Chapter 47

Glasgow. Night. Some club or other. Harry and Ginny flipped out and bust moves with horrible, desperate intensity in the way that only a pair of emotionally unstable, middle class, white teenagers at a hip-hop club can. It was painful to watch. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

Chapter 48

'Hey, yeer Haaairy Poooterr, is'n ye?' someone said in a truly awful attempt at phonetic Glaswegian.

'No one else's accent is spelt that badly,' Harry said excitedly. 'Hagrid?' He said as he turned around. 'It has to...' Harry's face dropped. '...be,' he finished lamely, for it wasn't the half-giant who stood before him, but an immensely fat man in a stained string vest. 'Who are you?' Harry asked.

'Yer shulda kenned tha' by now, ma bairn,' the man continued, oblivious to the irreperable damage he was doing to the readers' brains. 'Wha' wi' all of them clues tha' aye left yer.'

Harry looked blank.

'Horcruxes?' the lame Scottish stereotype tried.

'Oh, what? Oh, yeah, yeah. So you're R.A.B. then?'

'Tha's right, Rab. Rab C. Nesbitt. At your service.'

'Oh for fuck's sake,' Harry shook his head. 'How long have you been waiting to do that gag?'

Since I finished reading Half Blood Prince.

'I'm going to go over there now,' Harry said. 'Goodbye.'

Chapter 49

Over there was where 50 Knut was, just hanging out, you know, because that's what rock rap stars do when they've finished a gig. Like in movies and stuff. I've seen it. Honest.

They're really good places to have a conversation as well. You never have to shout.

Well, they didn't in the matrix.

'Shizzle, man. It's H. Pizzle in the hizzle,' said 50 Knut.

'I thought you were supposed to be a parody of 5 pence, or 50 cent or whatever his name is, not Snoop Dogg,' Ginny admonished.

'Yeah baby,' Knut lisped, 'that's why you find me in the club.'

'And are you making love?' Ginny asked. Innocently.

'I could be,' Knut leered at Ginny.

Ginny looked over at Harry, who was staring vacantly into space, 'we'll talk about it later,' she said, 'Harry, what's up?'

'My spidey senses are tingling,' Harry said.

'What?' said Ginny.

'Oh, actually I think It's just the batphone.'

'What?'

'It's my mobile phone, lover,' Harry said slowly.

'Are you going to answer it then?' Ginny said, equally slowly.

'What? Oh, yes.' Harry took out the phone. 'Hello?' he said into the mouthpiece. 'Yeah, hey man. What? Fuck. Holy shitting fuck, yeah. I'm there. I'm right there. See you in five.'

'What the hell?' Ginny asked.

'We've got to go, Ginny,' Harry said. 'The school is under attack, it's the Death Eaters, they've reformed and they want to kick off their re-union tour on my fucking turf. We have to Apparate, now!'

Ginny disappeared with a flick of her wand and a loud crack. Harry Paused before he turned to Knut. 'And you, keep your fucking hands off my woman.'

'Or what, I've been shot 9 times you know.'

'Yeah, and I fucking killed Voldemort, the greatest dark wizard of our age.'

'Voldemort? You didn't kill him, that guy lives just a few doors from me, in Hollywood, California. He was in the new Conan movie, people say he might even be going to go for Governor next year.'

'What?' Harry said. 'But... I thought.' And then he Apparated himself.

After the crack there was a moment of silence.

'Hey, there you are,' Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts shouted out across the room. 'Good to see you again, man.'

'Ho!' 50 Knut called back. 'So are you going to explain why you brought me out here then?'

'Of course, of course. Come over here and I'll tell you all about it.' Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts led the rapper to a little roped off area of the club. 'I've got us access to the executive lounge. It's great, we get dancing girls and free biscuits as well.'

Chapter 50

'Bone's, Bell, McMillan, I want you on me. Move out on my command and only on my Command,' Ron Bellowed at the squad. 'Finnegan take point, let me know if anything comes up that I don't want coming up. Patil, Patil, I need the left hand side out of bounds, bombardment pattern delta. Vary your firepower and keep them guessing but I want hexes impacting and I want them five minutes ago. Granger's goons have got our right side covered so I don't want you even thinking its in danger. Squad, lets GO!'

'Sir, yes sir.'

