To those of you who celebrate, happy holidays!

Chapter Thirty-Two – The Last Battle

Everyone was in the way. Too many robes, too many memos flapping around his ears. Too many shouts of Harry Potter! And too many bloody emotions.

Harry Potter ran.

He wanted to be in control – had needed to be in control. Had always needed to be one, two, three steps ahead. That was the way things worked when somebody was out to kill you. For the most part he had managed that, and in the end he had won. Then Sirius came back.

Sirius who had turned every bloody thing on its head and made Harry's universe spin itself inside-out. And Harry wanted nothing more but to race back to Sirius and hide in his arms forever. But that was not who he was.

His confusion about his feelings for Sirius had made him scared. Scared of what people might say, what Sirius would see, how Kreacher would react – even the damned house-elf had Harry fret! What would happen, when it would happen, where and why and how many times somebody would tell him that this was not his thing to have. When Sirius Black was the thing Harry Potter wanted the most in his life.

He had lost himself to this mess of weakness and fear and uncertainties. Ron's hurt, Hermione's hesitation, Ginny's tears. Even his visits with Draco had been more about Harry, in the end.

He needed control. The Ministry had its own plans. Kreacher did as well. Most people did. Ron was going to marry Hermione and they would have at least fifteen kids and Ginny would, too, with some tall, broad-shouldered, tall, intelligent, handsome, fucking tall and straight git that actually treated her with some fucking respect.

Harry's insides were burning up. He was out of breath long before he even reached the fireplaces and through his vision danced a million blistering stars. His brain felt like it might boil over any second. His grip on his wand was threatening to burst his knuckles apart.

"Oi! Harry Potter!"

He shook off the hand that grabbed his shoulder. He never looked. A handful of Floo powder instead, and then the flames exploded into an emerald blaze that enveloped him greedily.

For the very first time in his life he enjoyed the sensation of Flooing. The forces that pressed into him from every angle seemed a worthy opponent to the energy that was raging in him. His mind dizzied and his breath was chased out of his lungs as distant fireplaces flashed in the darkness as twisted specks of colour. When his destination appeared before him he was ready to explode.

He found her directly upon his arrival. She was dusting a shelf laden with framed pictures of her family. There was Bill – before and after Greyback – and Charlie, waving in the foreground, brimming with excitement over the brownish Norwegian Ridgeback in the background. There was Ron. And Percy, looking important in his Hogwarts uniform with his Head Boy badge gleaming on his chest. And Ginny. And Fred and George. Alive and together.

She swirled around when Harry tumbled out of the fireplace. Her shock was nothing compared to the shadows and lines in her face which seemed to scream at him. "Harry?" she whispered, incredulous.

He lost momentum. She looked so worn, so haggard and… empty. He took a step towards her. "Mrs Weasley…"

"Harry, dear, I…"

"Listen, Mrs Weasley, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for not telling you sooner and I'm sorry for upsetting everybody." He gripped his wand hard, trying to break through the pounding in his head. "But I'm not sorry for being with Sirius. I love him. And he loves me."

She looked so forlorn. He had expected her to fight, to give him something to bounce off from. Her apron was wrinkled. For a moment, he thought she was going to cry but then her eyes widened at something behind him, and her shriek was drowned in a sudden roar of the fire.

Harry turned on the spot. The flames were towering high, throwing themselves upwards and flashing a forbidding, gleaming black. It was as if the splash of colour that came hurtling at them from behind hit a wall and the impact made the fire thunder. The collision lasted only a second. The fire spit the newcomer out as if the taste of them was vile. With a mighty rush of blackened green the blue was sent spinning back into the dark void it had come from. Harry's heart was racing.

"I've never seen it do that before." Mrs Weasley breathed, white in the face.

Harry swallowed. "Protection spell."

"Yes… yes, it must be…" Her gaze was glued to the fire which was gradually easing back down now. "I don't know… Arthur maybe… Oh…"

"Listen," Harry hurried over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. "I need to go."

Her eyes slowly focused on his. "Harry, my dearest Harry..."

He hugged her and felt her collapse against him. Her hair smelled of dust, just like Sirius' had done upon his Return. "I'll come back later."

