"You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore? Above such brutality, are you?"

"We both know there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom."

—Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

III

Tom had only arrived for a few minutes when the shockwave came out of nowhere, knocking nearly everyone in the vicinity to the frozen ground. So many were crowded in the vast area that he didn't see it coming until it was too late and all he could manage was to brace for impact, wand still hanging at his side.

An impact that never came.

"Careful, Tom," came a voice from behind him. "One should always be aware of their surroundings upon entering a battlefield."

Tom's jaw clenched. He knew that voice— and loathed it. "What are you doing here, Dumbledore?"

"Professor Dumbledore," Dumbledore corrected genially. He cut his wand through the air, dispelling whatever protection he'd erected around them in an instant. "I'm rather late, I'll admit. It time to extract an explanation out of your friends as to why one of my students was sneaking out of the case beneath the noses of the faculty."

Irritation flared at both everyone he'd left behind in Slughorn's office and the man before him, despite— and in part because of— the aid he'd just provided.

"They told you?" he asked, working to keep his tone level.

Dumbledore swept past him, past the countless collapsed bodies around them. Unconscious, it seemed. At that observation, Tom hated the flash of relief he felt at Dumbledore's interference. He couldn't have afforded to be knocked out with the rest. Only perhaps a quarter of the original number remained standing, recovering from their surprise.

"Not in so many words," the professor replied evasively.

Tom made to follow, eyeing him with thinly veiled distrust. "And you're not planning on sending me back?"

"I could certainly try," he mused, "but I doubt you'd listen. Stick close, Tom."

Dumbledore was right about one thing. Tom had absolutely no intention of listening, and was in fact already making plans to ditch him when he saw her.

Ophelia.

Her hair was different than he remembered, now entirely silver to match the tall man beside her. Longer, too. He supposed she didn't have much time to waste trimming it if she was constantly on the move. The physical representation of all the time passed since she tricked him into falling asleep in the corridor while she escaped stung bitterly.

Ophelia broke free of Grindelwald's embrace— one arm draped protectively over her shoulder to theoretically shield her from the brunt of his explosive spell— and she ran through the maze of Grindelwald's followers, who evidently knew to shield against his spell ahead of time, towards the nearest fallen wizard. Apparently satisfied that the fallen were alive and not in immediate danger, she sighed in relief, her pent up breath smoking up in the chill evening air.

Then, across the field, their eyes met.

Tom moved faster, knocking into various Aurors and Ministry personal in his haste, leaving Dumbledore to trail far more cautiously behind. Gazes still locked, he saw rather than heard her say his name, her mouth forming the word slowly, like she couldn't believe the way it tasted on her tongue after so many months.

At last, any shock felt by those sent to apprehend, or more likely kill, Grindelwald dissipated. Spells flew from both sides, the mobile members of each side now roughly equal. Reflexively, it seemed, Ophelia blocked one such spell and ducked to narrowly avoid another.

It wasn't just plain curses, however. The ground shook and rolled beneath their feet, a fissure split the earth at Ophelia's feet, dividing her temporarily from her uncle and his faction, before Grindelwald leisurely waved his wand and crushed the fractured divide back together.

Ophelia tore her gaze from Tom's to prevent the tragic dismemberment of a witch, who's legs had begun slipping into the opening canyon. Grindelwald, stepping forward to pull his niece back into his sphere of protection, followed the trail of her focus, then past it, and went terribly still.

"Albus Dumbledore."

Although the chaos still persisted around them, it seemed as though they'd descended into a bubble where only the four of them existed. Even that was giving too much credit. Tom and Ophelia could have been miles away, for the thick weight of the air crackling between Grindelwald and Dumbledore banished them from thought.

"Good evening, Gellert," Dumbledore acknowledged with a politeness that, to Tom, came across as forced. "A pity we couldn't have met under better circumstances."

"A pity. Yes, you could say that." Grindelwald recovered some of his composure, shifting his expression into a supercilious smirk. That, too, felt forced. "A pity we couldn't have parted under better circumstances, either." Ophelia shot her uncle a sharp warning look he seemed entirely oblivious to. "I suppose I should be flattered that the great Albus Dumbledore finally graces me with his presence after years of deafening silence. The muggle's champion finally shows himself! Curious how much a man can change in a short few decades. It wasn't so long ago we were on the same side."

At the last word, he whipped his wand through the air, materialising rods of ice that launched themselves straight at Dumbledore, not caring for Tom and two Aurors that stood between them.

"Uncle, no!" Ophelia exclaimed, pulling upon his arm. He shrugged her off, calling for one of his followers to take her off his hands.

This time, Tom was ready. Even as he continued weaving his way closer, the rods closest to him shattered into sparkling crystal dust against an invisible wall. The others weren't so lucky. One Auror was speared through the arm, while the other, distracted by the swarm, didn't see another spell firing his way out of his blind spot. Incidentally, it didn't even come from one of Grindelwald's men. It came from from an another Auror missing his initial target.

