A/N: Long time no write, but I've been busy busy busy. School's kicking my hiney, and then some. Sorry if there's grammar errors, etc, but no time to edit what with two exams, a paper, a party, a fieldtrip, and two quizzes this week. Give me a break, I'm just glad I can still read and write somewhat clearly.

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Chapter 39: The Plan and the Purpose

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He didn't waste a moment more of his time. Suddenly, everything that he needed to do and complete within the next twenty-four hours was crystal clear, and he gathered everything he needed with a calm efficiency that would have shocked even Hermione.

His friends were not in the dorm rooms, he noted only in passing, but he didn't look for them. He had to figure this out for himself.

And he had to do it now.

He settled down in the library, deep in the restricted section, and laid out everything he'd gathered up to that point.

The castle was in France.

It was hidden.

He could find it if he knew where to look.

It was on the water.

Voldemort knew where it was.

That was what worried him the most—Voldemort knew where the castle was, although Harry hoped he was still not sure how to go about entering the place. He figured that gave him a day, or less, to figure out how he was going to stop all this from happening.

He read through the pages of notes he had made, rifling through them quickly and with mounting frustration as he realized that he'd learned all he could from them, that Luna and Ron and Hermione and everyone else who knew hadn't been able to figure out anything more.

The fact that he had nothing left to go on was seriously limiting his options, and he was beginning to realize that his only option might end up being to go to Voldemort, alone, and face him tonight—before it was too late.

Again, he went through the notes, wracking his mind for anything he'd missed in his dreams, anything that would give him a clue as to where he should look or what he should do.

But nothing came to him, and he sprung from his chair, leaving the useless notes and drawings behind as he fled the library, determined to find someone who could help him.

Of course, only one person came to mind.

And said individual was currently little more than a vegetable in an infirmary bed.

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He approached the slumbering man slowly, cautiously, and wondered if Snape would even awaken.

The slight squeak of his shoe as he stepped forward answered that question, though, as the dark haired man practically leapt from bed, wand in hand and eyes wild. A blast of red light that probably should have knocked Harry of his feet only disappeared as his wandless magic made a random appearance, and he stopped moving, hands raised.

"Professor!" Harry exclaimed, alarmed. "It's me, Potter," he tried to explain. The potions master narrowed his eyes, looking ill and unsteady.

"You can't fool me, Voldemort," the man hissed. "You think to get the information from me…you think I'd tell Potter what I know? Ha!"

"What do you know?" Harry demanded, realizing that perhaps Snape had been holding back on him.

Not surprising, he realized.

"You're a fool to think I'd tell you," Snape snarled. "Reducto!"

"Protego!" Harry said, snatching his wand from his pocket. The spell was obliterated easily, and he sighed, frustrated.

"Snape, I need to know where the castle is!" he said, angry. "I'm sorry about what happened, and I know you're not better, but I HAVE TO KNOW!"

Snape was silent for several long moments, eyes thoughtful and cold. "I refused to tell you what I learned, Potter," he finally said, sinking back onto an empty bed behind him. "I knew what it meant, and I wouldn't tell you or Dumbledore or anyone."

"What do you know?" Harry demanded again.

"I can't…you won't win…a stupid boy…" Snape muttered.

"TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!"

"All you have to do…just apparate…just remember…" Snape said, after Harry's words had ceased to echo around the empty infirmary.

Harry didn't respond. Could it be that simple?

He'd been told that apparating to a location you'd never seen before wouldn't work—that you couldn't know enough detail to actually have a correct and real location in mind. But maybe Snape was right.

"How?" he asked, voice even.

"They aren't dreams…memories…"

Harry was out of the room before Snape had even finished speaking.

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He would have attempted it immediately, consequences be damned, if Hermione and Ron hadn't caught him trying to slip out the castle's front doors.

In point of fact, it was McGonagall who attempted to stop him first, eyes firm and arms folded. "You can't go out, Mr. Potter," she stated sternly. Harry glared.

"Why not?"

"First of all, I know you will do something rash and unthinking, hoping that it will end this all, and second…second…Voldemort has moved against Hogsmeade."

"What?!" Harry said, surprised that he hadn't felt anything from his scar.

McGonagall looked more exhausted and worn than he'd ever seen. "Word just reached us…over fifty Death Eaters have attacked…no word on casualties yet."

"Are the aurors there?" Harry demanded.

"They have just begun to arrive…" she told him.

"Are you sure Voldemort's with them?" he asked suddenly, a suspicion forming.

"It was assumed, with an attack of his magnitude…" she said, distracted as she looked past him.

"Harry!"

Hermione's half-scolding tone made him turn. "Where have you been?" Ron demanded.

"Uh…busy?" he said, irritated. "I'm running out of time, and Professor McGonagall won't let me out—"

"Why do you need out?" Hermione demanded. McGonagall just watched silently, still firmly planted against the closed door.

Harry hesitated again, unsure if he should be involving his friends in this.

But they clearly knew something was up, and he knew he couldn't lie to them convincingly enough to be let alone.

And so he told them, and the rest of the remaining D.A., what he'd learned.

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"Voldemort's found a way to get into the Fortress," he said to them heavily. Hermione and Ron both looked shocked. Of course, they were the only two that knew the entire implication of that simple statement.