As he stepped into the fire, Mrs Weasley stood, bless her, with her wand at the ready and with both her slippered feet planted firmly in the carpet.

o.O.o

He had no idea how this worked. The darkness pressed against him and squeezed the air out of his lungs and it was difficult to focus. Hundreds of fireplaces winked at him as he rushed through the endless darkness, searching for whoever had tried to enter The Burrow uninvited. Was it possible to get lost in the Floo network? Harry would rather not find out. He was beginning to feel not a little nauseous and more than once he found his grip on his wand loosening.

Light and darkness whirled about him until his head was spinning. He tried to take a deep breath but nothing happened. The first sting of panic pierced the nausea. Maybe this was not his best decision to date, he reflected, but when a fireplace he did not know zoomed into view he rejected it. He needed to find the intruder. He needed to fight. Anyone who offered.

Harry pushed against the darkness building behind his eyes, straining to see, to arrange his thoughts in some fashion that might help him figure out some intelligent course of action. His arms and legs felt numb and his tongue too thick in his mouth. He was upside-down, whizzing through a chasm of opaque blackness. Black, black, black… Everything was black, it seemed to him now, with not a fireplace in sight. He lost track of his heartbeat, feeling like his stomach was being forced into his throat.

Black, black, black… Black.

Then something tore at his shoulder. He felt the fingers dig into his skin, hard and unforgiving. Harry spun in the darkness. He had no breath left, no idea how to react. All he could feel was the pain of the grip and the blackness forcing its way down his throat.

Black. Sirius' name was Black.

Grimmauld Place.

His body changed direction. He hurtled deeper into the void, or out of it, he could not tell. Harry wanted to scream. The fingers in his shoulder and the pain in his chest where his heart should be drove his mouth to open but nothing came out. And then something loomed before him, something flickering green and he crashed into it and hit the carpeted floor of the Grimmauld Place drawing room with such force he felt the bones in his wrist crack.

He convulsed in pain but found that at least he could breathe. The white-hot stabs through his wrist were almost a welcome sensation. It spun his awareness back into place and threw his eyes open.

He was not alone.

A plie of ministerial blue had crash-landed along with him. It took the newcomer a few of Harry's rattled heartbeats to regain his wits but then he lifted his grey-blond head.

Harry's throat ached but at least he still had a voice. His surprise leaked out along with it. "Mr Windyfield?"

The man on the floor with him drew a deep, ragged breath and coughed. "Mr Potter."

From somewhere Harry's impulses returned. He still had his wand in his hand. Eleven inches, holly with a phoenix feather core. It had served him before and would again if it had to. He pointed it now at Mr Windyfield. "Get up."

They rose at the same time. Harry's feet and knees felt like pudding but he gritted his teeth and forced his body to obey. Mr Windyfield stumbled once but caught himself before he fell. He looked quite faint. "Mr Potter, surely it is not necessary to…"

"Why did you follow me?"

Mr Windyfield licked pale lips. "Well, one hears things…"

Harry raised his eyebrows. His stomach turned over unpleasantly as his body adjusted to normal pressure. Still, he kept his wand steady. "What things?"

Mr Windyfield's smile was as unexpected as his left ear suddenly beginning to melt. Before Harry's eyes, it was as if the bones in Mr Windyfield's face were changing places. His smile turned into a sneer, which became a grimace. Harry stood staring as the man before him shrank a few inches and his robes met with the floor. His hair grew out and his eyes lightened. His jaws clenched through the pain Harry had known himself under similar circumstances and his head fell forwards, but he remained standing. Then he lifted his head and his own wand was in his hand and Harry was staring into the face of Yaxley.

Harry was fast but so was the Death Eater. Their hexes collided in mid-air and exploded, filling the drawing room with a cloud of smoke and a smell of burning dust. Harry shot through it, eyes watering quickly behind his spectacles, "Expelliarmus!"