As the rods approached Dumbledore, he effortlessly melted them back into water in mid-air, where they dropped with a splash at his feet.

"I do not wish to fight you," Dumbledore admitted. "Turn yourself into the proper authorities and end this madness."

Grindelwald laughed as though Dumbledore said the wittiest thing since Shakespeare. "Where has your pacifism gotten you, Albus? Where has it gotten any of us?" He spread his arms wide to embrace the world. "It is time for real change."

III

Although Grindelwald's followers, as a whole, were more skilled than their adversaries, they didn't have the advantage of numbers. Even after he eliminated the majority of the Ministry personnel, initially evening them out, as time passed they were still at a numerical disadvantage, because more Aurors appeared with each passing second. Given that, no one particularly had any time to babysit Ophelia. They assumed she wouldn't be stupid enough to exit their ring of protection.

Well — surprise, surprise — she was.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed, skidding to a stop before Tom some distance away from the worst of the chaos. "You should be at school!"

"I could say the same thing about you," he countered.

"No," she shook her head, "you really couldn't. Do I even want to know how you got here?"

"Doubtful."

Her lips twitched. "Fair enough. You should still go. though, I can handle myself—"

She rocked forward, off balance, as another shockwave crept up from behind. The force was somewhat mitigated by a repelling blast of air Tom aimed over her shoulder at the last moment to counter it, but that didn't stop Ophelia from needing to catch herself on the front of his robes.

"I wish he'd stop doing that," she muttered, begrudging her uncle's flair for the dramatic. A regular, more direct curse for Dumbledore would have been far more effective. But no, he just had to show off.

When Tom helped her right herself, he was slow to let go, allowing his hands to linger a moment too long before dropping them back to his sides.

He arched a brow. "You were saying? Something about being fine on your own?"

"Don't be cheeky."

"Then don't be foolish."

Ophelia rolled her eyes. "I forgot how pushy you were. Just physically incapable of minding your own business."

"You're my business," he replied.

"And you're a smooth-talker," she sighed resignedly, though without reproach.

Despite her words, she couldn't help the smile making its way across her face. She missed this. She missed the meaningless verbal sparring and teasing. She missed him.

"If that's true," Tom began.

"Which it is."

"Then I should easily be able to convince you to leave," he continued, giving her a flat look at the interruption. "If you want me to get out of here, you'll have to come with me."

She pressed her lips into a thin line and looked away, but something caught her eyes and they widened. Cursing under her breath, Ophelia shoved into Tom and sent them both sprawling just as a searing plume of fire weaved overhead.

"You do have a wand, in case you've forgotten," Tom reminded her, rubbing at his side where he'd crashed into the ground. "Consider using it next time."

She groaned, pushing off him and onto her elbows. "I can't believe I missed you. You sure don't make it easy."

Tom stilled, a brief flash of uncertainty flitting across his face. There and gone in an instant. "You missed me."

"Against my better judgement," she warned. "So don't get cocky."

His ego was big enough already.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Tom said dryly, recovering back into his composed persona.

Another earsplitting explosion rocked the ground and Ophelia winced. "This has to stop," she muttered. "At this rate, the Statute of Secrecy isn't going to be very secret anymore. Come on. Get up. It's time to get into the thick of things."

Ophelia didn't wait to see if he was, in fact, following, before running straight into the fold, spells zipping by like bullets. She needed to get to Dumbledore and Grindelwald. She needed to stop this before anyone else got hurt, before any of the unconscious people upon the ground died without ever realising what happened to them. The only option was to get her uncle to flee, because he'd never surrender. It wasn't even an option in his eyes. He'd accepted that he'd either live to change the world for the betterment of wizard kind— or what he thought that was, anyway— or he'd die trying. In this environment, with Dumbledore, with Aurors Apparating in from every corner of the world, death was looking more and more likely.

And it terrified her.

She feared for Dumbledore, as well. The Elder Wand was a frightful thing. As much as Ophelia hoped it would make her uncle invincible to injury, was it worth it at the expense of everyone else? If he got serious, and the rumours about the power of the wand were true, Dumbledore didn't stand a chance.

It could have been her imagination, but it seemed like far too many attacks were directed her way than was statistically likely had it been solely at random. A thin rope of light managed to twine around her middle, jerking her back.

"You'll make a good hostage," a witch whose short black hair tickled her shoulder blades told Ophelia matter-of-factly. "Expelliam—"

She never got to finish the spell. Her expression went blank and she collapsed where she stood, Tom standing, wand out, right behind her.

"Thanks, Tom. What did you..."

What did you do to her?

"I thought we were in a hurry," he prompted.

Ophelia nodded once, swallowing back her question, and plowed on.

