Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all other characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this version of the Mask belongs to New Line Cinemas; I'm just using them for this story

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Harry Potter and the Mask of Loki

As Harry desperately ducked and weaved around the spells Voldemort was launching in his direction, he mentally cursed himself for never bothering to get a decent holster for his wand. Keeping it up his sleeve may keep it safe at the moment- the thing wasn't showing any signs of falling out at the moment, at least- but it wasn't that easy to just draw it at a moment's notice. He needed a few seconds' breathing space to ensure he wouldn't just drop it when he tried to get it into his hand, and right now he barely even had a couple of seconds of breathing space, never mind the time he'd need to draw his wand and try to use it.

There's got to be something I can do with what I've got! Harry groaned to himself, as he ducked a spell that looked worryingly like the Cruciatus Curse; if he got hit with that, he'd be in serious trouble. Maybe a chair, or a bit of rubble, or… or something…?

Unfortunately, the curse that had destroyed the wall had blown any possible debris outwards, leaving no likely weapons for Harry from that quarter, and the Death Eaters had already cleared away most of the chairs and tables in the Great Hall (The better for them to stand around gazing pathetically at Voldemort, he supposed).

In other words, there was nothing he could use against his opponent at the moment.

Come on… come on… Harry mused to himself desperately, as he narrowly avoided another spell, rolling widely over to the side. There's got to be a way around this… I've always managed to get away from Voldemort… there's got to be some way of stopping him now…

"Crucio!" Voldemort yelled, and Harry suddenly found himself writhing in agony, suddenly sent flying backwards into the wall as the powerful curse struck him. Even amid the pain, he vaguely registered that Voldemort's seemingly random spells had clearly been deliberately manoeuvring him to this point, as he was currently practically trapped in a corner of the Hall with nowhere for him to dodge even if he'd been able to ignore the agony that had just taken hold of his body…

Then, suddenly, the pain ended, and Harry collapsed onto the ground, gasping for air as he stared shakily up at a smirking Voldemort.

"Game over," the Dark Lord stated, smirking grimly as he stared at the young wizard before him. "It would appear, Harry, that I am capable of defeating you without the Mask; even at peak health, you simply cannot summon the resolve- or the power, of course- necessary to defeat me."

"Really…?" Harry retorted weakly, as he stared up at Voldemort with what he hoped was a confident smirk; maybe if the bastard saw that he didn't look afraid, he might start worrying more about what Harry was up to.

As plans went, Harry would be the first to acknowledge that what he was trying to do was a terrible plan- hell, it barely even deserved to be called a 'plan'- but, if it stopped Voldemort from just killing him outright at the moment, it would have to do.

"Y'know…" he continued, as he stared fixedly at Voldemort, his breathing slow and laboured as he tried to fight off the remains of the pain he'd just suffered at Voldemort's hands. "I may not be as powerful as you… I may not have as many followers as you… and I may not even know as much magic as you do… but there's one thing I've got that you could never hope to understand…"

"Which is?" Voldemort retorted, looking casually back at Harry, lowering his wand slightly as he did so; evidently, he felt confident enough to relax slightly, but his wand was still clearly high enough that he could cast an effective spell on Harry before the young wizard could even begin to launch a new attack.

"Friends," Harry stated grimly as he glared at his long-time foe. "You may have an absolute ton of people… waiting to do what you tell them at a moment's notice… but I've got people who'd help me… no matter what crazy plan I've concocted… just because I'm their friend."

Voldemort laughed once, a harsh laugh that made it all too obvious what he thought of Harry's statement.

"And you honestly think that is enough to stop me?" he asked, staring at Harry as though the young wizard had just told him that the sky was green. "Your friends are nowhere to be seen, you are currently totally alone in trying to fight me, and as for your belief that such a thing makes you better than me?"

He snorted scathingly. "Please; you haven't got a single hope of defeating me, and we both know it."

Raising his wand once more, Voldemort stared casually at the weakened Harry, both knowing that Harry could never react fast enough to Voldemort's attack to hit his foe with a spell before Voldemort could cast his own to intercept it.

"Goodbye, Harry Potter," the man formerly known as Tom Riddle stated, a wide grin on his face. "I'd like to say you were a 'worthy adversary' and all that, but the truth is… I just hated you from the moment I learned you were 'destined' to be the only person capable of killing me."

Aiming the wand directly at Harry's head, Voldemort opened his mouth to speak the two words that would end the battle once and for all…

"Cnidocy!" a voice yelled from off to the side, causing Voldemort to suddenly drop his wand and clutch at his side; clearly, whoever had just cast that Stinging Hex had put a significant amount of power behind it.

"Harry!" the same voice yelled, as Harry heard the faint sound of something being picked up off the floor. "Catch!"