But Yaxley's dry laughter told him he had missed. He saw a shape with outstretched arms moving through the smoke but he never saw the hex coming. The magic tore into him, flinging him across the room and into the wall behind. He had never before appreciated the thickly woven Black family tree on the wall but now it lessened the impact somewhat before he hit the floor. Even so, the air went out of his lungs on an exhale that tore at his throat. His eyes were brimming with tears from the pain as Yaxley called out to him.

"I'm going to kill you, Potter! I will make my Lord proud."

Harry gasped for breath. His wrist was throbbing and his head felt like it had been cracked open. "Your Lord's dead, Yaxley," he rasped. "Voldemort's dead."

Something stabbed him in the ankle. The magic tore a gash in his skin and he could feel blood beginning to wet his sock. Grasping at his wand he pointed it into the thinning smoke. "I fucking killed him!" The jinx hit home. Yaxley snarled and with stinging eyes Harry could see the Death Eater doubling over with a grunt.

Harry scrambled to his feet. He kept his wand pointed at Yaxley, hunched over in front of the fireplace, looking as though he was cradling his right arm to him. Where was Sirius? Harry glanced into the darkness that lay heavily draped over the first floor landing. Then the flicker of movement in the corner of his eye demanded all of his attention as Yaxley wordlessly raised his head and a jet of poisonous green light whizzed past Harry's head and made his cheek sting. Then, suddenly, the Death Eater was on his feet again, and Harry had to respond.

"Everte statum!"

The stream of orange hit Yaxley in the shoulder, sending him reeling backwards a few steps. Now that the smoke had cleared Harry could see his gaunt face, his greying, matted hair and his haunted blue eyes.

"Damn you Potter! I'll kill you!" He staggered forwards, but his right arm was twisted at an odd angle and his wand-hand seemed to tremble. "I'll fucking kill you twice!"

"Why now, Yaxley?" Harry called at him, edging along the wall, inch by inch. "Why not at the Ministry?"

A jarred jet of red light came whooshing past his hip and blasted a hole in the tapestry that hissed venomously. Harry swallowed down any irrational fear that threatened to burst into his mind. He could take Yaxley in this state, he was quite sure, but he did not want to kill him. By the looks of him, the Yaxley Harry remembered from the war was mostly gone. Still, the Death Eater had a cruel twist to his mouth and had most likely not forgotten his former skills.

"Why now?" He repeated the question, trying his best to ignore the pain that soon had half his own arm, and foot, pounding.

"You're an easy target, Potter," Yaxley growled instead. "So trusting."

The perfectly aimed flash of white caught Harry off-guard. Its impact with his chest made it feel as though his lungs had suddenly turned to ice. He fell to his knees grasping at the tapestry for support. From his angle on the floor he channelled his strength into a hiss. "Reducto."

The glass-fronted cabinet to the left of the fireplace exploded into a thousand pieces, sending an angry rain of wood and glass into the air. Harry ducked his face behind his arm and gasped for breath even as his lungs felt as immobile as granite. Yaxley's roar was soon followed by a bolt of blinding green light that missed Harry by a couple of feet. He bit down so hard on his own tongue that he drew blood. Then he exploded the second cabinet.

It bought him time enough to scramble out onto the first floor landing. The perpetual gloom of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place enveloped him as he got to his feet.

Down.

Pressing against the wall, he slid down a few steps. His injured wrist was screaming at him in silence and the blood did not seem to want to stop flowing from that wound on his ankle. Harry forced his attention away from the pain and listened.

"Fuck you, Potter!" Yaxley was on the landing now, stumbling forwards on his robes. "I'll kill you, damn you!"

"I think we've had quite enough of that."

Harry froze. Further down the stairs, Sirius was standing, eyes and wand pointed directly at Yaxley. His face showed so much repulsion that Harry barely recognised his own godfather in those features.

"There will be no killing of Harry."

Yaxley's face twisted. First into a frown and then into a smile that sent chills down Harry's spine.

"Black. The traitor."

"It is getting old, that epithet," Sirius said tartly. Then he glanced at Harry. "Come here, Harry."

Harry was not sure he dared to move. He had not much liked seeing that green light whizzing by before. He took one step, and the air shook with a deafening boom above him.

