God it is long. It's practically a story all of its own. And I'm warning you now, it's mostly talking, it may be boring at parts. I have cut it down as much as I can but that's as far as I'm going.

All the things that (I have felt) would not have made sense to the readers should be explained in this chapter. I know you all took my word on all the weird goings-on but there were explanations behind all of them that I have wanted to clarify the entire series and have had to bite my tongue to keep from revealing. I present to you now the explanations –

As for the new questions at the end – they, too, will be resolved in the final chapters.

Enjoy. Take your time. I really want to know what you guys think of this chapter – criticism encouraged! Look for flaws if you can. I appreciate hearing about them.

Lost: One Godson, Answers to Harry

--------------------------------------

There's a kind of disbelief that overcomes you in the worst situation. Complete numbness – a calming endorphin, this is not happening – like the after-effects of a blow to the head. It allows you to think without panic, run without stumbling, lie without hesitation. Disbelief quells fear. It does not last long, but sometimes it is enough. And sometimes it isn't.

Neville was in such a state of disbelief. It might have helped that he could not believe he was still alive. Every now and then there was a flash of sharp pain in his forehead, then it would subside and he would think, this is not happening.

He must have passed out after the grey-eyed Malfoy had hexed him outside the Three Broomsticks. Certainly he could not remember how he came to be in this majestic, dusty house, lit with ruddy candles that gleamed off white masks floating in heaps of black hoods, like many dark-eyed moons. Death Eaters, Neville thought, and he almost laughed because Dumbledore would never let Death Eaters get a hold of him. Dumbledore had always kept him safe, ever since his parents died and he had been rescued and taken to the hospital…Dumbledore had been there then…and since then he had always been safe…

You left Hogwarts, a voice behind his eyes whispered before the disbelief shoved it roughly aside.

The freezing charm had been removed. He was walking of his own accord, with black-gloved hands holding his arms behind his back. He looked around him in wonder at the huge hall they were passing through, spying above the banisters a myriad of paintings so thick with grime and age as to leave their subjects unrecognisable. The cultured voice of Malfoy snapped, "Eyes down," followed by a clap to the back of his head. He bent his neck and watched his feet treading across a tiled floor and tried to believe that this really could not be real.

There were black-robed figures in every doorway and dusky corner, watching him through the holes in their masks. His guard stopped him before they passed out of the hall and handed him on to another Death Eater who twisted his wrist to hold him still. Neville bit down on his tongue to keep himself from making a sound.

"Slughorn," Malfoy said, and one of the figures peeled out of the unlit doorway and came forward. This new man was fat, short and unmasked, his face round and decorated by a huge grey moustache. He did not look cruel, merely regretful. Malfoy spoke coolly, "I assume your experiment has been successful."

Slughorn nodded slowly. "It has worked as perfectly as could be hoped," he said regretfully. "Though it is difficult for me to detect any detrimental effects because of the state of the subject. His rough treatment by Greyback – even after I said no one was to lay a hand on him –"

"You try telling that animal Greyback to get out," the grey-eyed man interrupted impatiently. "And the potions are all prepared?"

Slughorn paused, then said quietly, "Yes."

Malfoy nodded. "Good work. You have done everything that was requested of you. You are dismissed."

Neville raised his eyes a little just in time to see him bring up his wand and whisper something, and out shot a jet of green light. Neville flinched and cried out, but Slughorn was already toppling to the ground with the weight and dolour of an ancient mammoth. Neville stared at the body, aghast, but the dead man had a strangely composed look on his face, as if he had completely expected what was coming and felt no desire to defend himself.

The masked Malfoy turned and beckoned for Neville's guard to follow him. Neville was pushed onwards, stumbling as he passed the still body of Slughorn.

Down a hallway, through a parlour, and down another hallway. Malfoy told the other guard to leave them and took Neville onwards himself. A wide pair of double-doors opened before them and beyond that they stepped into what seemed to be a huge ballroom, the high ceiling supported by a pair of large pillars. It was bare of furniture, though a gaudily coloured muggle mural flowed across one long wall. Bright lights of obvious magical origin, burning without flickering or smoking, were hung from the pillars leaving no corner of the room in shadow.

In the centre of the room, a man stood with his back to the door. Where the rest of the Death Eaters were clad in plain black, he wore deep, billowing red robes hemmed by thin gold thread. Neville had never seen red and gold look less like the Gryffindor colours. As the boy and his guard entered the room the man turned to face them.

But it wasn't a man. It was something serpentine and mutated, a brutal perversion of a human face with thin white lips, black slits where there should have been a nose and eyes that seemed as red as his robes in the shining enchanted lights. And at that, Neville stopped disbelieving that this was all a dream and at any moment this awful scene would be swept away and he would wake up in his bed, terrified but safe. He felt Malfoy's hand marching him forwards and kicking the back of his knees so that he fell forward and knelt on the wooden floor of the ballroom. The man that was a snake stepped towards him, his hand moving to the wand at his belt.

A pressure had been building in the scar on Neville's forehead and at that moment it exploded with greater intensity than anything he had ever felt. Dimly, he heard himself groaning, but almost as soon as it had struck it burned out and faded away. The snake-man (Voldemort, Neville, Dumbledore's voice whispered at the back of his skull, Call him Voldemort and be done with it, for he won't go away if you pretend he's someone else) glanced over Neville with cool collection and then raised his eyes to Malfoy.

"I trust there were no problems?"

Malfoy started to say, "No, my lord-" but he quickly changed it to, "He got past us at the gate, my Lord, but we caught him in the village. Apart from that, there was no trouble," and then, as if trying to change the subject, he added, "Slughorn has finished his work and been dealt with."

Voldemort nodded. "You were lucky, Lucius. You will not rely on luck again."

"Of course not," Malfoy said simperingly. From out of his robes he drew a wand that Neville recognised at once and held it out to his master. "This is the boy's wand, My Lord."

Voldemort gave it a haughty look. "You may hold onto it for now, Lucius. Go and fetch the second potion. Leave the boy."

