Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!

Cliffhanger warning; this chapter and Chapter 7 are really one entity, but they needed to be split up, or they would have gotten massively long.

Chapter Six: Song of Battle

As the new allies began Flooing or Apparating home, Harry slipped gratefully out of the meeting room. No one seemed to notice his going—except Narcissa, but Adalrico was speaking to her, his voice quiet and urgent, and she couldn't get to Harry before he escaped. Harry realized the conversation was probably about him, but so long as he didn't have to hear it, then he was content.

He leaned against the wall outside the meeting room and shut his eyes. Fawkes crooned at him and groomed a bit of his hair, then paused and uttered a warble that Harry didn't figure out in time.

"Harry."

"Mrs. Bulstrode," said Harry, opening his eyes but keeping his gaze on the floor. He knew she was kneeling in front of him, and that her face would be full of concern, because puellaris witches were like that. He didn't have to look if he didn't want to, though. And he didn't want to. This was another time when he would just have to wait a few more minutes to relax. He would fight his way through the conversation with Elfrida, and then go upstairs and sleep. He was sure that he would do so deeply with Fawkes beside him.

"I wanted you to see Marian," said Elfrida, voice gentle. "You haven't seen her since the night she was born."

Harry felt a boneless relaxation drop into his shoulders. That was true, and if she had only come to talk about Marian, then he didn't have to fear any personal inquires he couldn't deflect. He reassured himself that he'd been silly to panic. After all, the truth he'd learned years ago still held good: most people were more interested in talking about themselves or what related to themselves than they were in talking about him. He leaned forward obediently, and Elfrida drew back a fold of the blanket that had covered Marian's face.

Harry had thought she would be asleep, since she had been quiet throughout the meeting, but Marian was awake, moving her fists in small, complicated patterns above her head, to which she was giving the whole of her attention. Her hair was coming in dark, and was plastered slightly to her head. Her eyes were still blue. Harry wondered if they would change color or not. He didn't know how long it was before that happened to babies.

"She's been very good for me so far," Elfrida murmured, smiling down at her with an expression so warm and tender that Harry felt strengthened just being near it. "She almost never cries, and when she does, then I know that she really needs something from me. I think going through what she did when she was just a few minutes old changed something in her." Elfrida lowered a hand and touched Marian's face with exquisite tenderness, then glanced back up at Harry. "I did say once that I wanted you near Marian while she was young, so that she could experience powerful magic and not be frightened of it. Do you think you could show her some of that now, Harry?"

Harry blinked. "Do you think she'll remember this later, Mrs. Bulstrode?"

Elfrida laughed softly. "No, Harry, but she would get used to it the same way that she gets used to warmth and learns to fear cold. It's not the specific memory that matters, but her growing accustomed to the sensation."

Harry nodded doubtfully. He supposed Elfrida was right, but he hadn't ever studied caring for children. It hadn't been something he needed to learn, with Connor the same age as he was.

He knelt down beside Elfrida, and then she complicated things by handing Marian to him. Awkwardly, Harry adjusted his arms around the baby, afraid that her head would flop in one direction and her body in another. He could too easily imagine her neck snapping or her head smashing if he dropped her.

"There," said Elfrida gently. "Just use one arm to support her head and one around her waist, and then—there. Good, Harry." Harry couldn't help soaking in the praise in spite of himself, and it was true that Marian's warmth felt soft and delicious against his chest. "Now, release your magic a bit."

Harry half-closed his eyes and let some of his barriers slip.

Rich magic flooded the hall, and lapped back on Harry and Marian. Marian made an inquiring little noise and waved her hands, but the noise wasn't distressed, so Harry went on pouring it. Marian's nose wrinkled up a moment later, and she sneezed.

Harry would have stopped, if Elfrida's laughter hadn't encouraged him. "She's a Bulstrode," she said. "And they smell powerful magic as thunderstorms. That's all. Go on, Harry." Her hand descended on his shoulder, as though to support him. Harry wondered why. The wall was doing a good job of holding him up.