"Get down here, now." Sirius' magic had locked with Yaxley's in an arc above Harry's head. There was a strain in his godfather's face as Harry, to the agony of his ankle, stumbled down the stairs, finally grasping Sirius' outstretched arm for support.

Yaxley growled. "You're a traitor, Black. Just like your fucking brother!" If the effort of holding the spells locked in place was hard on Sirius, the Death Eater was doubly challenged. His wounded arm was sinking even as he snarled. "The Dark Lord would have been generous to you if you had joined him. But you turned your back on him. You spat on him."

"I did." Sirius pulled Harry in. His voice was steeped in venom. "I'll do it again, if you'll watch. And gladly, too. I will spit on your fucking master's memory. My brother would as well, you can be sure of that."

"Fuck you!" Yaxley's upper lip curved in disgust. "I saw you, Black, at the Ministry! Prancing around and showing your face! You should be dead! I'll kill you!"

But Yaxley was failing. He tried the stairs. Took a step. Then another. His curse was waning in strength, its red glare dimming. Harry could feel the tension emanating from Sirius. This had to end soon, Harry knew. He pulled himself up and pointed his wand up at Yaxley. The unnatural lighting made all the shadows play wildly in the Death Eater's ashen face.

"Impedimenta!"

The turquoise ray knocked Yaxley over. The red light went out and Sirius' magic shattered above them. One again, the smell of burnt wood filled the stale air.

"Harry," Sirius barked "you're hurt, get out!"

"No!" He caught his godfather's eye. "I have to do this."

"Well," Sirius smiled grimly. "So do I."

Then Yaxley suddenly roared back to life and Harry's bolt of midnight blue missed him by an inch. But the Death Eater misjudged his next step and hollered, and the ominous green jet aimed for Sirius' chest jumped upwards instead. Green fire exploded above them and the gash in the ceiling stank like burned flesh. A new cloud of smoke, thick and grey and awful to breathe, issued forth, filling the hallway until it was hard to see anything more than two feet ahead.

"Harry," Sirius' voice was hard like iron. "Get behind me."

Harry pushed at him. He directed his wand towards the stairs, through the smoke. "Flipendo!"

He only heard the crash.

"Mudbloods! TRAITORS!" It was surprising it had taken this long but now she was awake. A sudden stream of white light cut through the smoke and Harry saw that the curtains were thrust aside. Beside him, Sirius grunted and dropped to his knees.

No. Harry aimed. "Stupefy!"

"FILTH!"

The light came dancing again. Blue, this time, and searing hot. Yaxley's form staggered down into the hallway, shooting this way and that. Harry was out of breath, coughing from the smoke and barely thinking as he blasted a jet of sickly yellow into the reeling shadows. He scrambled backwards, dragging Sirius with him. If Sirius…

But it was Sirius who shoved at Harry and deflected the curse that burned a hole in the carpet instead. His godfather was clasping a hand over his belly. A dark red stain was creeping out from under his fingers and ruining his white t-shirt. Harry's insides turned to stone.

"TRAITORS! DIE!"

Maybe it was Yaxley, maybe it was Mrs Black screaming in his ear. Harry shot blistering sparks down the hallway. This would not do, he knew. He had never before attempted the really sinister curses in battle but Yaxley was too unpredictable to take down with a simple Petrificus Totalus.

He kept his shower of sparks going while he leaned into his godfather. "Sirius?"

"I'm all right, Harry," the older man grunted. "Let's finish this."

Something moved. Harry steeled himself, trying to guess which way to curse.

"YOU AND YOUR FUCKING BROTHER!"

The smoke turned an eerie green. Somebody screamed again, but this voice was new.

"NOOOOOOOO!"

Harry felt the impact. He tumbled over, fell onto Sirius and they hit the mouldy carpet together. The high-pitched shriek was still ringing in his head as the Killing Curse collided with Mrs Black in her frame. For a heartbeat nothing happened, but then an ear-splitting screech welled out of the painting and the green light rebounded on its caster. It hit Yaxley square in the chest, lifted him high above the floor and then he fell.

And it was over.

Harry dropped his head to the floor.

The silence was deafening.

TBC