Out of the corner of his eye, Neville say Malfoy slip his wand back in his robes, bow jerkily and turn. He heard his long strides echo down the hall and fade away out the door, which swung shut behind him with a thud. Now he was alone in the huge room with the red-robed creature that was the root of all of this.

Voldemort slowly circled Neville with the air of a judge inspecting a prize dog at a pet show – or perhaps a man eyeing up a steer at a slaughterhouse. A brief smile flickered across his lips as he stopped in front of the kneeling boy.

"Are you being tracked?" he asked suddenly, the words cutting through the silence.

Neville felt ill, weak, numb, despairing, but the last vestiges of determination told him to play his hand as well as he could. He couldn't look away from those piercing red eyes but he could still speak, even if he felt like he was about to vomit. "Dumbledore's right behind me," he croaked. "He keeps tabs on me all the time. It won't be long before he arrives, and he'll be bringing reinforcements."

The smile flickered again on Voldemort's lips and pain blossomed on Neville's forehead. He bent forwards, retching until it died away and he could straighten up again. "You're lying, Neville," said Voldemort serenely. "Do not do it again. No one is following you. You are," he began to circle again, "completely," he enunciated slowly, "alone."

Neville didn't reply. He didn't think he could collect his shredded thoughts long enough to form any more words.

"You know, I expected more than this," Voldemort said cynically. "You are spoken of so highly among Wizards. I imagined I would not be able to face you without some foolish battle, a tectonic struggle above which we might both rise and face each other as equals," he made a noise that might have indicated derision. "I will gladly admit how foolish that was. I've come to realise that the supposed Prophecies to which men such as Dumbledore cling are just as much nonsense as everything else the human race spouts."

He gave that flick of a smile again, and Neville realised it was nothing more than the compulsive action of a body that no longer remembered how to express any emotion. The smile meant no more than the flicking of a snake's tongue.

"But," Voldemort continued with a business-like air. "Perhaps all for the best. It would have been very difficult for me to kill you after tonight. You should be as glad as I am. As it is, everything will now be very quick and clean. I do not have time for theatrics."

In one swift motion he raised his wand and touched the tip of it to Neville's forehead, where the lightening-bolt scar was throbbing. Neville tensed, trying to throw himself out of the reach of the monster, but those red eyes held him fixated. Voldemort's mouth opened and half of the an incantation was on his lips, "Avada-"

At that moment, there was a crash as the doors to the great hall swung open. Voldemort looked up, his eye contact broken, and Neville was released from his gaze. The boy slid sideways and lay trembling on the floor with hands pressed to the varnished wood, knowing that a half-second more would have been the death of him and wondering whether to weep or cheer at his good fortune.

Malfoy entered and gave a swift bow. "Midnight is upon is, My Lord, and the late Slughorn said we would have only a short window to administer…"

Neville could not see Voldemort's face but he heard the soft anger in his voice. "You interrupted, Lucius."

Malfoy's head shot up and he swept his eyes over Neville lying splayed on the floor. "I-I apologise…" he said in a rush.

"Don't waste my time," Voldemort cut him off. "We will begin now, then," he glanced at Neville, who had not yet dared to move. He said playfully, "You've been given a few minutes, Neville. Would you like to see something fantastic?"

Neville kept his eyes on the floor and didn't answer. Voldemort gave a twitch of his wand and an invisible hand pushed against Neville, sliding him across the varnished floor. He came to rest against the wall of the room with a bump, still in plain sight but out of the way. He did not have to look around to know that Voldemort was still closer to the only exit than he was.

"Stay where you are, Neville, and I will keep my promise to make your death quick," Voldemort said casually as he turned away.

Malfoy had made some signal to the men outside the door, and Neville heard several pairs of feet enter the room . First came a short, hunched man with a pointed nose and sweat shining on his unmasked face. He was carrying a glinting glass bottle clutched to his chest. Beside him walked another man, thin, upright and masked like Malfoy. Behind them came the sounds of heavy, erratic steps. Neville raised himself a little, feeling as if his limbs were made of lead, and watched three burly Death Eaters emerge into his line of sight. They each held the end of a thick shining chain, and were dragging something into the ballroom.

It was a pitch-black wolf. Skinny and underfed, it snapped and growled at its captors with a feral desperation. It must have been a trick of the light, but it did not seem quite the right proportions of a wolf, and the flesh on one side of its head looked strangely twisted and scarred. At the sight of Voldemort, the wolf howled and strained against the chains, trying to reach the red-robed wizard.

"Give him the potion, Wormtail," Voldemort said lazily.

The short man looked up, his mouth slipping open a little. "M-My Lord…!"

"What? So frightened? It's only a boy," Voldemort said. Neville thought, That potion is for me! They can't make me drink it…

So he was very surprised when Wormtail, after blotting his forehead with his sleeve and giving a terrified whimper, stepped towards the thrashing wolf and not towards Neville at all. The animal snarled in warning and its jaw hung open, large enough to swallow Wormtail's hand whole. However, the three Death Eaters holding the chains were reeling it in. Neville noticed they were wearing what looked like dragonhide gloves, and the next moment they had grabbed the wolf around the neck and torso and pinned it down. One of them forced the animal's jaws open and Wormtail, screwing up his eyes, uncorked the glass bottle and with a shaking hand poured it into the wolf's open mouth. A few drops fell onto the varnished floor and began to smoke. The wolf made a pitiful noise and jerked violently in the arms of the Death Eaters. It twisted on its back and managed to buck off one of its captors. The other two let go and stepped back, and the wolf curled onto its side, whimpering.

The whimpering sounded almost human.

It happened in less time than it took to draw breath – there was the wolf, and then the next moment it was a boy lying with his knees drawn up and his eyes closed, gasping through his open mouth.

Neville didn't recognise him. The word werewolf flickered through his mind, along with a few scraps of information about the creatures that Professor Lupin had taught them.

Then the boy, without opening his eyes, spoke through gritted teeth. "Give me my glasses and something to wear." It was undoubtedly a command. And it wasn't until he heard the voice that Neville realised the boy was Harry.

