No. No no no no no no no
The word bounced sharply around his mind like a rubber ball between two closely set walls. He didn't want to believe it.
His ankle throbbed with every step, and something warm and slick soaked down his foot and was beginning stick between his toes. He could feel the rot without even looking down, as if the inferius was still there nibbling at his skin. It was only desperation and the adrenaline from what he'd found on the map that kept his body moving, otherwise he would have collapsed long ago.
The galleon fisted tightly in his palm was hot, but he didn't have time to check before slipping it back into the pouch around his neck. He could only hope they received his message. They needed to know what was going on—to get to safety and keep students from the halls.
He slipped through a tapestry depicting a Phoenix on its Burning Day, and came out the other side hearing the dull murmur of voices nearby. Slowing his pace to cautious crawl, he edged as close as he dared to the corner of the wall. The voices were louder now.
"Leave him! Our time is short and we cannot fail."
"There aren't enough of—"
"There are more than enough of us to do our Lord's bidding! You consider yourself one of his faithful, yet you balk in the face of schoolchildren."
The voice gripped around Harry's throat with the icy hand of terror. It was the same fear he felt when he saw her name on the map. He could feel his mind fall away to a memory of haunted grey eyes vanishing behind a veil.
"You know it is not schoolchildren that I fear."
"Dumbledore." The name was used like a curse. "You fear an old man?"
"I have heard the stories of what happened at the Ministry. Of how he imprisoned Antonin, Augustus and Lucius on his own, as well as your own husband. He fought off our Lord."
"I should kill you for how you speak!" Harry could hear the wet splat of spit. "Dumbledore was no match for our Lord, and was only saved by the arrival of the Minister."
Rage filled Harry's stomach. Bellatrix was lying.
"We'd have had more than enough, had he not been as incompetent as his father," another voice spoke, deep and rasping.
"Don't talk about my father! I did what he—what our Lord asked of me!"
Harry recognized Malfoy's voice immediately. For a moment he regretted he hadn't killed him. There was only one person who could have led the Death Eaters into Hogwarts.
"Did you, now? Then why is it that Avery is stuck in Merlin-knows-where, because the bloody fucking Vanishing Cabinet you were supposed to fix broke!" The unknown man was shouting, but his voice sounded more like two pieces of metal grating against each other.
"I told you it wasn't completely fixed! I needed more time—but Potter… he found out and I couldn't let him ruin it all."
"So that's why we're going through with this, months ahead of schedule? Because Potter got one over you again. You Malfoys are pathetic."
"The enchantments? Does he know about the enchantments?" Bellatrix's harsh voice almost sounded panicked. "Tell me Draco, does he know?"
"I don't know… I can't—I'm not sure, okay! Everyone knows something is going on at school, but they don't know what exactly it is. I kept it all hidden." It sounded as if Malfoy was reassuring himself more than anything else.
"Except for Parkinson right?" The rasping man pointed out cruelly, and Harry heard a choked sob that could only belong to Malfoy. "Your dead little girlfriend found out your secrets… and Potter did too, isn't that right? Doesn't sound like you kept it hidden at all."
"Does Potter know!?" Bellatrix screeched hysterically. Harry could hear the ruffling of clothing and a smack against a wall. He crept closer to the corner, pressing himself as tight as he could against the stone, and gripped his wand securely at his side.
"I think… I think he might have glimpsed it," Malfoy whispered, his voice barely carrying over the still air.
"Glimpsed?" Bellatrix repeated, quietly, dangerously.
"Potter knows Legilimency."
Someone laughed in disbelief, but then there was a tense silence.
"Did I not teach you? I told you to be warry at all times! Our Lord's plans are too precious to be passed on to those unknowing."
"I was, I swear! Dumbledore and Snape weren't able to find anything."
"Yet Potter was able to," her voice oozed disappointment. "You've surprised many of us Draco with what you have managed to accomplish… but you still failed. Our Lord does not take kindly to failure as you will learn, and for yours and my sister's sake, your shortcomings best not ruin our Lord's plans."
"You should be grateful, Malfoy," the rasping man spoke up again. "Greyback used to be a favorite toy of his to use on those who failed him. I do hope he finds a suitable replacement."
"How much longer?" Another voice asked.
"It's only a matter of time. We must remain undetected."
"I think it's a bit too late for that, Bellatrix."
It took Harry a moment to realize that it had been him who had spoken, standing in the open stretch of hallway with his wand drawn. He'd waited long enough. Much of his earlier fear had faded to nothing but an inner tranquility.
The calm before the storm, perhaps.
A smile quirked at the edge of his burnt lip at seeing their shocked faces. There were six of them, all clad in black, grouped at the entrance of the Room of Requirement. At their center was Draco Malfoy, who looked as if he could hardly stand, heavily favouring one side of his body. He backed away at the sight of Harry.
"You've grown up quite a bit since I last saw you—not so much the scared little boy running after nightmares anymore, Potter." Bellatrix stepped out in front of the others, and unlike the rest, she had not reached for her wand. She looked much healthier than the last time he was her, her flesh less stretched and color more natural. She looked just as wicked, however. There was psychotic gleam to her wide, wild eyes.
"You're right, I've changed, but I still chase after nightmares, otherwise I wouldn't be standing right here in front of you," he said.
Bellatrix cackled. "Maybe you do have some of your father and my cousin in you after all—not like it did them any good. All fall down before our Lord in the end."
"And the only person he's ever fallen to before is me."
He could see the hate in Bellatrix's gaze, her face twitching with a deep want to strike him down.
"Kill the arrogant little shit!" A stocky, masked Death Eater shouted, raising their wand. Another wand was just as quickly stuck sharply up against their throat.
"Control yourself, Carrow, or your sister will be very lonely tonight. He is for our Lord only; we have our own orders." It was the man with the scratching voice who spoke. He was unmasked, like Bellatrix, and had matted shoulder-length grey hair and a pockmarked face. "If you wish to kill anyone, kill the betraying fool who led Potter to us."
"I didn't betray anyone! I was faithful—I swear!"
"Silence Draco!" Bellatrix snapped at her nephew. "The boy did not betray us, Travers, it was simply Potter and his uncanny knack for stumbling into places he shouldn't be."
Harry tensed for a moment, as he saw Bellatrix slip her hand into the slit of her robes. Instead of a wand, he saw her pull out what looked to be a tiny, black crystal.
"Tonight will be glorious when I finally get to see you die," she said, just as she threw the crystal to the ground. It shattered soundlessly, and a puff of thick, black smoke filled the air between Harry and the Death Eaters.
The red beam of a stunning spell came flying his way through the darkness, forcing Harry to shield himself after nearly being caught off guard. He fired his own down the hallway, and four others came back in response, smacking harmlessly into the stone walls of the castle and the floor in front of him.
He could hear their footsteps echoing down the corridor, but saw nothing but a dark screen. It wasn't smoke, he realized suddenly, but powder. Everywhere around him was choked with fine inky granules that sat heavily in the air and swallowed all light passing through.
He recognized it immediately as a product from the twins' store: Peruvian Darkness Powder. There was no way of seeing through it, he knew. He remembered them boasting about it when visiting their store. However, Harry didn't need to see, he only needed to know where they were headed. He took out his map again, and searched for the closest name to him.
Harry doubled back down the corridor from where he originally came, knowing there was a passage there which would take him close to where the stocky Death Eater they called Carrow had gone.
Even now, while sprinting the halls in frenzied haste, it was hard to believe the truth. He overheard them mention something about a Vanishing Cabinet, was that how Malfoy had snuck them in? Was this the mission Voldemort had given him? There had to be more to it than that, Harry was certain. Bellatrix had mentioned something about enchantments…
The sharp burning sensation of his galleon pulled his attention from his thoughts.
We're coming to help. H.G.
"No!" Harry shouted. "No! What are you doing?" There was nobody there to hear him, but he continued to curse his frustrations.
Panic started to well up inside him. It was too dangerous. He couldn't let anything happen to his friends. They were loving and strong and brave, but foolish above all if they thought this was a fight they could win.