He kept an eye on Marian's face as he went on exuding his magic, certain he should stop at any moment. But Marian only grew more and more alert and lively as the power rose around them. She giggled, and the movements of her hands seemed to become more coordinated. She laid her head on Harry's hand and blinked blue eyes up at him.

Elfrida rubbed gently at his shoulder, and then began to sing, so softly at first that Harry mistook the song for an audible manifestation of his magic. He kept his focus on Marian, at least until the actual words of the song claimed his attention.

The song was a mother's chant, the words of a witch watching over her child who would do anything to keep that child safe.

Harry calmed his instinctive flutter of panic by telling himself that she was singing for Marian, but that justification smashed when he turned his head and met her eyes. They were focused on him. Elfrida looked fiercer than he had ever seen her, and a glint of fang shone from her mouth. He remembered that puellaris witches transformed into lionesses when they defended their children.

Or children under their care.

She thinks of me as her child.

Harry stiffened, and then had to juggle Marian. He pulled his magic carefully back into his body. It was harder than he expected. He must have come closer to collapse than he thought. Elfrida watched him with a faint frown that grew more pronounced as he rebuilt his barriers.

"Harry, what is wrong?" she whispered.

"I'm sorry," said Harry, and was horrified to hear his voice becoming jagged. He might have collapsed with some of his new allies still in the Manor. He gently pressed Marian back into Elfrida's arms and turned his face to the side as he eased along the wall, ignoring Fawkes's scolding croons. "This is wonderful. You're wonderful. I just—I can't. Not right now."

"Harry—"

Harry did not quite run towards the stairs up to his room, but it was a near thing. Fawkes fluttered and clung until Harry hissed at him to go away. Then he closed his bedroom door behind him, locked it, and flung himself on the bed.

Relaxing was one thing. Sharing a tender moment with one of his allies was fine. Doing what he had promised was great. But he had felt himself peering over the rim of a collapse much greater than he had any room to make, down there.

I'm sorry, he whispered, uselessly, to people who couldn't hear him. I'm sorry. But I know that I didn't do a very good job of convincing my new allies, definite plans or not, and I need to keep up that mask of strength until I do. I'm sorry.

He pinched his nose until the tears in his eyes became the far less threatening tears of pain, and then went to bed. A gentle knock came at his door a few minutes after he did, but Harry ignored it, and after an understanding pause, Draco went away.

Harry dreamed.

This dream was unlike the others, though. In his visions, he had always been in a solid place, with walls or trees around him and the Dark Lord somewhere to the front or side. This time, he was drifting in a hazy mist, which only gradually parted and ebbed together to create images that made sense.

The strongest component of the dream was the mood, really. Harry could feel excitement around him like a living, breathing current of air. He was sure it was Voldemort's excitement, and while it made him shiver to be so bathed in it, he began to wonder if the Dark Lord was dreaming, and had caught Harry up in that dream. If so, then he should wake up, because he didn't think there was anything to be learned from seeing Voldemort's nightly ambitions. Harry already knew that he feared death and hated Muggles and desired domination of the wizarding world.

The dream snapped suddenly into focus, though, and Harry found himself very nearly in a vision. He glanced around, and saw the back of a house in front of him, with the full moon riding overhead. It looked like a dream of tonight, but did Voldemort have prophetic dreams? Harry started to lash his tail in frustration, and then realized he was human, and not lynx, in this dream.

He crouched down and pulled out his wand as an instinctive gesture of comfort. The nature of their connection had indeed altered. He wasn't sure what had done it, though perhaps it was due to the resurrection. And he had no idea whether he might be in danger here.

He scurried to the side, and watched the moon ducking in and out of the racing clouds above. Then the light struck through them, and while Harry had never seen the house from this angle, he no longer had any trouble in recognizing it, particularly given the shimmer of isolation wards around it.

The Burrow.

He's thinking of going after Connor.