GINNY?! Harry thought incredulously, as he spun around to look in the direction that the yell had just come from; he'd been focused on Voldemort earlier and hadn't been paying full attention to who'd just spoken. What the Hell is she-

Then he saw the Mask come hurtling towards him, and he smiled slightly in relief as he raised his hand to catch the wooden artefact as it hurtled towards him.

At least now the odds were a bit more even.

As Voldemort turned to look back at Harry, a shocked expression on his face as he took in the artefact that Harry now held in his hand, the young wizard grinned as he stared at his foe.

"Time to put the boot on the other foot," he said simply.

Even as Voldemort raised his wand to fire a final curse at Harry, the wooden artefact had already been placed on his face, the now-familiar whirl of green energy surrounded the young wizard…

And then, dressed in his usual blue-checked shirt, dark jeans, and long black leather coat, Mark Tiller stood nonchalantly before the Dark Lord, smiling over at Ginny as he gave her a brief thumbs-up.

"Thank you, my dear Miss Weasley!" he said, grinned casually over at the young redhead before his face hardened as he turned to look back at his foe. "Now then, Tom… shall we try this again?"

Before Voldemort could cast a spell, Mark was standing right in front of his foe, grabbed the man who'd ruined his life by the collar, and launched a rapid series of punches at the man's snake-like face. Grinning broadly as the former Riddle stared in shock and confusion at Mark- evidently, he couldn't believe that Mark was still using his fists as opposed to magic in a fight- Mark thrust Voldemort back into a nearby wall before glancing over at Ginny.

"Get out of here, Ginny!" he yelled, waving one hand at the door. "I can handle him, but I can't do anything about it if I've got you to worry about as well!"

For a moment, Ginny looked as though she was about to protest at Mark's apparently 'condescending' attitude towards her, but she stopped herself before she could start, evidently acknowledging that he made a good point.

As the prophecy had stated all those years ago, this battle was just for the two men before her, and she could do nothing more right than here make Harry didn't have to worry about anybody else as he fought his long-time enemy.

"Good luck," she said briefly, before she turned around and ran back towards the main doors, leaving Mark to stare nonchalantly at Voldemort as he slowly got back onto his feet.

"Now then, my friend," he stated grimly, flexing his fingers as though he were a concert pianist preparing to make a grand performance, "let's do this thing, shall we?"

"Oh, come on!" Ron groaned, as he rounded another corner only to see a dead end that clearly did not lead to the way out of the castle; having lost track of Ginny after a staircase moved, he and Hermione had decided to just get out and look for help, but so far they weren't having any luck. "We've been here for six years, and we can't find the way out now?"

"Well, the shifting staircases we've encountered so far may have contributed to that little problem, in case you don't remember it," Hermione growled impatiently, as the young men she was already starting to think of as her 'boyfriend' hurried along through the corridor. "I mean, we are under no small amount of stress, in case you hadn't noticed; you have to take into account that it will result in us making mistakes…"

"No, a mistake is when you get the wrong answer to a question," Ron retorted, glaring in frustration at his old friend. "This is a complete and total screw-up!"

"You do that a lot, don't you?" a voice said from behind them. "I would have thought you'd have learned by now that trying to fight our power is pointless."

Hermione's eyes widened in horror.

She and Ron both knew that voice all too well.

The last time they'd heard it, the man was about to execute an innocent hypogriff just because Lucius Malfoy wanted to make a big deal about the fact that his son was injured in an easily avoidable accident.

"Macnair?" Ron yelled in horror as he spun around to look at the former Ministry executioner, his familiar large axe in his hands as he smirked casually at the two young wizards before him.

"Exactly," Macnair stated, a broad grin on his face as they tried to pull out their wands, only for him to suddenly thrust out with his axe, nearly striking Ron on the arm, before pulling back. "Now then, seeing as how we're all old 'acquaintances', maybe we can all avoid some… unpleasantness… by having you both return to your cell and tell me where your 'friends'-"

"Stupefy!" somebody yelled out behind the Death Eater. Instantly, Macnair collapsed to the ground, leaving his three attackers standing behind him. Two of them, neither Ron or Hermione were surprised to see, were Lupin and Tonks, Tonks being the one who had apparently cast the stunning spell.

It was the presence of the third figure that surprised the two young wizards, having expected him to get out of the school as rapidly as possible after getting them out of their cell.

"Wormtail?" Ron said, looking in confusion between the two former Marauders. "What the hell is he doing here?"

"He showed us a way in that the Death Eaters didn't know about," Remus explained, shrugging slightly as he looked back at his old friend, a still-cold expression on his face as he stared at the man who'd betrayed another friend. "Tonks and I volunteered to keep an eye on him until we got out of this place, while the others went to see what they could do about rounding up the Death Eaters. Hagrid and Shacklebolt are making sure that nobody gets out of the school before our reinforcements arrive while Moody and Arthur are helping us round up anybody still inside; we've agreed to rendezvous with each other in the main hall in about half an hour."

