Yes, I do realise that this has been a few weeks late in coming, but my micronation has just gone to war and as a General in the army, I am required to lead 4th Mech Warfare Corps into battle.

But anyway...

Voilà.

Harry winced as the doors in front of him were slammed open and he dragged through them, the sound of his haphazard attempt to stay standing echoing eerily down the dank corridor that stretched behind them. As Snape roughly forced him into the room, he was struck by the sharp contrast to the rest of the dungeons that he had so far see – rich greens and browns highlighted by the cheerfully burning torches in brackets around the large room. To the left and right of the door as he entered were raised platforms, where Death Eaters were sat sneering at him as he looked around. As Lucius stepped up onto the left-hand platform, he motioned violently to Avery, who quickly vacated the seat so that Lucius could sit down comfortably. It was clear who was higher in the pecking order. Harry watched curiously as Snape moved to the back of the room, hiding behind one of four pillars in the semi-darkness compared to the rest of the room. There were mysterious and detailed tapestries lining the shadowed back wall, behind Snape. Harry drew a sharp breath as he noticed that Draco was bound to one of the pillars.

Blood was running in small rivulets down his face where there was a vicious cut at his left temple, and a trail was left down his chin where the red liquid had leaked out of his mouth. His right eye was a deep purple, the bruise vividly spreading over half of his cheek. His eyes were currently closed – from exhaustion or unconsciousness Harry wasn't sure – but he was pretty sure that if he wasn't bound to the pillar, he wouldn't be standing upright. Harry bristled as Bellatrix prowled around the Slytherin, wand drawn. Tearing his eyes away from Draco, he focused on Voldemort, who was sat in a large chair in the centre of the pillars, Wormtail hiding in the shadows behind him.

"I see you've deemed us worthy of your presence." Voldemort began sarcastically. He stood from his seat and walked up to Harry, who was having considerable trouble not collapsing due to the pins and needles running through his legs. Voldemort stuck out a hand. "I don't believe we've been acquainted. I am Lord Voldemort." he said shortly. Harry looked down at the offered hand and snorted in contempt.

"So I've heard." He replied caustically, and immediately felt a wand poking into his back.

"You will respect Lord Voldemort, or you will suffer. Introduce yourself, boy." He heard Avery hiss in his ear. Forcing himself not to jerk away from the wand and risk being cursed, he stuck out his right hand, grasping Voldemort's for a brief second. It was cold and dry, yet had an odd feel to it, almost rubbery.

"James Antares."

He jerked his hand away, careful not to expose the runic band fitted snugly on his left wrist as he shifted, his Quidditch robes slightly worse for wear. Voldemort reached down and grabbed his hand again, turning it over so his palm was facing up, and scrutinised the vicious scar that twisted across the soft skin.

"A lightning-shaped scar." He murmured, and reached out to touch it with one long finger. It was repelled with a loud crack and gold sparks flying, making Harry wince. Voldemort merely looked amused. "Not so unlike another one of my enemies that I destroyed."

Releasing Harry's hand and stalking back to his chair, he sat down and arranged his robes around himself.

"I am correct in assuming that you already know of the great Harry Potter's timely demise." He said matter-of-factly. Harry reined in a snarl.

"Perfectly aware of it. The Daily Prophet had a field day with the story." He replied dryly. Voldemort nodded slowly.

"Good. Then I won't have to tell you what will happen to you should you attempt to escape or foolishly think that you can take on all my Death Eaters at once… alone." He finished with a pointed look at Draco. Harry's eyes narrowed.

"Why did you bring us here? If you'd wanted to kill us, you really should have done it earlier." He shot back in an irritated tone. Voldemort's lips quirked slightly, and his bright red eyes shone with a disturbing intensity.

"After I had annihilated Harry Potter, I simply decided to destroy the greatest threat in the next generation. I therefore sent my minion to Hogwarts with the mission of killing the most powerful student in the castle. However, it was soon related to me that there were two students of equally enormous power prowling around the school… imagine my surprise when I found out it my most faithful servant's own son, and a Gryffindor!" Voldemort made a face, his lips curling in a feral manner and his eyes narrowing. Harry guessed it was his idea of a grin. "Oh, the outrage."

"I think I've had a brainwave." Harry said sardonically. "You want us to join you."