Voldemort's exultation surged around him, and Harry sensed the dream breaking up through no will of his own. Voldemort was probably waking with the thought of attacking his brother firmly in mind.

Harry jumped, frantically, his heart so busy in his throat it seemed ready to strangle him. He had to wake, and he had to get to the Burrow right away.

Harry sat bolt upright, gasping, and then winced as searing pain cut through his scar. At least it wasn't bleeding, he thought, as he rolled out of bed and landed heavily on the floor. And he had no need to get dressed, since he had fallen asleep hours ago wearing his clothes. He stretched one arm above his head, then the other, to relieve the aches that came from sleeping too long in the same position, and stood and headed for the door.

He opened it to find Draco there, and blinked at him for a moment before the dream bit him like a dragon. "Excuse me, Draco," he said, starting to edge past him.

Draco caught his left wrist just below the glamour, a usual gesture with him lately when he wanted to attract Harry's attention. "What's going on?" he asked, barely moving his lips. "I felt your panic all the way down the hall. And now you look as if you're going into danger again. What is it, Harry? You did promise me that you would tell me before you hurried off."

Harry wanted to scream. Unlike the visions, which happened simultaneously with his seeing them, he didn't know how long it would be before Voldemort landed at the Burrow. That only made him more determined to go, not less. But, on the other hand, Draco was physically stronger than he was right now, and Harry didn't want to hurt him with his magic.

He made up his mind. It wouldn't take long. "Voldemort was dreaming about attacking Connor," he whispered. "And now he's resolved on it, or it seemed like that before his dream broke up. So I have to go stop him."

"Of course you do," said Draco. "And the rest of us are going with you."

Harry blinked. "What?"

"Mrs. Parkinson stayed here this evening," Draco went on. "So did the Bulstrodes—all but Adalrico's cousin, of course. It won't take long to get them out of bed, and Mum and Father with them. If you are going to battle, Harry, then you'll have plenty of allies to fight beside you. Come on." He drew Harry down the hall before he could think of an objection.

Harry managed to set his feet as he reached the stairs. "But this isn't their fight—"

"I really am sick and tired of you saying things like that," said Draco casually, without looking at him. "The Parkinsons and the Bulstrodes are your formal family allies. And do you really think my parents would do less for you than they would?" He paused for a moment. "Well, maybe not Father, but what about Mum? She's risked her life for you many times, Harry."

Harry shook his head. "It's not that. But I haven't led a battle before. I don't know how to do it—"

"Bollocks," said Draco, ignoring the scandalized portrait they were passing at that moment. "Come on, Harry." He shoved Harry into the middle of the entrance hall, and paused to stare at him. "I'm going to get the others. Remember, Harry, one movement without me, and you'll find yourself under a Body-Bind or a sleeping potion. Just one." He turned and ran in the direction of doors Harry assumed led to the guest bedrooms.

Forced to wait, Harry closed his eyes and held a silent argument with himself. Would it really be better to stay here? He could still go into battle—

Like an idiot, yes, you could, said Regulus, with brutal force. You don't know if he's there yet, Harry.

But he could be! Harry wailed. And what if everyone else takes ages to get moving?

They were Death Eaters or fighters, Regulus said dryly. And Draco has plenty of experience hurrying after you by now. I doubt that they'll be long.

I can't risk their lives.

You're not. They are. That's the difference.

Harry was about to resume the debate when he heard claws tap on the floor in front of him. He blinked and looked up. A slender, pale werewolf he recognized as Hawthorn was trotting towards him, her slightly wrong muzzle and too-lengthy legs the main features that marked her out as different from an ordinary wolf. She came to a halt in front of him and fixed him with stern hazel eyes.

"Um," said Harry weakly. "Shouldn't you be out hunting?"

Hawthorn snarled at him, for a moment reminding him of the savage beast she would be without the Wolfsbane Potion. Then she extended her head and butted at him playfully. Harry wavered and nearly sat down, so weak was he. Hawthorn whined softly, turning her head to catch his eye again.