"Uncle, you have to stop this," Ophelia called when she got close enough to be heard above the chaos, "You want to help magic-folk, not hurt them, and that's all you're doing right now. No one benefits from this bloodbath! No one! And professor," she turned to shoot Dumbledore a pleading look, "let us go. I know you want peace. If we leave now countless lives can be spared."

Neither of them payed her any mind, despite her being about midway between the two, so focused were they on each other. Even Tom was drawn into a duel with a wizard who'd seen him take out his partner.

Everyone was turning on one another, Aurors from one ministry turning on the Aurors from a different Ministry without any means of telling friend from foe. They attacked first out of fear of being attacked, out of fear of the unknown.

Ophelia dodged and blocked upwards of a dozen spells a minute, some of which were misfires coming from whenever her uncle or Dumbledore or even Tom deflected an attack.

"Please, no one else has to die!" she yelled in between attacks.

Ophelia shielded her eyes against the blinding light as two eruptive curses collided in mid-air, sending a wave of all-encompassing brilliant white flash rushing over the field. Not wishing to waste a single moment waiting for the flare to subside, people continued firing off curses blind. Spells could only be seen an instant before finding their target, making them difficult evade.

It happened quicker than Ophelia could move to prevent it. She flicked her wand to protect from a scarlet spell coming from her left, meanwhile twirling out of the way to avoid another coming from the right, never seeing the attack creeping up from behind.

The effect wasn't immediate. Ophelia had enough time to look down at her chest and gape at the unexpected damage she never stood a chance of circumventing. She had enough time to run her fingers over the blossoming crimson slash through her luminescent ivory robes. They came away stained with blood. Shiny, sticky, warm blood.

She blinked—

And stumbled to her knees.

This wasn't right. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Just as all light subsided, darkness began pulling at the corners of her vision loomed in closer, creeping like snakes and consuming like fire. Except it was cold.

So cold.

Roaring filled her ears and it took a moment to realize where it came from.

Tom.

Tom was screaming, only the words seemed garbled, distorted. Loud and quiet. Harsh and sweet. Furious and desperate.

She could make out her uncle's yell, too, but like it was through a deep tunnel. The air around him seemed to shift and bend. It exploded, knocking everyone within a dozen feet onto their backs and many others not so close off balance.

"I'm fine," Ophelia managed, trying to wave off the concern, but the words came out funny. Muffled. Slurred. Too quiet and uncertain.

The ground swooped up to catch her as she fell, only for someone else to get there first. The beautiful, horrible chaos of their surroundings faded until it was just him. Just Tom and the swaying sky above him.

She opened her mouth to speak, not sure yet what she intended to say- to console? Beg him to loosen his grip on her arm? To apologise?- but a rush of iron coated her tongue, drowning out the words.

Even as she fought to keep her eyes open, it struck her how beautiful he was. All sharp angles. With his new palor and ruby eyes, he could have been mistaken for something beyond humanity. He looked like a devil, but by Merlin she could have stared at him forever and ever and more, until her bones turned to dust and the world came back to ash. She regretted being too bashful to openly stare before.

Ophelia raised a single scarlet coated hand to Tom's cheek and brushed it tenderly. Although her fingers trembled, her gaze was steady; one black, one blue, and both fixed on his. Her thumb left a crimson trail in its wake as he leaned into her touch.

Don't cry, Tom.

She knew he didn't hear the words, exactly. It was more of an emotion, or a meaning, projected straight from her mind to his. She let her Occlumency shields fall, for the first time since they'd met, allowing Tom easy access. Once, he probably would have leapt at the chance to see what she was thinking, what she was hiding, but now he simply stared.

He couldn't cry. The women at the orphanage had told him he never wept, even as an infant, but as she swept her thumb beneath his eye, she noticed it left a light trail of moisture behind.

"I won't let you die," he ground out, just loud enough for her to hear as Dumbledore and Grindelwald closed in from both sides, reaching blindly around for where he'd dropped his wand. "You said you wouldn't create a Horcrux before, but you can't stop me from making you one now."

Tom didn't need to say the next part aloud: And then, when your body fails you, I'll find a way to bring you back.

Ophelia's thoughts violently recoiled at his words. He could do it, if he tried. She had killed someone before. It was more than possible, so while he lifted his wand, she used the last of her strength to cover his hand with hers, pulling it back down. With a wistful smile, she mouthed, "I'm sorry, Tom. Not this time."

III

Grindelwald shouted for a Healer, though none stepped forward. Perhaps there wasn't any. Perhaps they didn't want to help their enemy.

"Who did this?" he roared, as Dumbledore knelt beside Tom, whispered incantations sifting through the air over Ophelia's wound, their feud forgotten. "Who did this?"

Too soon, the blood stopped flowing and Dumbledore went quiet, letting his wand drop to his side.