Harry a werewolf. No wonder Hermione had been so sure that the dream had been false. Neville wanted to laugh at himself. He was so stupid. She'd tried to tell him and he hadn't even listened.

Wormtail jumped to obey Harry. Even Neville recognised this as strange, though he did not know who Wormtail was. It was strange because the short man did not wait for Voldemort's nod of assent. He hurried forward and dropped a folded pile of robe by the boy's feet, pushing the glasses into his open hand before retreating once more.

The other Death Eater who had walked in beside Wormtail gave a derisive laugh, high and sharp. Neville realised it was not a man, as he had supposed, but a woman with her form covered by her black cloak. "My Lord," she addressed Voldemort. "Wormtail should not be here tonight. He does not deserve to witness your power. Look at him, already jumping to assist your enemies! Send him away."

Voldemort swung his red eyes towards her with such weight she recoiled. "Wormtail is acting exactly as he should," Voldemort hissed. "And he has been more helpful these past months than you, Bella. Speak out of turn again and you will be sent away in his place."

This reduced the masked woman to wordlessness at once. She made a strangled noise of protest and then fell silent, bowing her head.

As this exchange had been transpiring, Harry had put on his glasses and pulled on the loose black robe, which must have belonged to a Death Eater because the hem seemed to have been sown up about a foot and the sleeves were far too long. The collar was high and made him look strangely pious, as if to contrast the rough, ugly scars across his face. He was still crouched on the floor between the three bulky Death Eaters, but his eyes were sweeping the room and they fell on Malfoy, standing to one side.

How Harry knew it was Malfoy under the mask, Neville couldn't be sure. But know he did. Harry's lips curled in a snarl and he leapt up, shot across the floor hunched over in some resident animal instinct, ducked under the fingertips of one of the burly Death Eaters and launching himself at Malfoy.

Malfoy stepped back in surprise, but there was no need. The other two Death Eaters had grabbed Harry's arms just before he collided with his target.

"You bastard! I'll kill you!" Harry screamed, kicking out and trying to drag his arms out of the Death Eater's grasp. They were fighting to hold him back from Malfoy, who stood calmly in front of the raging boy. "He didn't do anything! You could have stunned him, you could have let him be! I'll kill you, you scum!"

Voldemort had his wand raised in a moment and suddenly Harry's back arched and he was jerking like a fish on a line. His yells were cut off but weak grunts escaped from his lips as eight pairs of eyes watched the black-haired boy twisting in the arms of the burly Death Eaters. At last, Voldemort lowered his wand and Harry slumped, limp and strung between the two pairs of hands.

"Bella may be right," Voldemort said quietly. "You are too unruly, Harry."

Harry raised his eyes slowly to look at his antagonist. There were pure hate behind his glasses. Neville felt his scar twinging, and wondered whose emotions he was picking up. Harry spat hoarsely, "Try and kill me, then. Can't, can you? Beginning to regret that?"

"Perhaps Slughorn's potion was not as effective as he claimed," Malfoy said with a chuckle. "The boy still seems to possess a rather wolfish tongue, wouldn't you say?"

Harry's whipped towards him, ready to let rip another stream of abuse, and he suddenly caught sight of the tall window behind Malfoy. The white globe of the moon was just moving from behind a bank of cloud, and Harry cringed as the light fell on his face. The Death Eaters holding him shifted nervously, and Neville got ready to run if he had to. But nothing happened. Harry looked down at his pale hands, and then back at the glowing full moon.

"I'm human," he whispered. He pulled away from one of the Death Eaters holding him. "Let me go!"

"Release him," Voldemort said lazily. The hands clamped to Harry's arms opened and he staggered forwards, still counting his own fingers in wonder. The corner of Voldemort's mouth twitched. "You see what I've done for you, Harry?" he said. "Still so ungrateful? You're not cured yet, but you will be. There is one more potion, to be taken at dawn, and then you'll be rid of your condition forever."

Harry touched the back of his hand reverently, then rubbed it fiercely as if checking for any traces of fur. He looked up at Voldemort and met those shining red eyes head on, making Bellatrix step forward convulsively as if in defence of her master. "I won't do anything for you," Harry said savagely. "Nothing."

Voldemort raised his wand again and Harry crumpled under the cruciatus curse. He screamed once before the snake-faced monster lifted the curse and strode over to look down at the shuddering boy from beneath hooded lids. "You do not look upon my face. Do so again and you will beg me to kill you," he said. "Now get up."

Harry gritted his teeth, but slowly he pushed himself to his feet. He stared at the floor, rubbing one arm where he had landed on it too heavily. Neville suddenly saw a vision of himself in Harry's place, as a sulky youngster being reprimanded by Dumbledore. Harry and Voldemort, Neville and Dumbledore. Two pairs, and Neville knew there were parallels there that he wasn't even aware of.

"Lucius," Voldemort extended one long-fingered hand like a surgeon standing in front of an operating table. "The wand, please."

Malfoy took Neville's wand out of his robe and handed it silently to Voldemort, who took it without looking away from Harry. He held it out to the boy before him. "Take it," he said silkily. "Let us see if it is of any use to you. Don't bother trying to curse me, I already know how uneducated you are at spell-work."

Harry didn't move for a moment, then, still avoiding Voldemort's eye, he snatched the wand and held it in both hands. "This isn't mine," he said after a moment. "Where is the wand that Sirius gave me? Who's is this?"

"That's mine!" Neville cried. All eyes in the room turned in his direction as he got to his feet. His legs still felt like waterweed but he forced them to step forward. "That's my wand. Give it back."

Harry stared him. He didn't seemed to recognise him until he said in wonder, "You're Neville."

"Yes," Neville stepped forward again, wanting Harry to remember him and know him and realising that though he had watched Harry in his dreams for months, the other boy had next to no idea who he was. "And you're Harry," he said sadly.

"I had almost forgotten you, Neville," Voldemort smoothly ended their brief conversation. "You should have stayed quiet. Give my regards to your parents," he lifted his wand to cast the killing curse and Neville wanted to run but he knew he would not go anywhere. He would have given anything to have his wand back in his hand in that moment. He knew the curse was unblockable but to die clutching hope was better than dying unarmed.