Voldemort raised an eyebrow, and the gathered Death Eaters muttered around the room. He silenced them with a flick of his hand.

"How for Merlin could you have known that, boy?" he snapped. Harry smirked.

"Just a good guess."

"Top secret classified information, that… we must have a leak…" Nott whispered to Lucius, who rolled his eyes derisively.

"Did you not hear the boy? He simply happened to guess correctly." He lowered his voice and grumbled into his hand. "Though it was hardly an original plan…"

"Stop chuntering, Lucius." Voldemort admonished, his bald head glinted under the torchlight. He turned back to Harry. "As unoriginal as Lucius might deem it, that is, indeed, my proposal – accept the Dark Mark, or I will kill you."

"I'm not afraid to die." Harry shot back, the magic searing through his bones, trying desperately to override the wards on the dungeon that held his magic back. He had a nasty feeling that if the pressure kept on building, he was going to explode. And get slimy intestine bits all over Voldemort's robes. The thought made him smile, which apparently wasn't a good idea.

"You find this funny, boy?" Voldemort snarled, and he forced his face straight. He didn't think that the Dark Lord would find it funny it he told him.

"Do your worse." He said simply in return. Wormtail shifted nervously behind Voldemort's chair, and Harry could see Snape watching them out of the corner of his eye. The Dark Lord leaned back in his throne-like chair and steepled his fingers. The notion was so similar to that of Dumbledore's that Harry felt nauseous.

"I do hope you realise that your counterpart has already joined my forces. He was due to receive the Dark Mark in a few weeks, regardless." He said mildly, and Harry's stomach churned. He glanced over at Draco, who was staring at the floor resolutely. As Voldemort spoke, Bellatrix grabbed Draco's face and forced it up to look Harry in the eye. They were dull and dead.

"I know what you put him through last summer." Harry replied slowly. "He would never join you after what you made him do."

Voldemort's previously smug face fell.

"Kill him." He snarled. As Wormtail raised his silver hand, Harry was struck by a sudden burst of inspiration.

"Wait!" he yelled, and Voldemort raised his own hand so quickly that Wormtail as thrown backwards against the tapestry. It fell down on top of him. Voldemort steadfastly ignored the complaints behind him as he eyed Harry.

"You will join me?" he asked shrewdly. Harry snorted.

"In your dreams. But I have my own proposition."

Voldemort sneered at him.

"What on earth would that be?" he asked contemptuously. Harry smirked.

"You tell me how you managed to get us here –" he gestured around the silent room. "– and I'll tell you what that black band around Draco's wrist is for."

As the gathered Death Eaters murmured between themselves, Harry prayed that if he didn't rise to the bait, Draco would still have enough power left in him to override the wards and bring him back to life. Though well aware that it was very unlikely, it was the only other option.

"How did you know about that band?" Voldemort snapped over the mutterings of the Death Eaters, who immediately fell silent. "You have no such bracelet, I had you checked as soon as you were brought here."

"It has a twin. Some seventh year has the other one." Draco's head snapped up. "If you would look, there are three stones on it. Pressing them in different combinations activates different actions."

"How do you know this?" Snape asked suspiciously from the corner. Harry looked back at him.

"He told me. The point is, if all three are pressed, then the person with the other band will share the other's magic. I was simply suggesting that you might want to do so, in case the other person were to take it upon themselves to transfer their own magic to Draco and have him override the system."

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Voldemort sneered. Harry shrugged.

"You don't."

"I do not believe you. However, since you asked so nicely, I shall tell you how I got you here." He said benignly. Harry felt his eyebrows disappear under his hair involuntarily. "Yes, Antares. I will." The Dark Lord smirked at him. "It was that stupid Ravenclaw girl. I've been having her attempt to kill the most powerful people all year. After her last failed attempt – when you caught her hiding in Dumbledore's office – I ordered her simply to bring you both to me. At least she managed to succeed this time." He finished nastily.

"She wasn't under Imperius?" Harry asked incredulously. Avery snorted.

"Tried that myself, she threw it off. We had to bargain with her."