Ron ran out from the cover, the four DA soldiers keeping in a loose diamond formation about him, ducking low to keep their profiles small and heading towards the broomstick cupboard on the far side of the quidditch pitch. He felt a great FOOM and a rush like electricity tracing up his backbone as the first of the Patils' hexes arced overhead and slammed into the ground just short of the Death Eaters' position.

Immediately a burst of retaliation fire chewed up the ground around his squad. Bones leapt aside and came up in a roll, the spot where she had been a moment before smoked viciously and the smell of sulphur wafted into Ron's nose, but there was not time to dwell on it. If only he could get his squad airborne then they might at last have the advantage. For now he cast a double-image charm on the group and kept up the run-dodge-run pattern they had drilled themselves with so very many times before.

'Something's not right,' Hermione said. 'Shit! This can't be happening now. Shit.'

'What's up, sir?' Spinnet asked her squad leader. They had drawn back from the main fighting, letting the Slytherins lay down a pattern of suppression fire.

'Time's all fucked up,' Hermione said. 'I can't believe I didn't spot it before, I was using a time-turner for a whole year. I just didn't want to see what I was really seeing. I'm such a idiot. And now its bad, really fucking bad.'

'But sir, I thought that all the time-turners were destroyed.'

'Yeah, but that doesn't mean that people suddenly forgot how to make them, does it?' Hermione managed a dry laugh. 'Spinnet, you're acting sergeant. I want you to make sure that my men all come back in one piece. There's a massive time paradox about to break and I have to try and stop it.'

Harry Apparated directly into the command post (with Dumbledore gone and all the other teachers away in London for a teacher training weekend it looks like the fortress-like security of Hogwarts is really beginning to slip doesn't it – and maybe it has something to do with that other prophecy as well...). Ginny was already there, as were Neville and Luna.

'Just in time,' said Ginny.

A bolt of Purple light hit Ron square in the chest and he went down screaming and writhing as his body sprouted deformed extra limbs and hundreds of eyes on stalks and sharp-toothed mouths tore themselves open on his flesh.

Luckily the real Ron was safely in the cover of the broom shed, trying to jimmy open its enthusiastically locked door and watching his image burn itself into an acidic goo. A screech cut the air and Ron looked up to see the Hippogriff formerly known as Buckbeak wheel down toward the Death Eater's emplacement. Just before it tore into there line, though, a bolt of energy caught the beast and it turned into stone mid-flight, plummeting forward with all its momentum to dash itself to pieces on some conveniently located rocks.

'Hah!' a Death Eater shouted, 'lets see Aslan breath life back into you now, you gimp.' But the man fell back again, gurgling clawing wildly as he took a Sectumsempra to the throat.

'Shit,' Ron said, and renewed his efforts to break into the shed.

Chapter 51

Spells rocked the walls of the command post and fizzled through the air all around them. The air stank of magic, a smell like white noise with the taste of cordite running through it.

'Behind you,' Luna shouted.

Harry turned, and staggered back in shock. A second Luna, her eyes blazing with unearthly hatred, bore down on him, he knew not where from. She carried a large shield and she had her wand levelled at his chest.

'Expelliamus!' she shouted, and Harry's wand flew from his hand. Instinctively, Harry drew the sword of Gryffindor from where it rested at his side and charged into the Ravenclaw, swinging wildly. Luna battered the sword aside with the shield she carried, reaching into her robes with her wand hand, and as Harry crowded in on her there was a flash of something bright. Harry suddenly stopped, there was a moment of quiet, then he coughed quietly and staggered backwards. The sword clattered from his hands and, wide-eyed, slowly, Harry fell to the floor, the long hilt of a dagger protruding just below his ribs.

'You bitch!' Ginny shouted. 'AVADA KEDAVRA!' She screamed, surprising even herself. the second Luna raised the shield vainly but the green bolt of energy streamed around it and engulfed her. There was a crack and Ginny staggered backwards, looking sick, then the green light that had filled the room disappeared. The second Luna lay still, unmarked but unmoving with the shield resting beside her, cracked into two.

'You killed her.' Neville said, quietly. Luna said nothing. Ginny marched up to the body and tore open the robes. She pulled at an object that was nestled into the corpse's breast and held it aloft triumphantly.

'So, it's you who's been playing us all for the fool,' she said, rounding on Luna.

'That doesn't belong to me,' Luna said quietly.

'Exactly,' Ginny hissed. 'Maybe I should kill you now. Then you won't get a chance to go back and make this whole mess.'