"Stop it!" Harry yelled, lifting Neville's wand and pointing it straight at Voldemort's thin greyish throat.

Voldemort's eyes slid sideways to look at him. "Harry," he said, and there was a faint smile on his lips now. "You barely know how to use that wand. Expelliarmus!"

Harry yelped as the jinx hit his hand and the wand shot up, curved in an arch through the air and descended, spinning, towards the floor. Malfoy caught it with one hand. Voldemort had the tip of his own wand on Harry's throat now. Bellatrix had flashed across the room in a swirl of black cloak and taken a hold of Neville, twisting his arms behind his back. He didn't fight her.

"Heroism is not why I chose you," Voldemort hissed to Harry. "But it comes from your father. He was a foolish little boy too. If he'd only stepped out of my way I might have spared him, though your mother had to die. But he fought me until I killed him, and so you were left parentless. By his overzealous self-sacrifice."

Neville could not believe how Harry did not cower and weep in front of that terrible figure. But though he bore the taunts, his fists were shaking. "Why?" Harry whispered. "Why spare me? Why make me what I am, plant your filthy soul in me? A paperclip would make a better Horcrux than I have. That's what I don't understand," the shudders were running over his whole body. "So much effort just to destroy the life of a four-year-old boy. What's the point?" he spat bitterly.

Voldemort drew his head back a little in a very snake-like motion. He considered Harry for a moment, then lowered the wand. "Yes," he said slowly. "You should know. I think, in the end, you might appreciate the effort." He turned his eyes to where Neville stood motionless in Bellatrix's grip. "And Dumbledore's favourite can listen too. Yes," he stepped back and paced away from Harry for a moment.

Abruptly he spun around and gestured at the three burly Death Eaters who were standing stupidly to one side. "Goyle, Crabbe, Avery – you may go. You will learn everything tomorrow. Tell all the others in the house that at dawn they are to return to this room."

The three Death Eaters bowed and hurried out of the room, closing the double doors behind them but without locking it. Neville watched them go with rising hope. If he could only get away from the woman holding him, he might be able to make a break for it. For the first time that night, a fierce determination to live seized him.

"My lord…?" Bellatrix asked tentatively.

"Yes, Bella, you are to stay here," Voldemort had anticipated her question and he nodded to her. " You, Lucius and Wormtail will watch the proceedings tonight, and remain with me until the others return tomorrow. I will have need of you, do not fear."

"Thank you, Lord!" Bellatrix cried joyously. Lucius and Wormtail quickly muttered their thank-yous as well. Voldemort raised his hand for silence and turned back to Harry.

"Have you heard the Prophecy that was made," Voldemort asked. "Concerning your birth?"

After a moment, Harry shook his head. Neville frowned. Concerning Harry's birth? But the Prophecy had been about Neville! Neville thought he would have given anything to have Harry in his place – then immediately regretted the thought. No one deserved the burden he had been given.

"It spoke of one who would have the power to defeat the Dark Lord," Voldemort hissed quietly. "And it could have applied to either yourself, or our other guest tonight, Neville Longbottom."

Harry glanced curiously at Neville, who had already heard all this from Dumbledore, at the beginning of the previous year. He'd always known something of it, of course – after the effort Dumbledore had made to keep him safe and hidden throughout his life, it had been easy to work the general idea out – but the full contents of the Prophecy had not been told until after the Death Eaters had invaded Hogwarts the year before. Neville sudden felt himself go rigid. Dumbledore had told him that Voldemort had never learned the second half of the Prophecy – but Neville had heard it in its entirety, and knew it by rote! What if Voldemort realised this…?

Voldemort began to speak again. "When one of my spies brought me the news of the Prophecy fourteen years ago, my first thought was to act at once and destroy this threat before it could even take root, while the subject was still a baby. I was certain that killing both you and Neville as soon as you were born would essentially neutralise the Prophecy. I set out to do just that, but I found to my great annoyance that the task was more difficult than I had anticipated. Dumbledore had already warned all those involved of the danger they were in."

Voldemort turned his eyes on Neville, who looked away quickly, remembering the paralysing power of those eyes. The red-robed figure began to speak again. "The Longbottoms quickly cut their ties and disappeared before I could find them. Layered with a myriad of powerful spells for veiling and concealing, they took up new personas as muggles and gave up all magic that they could. Though their wands were always in reach, in every way possible they became an ordinary couple without a trace of anything magical about them. No one, not even Dumbledore, knew where they were or what their new names were. None of my spies could track them down. I'm sure you can understand how frustrating this way for me, but I turned my attention to the Potters instead."

He smirked at Harry. "Your parents took the opposite route and hid in plain sight. They, loyal fools, did not want to abandon your mother's charms research by removing themselves from the Wizarding world. So they adopted the complex Fidelius charm as their protection, and made their Auror friend, Sirius Black, the secret-keeper of the charm. Oh, how I might have rejoiced when I heard this news! Black was well known to be reckless, overly exuberant in his Auror duties, and according to certain spies," he looked quickly at Wormtail, "easily tricked. I was certain it would be a simple matter to find him and torture or cheat the information out of him."

Harry made an 'aha!' noise, and Neville saw that he was actually smiling. "But you couldn't. Sirius protected our family. You underestimated him!"

Voldemort pierced him with the glinting red gaze, and gave a high, cruel laugh. Harry fell silent. Voldemort was nodding. "Yes, Harry, at first Black did elude me. For two years, in fact. But before those two years were over I gave up hunting him. You see, something had occurred to me. Surely, I reasoned, it would have made much more sense for Dumbledore to take the role as the Potter's secret-keeper? Perhaps, in fact, was the secret-keeper? Would it not have been a clever ruse – while I concentrated my energies on catching a careless Gryffindor Auror, Dumbledore all the while remained out of my scope?"

"You were wrong-" Harry began.

"Yes, I was wrong. I discovered that quickly. And so I arrived at one final possibility," Voldemort cut him off. "Dumbledore wanted me to find the Potters."

Harry stared at him. Neville was not quite sure he had heard right.