"I'm all right," Harry lied, looking away. "Just a bit of a shock, waking up the way I did."

"There she is."

Harry looked over his shoulder, and blinked. That had been fast. Draco was running back down the hall with Narcissa behind him in formal robes, obviously the first pair she'd snatched. Lucius was at his wife's shoulder, walking fast but not in an undignified manner. Elfrida and Adalrico were just flooding out of a room down the hall, holding their wands. Harry didn't think he'd ever seen an expression of such stony determination on anyone's face as Elfrida now wore.

Worried as he was, Harry started when he saw her coming to fight. "What about Millicent and Marian?" he demanded.

"Millicent is staying here," said Elfrida calmly, swinging her cloak out of the way of her wand. "She'll guard Marian for me, and the wards will do the rest. I trust her to protect her sister more than I trust her in battle."

Harry ground down his teeth and said nothing about that. "Now can we go?" he demanded.

Draco caught his arm firmly. "Where are we going?"

"Ottery St. Catchpole," Harry said. "The Burrow, the Weasleys' house. My brother is staying there, and Voldemort is going to attack it."

"Did Evan Rosier really send you a letter?" Adalrico demanded.

Harry sighed in agitation. "Does this really—"

"Yes, it does." Adalrico dropped to a knee in front of him. "We are not about to risk our lives, Harry, or let you risk yours, without more proof than this."

Harry swiped at his fringe, revealing his scar. "This gives me a connection to Voldemort," he said, not having time to be amused as half his audience flinched at the name. Elfrida didn't; he did note that. "I dream about what he's dreaming, sometimes, and about his plans, and this time I dreamed about him getting eager and excited about the Burrow."

Adalrico bowed his head and clenched his arm for a moment. "Thank you for trusting us enough to tell us, Harry."

I wouldn't have, but you made it impossible otherwise, Harry screamed in his mind, but kept his face calm. "Can we go?"

"Of course."

They arranged themselves in a moment, with Lucius Side-Apparating Draco, Narcissa holding Harry's wrist in a firm grip, and Adalrico and Elfrida standing on either side of Hawthorn.

Harry was desperately trying to calculate angles and how many Death Eaters were likely to be there as they vanished.

Harry and Narcissa landed on the slope behind the Burrow, in almost the same place from which Harry had seen the house in Voldemort's dream. He heard more distant cracks, and suspected the others were in slightly different places. He tugged, trying to get away from Narcissa and join them. There was no telling when the Death Eaters would arrive, or how many they would be when they finally did. That was one reason to prefer the visions: they gave him more exact information.

"Harry."

Harry paused and glanced reluctantly at Narcissa. From the tone she gave his name, this wasn't the first time she'd said it.

"You are not to risk your life unnecessarily," Narcissa whispered in his ear. "Do you understand me? I know that risk-taking is an inherent part of battle, but if I see you try to get in the way of a curse that you can't block, or worry more about defending someone else's life than your own, there will be consequences."

He had to shrink under the glare she gave him. It seemed that she was actually angry at him, the same way Draco was. Harry supposed he had treated them very thoughtlessly. He lowered his eyes and nodded.

"Good." Narcissa released him. "The others landed in front of the house. We should try to meet up with them."

Harry had just begun to move when he heard other sharp cracks begin. He tensed at once, and counted them. When they reached ten he snarled in silence and began to pace forward, his mind buzzing with battle spells.

Then an eleventh sounded, coming in behind them.

Harry spun, and the Blasting Curse on his lips just barely missed the dark figure who stood there, lifting his hands in mock surrender. In the light of the moon, Harry could make out Evan Rosier's face.

"Hello, Harry," he whispered. "Don't be so hasty. I've come to help you, and to tell you to be careful. My lord has no imagination. He thinks that someone who went after you once and failed should be allowed another chance. Fenrir Greyback is here." He paused dramatically. "But that is not the worst of it."