"It was cursed," Dumbledore said gravely after a time. "There was nothing I could do."

Grindelwald ran a hand through her silver hair, dyed red with drops of blood, whispering, "She's dead." He looked up, around, not registering his own words. His eyes, usually so sure, seemed distant, lost. "She was like my— my own daughter and now she's dead."

A pin could have dropped a mile away and it would have echoed like an explosion.

Grindelwald didn't fight when the Aurors surged closer, didn't even reach for his discarded wand, not until they attempted to pry him away from his nieces body. Her corpse. The echo of her that remained without her soul. No longer was he the fierce dark wizard capable of leveling cities single handedly.

"Who?" he wondered aloud, disbelief and grief cracking his words in half. "Did I kill my own blood? Was it you, Albus? Was it that boy? An Auror? Who did this? Who killed her?"

Tom asked himself the same question, pulling Ophelia tighter to his chest and squeezing his eyes shut, because maybe if he couldnt see it with his own eyes it wouldn't be true. It couldn't be true. What if he did it? What if it was one of his own curses?

"You fool. I told you we should have gone," he whispered into her hair. "Why did you never listen? Why? You could have lived forever. We could have, together."

Why did it feel like someone had carved a hole through his chest with a rusty dagger? Why was it so hard to breathe? No Horcrux could ever match this suffering. If cutting away every last scrap of his soul could end it all, he would do it. He'd find a way. Like he'd told her the last time he thought she'd died, it didn't matter what she wanted anymore. If she wanted him to be some sort of saint like her precious Dumbledore, she should have lived.

Dumbledore.

"You- You should have never come!" he rasped, looking sharply up at the professor. Rage flashed scarlet in his eyes, before vanishing again. "She'a dead because of you."

Dumbledore didn't say anything for a time, and then-

"I'm sorry, Tom."

"Sorry doesn't quite cut it, does it?" he hissed back, too many roiling emotions churning into something ugly in the chasm if his chest. "Sorry won't bring her back."

Dumbledore sounded infuriatingly sad, as though remembering something bittersweet, when he said, "No, nothing can do that. Not even the most powerful of magic."

"I hate you," said Tom venemously. And he did, with every fiber of his being. He hated him so much it physically hurt. Tom embraced the feeling. It didn't dampen the ache, but it distracted from it. "You'll pay for this!"

Dumbledore shook his head, looking not at Tom but at the Aurors drag away his old friend.

Tom hated him for that, too. Ophelia was dead. Dead! And Dumbledore still couldn't look anywhere but Grindelwald.

"Life is too short for hate, Tom. Ophelia wouldn't want—" he began, before Tom cut him off.

"You don't know what she'd want." Tom didn't shout. His voice remained dangerously level as he continued, "You barely know anything about her. She is not him." At "him," Tom shot a vengeful look at the spot where Grindelwald and his jailers Disapparated away in front of their very eyes. "You didn't help her for her sake. You can lie to yourself, Dumbledore, but you cannot lie to me. You hid her from the Ministry so you could regain a bit of Grindelwald. You did it for yourself."

At last, Dumbledore met his gaze. When their eyes met, his usually twinkling blue eyes widened at whatever he saw, at the rage simmering just beneath Tom's surface, at the fire burning holes in his grief. For the first time, the professor looked truly old.

Dumbledore looked away first.

And Tom looked to her. He looked to every part of her. His fingers tightened around her limp arm until it would have surely bruised had blood still flown freely in her veins. Yet more proof of the impossible truth he didn't need.

He hated Dumbledore, but by Merlin he hated her, too. If possible, he might have despised her more, more than Dumbledore, more than Grindelwald, more than himself.

He looked at the ring on her finger, hating that, too. He slipped it onto his palm. The air shifted slightly, but he dropped into his pocket before he could rethink his decision. He couldn't bare to wear it, not after her. He didn't even want to touch it.

Tom swore to make them all pay, everyone that brought them to that point. No one would be safe.

Least of all himself.

FIN

A/N

Okay, so before yall get mad about the ending, hear me out. I'm all for cinematic parallels, and I figured this one was fitting. Obviously she had to die to feed into the whole "Dark Lord" thing (again, sorry), the only question was how. You may or may not have noticed that this pretty closely mirrors how Dumbledore's sister died (or at least I hope so), with Grindelwald and Dumbledore fighting as well as the only one with their priorities straight (Aberforth and Tom). Also, the ambiguity of the who's responsible to haunt their consciences... Also, I tried to parallel the similarities between Tom and Harry from when Sirius died... idk how well that turned out.

this scene didn't turn out exactly as I planned, but I couldn't think of a way to make what I wanted to happen happen. I don't control the plot, the plot controls me.

Might publish the epilogue today or tomorrow, but it probably won't make you feel better. Sorry lmao. Believe me when I say I'm tired of writing tragedies.