'Y-you can't do that,' Neville said, stepping in front of Luna, his eyes fixed on the time turner that dangled from Ginny's grasp. 'You don't know all the facts.'

'Come on Neville,' Ginny said. 'Wake up. It's time to pick a side. Who are you going to believe, your own house-mate or a tricky little Ravenclaw whore?'

'You can't do things like this, Ginny,' Neville said, and he reached for his own wand.

'No, don't,' Luna started to say, but Ginny cut her off.

'Quit trying to stand up to people more powerful than you are.' Ginny flicked her own wand and Neville crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

'Why didn't you kill him?' Luna asked.

'Because I'm not that kind of girl.'

Chapter 52

He flew through the stratosphere on a broomstick, even though it was not his mode of transport of choice, shedding plot points and discarding loose ends as he did so. He was full, his energy limitless and complete, and he would need never to eat again.

Chapter 53

'You did it didn't you?' Hermione asked, her voice a counterpoint to the background thuds and high shrieks of the hex bombardment that even yet continued.

The other which spoke slowly, her voice heavy and almost drunken: 'The prophecy has been fulfilled, the power of the houses are mine alone – and soon, the power of the gods as well.'

'You haven't won yet,' Hermione said, 'two can play the time game. I could go back too, set things up just right to defeat everything that you have done here.'

'You think that if you set up the cage I wouldn't have set up the key?' the witch stood surrounded by bodies and laughed. 'That if you set up the sandbag, I wouldn't have set up another gun.?'

'Which would be a fake with a message, of course.'

'"Wyld Stallyns rule"? I didn't think you had a sense of humour, Hermione?'

'I don't. We're evenly matched and I know that the time turner's still here, one of them at least. I said those things because I knew that they would lock us into a paradox. If we both intend to win by going back in time after we've won, then neither of us can win until one of us has already won. It's a stalemate, repeating and repeating, like an electron that's in two places at the same time and won't be located until you look at it. Only there's no-one out there to look at it, no-one to open that door and see which one of us is still standing.

'Harry's both alive and dead at the same time,' Hermione continued. 'Maybe we'll all just disappear and the world will be a better place without us, never knowing we existed. I don't know. It's like Schrödinger's cat, only it's not a cat, it's one of my best friends.'

'I'm sorry, Hermione. It's a very noble plan, but with a very obvious flaw: I know you thought I was too much of a proud pureblood wizard to listen, but you're not the only one who's been keeping up on the muggle's theories. Having a dad like mine is always a help if you need a crackpot idea or two. You see, there's a theory that the universal observer is God. I'm not sure if I go with that, but all the same I'm afraid your waveform just collapsed, and I know exactly where the electron is going to turn out to have been.'

The witch held up her hand, it was sheathed in a glow of power that seemed to strain out into the grounds of the school. She said a single, soft word: 'Stop.'

Ron climbed high into the sky, his squad forming up behind him.

'Right lads,' he said. 'Let's send in the cavalry and really fuck some shit up.'

He turned his broom into a dive and headed in a shallow easterly arc, straight for the Death Eaters flank. Ron readied his wand as they approached, weak, long-range hexes whistling harmlessly past his ears. 'Wait for it,' he said.

And then there was a calm.

It washed over them like the softest shockwave ever, and as it passed through the Death Eaters it held each one of them up like a puppet transfixed from a string to its heart. And then the Death Eaters dropped, all at once to the floor. Dead.

'As I said before, all the power of the houses are mine together. You are no match for me.'

Chapter 54

'Is it time for the copout ending yet?'

'I don't know how else you're going to do it.'

'If I kiss you, do you turn into a handsome prince?'

'That depends, are you a princess.?'

'Of course I'm a princess, I'm a fucking Sue, aren't I?'

'It figures, and I don't think I bear any relation to the person I was originally based on either, so I suppose it might work.'

'Good. I'm not actually going to kiss you. I just wanted to make sure. That's all.'

'Bugger.'

Chapter 55

The broomstick smashed through the roof of the command centre and the occupant threw himself from it before it shredded itself into splinters. He dropped into a roll and pushed himself up to standing, and brushed the dust from his jet black robes.

'No!' the witch cried. 'Fucking no. It's my deus ex. I'm the one who did all the shit, who made all the little adjustments that held the plot together. Me!'