Harry popped out on the other end of the seventh floor from behind a statue. He'd avoided most of its crisscrossing halls which twisted and turned as often as they moved forward, but still it was a maze. The Death Eaters could have gone in any which direction by this point, and he didn't have the time to stop and scour the map again. Luckily, he caught the sound of spellfire and followed after its distinct clamor.
Whatever skirmish had broken out was finished by the time he arrived. He could see a few portraits knocked from the walls, and a figure sprawled across the floor underneath an upended tapestry.
"Katie!" he shouted, recognizing the Gryffindor girl leaning heavily on the wall. A shallow cut swelled over her eye.
"Harry! Thank goodness, we were so worried that—"
"Don't worry about me, I can handle myself. What happened?" He looked over her shoulder and saw a third person, Demelza, continually walking into the same wall over and over and over again.
"Hermione told us to go warn the Headmaster and when we came up here, we ran into a couple of Death Eaters. We tried to hold them off, but couldn't… I don't know why, but they just ran past us."
"They're not here for the students."
"Oh…" Katie looked confused. "I don't know what's wrong with Demelza," she sounded afraid.
"She's only confunded," Harry explained, and quickly dispelled the hex, returning Demelza's wits to herself. "Who's that?" Harry pointed to the body lying worryingly still on the floor.
"She overheard us talking about what was going on. We didn't want her to come, I swear—but she wouldn't take no for an answer. I don't know what spell hit her."
He bent over and lifted the corner of the tapestry, and found himself looking into the youthful face of Romilda Vane. Her body was void of color and her breaths were shallow. "You need to get her to Pomfrey as soon as possible," he instructed. It looked as if she was under some sort of asphyxiation curse.
"Which way did they go?" Harry asked, while Katie and Demelza levitated the fallen girl.
"I think they went in the direction of the Astronomy Tower," Katie called back over her shoulder.
Something didn't feel right. It had been niggling at the back of his mind for a while now, but still he couldn't place what it was. What did the Death Eaters want by coming here? Surely, they couldn't hope to take the castle on their own. Yet Voldemort had chosen to send Bellatrix, one of his most valuable Death Eaters, on this mission.
Suddenly, he could hear the sound of running footsteps approaching from around the corner. He slipped silently into an alcove, his wand loose in his grasp and ready to snap off a stunning spell, but never did.
He moved to catch the sprinting figure, who's eyes were tear-filled and glazed over in disbelief; but it was more than just disbelief—it was the disbelief of someone who knew what they had seen but still chose not to believe it. "Susan," he grunted, the momentum of her body knocking out a puff of his breath. "Susan!" He repeated, shaking her shoulders harshly.
"H-Harry…?" She looked up at him, broken. Her small hands were fisted tightly into his tattered cloak. The material moved roughly across his wounded side, but he ignored the pain of his burn. "Harry, they have Justin."
Harry's stomach flipped then flopped then flipped again in a strange sort of dance.
"How?" he asked.
"The Death Eaters set off the Dark Mark from the Astronomy Tower, and we went to stop them."
Foolish. Foolish, foolish, foolish.
"Come on!" He took Susan by the hand, and dragged her back in the direction of the Astronomy Tower.
Something struck his nose as they ran down the winding corridors; something sharp and tangy and metallic. It was something he'd smelt earlier this evening, when Dumbledore had cut open his palm. It was the smell of blood. With mounting horror, Harry picked up his pace, the coppery stench growing stronger with each step. He could hear Susan making strange noises by his side.
Moonlight streamed through the painted glass of the windows, its radiant touch reflecting off a puddle at the base of the tower.
"Don't look," he whispered into Susan's ear, pulling her tightly into his shoulder, "please… just don't look."
He could feel the tears soaking through his robe, her body shaking with crushing sobs.
"Harry… is he?"
"There's nothing that can be done." He dragged her on, despite her stumbling steps.
Harry, on the other hand, could not tear his eyes away. It hardly looked like blood, all silvery and glowing like a pool of molten Sickles. It reminded him of first-year, when he'd found a slain unicorn; but rather than a unicorn, all he found was Justin.
The Hufflepuff boy lay twitching in his own blood, near death, but not near enough to avoid the hopelessness of his final moments.
"I hate them, Harry," he heard Susan say. "I hate them so much."
He never had the chance to answer. In an instinctive moment of prescience, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up in alarm, and he dropped to the floor just as a sickly yellow spell shot overhead. Susan gasped in pain from his side. His elbow split, and his knees screamed, but he managed to roll up and cast a shield just as two more spells splashed against it.
He stood and faced down two Death Eaters, who'd both unmasked themselves at this point. Together they were mirror images of one another, pudgy and short, and ugly in the taste of both men and women. The folds of their cloaks were stained with blood—Justin's blood.
"Blood-Traitor!" The male spat at Susan who lay splayed across the floor. "Just like your Aunt and your parents. Do you Bones never learn?"
"Leave the girl, Amycus, we have Potter within our grasp. Our Lord will rejoice when we bring him his head."
Vicious smiles wormed along their lips, and they exchanged an unspoken look as they pulled out their wands in unison.
"Come on then," Harry snarled, his blood running to a boil with their crimes.
Spells were lashed in a violent exchange, sending a forceful shock through the hall. The twins worked in perfect synchronization, twisting, dipping, casting and shielding, reminding him of some perverted version of Fred and George with their understanding. They formed an impenetrable wall, and what they lacked in ability, they made up for in knowing each other's weaknesses.
Countering a necrotic curse sent at his legs, Harry twisted and released a gust of cursed fire. His face burned and the phoenix feather of his wand hummed at the familiarity of the flame.
Neither were expecting his understanding of the Dark Arts, and it gave him the opening he had been looking for. A severing curse was only partially deflected and caught Alecto Carrow in the arm, forcing her wand from her hand with a cry. Distracted by his sister's injury, Harry's Langlock spell found its mark and muted Amycus' next curse, causing it to fizzle out harmlessly.
"Petrificus Totalus."
The body-binding spell came flying from somewhere by his side, catching Amycus in the thigh. Frozen in place, he didn't have a hope of dodge the next curse sent his way.
"Sectumsempra."
The spell tore right through the soft and sagging flesh of his stomach, spurting blood and viscera into the air like a broken fountain.
"Amycus!" A blood curdling scream echoed the walls. "Avada Kedavra."
The haunting green spell came barrelling towards him quicker than he could get away. There was nothing he could do but stare as the void of death approached. He blinked, and in that ripple of time, he found himself back in his crib in Godric's Hallow.
Not Harry! Please… Not Harry! Not Harry!
Red hair fanned before him, and he saw her fall down dead. He felt at peace knowing he was about to join her.
He blinked, and the green was gone.
He blinked again.
He wasn't dead. He could still here the wailing of Alecto over her brother's body.
He wasn't dead. How?
He wished he hadn't asked the question.
At his feet, blue eyes—not green—stared endlessly up at his own. Susan Bones was dead. She'd died for him. She'd died to protect him. She'd done what he should have done for her. He remembered how she'd tried to run away earlier, past the Astronomy Tower and away from her friend Justin, and he was the one who dragged her back to her death. It was his fault.
He didn't know how long he stared at her lifeless body, unaware and lost to his surroundings.
"Amycus… Amycus please…"
The sound of someone begging slipped into his consciousness, and Harry blanched with rage. A storm brewed behind his brow, lightning and thundering with such force it clouded his vision into a narrow, focused strip.
He wasn't sure when it happened, but at some point he started kicking Alecto and he found he couldn't stop. His foot stomped down and down and down again. Bones crunched beneath his heel and he could feel the crack of her ribs as she howled out in pain. Her face was a wreck of fat, bloodied flesh, and crimson dripped from the corner of her mouth, bubbling over her lips.
He hoped she would choke on her own dirty blood, the same she found so easy to spill. Except... she wasn't choking. The rhythm was wrong, there was no desperation; it was too controlled—too happy. She was laughing.