"The more I thought about it, the more the clues added up. I had received only half of the Prophecy – now why had Dumbledore not kept that small fragment from me? He could easily have intercepted the eavesdropper who brought it to me. In fact, did intercept the eavesdropper, and still let him go without any attempt to alter his memory. I came to realise – the first half of the Prophecy was not a slip on Dumbledore's part – it was a lure. Why? What did the second half say? Perhaps it claimed that any attempt to kill the infant boy who might one day defeat me would end in my demise. Perhaps that was Dumbledore's interpretation of the Prophecy all along, and now he was hoping to use it to catalyse my death."

"That's impossible!" Neville burst out. "Dumbledore would never do that. Harry – don't listen to him – Dumbledore only wanted your family safe!"

"Be quiet!" Bellatrix snarled, wrenching Neville's arms back to silence him. He bit down on his tongue, feeling as if his shoulders had been nearly dislocated. But he kept his eyes on Harry. The boy was staring at Voldemort with an empty expression on his face.

Voldemort waited to see if Harry would retaliate to his claims, and when the boy didn't respond, he continued. "So you see, I was in a difficult position. Two children, one of which was prophesised to be my downfall – but if my guess was right, trying to kill them would do me no good. In fact, if it did not destroy me, it would probably create the very person who had the power to defeat me – or so I concluded. Three years had gone by since I had heard the Prophecy, and the boys were still no older than two. I had plenty of time to make my move, while the two families cowered in hiding. Wormtail had already been passing information to me for a long time, and I felt confident I could apprehend Black whenever I needed to and locate the Potters. The Longbottoms would take a little more effort, but I knew I would find them too."

Voldemort was pacing back and forth now, turning his flat face from Harry to Neville as if to remind himself of the events of the past years. His red robes shushed across the floor like a restless serpent waiting at the hole of a mouse. There was a ringing tone to his high, cold voice, a hint of passion. Neville felt Bellatrix's hands trembling and wondered how she could feel so strongly for such a disgusting creature.

"I had only ever had two goals, Harry," Voldemort said. "The first is the disarray of the Wizarding world – an easy task, I'm sure you will agree. The Ministry is as corrupt and rotten as the most fetid corpse that I have raised as an Inferi. If I had wanted it, I could have been the Minister of Magic before your parents were even born. I tell you, it would have been easy – and who knows then what I might have done? But politics do not interest me. Anarchy interests me. Chaos. That was the second motivation to all I have done since I left Hogwarts, half a century ago.

"The first, Harry, is immortality. You, with your noble Gryffindor sentiments and your self-sacrificing Godfather, could not comprehend the idea. But I have not just understood it – I have so nearly achieved it. The steps I have taken to bind myself in life and free myself from human failings are more than any wizard that has come before me."

"The Horcruxes," Harry spat, fury twisting his face. "I know about them. You murdered people just to further your own life! You're foul!"

Voldemort gave his cold laugh again. "So certain, Harry! It is sad to see you speak so ignorantly. Humans have accepted their own mortality – is it not their due to me, that they should aid me with their deaths? I, who alone among wizards, seeks life?"

"It's inhuman," Harry said, raising his fists. "Look at you. You've destroyed everything about yourself that was ever worth anything – for a few more years of life!"

Neville wanted to grab Harry and clap his hand over his mouth. Don't anger him! He thought desperately, Please, Harry! My life depends on it…

But Voldemort did not seem angry. His expression grew slowly into a smile. "Not just a few more years," he said, triumphant. "I have gone beyond that, Harry.

"But I digress – we return to your infancy," he placed one finger on his chin, musing, "I had placed spies with the Potters, and at long last with the Longbottoms, and having come to understand the consequences that would probably result from killing either of you, I went about it very carefully. I had chosen Neville as my first victim, for if the Prophecy came true, he would become the one destined to destroy me," he turned his face towards Neville with a glint in his red eyes. "You understand, Neville? I chose you over Harry, to become my enemy."

He smiled to himself, perhaps at his own cleverness, and continued. "I tracked down the Longbottoms and killed them while my most loyal Death Eaters waited outside. And as I had suspected, the Prophecy became reality – dear Alice Longbottom tricked me into a magical contract that decreed her life in exchange for her son's. Her death bound it. An easy trick that I could have caught if I had been paying attention."

Neville strained against Bellatrix, a red roar filling his ears. "She destroyed you!" he shouted. "My mother – she tricked you!"

"I have had enough!" Bellatrix snarled, pulling out her wand and pressing it to the back of Neville's neck. "Let me kill him, master. Impudent brat!"

"Unless you want to die, Bella, I suggest you let him be," Voldemort said smoothly. "You see, the protection that his noble mother placed on him still remains, and it safeguards from any servant of mine. If you tried to kill him, Bella, it would destroy you."

Clearly disappointed, Bellatrix lowered her wand slowly.

"I found this out by personal experience," Voldemort said grimly. "When I turned my wand on Neville, the curse rebounded and stripped me from my body – ah! – you cannot imagine the pain you've caused me, Neville. But it was no matter. My Death Eaters were waiting for me, readily instructed for such an event. They entered the house, took Neville and completed the ritual to restore me to my body using his blood, the bones of my father, and the flesh of one of my most devoted servants, Bartemius Crouch."

"It should have been me," Neville heard Bellatrix mutter bitterly. If Voldemort heard her, he did not show it.

"The murder of the Longbottoms frightened Dumbledore and the Potters," he continued, licking his thin lips as if tasting the thought of their fear. "They were suddenly aware of how powerful I was, as they thought I had destroyed one of the boys of the Prophecy without activating it. What was to stop me from kidnapping their friend Black and coming next for Harry? I had ways of forcing the secret out of Black. So they thought up a clever trick, and changed their Secret Keeper without telling anyone but those involved – transferred the secret to their good friend, Peter Pettigrew… Wormtail."

Harry's lips pulled back in a growl and for moment Neville thought he was going to attack Wormtail, but Malfoy stepped forward, holding his wand in plain site, and Harry held his anger at bay.