"Quiet, man." Voldemort snapped. "Now this little exchange of information is over, I do believe that Antares here has an overdue appointment with Charon. He's waiting for you. Goodbye." He waved cheerily, and as he did, Harry felt an enormous surge of power explode out of his stomach, and he bent double with the excruciating pain. He couldn't believe it… he'd actually exploded…

The air around him shimmered, almost like a halo of light rippling around him, pulsing in time with his own heartbeat as the magic burned through his veins. The scar over his eye was itching something terrible, and his right hand was emitting silver and gold sparks, that skittered over the hard stone floor as the Death Eaters shifted in their confusion.

Craning his neck upwards to see Voldemort, he felt a brief pang of satisfaction at the utter befuddlement on the Dark Lord's face before the aura of magic was suddenly sucked back into him with a whooshing noise.

For a single second in time, the room was still and completely silent, and then with the force on a small bomb the roiling magic exploded out of his system in a shockingly bright ring of light that hurtled through the air and thundered across the room, the torches in the brackets on the damp walls going out with streams of smoke.

As the light faded and the shaking stopped – Harry wasn't sure if the tremors were running through the room or himself – he looked up and around the room. Or tried to, at least. His eyes were blurred beyond belief, and a quick feel of his forehead confirmed that his glamour had indeed been completely obliterated.

"Oculus absolvo." He whispered, lying his hand over his eyes. Pure white light seeped out of his scar to envelop his eyes, and when it cleared the perfect vision that he had become used to had returned. This sorted, he cast his eyes once more around the dark room, lit only by the wandlight of a few of the more astute Death Eaters – and the glow that he realised was emanating from himself.

Voldemort's chair was lying in splinters where it had been previously stood in front of one of the pillars. The Death Eaters were sprawled in various places around the room, looking gloriously dishevelled in their scattered state. Draco was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor, the ropes that had bound him disappeared.

As Harry watched, Draco slowly raised himself from the ground and looked up at him. He couldn't explain the feeling that the stormy grey eyes conveyed to him – it was a whole mix of amazement, fear and love. He stepped towards the Slytherin, slightly awkward in his unfamiliar body, and touched his hand to the other boy's forehead. As he did, silver sparks showered over Draco, followed by a cleansing white light that left his wounds healed.

"Harry Potter?"

Harry turned to where Voldemort has reappeared from behind one of the pillars, his vivid red eyes wide with shock as he stared at the small, green-eyed boy

"Don't think you can get rid of me that easily." He shot back, and behind him heard a sudden movement. In a flash, he whipped around with one hand raised. Lucius cracked backwards against the far wall, collapsing with a sickening crunch. His wand rolled out of his hand.

"What by Merlin's name are you?" Rodolphus hissed from where he was laid on the right-hand platform, nursing a damaged leg.

"The God of Life and Death." Harry replied quietly. "Your deaths and lives are mine alone."

Then suddenly the soft glow that had been shining around him disappeared, and he whirled around on Bellatrix with a kind of righteous anger conveyed spectacularly through the gold sparks crackling on his skin.

"And I choose to end yours."

With a flick of his wrist, and a flash of darkness, Bellatrix fell to the floor. As the other Death Eaters watched in horror, thick, acid-green liquid poured out of her body. They scrambled away from the Basilisk venom as it spread across the floor in a pool of furious jealousy – and then her body burst into green flames so tall that they licked at the ceiling, reflected in Harry's own eyes. He turned slowly to gaze around at the rest of the Death Eaters.

Then with one swift movement, he pulled Draco close and with all the magic searing through his body, he forced himself to Hogwarts.

Breaking through the hundreds and thousands of wards on the castle left Harry gasping for breath as they materialised in the Great Hall, the air crackling with the raw power seeping off the young Gryffindor. As soon as they arrived, Harry collapsed on the floor, Draco alongside him, both in a daze.

As though through a haze, Harry watched as people moved across his field of vision in silence, his hearing blocked by some unknown force – possibly the stars twinkling down at him from the ceiling.

He could feel an insistent pulling at his whole body, pulsing through his veins, and on instinct turned toward Draco, lying beside him. As their skin touched, Harry felt Draco's magic flow back out into the Slytherin with a gut-wrenching emptiness. Resisting the sensation to follow the magic out of himself and into freedom, he rolled onto his back, the people milling around keeping their distance from the two students.

I anticipate 2 more chapters after this one (one of which is already written) before it finishes.

Comments very welcome and much appreciated.

smokey