"Oh, Po—Potter…" She spat out a congealed mess. "We… w-were wrong about you." Her laugh came out as a tortured hack. "The Dark Lord w-w-will take p-pleasure in killing you."
"Why are you here?" he demanded.
"There's so much you don't know…" She was giggling now, giggling between violent racks of coughs which sent a muddied spittle all over herself and the floor. "Our Lord guards his secrets well. There is no hope for your muggle loving—"
Harry pressed down on her shattered elbow, cutting off her taunt with an agonizing howl.
"Tell me!"
"You—you'll h-ha-have to d-do better than that Potter."
He'd never felt such hate before.
"I said tell me! Crucio!"
The power of the Unforgiveable coursed through his arm, shaking his soul. He watched with pleasure as Alecto was lifted from the ground, writhing in unnatural agony, screeching and thrashing, and then with a resounding smack, crashing into the wall and crumpling to the ground.
Harry panted heavily, his nerves shot. He stocked towards her limp form with murderous intent. "What is Voldemort' plan?"
"You've l-l-lost Potter… it's over. Malfoy… ha-has been breaking down the school's enchantments f-for months. Dumbledore's castle h-has fallen."
"How?" His wand twitched in his hand, and Alecto eyed it warily.
"It's… over," she repeated with an ugly sneer. "Basilisk venom… from our Lord's own stores… it breaks the anchor. The gates will open…Bellatrix's task…Hogwarts is ours."
He left without another word, her demented cackling echoing in his wake.
He sprinted through the castle, finally with a hint of what was going on. It was all so obvious looking back at it now, piecing together the odd happenings around the castle through the crystalline vision of hindsight. It had all unfolded right under their noses.
Now, Justin was dead and so was Susan, and Merlin knows who else if he didn't get down to the gates and stop Bellatrix.
Sites of small skirmishes were littered among the halls, dust and rubble and burning tapestries the only wastes of their remains. There was a passageway Harry knew nearby, which twisted down to the second floor, but as he approached he could see it had caved in on itself from some destructive blast. He turned in the opposite direction, forced to use the moving staircases.
It was a slow going process, the ride much more jerky than smooth. He could hear the noise of distant fighting reverberating around the school; but more distinctly, he heard two voices not far off from his own. Peering over the edge of his railing, he spotted a dark clad figure and a familiar head of slicked blond hair riding a staircase a fair distance below.
"Malfoy!" he roared, drawing their attention. It was difficult to see clearly from such a height, but he swore Malfoy stumbled at the sight of him.
Without a second of hesitation, he cast a blasting curse down on their heads. The Death Eater deflected it with ease, and it shattered a stone landing several floors below.
The Death Eater fired in retaliation, the spell rocketing up in Harry's direction, but the angle was too tight and it collided with the base of the staircase he was riding.
It felt as if the ground had erupted beneath him, masonry flying out in all directions. The staircase bucked and lurched in every which way, forcing Harry to grip the railing with all his strength while negotiating his balance with the steps underfoot. Before he could so much as peek over the edge again, another spell smashed violently beneath him, almost throwing Harry into a deadly fall.
He was nothing more than a passenger as the staircase started to spin in the air like a top. With every passing collision, and every violent blast shaking its foundation, his stomach lurched into his throat and he could feel the enchantments keeping him afloat beginning to fail. A large crack split the stone between his feet, and he watched with horror as the stairs began to crumble away like the earth of an eroding cliff. He shielded just in time as another powerful blasting curse was sent his way.
Looking down, Harry contemplated perhaps the most insane idea to have ever crossed his mind. There had been a number over the years—many of which he questioned how he survived to this day—but this one might just have taken the cake.
Before his sanity or better judgement got the better of him, he abandoned ship.
Air whipped past his face as he fell, and his stomach dropped through his pelvis before being left behind two or three floors above. He enjoyed the feeling of weightlessness for less than a heartbeat, before the sight of the rapidly approaching floor snapped him into action.
"Arresto Momentum."
He'd never attempted the spell before, and if it was ever going to work, now was the time.
He continued to fall, the oppressive gray of the stonework filling his vision entirely. A seizing panic took hold of him; he wasn't slowing down in the slightest. It was only feet before impact when he felt his magic take hold of him, fighting against gravity, and slowing the velocity of his freefall.
He landed on the edge of a step with a violent crunch, his shoulder jolting forcefully into its socket and everything below his elbow abruptly going numb. His was too dazed to move, lights and stars and shadows dancing before his half-lidded eyes. By some miracle, his glasses had remained on his face.
"The boys mad, there's no way he survived that fall."
"You don't know Potter—he survived it. He did. He just doesn't die."
"He just fell over fifty bloody feet! At best he's a cripple."
Slowly, Harry picked himself up. His right arm strained under his full weight, as his left hung useless at his side.
"Didn't you hear the spell?"
"I heard it, but it failed. You can't cast it on yourself and he never slowed down, anyway."
The staircase he had landed on was parallel to that of Malfoy and the Death Eater's. Together, they started their descent to the final third of the castle, both erratic in their movements and keeping their passengers on edge. Seizing the element of surprise, Harry turned his wand in a wide arc and yanked dozens of portraits from their places on the walls and directed them at Malfoy and his accomplice.
Curses of both pain and surprise could be heard through the cacophony of clattering frames, and Malfoy's shouts of: "I told you so! I told you!"
The distraction bought him just enough time to catch his breath, just as an explosion of wind burst from below, sweeping away the debris Harry had set upon them. A sudden shift in the path of the staircase knocked him off balance and inches away from a flying portrait. The three-eyed man within its frame was screaming with unimaginable fright as his vessel nearly took off Harry's head.
Spells were exchanged with reckless abandon, burning and fizzing and blasting their way in every other direction than at their intended target. Any chance of accuracy was hopeless under the chaotic swaying of the staircases. Only by chance did one of Harry's stray spells trip the Death Eater at his ankles and into the trick step. The unexpected drop threw his spell wildly overhead where it crashed.
CCCRRRRRREEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
A horrible grinding noise tore through the open air—a sound which gripped Harry with fear. The world was shaking all around them with a tremendous tremor as if the sky were falling.
Glancing up, that was exactly what Harry found.
Slabs of stone of cataclysmic proportions were raining down from above. The staircase he had leaped from was coming tumbling down to earth, a growing shadow which seemed to shroud the world in all its immensity.
Scrambling to his feet in a panic, Harry rushed to the edge of his staircase, the air above him building in pressure. Glancing down he saw the Death Eater desperately struggling to free his leg from the trick step, and he jumped, just as the scream of death was smothered by the sound of collapsing stone.
Malfoy wasn't hard to find, laying only feet away in a quivering heap. Miraculously they'd both landed safely on the second floor landing.
"Please… please…"
"You don't get to beg, Malfoy," Harry said. "After everything you've done, the people you've killed."
"I didn't want—it was all a mistake… I only wanted to kill—"
"Dumbledore, I know," Harry cut him off. "I've lost two more friends tonight because of you."
Streams of tears poured out in tracks from his broken eyes, mixing with the blood and grime on his face. "I didn't want to kill them!" His voice cracked. "I had to—I had no choice."
"There's always a choice, Malfoy," Harry shook his head, remembering what Dumbledore had once told him. "You have the choice to do what's right or what's easy, because it's our choices which ultimately define who we are."
"My mum… he was going to kill her as punishment for my father unless I succeeded."
"Your mother sent me a letter," said Harry, surprising Malfoy. "My mother died for me. Don't you think your mother would do the same, if it meant saving your soul? She told me to save you. She said I was the only person who could."
Malfoy stared up at him with crazed eyes, and clung to the fringes of his robes in desperation. He pulled himself to his knees. "Then do it. Kill me."
"What?" Harry recoiled.
"Kill me, please…" Malfoy begged. "I know you want to do it. So please, just kill me already. Just let it be over."
Harry stood there, utterly dumbfounded. He'd come after Malfoy for this very reason, to finish the job he'd nearly done earlier. But being confronted with it—having Malfoy ask him to do it—made it all that much more difficult.
"Please."