'It was my book you stole, however. Did you not think that I would have cast the spell myself? I am Judas Iscariot reborn. I am the traitor-god, the dark hand that paves the way toward sacrifice and redemption and I have eaten the god-food, the heart-of-all. For thirty nights I have faced the darkness, I have fought the angst of unbeing and I have felt the nothing crowd in around me. I have realised the freedom of man, his truest trap and I have eaten of the meat of the breast of the beast and I will be sustained forever. I will transcend, that is true, but for now, my power is unbounded.'

'Does that mean you're a vampire then?' the witch asked sarcastically.

'Yes,' said Snape. 'And Dumbledore was really Ron Weasly. Gone back in time.'

'Actually. I'm a vampire,' said 50 Knut, strolling in through the door. 'I only started with the whole rap thing after it became obvious how hopelessly, pathetically out of date glam-rock was becoming. My real name is Lest-'

'Shut up!' everyone shouted at him. 'Do you want to get us sued?'

An owl flew in surreptitiously through the hole made in the roof by Snape and started to peck at the dead Luna's face.

'And I've solved the cryptogram!' crowed Professor Robert Langdon of Harvard University Hogwarts. 'I know who did it.'

'Yes,' said Luna, standing up and apparently not dead. 'It was Ginny. She's a sociopath, willing to use anyone and any means to get exactly what she wants, never caring about the consequences. I'm surprised none of you saw it before. It's been evident since she was very young. She put me under the imperius curse and sent me back in time to kill her boyfriend, just so that she could have a lot of power. It's funny really. Except that it isn't.'

'Fuck you, bitch,' Ginny retorted. 'I killed you. You don't get to add to the conversation. It's against the rules.'

'You didn't though,' Luna said. 'Actually, you killed yourself. The curse you cast hit the shield, Ravenclaw's shield apparently, and I can say it certainly helped me out in my time of need. You had made it a horcrux, like you did the sword, which was a little bit silly. The killing curse killed the piece of your soul in the shield and I was only half destroyed by its power.'

'I had to send a little piece of me back in time with you, if I wanted to keep control, didn't I? And I didn't think I was going to use the killer,' Ginny mused. 'I didn't realise I cared that strongly about Harry. I was gong to blast you with a bat-bogey or something, the lethal version I taught you guys at DA classes those years back.'

'If you were half killed and under an imperius curse,' Hermione wondered. 'What are you doing here now?'

'Well, I knew what Ginny was plotting, and I thought about what MI7 were doing with owls and thought control. So I wondered if it couldn't be done the other way. If I couldn't upload myself, my thoughts and feelings, into the owl network for safe keeping?'

'Shut up!' Ginny snarled. 'I don't bloody care. You've all been wittering away for long enough now. It ends here. The world is mine. I have the power and you shall bow before me.'

'You don't' said Luna. 'Just try it.'

Ginny held her hands aloft. Nothing happened.

'It's changed. I'm still here, the houses have not been turned one against another. Ravenclaw stands firm and the others shall rally about her, their strength reborn. Go on then Snape. Do your thing.

White light voided the scene and the gods moved in their mysterious ways.

Chapter 56

Harry Potter woke up in his cramped bed in the cupboard under the stairs. He had just had the strangest of dreams and his forehead ached and itched strangely, as if it was being troubled by an ancient scar.

'No,' screamed Ginny to the walls of her plastic prison. 'You can't end it like that! However you end it, I don't care. Just not like that.'

'We are the next stage in your evolution,' she added for good measure. But no-one was listening.

Chapter 57

Harry Potter woke up. His skull ached terribly. His friends surrounded his bed. Ron and Hermione, arms around each other's waists, on one side and Luna and Nevilee, hand in hand on the other.

'Hey, Ron,' said Harry, 'I'm. I'm sorry about your sister.'

'Don't worry, mate,' Ron said genially. 'It's not your fault. Hell there are a lot of us Weasley kids, and two arseholes out of seven isn't bad going by anyone's standards. Anyway, I've been listening to a lot of Iron Maiden while you were unconscious. It explains a lot of things.'

'Only two?' Harry queried, and then he winced as he suddenly realised how much pain filled his body.

'Why am I still alive?' Harry said.

'Oh,' said Luna. 'That knife, I got it off Fred and George. I was going to use it as a Halloween prank. It's charmed to make it look like you've killed someone, only you haven't. And do you know the best thing about it? It doesn't even leave a scar.'