"That… seems like a sensible enough strategy," Hermione said, nodding in approval even as she continued to look somewhat suspiciously at Wormtail- not that she was alone; everybody was looking suspiciously at the man who'd spent twelve years known as 'Scabbers'- before turning her attention to Macnair's unconscious body. "What do we do with him?"

"Just leave him," Tonks said, shrugging dismissively. "That was a pretty powerful stunner I hit him with; if the back-up we requested comes in time, he'll still be out of it by the time they show up."

"And what if he's discovered?" Ron pointed out, looking almost critically at Tonks. "Wouldn't it make more sense to tie him up to make sure?"

"No point, really," the metamorphagus explained, shaking her head as she looked at the body before her, apparently not even registering the slightly disappointed expression on Ron's face that his idea wouldn't work. "If he's discovered, it'd be relatively easy to wake him up with a simple 'Ennervate', just like they could cancel out anything I used to tie him up; taking him with us would slow us down too much, so we should just leave him here and get moving."

"As good a plan as any," Lupin said, nodding in approval at the younger woman and metamorphagus before looking back at Ron and Hermione, a suddenly puzzled expression on his face as something seemed to occur to him. "Wasn't Ginny with you?"

"Ah," Ron swallowed, as he and Hermione looked awkwardly at each other. "Well, we were together… but… she… kinda… ran off?"

"What?" Tonks said, looking in shock at the youngest male Weasley. "What do you mean, she 'ran off'?"

As Ron glanced up at the ceiling above him, Hermione was left with the distinct impression that, right now, Ron was beseeching whatever gods might be taking an interest in the use of the Mask in this fight to give him a lucky break soon even as he knew he wouldn't get anywhere.

As Ginny tore out of the Great Hall, she barely had time to process how the situation might be developing behind her. She vaguely heard Mark saying something to Voldemort as she departed, before she grabbed the doors and began to pull them closed, but that was the extent of her knowledge. Even as she looked into the hall in those brief moments before the doors closed, all she could see was Mark facing Voldemort as the other man got to his feet, clearly prepared to fight each other to the end for this battle.

This is it… Ginny mused to herself, as she pulled the doors closed before her, grateful beyond words that the things were charmed so that they could respond to even the slightest bit of contact intended to open or close them. The final showdown… where their wizarding lives first began… and where the lives of at least one of them will end…

It seemed somehow… appropriate, really.

Then, much to her shock, Ginny felt something collide with her right side, just as she was stepping back from the doors, and sending her tumbling to the ground in a heap, a new arrival pinning her to the floor.

"So, Miss Weasley," a familiar, persistently sarcastic voice said into her right ear, "how does it feel to know that you're going to lose this one?"

Ginny blinked incredulously.

Of all the voices she'd expected to hear from her attacker, this guy had not been one of them.

"Malfoy?" she asked, turning her head to stare incredulously at the young man who was now trying to hold her down, unable to stop a brief smile crossing her face. "You actually think that you can make a difference at this point in the fight?"

"All it takes is one right-minded individual to make an impact on the struggle, Miss Weasley!" Malfoy retorted, glaring at her with a wide smirk as he raised one hand to finger the buttons on Ginny's blouse, a grin on his face that was presumably meant to be seductive but only made him look like a shark wishing you were in his stomach already. "And right now, my dear Miss Weasley, that 'right-minded individual'… is me."

Ginny couldn't help herself; she literally snorted in amusement at that statement.

"I'm sorry; you honestly think that you can make any kind of impact on this fight?" she asked, staring scathingly at the young man who was currently straddling her; even her slight fear of what he was going to do with those buttons in his hands couldn't take away her incredulity at his earlier statement. "You're a completely pointless piece of crap, you haven't done anything of any significance in this whole stupid war since it began- Hell, you had a perfect chance to stop Dumbledore and you totally failed to take it- and now you think that you can actually do anything useful in this fight?"

Before Malfoy could even begin to reply, Ginny had taken advantage of his position directly above her to move one leg and ram it upwards between Malfoy's legs, grinning broadly as he screamed in pain before rolling off to the side, allowing Ginny to get back to her feet.

It wasn't a perfect opportunity for her to show what she could do in a fight, but at least she wouldn't be doing nothing to help Harry in the final battle.

"You want to make some kind of impact in this whole mess?" Ginny asked, glaring scornfully at Malfoy as he slowly staggered to his feet, gingerly clutching at the clearly still-painful area between his legs. "Try and get past me to help your 'boss'… if you can."