Harry looked down at the boy he had feuded with ever since he first denied him a handshake almost seven years ago. He'd denied him then, but he could do him a kindness now.
His wand was weighed heavily in his hand.
"Avada Ked-"
"Potter!"
The syllables were only just out of his mouth, when he was stopped short.
"No! No!" Malfoy yelled, grabbing hold of Harry's arm and pulling it to his chest, as if he could force the spell out of his wand.
"Mister Potter what are you doing?" Harry turned to see Professor McGonagall approaching, with Flitwick and Snape trailing not far behind her.
His heart skipped, fearful at the sight of what they had just walked in on. He could see the tension in their bodies, the sweat glossing in a thin sheen over their skin, and their confusion as to why Malfoy was on the floor gripping his wrist. They didn't know.
They didn't know.
"No doubt finishing what he started before."
It seemed Snape did, his near-black eyes boring into his own with their endless pits. There was no need for legilimency for him to know what had nearly come to pass.
"Perhaps we wouldn't have Death Eaters running around the castle if I had," Harry shot back. He refused to back down from the man.
"Trying to reason murder? I suppose Black had to teach you something."
"I don't need lessons in morality from a Death Eater, Snivellus." The man bristled at the name, the slightest crack appearing in his composure.
"Enough!" McGonagall snapped, her voice firm and controlling. "We must keep moving and gather the remaining students. We shall deal with Mr. Malfoy once the situation is under control."
Snape hauled Malfoy to his feet and forced him to follow as they traversed the hallways. The boy didn't make a single sound, his feet dragging and his head hanging limply off his neck. It was like a flick had been switched and shut him off.
Harry did not fail to notice how Snape kept Malfoy to his side, shielding him from the rest of them.
"Potter, where is the headmaster?" Something lurked in the pits of Snape's eyes while he spoke. Was it fear, desperation, or resolve? Harry wondered; it was too difficult to tell.
"I don't know. I haven't seen him."
"Do not lie to me!" Snape's voice cracked with the sharpness of a whip. His breath was stale, and his hooked nose was so close to his own they nearly touched. "The headmaster, where is he?"
"Mr. Potter, if you know the whereabouts of Professor Dumbledore, we must be told." McGonagall looked to him, imploringly. "We are in dire need of his assistance, and any information is too critical to be withheld."
Before he was even given the chance to come up with another lie, they'd turned a corner and found themselves face to face with a pair of Death Eaters. One of them was the rasping man from earlier with the tangled grey-hair, and he was the one who stepped forward and spoke:
"Ah, Severus… your timing is impeccable as always—and you're with Potter and Malfoy no less. Bravo."
"Travers," Snape greeted frigidly.
"Often times, I find myself agreeing with Bellatrix on a number of matters, though her distrust in you is one I could never understand…" Travers' voice sounded like nails being pulled across a chalkboard. "But seeing you here, beside these traitors and Potter, I can almost reason her with madness. You walk a thin line, Severus, and I question who's side you are really on."
They stood there, frozen in a standoff, in the large hallway of the third floor which opened up onto the trophy room. No one dared to speak. All eyes were on Snape and Travers, whose eyes locked in a tense stare. Snape's pallid face betrayed nothing but cool indifference.
"Draco…" Snape said softly, breaking the uneasy air, "move."
He pushed the blond boy forward towards the Death Eaters, and faster than Harry's eyes could track, his wand slashed and exploded like a canon, sending Professor Flitwick flying into the wall with a horrid CRACK.
"Coward. Coward!" McGonagall screamed, a crimson bolt flying from her wand at the man she had once taught.
Snape's features were contorted into an ugly mask of hatred and revulsion, but his eyes were dead. Her spell was shielded, and he stepped back to join the Death Eaters.
"A faithful dog to the end, aren't you Severus?" Travers laughed, cruelly. From the shadows he conjured the shade of a scythe and sent it cutting through the air to where Professor Flitwick had fallen.
McGonagall summoned a decorative shield from the wall, which only just blocked the lethal spell as it was cleaved in two. Almost as quickly as the trophy was destroyed, the two halves of the shield came back as spinning blades directed at Snape and Travers.
In the moment he had, Harry unfurled a tapestry from the wall and charmed it to zip at the third Death Eater. Unable to react in time, the woven piece of art wrapped itself around the man's neck, constricting him, slowly and painfully. He could just make out the sound of his muffled shouts for air through the raging battle at his side.
McGonagall in a feat of brilliance was holding off both Snape and Travers with a mastery of Transfiguration which would make even Dumbledore blush with pride. He saw a giant serpent blow into a puff of smoke and seconds later reformed into a hail of iron spiked balls, only to be caught in a giant net that appeared from thin air. A suit of armour was bent and twisted into ribbons of sheet metal, reaching out and chaining the two men together. In their struggle trying to free themselves, a torch was knocked to the floor.
Tapping into the nature of the flame, Harry cast a spell which burst to life with a blinding flash. The blaze grew into a loop of flame and flew at Snape like a burning lasso, but before it struck, he managed to divert the spell away from his person. One greedy tendril of flame nearly licked Travers, scorching the ends of his long hair. The other Death Eater, who was only just escaping the charmed tapestry, was not so fortunate. A stray band of the enchanted flame ripped its way through his silver mask; and a horrifying sizzle could be heard distinctly over screeches of pain, as his hands immediately went to cover his face.
"Enough!" Travers shouted, his face grim and lined with hate. He fired a quick spell, silencing the wails of his injured accomplice forever. "Snape, we are needed elsewhere." He growled in pain, gripping his left arm, and unleashed a thunderous spell at the carved beams above them all. Trophies rattled off of their shelves and clanged like a series of broken bells against the floor. It was only quick-thinking on McGonagall's part which saved Professor Flitwick's prone form from the caving ceiling and the mountain of debris now sitting between them and the Death Eaters.
"Hurry, Potter," McGonagall insisted urgently. "We must get Filius to help." She had them moving again before Harry even had a chance to breathe, levitating her diminutive colleague in front of her as they twisted through corridors. Harry thought he could see a trickle of blood coming dripping from Flitwick's ear.
"Where are we going?" Harry asked. With the main staircases destroyed and their current path blocked, he needed to find passageway to lead them out.
"To the Great Hall," she answered, strained. He could see the way her body struggled to keep up under such exertion. "It is where the school's defenders have localized, and where Poppy re-located for the injured."
"There's more of us?"
McGonagall looked at him from the corner of her eye, a fire burning deep inside. "Your call of alarm was not missed." There was a tight curl to her lip while she spoke—a look he'd learnt over the years to associate with pride. "We're not done fighting yet."
Harry led them around the third floor to the classroom where Fluffy had once guarded the Philosopher's Stone. Next to the door was a false portrait, which he pulled to the side and revealed a steep staircase that would take them down to the main entrance of Hogwarts.
"Who's there?" A voice called as they approached the carved double doors of the Great Hall.
"It is I, Minerva McGonagall, acting Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
The door creaked open with her announcement, light leaking from the inside, illuminating the white face of Madam Pomfrey. "Oh Minerva, thank the stars! You're a sight for sore eyes."
"You as well Poppy, though I'm afraid Filius is in need of your care."
"Of course, of course, bring him in," she said, the wrinkles of her face pronounced with stress. "Unfortunately he isn't the first, and certainly won't be the last I will be looking after." She led them past rows of tables and transfigured beds, the Great Hall having been redesigned in her favour. "I've had the house-elves bringing me my potions, as well as searching for anything useful in Severus' private stores—we have already exhausted Horace's supplies."
"Poppy…" McGonagall swallowed thickly, her eyes betraying a deep-seated hurt. "Severus has betrayed us. It was him who attacked Filius."
"Well then, at least I won't need to apologize to the horrid man for stealing his potions," Pomfrey huffed, and set Professor Flitwick down to begin her examination of his injuries.
"Harry!"
He'd barely had time to turn around, before being assaulted by a bushy brown blur. "Oh, Harry… you're alright! I didn't—we—" Hermione was shaking against his chest.