Narcissa had her wand trained steadily on Rosier, Harry saw. He ignored that. Right now, since Rosier was actually acting sane, Harry would treat his warnings as if they made sense. "What is the worst of it, then?"

He knew, even as another crack sounded, and his scar flooded with pain.

"My lord is here," Rosier finished softly, and then drew his wand and winked. "Should we go show him that he can't have things just the way he likes any more?"

He hurtled downhill. Harry felt Narcissa try to grab hold of him. But he had heard her warning, and he would heed it, and anyway, he was the only one on the battlefield with any chance of handling Voldemort. He slipped her grasp and followed Rosier, his magic lifting his feet just above the grass as he went.

He could feel Voldemort's magic, like a fanged, clawed beast just awakened, turning to face and find his. Harry let more of his own pour through his skin, this time rising around him in the old familiar shape of wings. This was not the gentle demonstration he had put on for Marian, but one far more battle-ready.

He came around the side of the house, and took in the beginning battle at a glance. He could make out Lucius's pale hair flying as he dueled two smaller Death Eaters, and two tumbling shapes that must be Hawthorn and Greyback, and Adalrico and Elfrida back-to-back in a ring of enemies, and Draco firing spells back at a heavyset Death Eater, probably Karkaroff, with a coolness that surprised Harry—

And in the center of it all, taking down the isolation wards around the Burrow, was Voldemort.

Harry made straight for him. He heard whooping behind him, and snarling, and yelping, and yelling, and the snap of spells, but he forced that all from his mind. He let the pain in his scar act as guide and beacon, rather than a distraction. Voldemort turned to face him with one upraised eyebrow, and his lipless mouth erupted into a low, hissing laugh.

Harry felt the grass stir to the side, but he didn't have time to evade the rush of the queen basilisk, which wrapped around his body and bore him to a rolling halt. Harry sucked in a desperate breath as he felt her try to crush his ribs, and heard both her and Voldemort laughing in Parseltongue.

A moment later, light flared overhead and Fawkes sang a battle-song, and the basilisk screamed. Harry suspected the phoenix was making for her eyes.

Harry Apparated, leaping from the basilisk's grasp into freedom not far from Voldemort. The stare of his red eyes was not much better than the stare from a basilisk, but at least it wouldn't kill him all by itself.

"Hello, Harry," said Voldemort, and the pain in Harry's scar cracked down like lightning strikes. "Come to surrender, at last, to your rightful master?"

"You wish," Harry whispered. His magic still rose around him like wings, and he felt the hatred rising with it, wrapping around his neck like a vine. This was the enemy he had trained to fight, and other people's attempts to direct his attention to other targets, his parents or Dumbledore, were only distractions. He had never fought wandless magic with wandless magic, other than by trying to drain his opponent's power, but he was beginning to think it was the only way he would meet Voldemort equally. Fighting a Dark Lord was not like fighting other wizards.

Voldemort laughed at him, as if he knew the way Harry's thoughts were tending, and the magic around him leaped eagerly forward.

Harry had no idea what way Voldemort imagined his power. He didn't have to know, he found. The pain that pierced him as that magic collided with his own was the pain of fang and claw, and he might as well imagine something that could fight back against that.

He chose the manifestation of a dragon, and actually saw the gleam of the dark wings for a moment as they wrapped around Voldemort's attacking power. That power shredded his own, of course, but that was all right; his dragon only had another layer of scales under that one. The dragon crowded close and clung with four legs, and Harry moved one hand in a clenching motion, imagining it whipping its head forward and crushing the throat of Voldemort's dragon. Harry heard a gasping breath from Voldemort, and rejoiced in the knowledge that he'd hurt the bastard.

Then Voldemort began to fight back.

Harry felt his magic expand outward, pushing, shoving him back, exploding the dragon that Harry tried to contain it with. Harry gathered in his magic as it swirled about, ignored the pain in his limbs, and stared at the earth behind Voldemort, not bothering to think of incantations this time.