"Of course, you already know this story, Harry," Voldemort laughed. "Peter here betrayed your parents and I killed them. How dreadfully tragic," he said mockingly. "Perhaps it is better, though, that they never found out what it was I did to you."

"They wouldn't care," Harry hissed, panting slightly as if he had been tangibly fighting his anger. "It never mattered to Sirius what I was. He kept me safe from you, you filth…"

Voldemort raised his hand, laughing. "If only, Harry! No, you were kept safe by my own mistake. You see, I had anticipated an easy entry and escape. Slip in, kill your parents, use your mother's death to make you a Horcrux and vanish, leaving you wailing in the ruins as the miraculous survivor of your family's massacre. But when the sliver of soul that had split from me entered you, it created a backlash I had not expected. I was drained of strength, physically hurled from the window, but more distressing than that – you were marked."

His eyes flicked up to Harry's fringe, and Neville felt his own scar burn in response.

"That was not how things were supposed to go," Voldemort said softly. "You were supposed to be hidden. No one was to know you were bound to me, belonging to me. The scar gave everything away. Your inconvenient Godfather arrived on the scene, and I," there was something akin to self-disgust in his voice, "too weak to fight him, fled. And by the time I could rally my Death Eaters from the Ministry, you were gone. Less than a week later, that miserable werewolf friend of your parents had nearly killed you, and Dumbledore had discovered what you were. You had been exposed and contaminated, a werewolf yourself, and I thought all my plans were undone. I assumed Dumbledore would kill you-"

"He wanted to," Harry said. "Sirius stopped him."

"I know. I have my spies with Dumbledore, too," Voldemort snapped.

"Sirius protected me from you for eight years," Harry said proudly. "You never found me."

"Haven't I just told you?" Voldemort said coldly. "As a werewolf, you were useless to me. I didn't want to find you, Harry. Do you really think that your careless, impulsive Godfather could hide you for so many years? Harry, I knew where you were during every one of those years. I was interested in keeping you alive, but to me you had become one more failed experiment in immortality."

Harry shook his head, his face revolted and confused. "You're lying. What do you mean, a failed experiment? Am I… not a Horcrux?"

"You are. But I have no use for a Horcrux in your present state," Voldemort repeated. "I even lost track of you without turning a hair when you moved to London. That was until, however, I heard about Horace Slughorn's research into a cure for Lycanthropy. At first he was dismissed as another failure, but when word came through that he was truly on the road to a cure, I listened closer. Perhaps you weren't irredeemable – and I had just discovered that the locket passed down from my mother, the Horcrux stolen by your Godfather's traitorous brother, was missing too. Evidently I had to keep better track of my possessions."

"I'm not yours!" Harry roared. "I don't belong to you!"

"Do not delude yourself," Voldemort said impatiently. "I chose you, shaped you, took you back and have kept you in this house for a year waiting for Slughorn to finish his cure so that you could be rid of the lycanthropy that mars you. And at dawn, you will be cured! You should be thanking me, Harry – I have done what no one in history has done, I have brought about a cure for werewolves, and all for you! But by that time…" Voldemort paused, "…you will not appreciate it."

"What do you mean?" Harry said fiercely, trying to hide a hint of fear.

Voldemort smiled, and then he began to pace again. "It was thanks to your parents, really. If I had tried to kill you soon after hearing the Prophecy, it would have been fulfilled, and I might have been destroyed, or at least crippled. But thanks to them you escaped for four years, and in that time, I turned towards myself and found what I knew to be inevitable. You see, the Horcruxes are my insurance from accidental death – what kills a normal man can only wound me, it cannot destroy me. But age still thwarts me. My body may withstand curses but time still destroys it slowly. I can preserve it with spells and potions, but they do not last. Ultimately my body will die and I will remain as a fragile ghost, bound uselessly to the world by the Horcruxes I myself created. I came to realise this during that long solace wherein you and Neville remained out of my reach.

"And I realised that there was only one way to overcome my own eventual aging," Voldemort stopped pacing and turned slowly to look at Harry. "I should have come to see it years ago. Does not the human race employ exactly the same method of self-preservation? Do they not replace the old and broken bodies with new, younger men and women, to carry on the species? That was my answer. That was the only way to truly escape death."

From across the room, Wormtail gave a sharp little gasp. Neville felt Bellatrix's talons dig harder into his shoulder. Harry did not move or make any sound. His face was unreadable.

Voldemort clasped his hands together, considering his memories as he recounted them. "I began to experiment. I already knew how to possess the bodies of other creatures, snakes being my preference. So I began to test the limits – how much of myself I could transfer to the body of another before I had to retreat and return to my own body. How long I could remain in the body of another creature. I learned so much… ah, more than any doddering scholar before me, more than wise Dumbledore," the word was derisive on his lips, "could ever know. And I found there were many difficulties.

"My possession of another's body shortened its lifespan. Animals have semi-souls of their own, you know, and the body rejected my soul as toxic. I knew that it would never do for me to live in constantly sickly bodies, abide for so short a time before having to move on to a new host – I needed a body that, like my own, would last. I needed to somehow… inoculate my new body against its rejection of my soul.

"But how to prepare a body so that it would accept me? How to keep it from withering and dying in only a few years? How to make my soul familiar enough to it that it would gladly provide itself for my use instead of struggling and rotting from within as all the snakes – and occasional wizards – did when I possessed them?" He spun around, his gaze stabbing Harry like a jeering finger. Voldemort's voice rose to new heights of exultation as he asked, "How do you think you prepare a body to accept a foreign soul, Harry?"

Harry didn't meet that piercing gaze. He was looking at a point just over Voldemort's shoulder, and now he closed his eyes slowly and whispered, as if he had simply read it in a textbook somewhere, "You make it a Horcrux."

"Yes!" Voldemort crowed. "You plant a piece of the foreign soul inside it. You leave it to fester for years – perhaps a decade, I calculated, or more, if you have time – and when the time comes, you remove the original soul, and the body accepts the foreign soul as if it never knew any better!"

His mouth was pulled into a horrible, wide grin that looked maniacal and hungry. Harry hadn't opened his eyes yet, and he didn't answer.