Ron came rushing forward after her. "Mate, we thought the Death Eaters got you! Where have you been?"
"Everywhere," said Harry, his head spinning. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
"Bloody hell, what happened to you!" Ron shouted after stepping back from their embrace. His face was spread open in shock, having finally noticed the blood caked all over his robes.
"Merlin Ron, don't shout at him. He looks like he just went ten rounds with a Ukrainian Ironbelly."
Harry felt a pair of strong arms guide him to the nearest bench, where he sat. "Charlie?" He looked up in confusion. "What are you doing here?"
"Word got out about what was happening here, and the Order's come to help." He gestured to the far side of the hall, where a collection of Order members spoke in private: Tonks, Kingsley, Mad-Eye, Hestia. Suddenly, as if feeling his stare on them, they all turned to look in his direction and made their way over.
"Potter," Moody barked, his fake leg stomping in an uneven rhythm across the floor. "You're at the center of all this, what's happened?"
It was odd having the Order focus their attention on him, listening, and valuing his opinion for once. "I spotted Malfoy's name on the map…" he started slowly, his mind trying to catch up with his racing thoughts. "There were names I didn't recognize… Amycus, Alecto—"
"The Carrow twins," Moody spat. "They're as vile as they come."
Harry didn't need an explanation of the cruelty they were capable of. "There were more of them there as well; Bellatrix and Travers, and two others who kept their masks. The last two are dead." He could see the darkened expressions of those around him, but he continued anyway.
"They split off after I confronted them. It wasn't me they wanted, they had other orders from Voldemort."
"What were they?" Kingsley asked, concerned.
"That's what I went to find out. After Susan d—" Harry stopped himself, the green flash and the red hair too fresh in his mind. He cleared his throat, feeling it close in upon itself. "I… managed to get one of the Carrows to tell me. Malfoy smuggled the Death Eaters into the school through a Vanishing Cabinet, but it broke before they could get all of them through. Apparently he's been breaking down the school's enchantments for months—Carrow said something about basilisk venom and an anchor."
"Enchantments and wards on their own, especially powerful ones, don't last forever; and when you have a large plot of land, like Hogwarts, with as many spells and protections placed on it as it does, you need an anchor to hold them, and keep them stable and ordered so they don't interfere with each other."
Harry looked over to see Bill standing behind Charlie, having made his way over at some point. At his side, was Fleur. She looked entirely uncomfortable, her eyes flickering skittishly around the Great Hall as if searching for something.
"To safely unravel or re-work the enchantments on an anchor would take a team of Curse-Breaker's an extended amount of time. It took us months to do maintenance at Nurmengard earlier in the year. With something as potent as Basilisk venom, Malfoy wouldn't have needed to rework the enchantments, he could simply break them down."
"That would explain how the Death Eaters are getting in so easily now," Hestia added.
"There's more of them?" questioned Harry.
"They're flying in on brooms, and Nearly Headless Nick came in a few minutes ago saying he saw some coming in through the Honeydukes passage behind the state of the One-Eyed Witch," Fred said, joining the group with George and Mr. Weasley.
"He also said something about the main staircase collapsing," George followed.
"I was there," said Harry, hearing the phantom rumble of stone crashing in the back of his mind. "I was chasing Malfoy, and I got into a fight on the moving staircases. One of them collapsed, crushing everything beneath it."
"And you survived that?" Hestia asked the question written on everyone's faces.
"Of course he did," interjected Ron. "Do you know who you're bloody talking to?"
"Harry, do you know where Dumbledore is?" Kingsley finally asked, and similar murmurs could be heard from the crowd around them.
Harry paused, and just like he had with Snape, he felt the overwhelming urge not to lie. What was he supposed to tell them? The truth? That Dumbledore was severely injured by a potion he'd forced down his throat, while hunting Voldemort's Horcruxes, and now lay senseless in his office? How could he possibly tell them Dumbledore wouldn't be able to save them…
"Attention!" He was saved from making a decision by McGonagall's magically amplified voice.
She was standing on top of a table near the barred entrance of the Great Hall, her tartan robe coated in dust and debris. All eyes were on her. "The Death Eaters have slowly been assembling their numbers. It is now that we must act, if we are to protect this hallowed institution. There will be no more murder at Hogwarts!"
He didn't know when it happened, but at some point the doors to the Great Hall were opened and they flooded into battle. It felt like he was in a dream, separated from his body, looking down as an outsider. Dozens of bodies swarmed all around him, moving and shouting and fighting. It was as if he was stuck in the waves of a relentless storm, getting battered within its choppy current as thunder hammered overhead. Except it wasn't thunder, but magic—a violent shock of magic that exploded in a rainbow around him.
Shaken to his senses, Harry found himself beside Ron, dueling a blond Death Eater who'd taken to casting nothing but the killing curse. He'd already killed one of his own, after Ron's tripping jinx wrong footed him and sent his curse wildly off course. It took all of Harry's concentration to conjure slabs of wood and rock to contain the damage of his manic spellcasting.
It wasn't a spell from either of them which felled the man, but one that came from behind him, hooking him by the ankle and hoisting him ten feet into the air. Hermione stood beneath him, a scowl over her brow, and her wand poised and ready.
"Don't trust the Prince, huh?" Ron laughed, as the trio reunited.
"Oh shut up, Ron." She lightly smacked him.
"Useful innit?" he said.
"Very," Hermione replied while transfiguring a rock into a rodent and having it scurry up the robes of an unsuspecting Death Eater, distracting them long enough to be stunned.
Something stirred in the air then, stilling Harry amongst the chaos. It had started as a faint pressure at the back of his mind, and he'd been the only one to feel it, but gradually—as if one by one—this sense of dread settled over everyone.
Harry's eyes were stuck to the sky, where a dark fluttering could be seen in the approaching dawn. The first swooped down and brought the chill of winter to his bones, and when the second came, all happiness was sucked from the world. They came in swarms after that, targeting whoever they thought the weakest and sapping their strength like leeches.
He couldn't allow this continue, not when the hope of victory was hanging by a thread. They were being attacked on two fronts, vastly outnumbered and nearly overwhelmed, and it was too much for the defenders of Hogwarts to cast protections, while busy dueling for their lives.
A silver stag pranced out the end of his wand, clearing the stink of oppression from the air. His happiest memories flooded through him, drowning out the unholy screeches of the Dementors who could not withstand its purity. Waves of pulsing energy emanated from Prongs as he clopped about the sky, blasting every hooded creature who threatened near him.
On the ground, however, more and more of Hogwarts' protectors were falling. They'd started to fall back into a retreat, their position collapsing around Harry. He could see Ron shouting and cursing and pushing his way against the current of bodies, trying to reach a brown haired figure who'd disappeared behind the line of encroaching black cloaks.
Harry shut his eyes, refusing to be beaten. The images of late nights spent with a pair of twinkling eyes and a wise old smile, fueled him with a second wind. He'd never felt such love, as when he'd visited the quiet village of Godric's Hollow, and spent an afternoon tending to a garden overlooking the sea.
It was then that inspiration hit.
With a final valiant charge, Prongs scattered the Dementors across the sky before dispersing into a shimmering mist. Like a thick fog descending over them, Harry used the remains of his Patronus to form a dome around his allies. Dementors swarmed in a swirl of shadow and feasted on the positive energy of the thin layer separating them from their true prey, and soon not an inch of his shield was uncovered. They were encased in a shifting black shell, rasping and clawing after their souls.
Harry could almost feel the spell giving way, the Dementors trying to burrow through in their insatiable hunger, but still he held on. A white glow was building within—a blinding power of the love he held in his heart for all those fighting beside him, and all those who'd passed on in his place.
The first crack split open like a line through thawing Spring ice, and Harry knew it was time. He dropped his protection just as the Dementors swooped in a foul cloud, only for them to be absorbed in a blinding flash of white light. The energy stored within his spell burst forth with an echoing blast; and though Dementors might not be capable of dying, they certainly could feel pain, and this was their hell on earth.
Ear-splitting cheers rang out amongst the grounds at the sight of the fleeing demons, who refused to stand any longer against such all-consuming torment.