Explode, he willed. Explode.

The earth leaped up in a fountain of grass and dirt, and Voldemort was knocked forward by the blast, all his attention too forcefully on Harry for him to concentrate on keeping his balance. Harry took as quick an advantage as he could, this time willing Voldemort's windpipe to crumple, his throat to crush.

Voldemort resisted, his dead-white skin achieving the hardness of iron, and then threw Harry off. He retreated a few steps from the Burrow, circling, pleased to note that he was drawing Voldemort with him.

Then they fell into the duel, and Harry discovered a level of battle he hadn't known existed. When two wizards were this powerful, not needing spells to contain their magic, what mattered was will, imagination, and foresight. It reminded Harry of those ancient contests of shapeshifters he'd heard of, with one becoming a sparrow and the other a hawk, one a stone and the other a beast with teeth that could crush a stone, one a mouse and another a cat. He had to try and anticipate what Voldemort was doing and counteract it, at the same moment as he had to imagine strategies that Voldemort himself would not be able to overcome.

And all on the fly.

Harry called wind that Voldemort swallowed that became a blast of force that Harry absorbed that became another tearing of earth that Voldemort resisted that flooded forth as a strike at his heart that Harry dodged that melted into a massive slap that Voldemort bore with and counteracted with an attempt to rip his ribs through his chest that Harry turned and batted home with enough strength to make Voldemort bend over and wheeze as his lungs labored that melded with breathing a cloud of poisonous gas into Harry's face that became—

At some point, Harry fell so thoroughly into the battle that he lost track of the other fighters, didn't think about drawing Voldemort away from the Burrow, and no longer knew anything except the fierce gladness that came from making another strike and turning yet another.

Draco dropped to one knee to dodge a severing curse, and then fired a tripping jinx at the Death Eater opposite him. The Death Eater fell over, and Draco scrambled up, shaking, mopping the sweat from his forehead and trying desperately to see where Harry was.

He whipped around just in time to see his father level his wand at one of the robed, masked figures and say, "Avada Kedavra."

Draco watched in detached wonder as the bolt of green light took another life from the world, cleanly and simply and quickly. One moment the Death Eater was alive, the next he was dead. Lucius was already turning to find another victim, his face unmarred by emotion. Draco swallowed, and wondered if he had been ready to see that. One thing he was rapidly learning about himself, another point of difference from Harry, was that he would never go willingly into battle, or really be excited by it.

He backed up a step, and noticed a Death Eater with blonde hair flowing from behind her mask creeping towards his father's back.

Draco shouted, but Lucius was engaged in a crackling spell duel with his next intended victim, flipping from one incantation to the next, and didn't notice.

Draco ran. He didn't know what he could really do—his shout hadn't distracted the Death Eater, either, and his shock seemed to have wiped his mind clean of all useful spells—but he was determined to do something.

He fixed his eyes on the Death Eater and found himself pushing, reaching, in desperation, trying to use his strangely changed empathy to predict what she would do next.

There came a tearing, ripping sensation, and Draco briefly thought someone had hit him with a curse that managed to spill his intestines. Then he realized his perception was bouncing, as though his head had detached from his shoulders. His vision filled with hurtling dirt and grass, and he gasped, thinking he would have a mouthful of it any moment now.

Then he was inside the Death Eater's head.

Draco reeled, dizzy from the onslaught of so many different sensations: a taller body, breasts against his chest, a changed center of gravity, strange circulation of blood, an unfamiliar wand gripped in an unfamiliar hand, long hair flying around him, the sudden press of a cloth mask against his face and the restricted field of vision that meant. He had just enough presence of mind to try and steady himself, and he found the body obeying, stopping in its rush and shaking its head.

Draco didn't know how he was getting the Death Eater to do what he wanted, and he didn't really care. At the moment, he wanted to figure out some way out of this person and back to his own body.

And, of course, you want to stop her from attacking your father, Draco thought, and could have smacked himself.