"At first, I planned to wait," Voldemort continued with a self-satisfied smirk. "Once you were older, until you came of age. You would have lived as a normal boy, raised by your Godfather, I expect. Can you imagine it? Harry Potter, last of his family line, a parentless student of Hogwarts, but so brave despite his troubles, and clever. Sure to be the next Head of the Auror division – and then one day he disappears and when he returns he is not the Harry Potter that anyone remembers. If only you knew how familiar that story is to me… I chose you, Harry, because I saw… something of myself in you. When I was young, I even looked something like you," he touched his pasty-skinned cheek tentatively.

"But we no longer have time to wait. You were not hidden as I had hoped, but exposed as my property from the beginning. I cannot risk another four years until you turn seventeen – you have caused enough trouble in this one year alone, Harry, as I tested you and watched you try to escape again and again. The transfer must be done now, before anything else goes wrong."

Abruptly his tone became business-like, "Lucius," he said, turning to his henchman. "You gave Nott my instructions?"

Lucius nodded behind his white mask. "Yes, My Lord. He left to fetch the Dementors as I arrived back."

"You're going to kill me," Harry whispered. There was so much despair in his voice it hurt to listen to it. No! Neville wanted to shout, We're getting out of here, both of us!

"Quite the opposite, Harry. I am merely making room for me in your body," Voldemort replied, flicking the bottom of his robes back. "This is why I required a few loyal Death Eaters to remain with me. Once I had taken your form, the rest of my followers will not recognise me. They will take some time to adjust even once explanations have been made."

"Everyone will think you're dead," Harry said in a small voice. His legs seemed to give way and he crouched on the varnished floor in the moonlight with his arms hugged protectively around his body. "They'll only see me."

"There are spells to change faces," Voldemort shrugged. "And eventually I will reveal what I have done. You should be proud, Harry, that it is your face I have chosen to wear."

"I've got scars," the boy protested, still in that tiny, despairing voice.

"Yes, that did frustrate me," Voldemort replied evenly. "I had hoped you might grow into the good looks I once held. Looks are half the charm, after all. But nevertheless – scars become you, Harry," again there came that mirthless smile. "I think I might grow to like them."

"But the piece," Harry said weakly, "the piece of your soul that's in me. The Dementors will… will eat it too… you can't…"

"An unfortunate consequence," Voldemort said thoughtfully. "But I do not know how to remove it as yet. Next time I need a new body I will make sure I do not lose a piece of my own soul in the process. But for now, I feel it is a necessary sacrifice."

Harry bent his head and began to weep into the crook of his folded arms. Bellatrix gave a hiss of revulsion, and Voldemort folded his hands. "I expected more than this, Harry," he said in a patronising voice. "Get up and face me."

Harry continued to sob. But Neville, smaller than Bellatrix, saw the flash of his glasses, and noticed that there were not sign of tears dripping onto them. Harry was not crying at all… he was only pretending.

"I said get up," Voldemort said angrily. Harry crumpled and knelt face-down, giving miserable sniffs as if he was trying to keep his weeping at bay. Voldemort gestured at Malfoy. "Bind him," he said, "until the dementors arrive."

Malfoy, his expression hidden behind his mask, stepped forward, reaching into his robes for his wand. He stood over the tormented boy for a moment, looking down at him in silence. Then he bent down, already conjuring ropes out of thin air.

It happened in a blur of black robes. Harry rose and the top of his head collided with the underside of Malfoy's chin. The Death Eater reeled back and the boy was already upon him, snatching the wand sticking of his pocket and punching his fist so hard into Malfoy's throat Neville thought he could almost hear the sound of a windpipe being crushed.

Bellatrix let go of Neville and pushed him to one side. "Tarantella!" She screeched, just as Voldemort brought up his own wand and screamed, "Stupefy!"

Harry threw himself forward and both spells shot over his head. He scrambled to his feet, hurling the wand aside as he went, and collided with Voldemort like a small black bull, knocking the thin white hand that held the wand away and grabbing the front of the blood-red robes.

His eyes were perfectly dry. "As if I would ever cry in front of you," he hissed, his nose inches away from the snake-like face.

"Crucio!" Bellatrix screamed, and Harry crumpled backwards, his hands falling away from Voldemort's robes. He arched on the ground, screaming hoarsely. Malfoy, clutching his jaw, staggered forward making a horrid wheezing sound.

Forgotten in the fray, the wand that Harry had tossed aside skidded across the floor and came to a stop between Wormtail and Neville.

Neville tensed on his hands and knees, ready to make a grab for it and waiting for Wormtail to pull out his own wand and curse him. Wormtail was standing with his shoulders hunched, looking at Neville with an undecipherable expression. A moment passed, Harry's screams grew louder – Neville thought, now! Go for it now! – and then Wormtail's eyes flickered down at the wand and he gave it a swift nudge with his foot.

The wand rolled silently across the floor towards Neville. In one movement, he grabbed it and was on his feet, just as the motion caught Voldemort's eye over Bellatrix's shoulder, and he finally turned his attention to Neville.

"Out of the way, Bella!" he commanded, raising his wand. Bellatrix, her eyes narrowed madly as she watched Harry twitching, reacted slowly. It was only as she realised her master was pointing his wand at her that she broke the curse and ducked out of the way.

Neville was suddenly aware that if he didn't cast a spell, he was going to die, and the first one that came to his head was "Stupefy!"

At that exact moment, Voldemort's voice cracked across the room like a bolt of lightning, "Avada Kedavra!"

Two jets of light met in mid air. There was a deep whine and a flash of light. As the jets collided they splintered and burst outwards in a thousand shards that were neither red nor green but pure, undulating threads of gold. Neville felt his hand seize up as his wand began to vibrate so that he could not have released it even if he had wished. The sudden over-abundance of light blinded him for a moment, and as the spots dancing across his retina faded he saw that his wand was linked to Voldemort's by a deep gold beam that arched across the space between them and settled as a cage of light glistening around them.

With a number of spluttering cracks, all the magical lamps in the room went out. Now the only illumination came from the twisted, wire-taught gold threads.