As the celebrations died down, a single clap cut through the air in mocking applause. Out in the distance, beyond the courtyard and walking down the winding path from the gates, was a tall hooded figure flanked by three others.
"The Ministry is here—"
"—through the Floo!"
"—it's the Minister—"
Voices rang out around him, but he brushed them from his mind. His eyes had yet to leave the approaching quartet. A gentle pull came from the wand in his hand, the remnant of phoenix calling to its estranged brother.
"Harry! Harry!" He felt a strong tug on his shoulder, and looked over to the frantic face of Bill Weasley. "Harry, have you seen Fleur? Do you know where she went? I can't find her!"
Harry shook his head numbly—unsure if that was what had truly been said, or if that was even Bill at all. Very little mattered now beyond who was approaching. He could feel crimson eyes burning into the scar on his forehead.
It seemed his time had finally come.
Harry's body was weightless and moved on its own accord, parting the opposing factions in its path to meet the new arrivals. He stood there, one against four, on the broken remnants of a fountain sitting at the edge of the courtyard. Not twenty feet away was Lord Voldemort, flanked by Snape, Bellatrix, and Travers. Inhumanly tall and shaped more like a serpent than a man, Voldemort looked as monstrous as he had nearly a year ago in the Ministry.
His clapping finally ceased, but his red eyes continued to burn with a brutality beyond that of men.
"Seventeen year ago, I thought I'd made a mistake in visiting Godric's Hollow," his voice came out in a whisper, yet it managed to fill the grounds of Hogwarts all the same. No one dared make a sound.
"For long, torturous years where I was nothing but a formless wraith feeding off the weakness of others, I questioned whether I was mistaken in my attempts to kill you. But seeing you now, proving once again to be an obstacle in my plans, I know I did not err in my judgment. Prophecy or not, there is greatness about you, Harry Potter, and that is why you must die."
Harry could practically taste the fear in the air, and see the way Voldemort revelled in it.
Movement at his side caught Harry's attention. Stepping bravely to his right were Kingsley and McGonagall, and to his left he could see Tonks, and Aurors Fardale and Conner.
"You can't protect him. Not now, not anymore. He will die by my hand," Voldemort addressed those who joined him. "I am a merciful Lord, I have no wish to spill old blood and that of respected members of society. There is a place for you all in the world I envision. Just give me Harry Potter."
McGonagall shifted in front of him, and drew herself to her full height. "As acting Headmistress I demand you leave at once. Students at Hogwarts are not animals to be bartered."
A high, shrill laugh pierced the air like ringing metal. "Acting? Then where is the great Albus Dumbledore?" He made a great show of searching the grounds with his arms spread wide. "Has he fled at the mere sight of me, cowering behind his walls like he always has when confronted with his failures? No, no… that isn't his way. There must be something else. He would never leave the side of his precious Boy-Who-Lived," continued Voldemort, his voice hissing.
He turned his sinister gaze towards Harry, their eyes staring unblinkingly at one another, neither wanting to back down. He could see the temptation in Voldemort's eyes, the desperate want to pierce his mind and tear the answer free for himself. But there was a hesitance—a fear –that held him back.
"It matters not," he finally said, breaking the contact between them. "It will only make it easier for me to end you."
"I can fight you on my own," Harry spoke up for the first time, his voice firm despite the shaking of his body. In that moment, he could feel his every ache and pain: the spreading decay of his torn ankle, the throbbing from his blistered side, the shards of bone digging into the muscle of his left shoulder, and the dull pounding from within his scar.
"Perhaps at some point, Harry Potter. It's a shame we will never know." Voldemort's wand was nothing more than a blur, and an arching purple bolt forced Harry to duck hastily.
Battle erupted all around him, perhaps more viciously than before. He could see McGonagall and Kingsley fighting Snape over his betrayal; Tonks looked half-mad as she showered curses at her aunt; and Fardale and Conner had pitted themselves against the savagery of Travers.
Harry looked up knowing what that meant for him.
"Come, Harry—fulfill your destiny."
His wand burned with life in his hand, and Harry knew Voldemort's felt the same.
"Avada Kedavra!"
The first killing curse came flying at him with the speed of a well struck bludger, forcing Harry to levitate the broken spout of the fountain between them. A second and third followed in quick succession shattering the stone into a pile of charred rubble.
Not wasting a moment, Harry twisted his wand and the rubble began to swirl, kicking up dirt and dust as it formed into an enormous boulder, which hurtled towards Voldemort. There was a fierce BANG, and the boulder exploded outwards, its remains digging deep trenches into the earth where impacted. Whatever fragments were still flying through the air, ignited midflight and were directed down upon him like a shower of meteors.
Harry thrust his wand into the air and summoned a gust of wind, catching the falling stones in its twisting grasp, and throwing them into the depths of the Black Lake.
"This is what I expected from the prophesised child, not the worthless waste I fought before," Voldemort sneered. "Though if this is the best you can muster, then you might as well lay your life down now!"
Voldemort shouted a curse, and a storm of shadows came crawling into existence, grasping and pulling with tendril-like hands. He'd recognized the spell from his reading of Secrets of the Darkest Arts, and countered it with the most powerful lumos he could muster. White light beat back the invading darkness, searing the air and filling it with a stench of salt and smoke, which sat the hair on his neck at its end.
Voldemort's expression morphed into something like shock, his eyes narrowing as if re-evaluating the boy in front of him.
Pressing his small advantage, Harry flicked his wand with a complex twirl, the force of the spell sending tremors underfoot. The only warning of its impeding strike was a shockwave of displaced air, and Voldemort seemingly faded out of existence, his body vanishing into a wisp of dark smoke.
It was out of the corner of his eye that he saw Voldemort re-materialize behind him, fury gripping his serpent-like features. A deathly green spell was aimed at his side, when suddenly he felt an intense heat ignite from within his wand as it sang through the air like a Phoenix, a golden beam bursting from its tip and locking with the killing curse.
They were back together in the graveyard, sparks of energy surging from the radiant sphere lifting them into the air. Voldemort was screaming across from him, his bone white wand bucking within his skeletal grasp, and Harry could feel an immense pressure building beneath his brow. The point of connection between the brother wands swayed uneasily in the battle of their wills.
Around them, the fighting had come to a halt—though he couldn't see much beyond that, as the vibrating light of the magic surrounding them clouded his vision like a mirage.
Voldemort's rage was high and cold in its pitch, and another voice joined him in his screeching… it sounded much like himself…
Pain beyond all imagine split through his skull, filling it with murderous rage and pain and fear which was not his own. For the first time in almost a year, he felt something wet drip from his scar while it burned with untold agony.
Harry felt his wand shudder; the stream of their connected spells flickered dangerously as Voldemort tried to break the connection before the Priori Incantatem effect came to pass. Rather than the shades of his parents emerging as they once had, a resounding CRACK snapped through the open air. Harry looked down at his hand, a pain tearing through him like the loss of a dear old friend, where his wand splintered in half.
The magic died around them, and Harry fell unforgivingly to the solid earth below.
He didn't move; only stared in mute horror at the shattered pieces of holly, limply held together by a phoenix feather in his hand. The wand chooses the wizard. He could hear Ollivander's sage words as clear as if they'd been said yesterday. Now he was a wizard without a wand—little more than the scared eleven-year-old boy who thought he was a freak.
Something jabbed him painfully in the side as if affronted by the thought. He could glimpse Voldemort staggering to his feet a dozen feet away when he looked down and saw the end of an intricately decorated handle poking out of his pocket.
Dumbledore's wand. No—His wand.
He had nearly forgotten the events of the cave, where he stripped Dumbledore of his wand to prevent him from burning them alive along with the Inferi. Dumbledore had been so feeble when they returned to his office that he forgot to return his wand before going off in search of help. Now it was here when he needed it the most, and a part of him knew it could not have been a mere coincidence.
His fingers slipped perfectly between its carved edges, as though it had been made for him; and the wand rumbled pleasantly in his grip.