He squeezed certain muscles, and her hand responded, coming up and pointing her wand directly at her own temple. Draco spoke the proper incantation for a Stunning Spell, whispered it through her brain, and heard her lips intone it. Then she dropped senseless as the spell struck home.

Draco found himself bouncing through darkness, but then he opened intimately familiar eyes, and felt his stomach heave in an intimately familiar way. He just managed to make sure he didn't vomit on himself.

So that's what my gift is, he thought dizzily, wiping at his mouth. I can possess people. How bloody useful is that?

Well, it could be very bloody useful, he answered himself, if he didn't kneel here on the battlefield and stare at nothing.

He lurched to his feet, staring around for more people to possess.

Snarl, and snap, and grip, and dodge, and nothing was going as it should have been, the impertinent brat, the impudent boy, the inopportune brat.

He knew the boy was making him think in confused circles—he, Lord Voldemort!—and that enraged him further. He kept trying to break away from the contest he was engaged in, and still Harry Potter wouldn't let him. His magic, Lord Voldemort's stolen magic, boiled and surged around him, and even though he should have seen long since that he was the weaker of the two, he kept right on pressing forward, as if he were a Gryffindor and not a Slytherin, as if he had the right to challenge Lord Voldemort for this kind of power!

It would have been enough to drive a greater man mad, if there were any greater men.

But Lord Voldemort knew his opponent's mind, and he knew what was most precious to him, who out of the people on the battlefield he would die to protect. And he knew what Potter would assume when he saw Lord Voldemort point his wand at that person.

Yes, there he was, staggering up from his knees, staring around the battlefield, far from the other struggling Death Eaters at the moment and not paying any attention to the great Lord across the battlefield from him.

Perfect.

Harry had been aware for some time that the pace of his and Voldemort's interchange was slowing, but he thought that was due to his own weakness. He could think of no reason that Voldemort would want to back away from this contest. He didn't, himself. He wanted to continue until one of them was dead, and he didn't think that it would matter so very much if it was him. The magic flooded him, intoxicating, coaxing, pulling effort after effort from him.

Nothing else mattered, not food or drink or his brother or anything but defeating the Dark Lord.

Then Voldemort spun to the side, and Harry staggered, trying to recover his balance. He saw that Voldemort was not staring at him anymore. He looked up, wondering if someone else had arrived, and feeling a bit jealous that anyone else could draw the Dark Lord's attention even for a moment.

He saw Draco, climbing to his feet with eyes wide with wonder, and he saw Voldemort's wand lift and point, and yes, something did matter more than defeating the Dark Lord, and he sprang forward with a scream of rage and fury and love, shaping all his magic into an offensive strike, determined to take down Voldemort or at least force him to retreat before his curse could hit Draco—

Then he realized, as Voldemort turned to face him, and Harry was all open, all defenseless, that it had been a trap, that Voldemort had used his sacrificial instincts against him.

He had no time to retreat, no time to shield. He pushed and flung his offensive magic ahead, even as Voldemort said, "Cogo!"

It was the Compression Curse, a simple spell that Harry ordinarily would have had no trouble deflecting. He couldn't now, though. He'd left himself too open, put every impulse of his heart into the strike, and as his body began to be crushed together, his shoulders bending and breaking, he knew that he was going to die, squeezed into a ball just like every other victim of the curse.

He couldn't fight it, even as the extent of his stupidity flashed on him with the vividness of a storm, so he pressed ahead with his offensive strike. It was the only thing that remained to him now.

He saw the strike go home. Voldemort had prepared himself to shield against something else, Harry saw, some complicated attempt to turn him inside out or achieve another equally showy effect.

He hadn't prepared himself for pain, and especially not for emotional pain, for Harry's transfer of everything he was feeling right now directly into Voldemort's mind.

Harry felt his back bow at an impossible angle, but he got to see Voldemort squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head. He knew his arms were curling into his chest, like the legs of a dying insect, but meanwhile Voldemort was shaking with accumulated pain and rage and fear and grief. Bones shattered throughout his body like explosions, but Voldemort was feeling explosions of his own, his mind struggling against the crushing onslaught of emotion and finding no escape.