Dimly, Neville could hear Bellatrix screaming, "Master!" But Voldemort did not seem to register her voice, his long white fingers clutching his own wand with a rigidity that betrayed his own ignorance of what was happening. At his feet, Harry was lying on his side, staring up at the web of light above his head with his mouth open in astonishment, the colour flashing off his glasses, his face and hands dyed white-gold by the light.

And then an unearthly sound broke in tumultuous waves across the dome of light, a sound that filled Neville with hope though he had never heard it before, and he knew at once: Phoenix Song…

"Do nothing! I will handle it!" Voldemort roared at Bellatrix, who was trying to drag Malfoy to his feet – the latter seemed to have passed out. Wormtail was invisible in the shadows, but surely, Neville thought, the rest of the Death Eaters could hear that ringing song and would come to investigate…or was the song only in his head?

"Neville," The voice was so quiet Neville thought Harry might have said his name several times before Neville even heard him. The black-haired boy was trying to get to his feet but it looked as if something huge and invisible was pressing down on him. "Neville, I don't know what you did but – hold on –"

"I am…!" Neville tried to shout, but the words seemed to be no more than a whisper by the time they reached his ears, and suddenly it was easier said than done. His wand was vibrating so hard it felt red-hot and it took all his willpower not to drop it. The rod-straight beam was changing – beads of light were sliding up and down it – moving towards Neville's wand and making the vibrations grew worse.

Neville thought his arms had been shaken to pieces. He couldn't hold the wand steady – at any moment it would waver too far and the connection would break –

"Hold on!" Harry yelled, sounding a million miles away. He was on his feet, cupping his hands to his eyes to block out the glare of the light.

"I will!" Neville answered as loud as he could, and he knew right then that that was a promise he was making, I will not break the connection, and now it was avowed he had to keep it, no matter what. The beads of light were sliding closer and he felt as if his feet were slipping out from under him. He knew that if those beads touched his wand it would be too much, the wood under his fingers would surely shatter, and he centred all his concentration on forcing those beads away, down towards Voldemort's end of the thread.

Harry was standing in front of Voldemort, and his robes and hair were billowing back as if in a high wind. For the briefest moment the boy looked back at Neville, and then he reached out his hand and hovered it above the golden thread emerging from the tip of the wand at the far end.

"Get away!" Voldemort's voice came dimly through the fog that seemed to have filled Neville's ears. "Get back or I will kill you…!"

And then – recalling it later, Neville could never quite understand how it happened – Harry stepped into the path of the thread and suddenly it was piercing him like the wake of an arrow passing through his stomach. His hands were raised, his face turned away as if from the heat of a raging fire, and he was clutching with one hand at Voldemort's shoulder and with the other at that snake-like face. Voldemort leaned away as far as he could, trying to avoid that small, pale hand and hold the connection at the same time, but Harry's fingers grasped at the red eyes and bald forehead, as Neville stared, horrified, and Bellatrix screamed somewhere on the other side of the cage of light…

"Now, Neville!" Harry shouted.

It took all his effort, and at the same time, was total release from effort – Neville pulled his wand upwards and with a screech like warping gears the light vanished.

For a moment, pitch blackness, and Bellatrix's sobs.

Then – it was more than before, and it wasn't gold – it was white – a blast of white light so powerful Neville felt as if it had physically blown him off his feet. He crouched down, pressing his face into the crook of his elbow to protect his eyes, and he could still see that light blowing towards him, blinding him, his wand hanging loose in his hand and one knee pressed down so hard to the floor that he could feel a knot in the smooth wood…

The light began to fade. Neville kept his eyes closed for as long as he dared, and then he lowered his arm. The magical lamps were dead husks of shattered glass. The moonlight was as dim and washed-out as the faintest star compared to the light that had filled the ballroom. The double-doors hung open, Malfoy fallen beside them and lying still, though Neville thought he might still be able to hear his rasping breath. Lit up by a strip of light coming through the window, Bellatrix was curled over her knees, her body shaking with sobs. There was no sign of Wormtail.

Neville turned his head back to where, a few moments ago, Voldemort had stood. The strips of light from the window did not fall across that place, but in the shadows Neville thought he saw a shapeless pile of black. He forced himself to stand up and walk towards it, holding his wand above his head.

"Murderer!" Screamed a hysterical voice. Neville spun around and found himself facing Bellatrix, her face twisted into something quite beyond human rage, her tips twitching and white froth dribbling from the corner of her mouth. "Where is he? My lord? He'll come back – and I – I will be there beside him – he will love me for killing you…!"

Neville almost panicked, but without even thinking it through he said in a voice he barely knew as his own, "He's dead, and you will be next if you don't flee now."

Bellatrix screeched and opened her mouth to cast a curse. Neville jabbed his wand at the thin air and the gesture silenced her. She glanced once at the place where her master had stood and then broke into a sprint towards the door of the ballroom. Her footsteps could be heard long after she was lost from sight, for the rest of the house seemed deathly quiet.

Neville whispered, "Lumos," and then forced himself to calmly walk the last five metres to where the shapeless mound of black lay, terrified of what would be there. His wandlight fell across crumpled black robes, a pair of pale ankles and feet with toes curled up as if in restless sleep. Neville knelt, grabbed what he thought was probably a shoulder and rolled Harry on to his back.

The boy's glasses lay a little way away, both lenses shattered. His green eyes stared at the ceiling without focusing on it. Neville felt his throat constrict, he's dead! his brain screamed, and then he saw the faintest twitch of the nostrils, the half-open lips part a little further as Harry took a breath, and the teenage Adam's apple roll as he swallowed.

Neville was glad he had already sat down as a wave of dizzy relief washed over him. He raised his wand higher, searching for the red-robed body of Voldemort and fearing to see nothing – perhaps he had Apparated – perhaps he had escaped – but at least they were safe, he was gone, Harry was alive and they could leave now while no one was watching…

There was no corpse. Only a long pile of tar-black ash twisting along the ground, like the charred carcass of a snake thrown into a fire, all that was left of Voldemort's first and final body.

-----------------------------------

TBC