Pushing himself up from his knees, the ground erupted before him with hardly a thought and blocked an incoming killing curse. He'd never seen Voldemort so angry—the corrosive rage spilling into Harry through his scar.
He felt powerful.
Planting himself firmly to the ground, Harry tapped into a magic he had used once before. He could feel a storm brewing in and around himself, the fury and chaos of nature firmly under his control. Yipping and yapping like a pack of wild animals, gusts of wind whipped past Harry and towards Voldemort, who disappeared in the face of the unstoppable force, obscured by the mounds of earth and stone torn up by the powerful winds.
Harry could feel his own creation threaten to pull him into the twisting carnage ahead, but he resisted.
For a scant few seconds, something was visible from within; a dark, rippling figure growing and stretching into vague hellish forms. With a primal roar, Voldemort stepped through the whirling tempest and flung it back towards Harry.
How? Harry stood dumbstruck. His control of the storm was ripped from his grasp, leaving him empty and staring as his best chance of defeating Voldemort was used against him.
It was pure desperation which led him to what he did next. Sweeping his wand in great fluid lengths, gushes of water shot up from the Black Lake and moved to swallow the approaching storm. It was a battle of the elements, as wind fought water, while Harry conducted it all from the side, shaping the liquid to trap the storm at its core. Blasts of air surged from within, sending splashes from its churning surface to the ground below. Focusing on the feel of the soil beneath his feet, the water gradually stilled, and a murkiness swirled throughout its depths. It hardened and shrunk, until there was nothing more than a ball of dirt suspended above them.
Bringing his arms down in a decisive whoosh, the mound of transfigured earth smashed to the ground blasting both him and Voldemort with its trapped air.
Harry crashed to his back, coughed up mud, and grunted from the beating his body had endured. He pushed himself to his elbows, just as there was a flash of flame, and Dumbledore appeared, stroking Fawkes who was perched on his shoulder.
"Leave the boy, Tom."
"At last you've come. I was beginning to fear I would not be given the chance to kill both of you today."
"I'm afraid you will not be killing Harry today. You were foolish to come here, Tom, just as you were foolish when you came to the Ministry. You never do learn," Dumbledore chastised, as if he were still his student.
Something didn't feel right to Harry. He couldn't quite point it out, but he could feel it. Despite the appearance Dumbledore was putting up, he could see just how weak he remained from their trip to the cave. It was in the stoop to his shoulders, and the way his blackened hand twitched at his side.
"You always did think you knew best," Voldemort hissed.
"It is a fault of mine, admittedly. It is the Professor in me," Dumbledore smirked. "Though, in matters such as these—regarding love and fear—I am more knowledgeable than you could possibly hope to be."
"Your love is an old man's dream, Dumbledore. I have conquered death!" Voldemort's madness peeked through his blazing red eyes. "I have no need for love."
"A great wizard you might consider yourself to be, but any truly good wizard can see the fool you really are." Voldemort snarled and brandished his wand, but Dumbledore remained still, paying little heed to his aggression. "You speak of dreams Tom, yet all you have ever aspired to be was first shaped in the mind of a frightened little orphan boy who yearned for power. Your world is a fantasy!"
Dumbledore's voice projected across the Highlands, captivating all those who listened; but Harry could see the quiver of his legs, and the way they looked to buckle at any moment. Why was Dumbledore using up all his strength? Was he trying to intimidate Voldemort into leaving? Harry's mind worked tirelessly for an answer to a problem he could not see.
"Your actions inspire nothing but resistance! What you envision can never come to be. Each step of the way, you create your own enemies with your failure to understand what it means to be human. In your fear and unease of your own power, you set off to murder a newborn babe… and now look who stands before you! Harry Potter is everything that makes you weak, Tom! If you strike down one who lives with love in their heart, hundreds more will rise in their place—"
"I have no weakness! I am immortal!" Voldemort screeched.
"There is much worse in life than experiencing death's embrace…" Dumbledore smiled sadly, his body squaring up to face Voldemort.
Harry reached to his side for his wand, preparing to help Dumbledore. But that is when it hit him—his problem, the thing screaming at him that something was not right. Dumbledore did not have a wand. It was sitting in Harry's hand. He was standing before Voldemort defenceless.
"There is nothing worse." Voldemort spoke low and dangerously, like a snake coiled and ready to strike.
Dumbledore opened his arms in invitation, and Fawkes leaped off his shoulder and into the air. "Then go ahead, strike true."
No!
Harry wasn't sure if he was the one who screamed, but he needed to reach Dumbledore. He couldn't let this happen. They needed him. He needed him. His heart stopped; he couldn't breathe; he couldn't lose him. He couldn't lose another person he loved—not after everything they had gone through.
"No!" Harry was certain it was his scream this time.
Dumbledore turned his head to him, silvery tears spilling out of twinkling blue eyes. "Do as I could not…" His aged face spasmed with emotion, struggling to voice his next words: "Live and love, my son, that is all I ever wanted for you."
Fawkes sung overhead, a melody of deep hope and loss and sadness. An overwhelming pressure built up behind Harry's eyes—the mournful music ringing low and sweet.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
Their eyes had yet to part, telling a story that could never be put to words. Dumbledore looked the most at peace Harry had ever seen him, a gentle smile pulling underneath his thick, snowy whiskers. It was a smile of understanding—he was finally going home to his family.
A gentle prod pressed against his mind, one warm and familiar and not long for this world; and as the green of death approached, he let it in. He stood in front a black stoned fortress, staring as it swallowed the horizon and reached into the cloud covered sky with a single, lonely tower. He travelled quickly along its inky black walls to the easternmost part of the stronghold, and behind the statue of a young man, sat a single brick carved in the fashion of a phoenix.
He was sucked out of the memory as quickly as he was drawn in, and found himself staring back into Dumbledore's deep blue eyes. There was no hint of the castle or the memory, only love.
Fawkes cried a final time from overhead, a song which hinted at a distant triumph.
An eruption of flames swallowed the world around him, dancing upon his skin without the kiss of heat. He could feel his body being taken away against his will. He wanted to stay with Dumbledore until the very end, but the world was already spinning out from under him. The last he saw of the man he loved was a flash of green within a blaze of rich, deep gold.
"No!" Harry screamed, feeling the rough scratch of carpet of some far-off place. "No! NO! NO!"
He wanted to go back. He needed to go back. Dumbledore wasn't dead—he couldn't be. The man was well over a hundred years old; he'd defeated Grindelwald; he was the greatest wizard he knew.
But he'd heard the words, seen the flash, gazed upon his face as…
"Come back!" He didn't know who he was yelling at, but it felt good to be doing something. "Come back!"
He could see now he was standing in Grimmauld Place, but was too angry—too afraid, to care why. Everything hurt: his mind, his body, his soul. It was broken, all of it. He wanted to die. He'd grown tired of living if this was all it had in store for him.
There will be a time when those closest to you perish.
There were too many names, each and every one too painful to count.
You will feel your heart break and your soul shatter, like they will never be put whole again.
Nothing would ever be the same.
You must not let their deaths destroy you.
It would be so easy to die.
You must not stop.
He'd known. All this time, Dumbledore had known this was coming.
You must fight on, and do what needs to be done.
He'd prepared him for this—all but told him in so few words. He couldn't fail him. Not after everything Dumbledore had done.
Harry shut his mind off, he needed to move. Dumbledore had left him with a clue, and he needed to get there as soon as possible. He needed to be gone before the Order got back.
A list of items ran through his mind on what he needed to take. Extra potions were kept in the bathroom upstairs, and he ran up to filch some before he left. Blood-replenishers and numbing solutions were found along the sink; and though he could not find any Skele-Gro, he recognized enough spare ingredients for him to brew it himself.
He exited the bathroom in a rush, having grabbed everything he could use and stuffing it in his cloak. He stopped suddenly at the sound of furniture being knocked around somewhere on the floors above him. His mind immediately went to Mundungus, who'd taken liberties with the home in the past.