He wailed aloud.

Then he Disapparated.

His magic went with him, and the Compression Curse eased. Harry slumped to the ground, his voice a mixture of groan and pant and scream. He heard the Death Eaters vanishing as well, and spared a moment to wonder if Evan Rosier was among them, or if he had fallen by the wand of one of his old comrades or Harry's allies.

But most of his mind, oddly, was utterly clear—probably because he had pushed so much emotion at Voldemort—and taken up with the idea that the ending of the Compression Curse was good fortune that he did not deserve. He had done nothing to win this battle, and had done something that might well have lost it for his allies.

He had rushed in without looking. He had acted as a sacrifice again, and this time it could have been the end of him, and the end of the means of defeating Voldemort as well, unless the prophecy chose Connor and one other person.

He had been a fool, and the cracks running all through him had broken wide open at the worst possible time. The mere revelation of what he was feeling had been enough to drive Voldemort away.

He stared along the ruin of his life, and felt iron determination rise in him, as if he had a new, steel skeleton behind his shattered shoulder blades and hips. Those bones hurt less than the revelation of his idiocy.

"Integritas!"

Harry gasped aloud, then screamed, as the Whole Healing spell, a dangerous incantation about two steps away from Dark Arts, ran over him in a flash of white heat. He could feel the damn thing pulling his shattered bones into place, shoving and tugging at his shoulders until they unbowed, drawing ruthlessly on his magic to put things back together and make them as they should be. It only worked on bodily health, of course, so the mental shards lay just where they had fallen, but after a few moments of incandescent pain that rivaled the agony when he had lost his hand, Harry was physically healed.

He rolled slowly over, and stared up at a grinning Evan Rosier.

"I couldn't let you die," he said. "You make life too interesting. But I couldn't heal you nicely, either. I do have a reputation to maintain, you know."

He vanished.

Harry closed his eyes. He could hear running footsteps, and knew his allies would be there in a few moments. He knew that he could cuddle into their arms, and accept what they had to offer. They would be more than he deserved, too.

And that means that you cannot go to them yet, said the voice of the new revelation rising in his mind.

He had acted like a fool. He must not act like that anymore.

On the other hand, if he went back with his allies now, and especially to Draco, Harry knew it would not be enough. Finally, finally, he was seeing and predicting his own reactions as thoroughly as he had seen and predicted theirs, and he knew that he wouldn't let himself collapse completely. His pride would interfere again, and his desire not to be seen as weak, and he wouldn't fall far enough.

It had to be a complete fall, and a complete rebuilding.

And he would have to do it himself. Other people had spent enough time healing him: Draco, Narcissa, Fawkes, Regulus, the unicorns, the Maze. He would do this alone. He thought now, as the iron skeleton of resolve grew throughout him, that he could do it, so long as there was no one around to see his tears and wrap him in warm arms and make him feel as if he had to defend himself and stop anyone from seeing the extent of the damage.

He was, he thought, at last ready to face himself, in the company of himself.

And for that he needed a private place, and he knew the perfect one.

You can't go there, Harry! Regulus was screaming in his head. You can't! It's too dangerous! I know that you don't do anything by halves, but this is too much!

Regulus, Harry said gently, I love you very dearly, and you've often been right, but this time, you're wrong. Go away.

He firmed his Occlumency shields and pushed Regulus out of his mind. Then he curled up on himself, savoring the remnants of pain.

He was going to face his demons, wasn't he? Then he might as well go to the place where most of them dwelt, and, indeed, not do anything by halves. He would drag himself through an interrogation as ruthless as that he would have put a captured Death Eater through.

He vanished even as he felt someone drop to his knees beside him, Apparating to a place where none of them could have followed, thanks to the isolation wards, even if they knew where it was.

Home.

Godric's Hollow.