He crept cautiously up the steps, taking extra care not give away the sound of his approach. The noise was much clearer now, down the hall on a door to his right. He could make out drawers being open and shut, the scraping of a trunk being dragged across the floor, and footsteps pacing back and forth in an uncertain rhythm.
He realized then, it was only by a stroke of luck they hadn't heard him from downstairs; their own racket likely having drowned out the noise of his arrival.
Pouncing, Harry burst through the door, and nearly dropped in shock.
"Fleur?"
"Arry!" Her eyes shot as wide as saucers at the sight of him, and her face flushing a startling shade of crimson. She ran over and drew him desperately into an embrace.
He held onto her tightly, his face immersed in the lengths of her silver hair, and breathed in deeply her lavender scent, trying to clear the stench of death which clung to him.
"Arry, you are alive?" She stared at him with a mixture of awe and disbelief, tears welling in the corner of her eyes.
"Barely…" he breathed out, and nuzzled against her gentle hand as it cupped the side of his face.
She glanced down his body. "You are hurt," she said with a hint of fear.
He hummed in agreement, the pain numbed by her presence. He closed his eyes and drew her closer, drowning in her warmth and the feeling that he wasn't alone.
"Dumbledore's dead," he finally said. It was the first time he'd admitted it, and it tore at him anew. "I watched him—I couldn't… he just stood there and let it happen…"
"He was a great man," she whispered comfortingly in his ear.
"A good man," Harry corrected. "He was good."
Something occurred to him then, and his eyes snapped open. He stepped from their embrace, nearly causing Fleur to stumble at his sudden movement. His gaze flickered around the room.
"Why did you leave?" he asked suddenly, noticing how she shifted uneasily with the question.
Looking behind her, he could see an open trunk with a shimmering blue cloak folded on top. Drawers were torn open, the closet had been ransacked, and clothing was strewn about the floor. It did not paint the prettiest of pictures.
"'Arry—"
"No." he snapped, and she jumped back. His head was pounding, and a familiar ache was pouring from his scar. He bent down and picked up her Weasley jumper discarded on the floor. "What is this?"
"'Arry, I can explain…"
"You're leaving," he said, already knowing the truth, and looked to her as though he'd never seen her before.
It was the imperceptible nod of her head that broke him.
"I have orders."
"You have orders? What bloody orders!? From Dumbledore?"
For a heartbeat, he dared to hope.
She shook her head. "No, not from Dumbledore."
He felt dead inside.
"I can explain… no, I need to explain—to you at least."
There was something odd with the way she was speaking.
"Go on, explain then."
"I… it's difficult for me to find a place to start. I suppose it would have to be—"
"You know what I think?" Harry cut off in an impatient fury. "I think you're afraid. I think you got a taste of what the Death Eaters are capable of, and you decided to cut and run."
"Don't you dare call me a coward!" Fleur snapped, a hint of the woman he knew poking through.
"Just like Daphne! You warned me about her and how she would always come first and how she would leave when it mattered." Harry was laughing now, darkly, horribly. "I thought you were trying to tell me you would be the one to stand by my side, but I was wrong. You were just warning me about yourself!"
"I was warning you, because she was wrong for you!"
"And what, you're not? From where I'm standing I see no difference between you and her!"
"Do not lecture me on things you don't understand, 'Arry Potter."
"Your accent?"
Her eyes widened. "My what?"
Her accent was gone. Not in its entirety—her words still carried a French lilt in their vowels and a sharpness to their consonants—but it was without the thickness it had once prominently carried.
"Who are you?" His wand was out, thrumming with power in his grip.
"I am Fleur Delacour, put your wand away, 'Arry."
"What the fuck is going on!?" Harry clutched at his head, feeling as if it was about to burst.
"I have no choice in this!" Fleur cried out.
"There's always a choice." It wasn't the first time he'd said that today, but he'd never expected to be giving Fleur and Malfoy the same advice.
"Perhaps…" she paused. He heard the movement of her footsteps across the floor, and the click of her closing suitcase. "But I've already made mine."
"And that is?"
"I am to return to France, the ICW has need of me."
"What does the ICW need you for? You work for Gringotts." Harry didn't know why he protested, he hardly knew the stranger in front of him.
"I told you, it's complicated and difficult to explain." Her voice was tired and beaten and sad.
"Just bloody well say it already!" he demanded.
"Fine! I am spy! Is that the truth you wanted to hear?" she spat. There was so much pain in her pale blue eyes it was hard for Harry to look. "That just like that hateful and horrible man Snape, I am forced to do things I do not wish to do. That each morning I look myself in the mirror and hate what I see. That what stares back at me is this shameful woman who destroyed the girl I used to be."
"You can't possibly be—"
"That is the making of a good spy, non? The impossibility of their true role." Her natural accent was bleeding more and more into her words, the more animated she became. "Though I'm sure Dumbledore knew all along. He was the Supreme Mugwump when I was first recruited after the Triwizard tournament."
"Why? What does the ICW possibly gain from any of this?"
"Information, and the power that comes with it. They wanted to know more about Voldemort's new rise to power, so they sent me to work at Gringotts. It was a favorable arrangement, as the Goblins had need of enchanters and those versed in magical artifacts to help deal with some dark object they found in connection with Voldemort."
That caught Harry's attention, had the goblins found a Horcrux?
"It was only after I arrived, when those dreadful creatures discovered I descended of Veela blood and wanted nothing to do with me. From aiding in their investigation, I was relegated to deskwork and spying for them as well. I was bound to two masters, which was when I met William…" her voice trailed off in shame.
"You used him," said Harry with dawning realisation.
A shudder ran through Fleur's body, and she nodded slightly. "I recognized William from when he visited you at the tournament, and knew his family was very close to you. It was clear he took a liking to me from our first day working together, and he invited me to lunch. Eventually, after some time together, I was invited to the Order."
Harry felt sick to his stomach.
"How could you? How could you use him like that? Abuse all their trust like it was nothing!"
Fleur's eyes flashed dangerously. "Do you think it was easy for me to do? That I am some heartless bitch? To see the way William and his family cared for me, while I used them to get to you—"
She cut herself off, but had already said enough.
"Of course… Of course it had to do with me. It's always the people I care about who get hurt because of me!" Harry shot to his feet and punched the wall, splitting his knuckles.
"'Arry please!" She stepped towards him but he jumped away. "It was like this at first, but not always! I grew to know you, care for you. That night before Christmas, when you gave me my gift and I kissed you, it was real—it was true. I couldn't deny it any longer… I'd fallen in lo—"
"No!" He lashed out like a wounded animal. "Don't say it! Don't you fucking say it!"
"Harry…" Her voice was small and vulnerable; her secret already laid bare. "It's the truth."
"Is it? After everything you just said? After what you did to Bill?"
"Do not speak about William! I could have loved him! For a time, I wanted to—but how could I? Not after what I'd done to him, and not after you. You must believe me."
"How can I do that?" he asked, afraid. "You used us all. You used me. I loved you, Fleur. I loved you and I wanted to tell you, but I knew that Bill loved you as well and I couldn't do that to a family I care so much about. You strung as along in this damn game where there are no winners. How can anything be the same after that?" His heart and soul and mind were at war; beaten and broken and battered, just as his body was. "How can I be sure this wasn't just a beautiful lie?"
"Come with me," she said. "Come back to France with me. We'll be together, you can meet my family—see Gabrielle again. I can take you to the fields where I am happiest, and where I grew up. We can live and love, and when the time comes we will face whoever tries to take our happiness away from us."
Live and love, my son, that is all I ever wanted for you. Dumbledore's final words floated through his mind.
Fleur's blue eyes shone with a deep-felt longing, and in that suspended moment of time there was nothing he wanted more than to join her.
He blinked, and breathed, and reality set upon his shoulders again. It wasn't his time. He couldn't fulfill Dumbledore's hopes for his life without finishing what he had started. He had somewhere to go, and it wasn't back to France with Fleur… at least not yet.
Taking a step back from the woman he had chosen to love, Harry's eyes never left hers until he vanished with a twist of his heels, travelling to the place where it all began.