"What?" Ginny said. Harry glanced at her, then at Luna. He felt bad for not being honest with her about it, but he'd liked being able to put it aside while he was with her.

"The Fortress," he explained. "Er…it's a long story, sort of, but…well, it's pretty much this really big, really old castle that's been closed up and hidden for hundreds of years. Since the four founders of Hogwarts built it, then abandoned it."

"And why is it important?" Ginny asked. Luna was watching him with eyes that he now saw as alert, not vacant.

"Because it's almost impenetrable. It's only supposed to be accessible to heirs of the four founders, and because I'm a descendant of Salazar and Godric, it's been… 'showing' …itself to me for some time," Harry explained. "The Fortress is only supposed to show itself when the last remaining descendant of the founders remains, but it's been fooled by thinking that Tom is dead."

"But…?" Luna said softly.

"But Tom's only kind of dead. Plus, he was resurrected with my blood, so he's heavily linked to me. He sees the castle, too, and he knew the significance of the visions long before I did," Harry explained. Luna reached out to touch his hand lightly, a gesture of comfort that he greatly appreciated, and then smiled at him.

"What is to be done?" she asked. Harry thought quickly.

"The attack's a diversion," he said. "It's meant specifically to get the Aurors and the Order out of the way. This time, there's no one around to save us if we get in trouble." He didn't have to say it, but they all remembered the year before. Without the Order, they would have all died.

"We can't wait for them to return, and we can't let them split to help us," Hermione said softly.

"No one should have to go anywhere," Harry said. "I'm the only one that can stop him from getting into the Fortress."

"No way you're going anywhere alone," Ron spoke up stubbornly.

Harry knew better than to fight it. Their best chance lay in making a good plan and sticking to it.

"We need to make our own diversion," Harry said. "There's going to be death eaters all over at the fortress's base. We'll have to distract them so I can try to get into the Fortress before Tom."

"Who says he isn't already in it?" Ginny challenged. Harry gave her a bleak expression.

"Because if he was, he wouldn't be attacking anywhere. He would have already won," he said. Ginny paled.

"W-where do we start?" she asked, face set. Harry nodded, then took out a blank parchment and fresh quill and began to draw.

"Snape told me what—"

"Snape!" someone hissed.

"Yes, Professor Snape told me how to get to the castle, and it's going to be kind of tricky, since I have to apparate there."

"Then how do we--?" Ron asked, dubious. Harry sighed.

"I'll have to side-along each of you," Harry decided. "You can back out now," he added quickly. "There's no reason for you to trust me or to even think I can do it, but I know I can do it."

"You can, Harry," Hermione said quietly. "You've always been good at apparating."

Harry smiled weakly in her direction. "Once we're all there, we'll have to start a fight, since we need to draw them away from the castle."

"How many did McGonagall say were in Hogsmeade?"

"Fifty, or more," Harry said. "That leaves only fifteen or twenty unaccounted for. The inner circle."

"That means all the worst ones," Ron muttered.

"After you guys distract them, I'll make my way to the castle. Once you seem me by the entrance, I want you all to get out. Voldemort will be after me—you can't help that—but those Death Eaters will be out to kill all of you."

"We're not leaving you," Ron said stubbornly.

"You can't help me once I'm in the castle, since only Voldemort and I can get in it, and killing a couple of Death Eaters at the expense of one or more of you isn't worth it!" Harry snapped, frustrated.

"I understand, Harry," Hermione said quietly.

"We won't leave if we think we can help you, Harry," Ginny pointed out honestly.

"We're in this to the end," Neville nodded with agreement. "We're not little kids anymore."

Harry looked around, and realized Neville was right…they hadn't been kids in a long time…and it was saddening to realize that they'd all lost their youth to this war.

"All right, let's go through this in more detail," he said, and they fell back to the task at hand.

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"Ready?" Harry asked quietly.

He could only see Hermione, the others strung out behind her as they made their way towards Hogwart's front doors—the quickest way out of the castle.

His friend nodded, eyes wide but fearless, and he started forward.

Only to see that the front doors were no longer guarded. That made things much easier, he decided, as they crept to the doors, unlocked them, and slipped out into the night. Hermione turned as they left, shutting the doors and waiting to be sure that they automatically re-locked themselves.

"Look," Neville whispered. Harry turned, and all six stood in silence as they turned towards the dull orange glow of the skies above whatever was left of Hogsmeade. "They've burned it…"

"We can't help," Harry said decisively. Hogsmeade was a small price to pay if it kept fifty Death Eaters away while they stopped Voldemort. The aurors were there, and they would do what they could, and he just hoped that the fighting didn't reach Hogwarts.

Because, apparently, there was no one left to defend the old castle.

"We'd better get moving," Ron muttered, edging towards the front gates. Harry turned as well, and the six ran across the lawns, wands held tight but unlit. Harry half-expected to be stopped by someone—anyone—but they opened the main gates and walked out unhindered.

"So this is where you're going to have to trust me," Harry said seriously, as they stood in the shadows. "I wouldn't do it if I didn't think it would work," he promised.

"I wouldn't let you do it if I thought you'd mess up," Ron muttered. Ginny poked him.

"Harry won't mess up," she scolded him. "Right?"

"He's been there before—there's no reason to worry," Luna put in.

Hermione nodded, wand clutched tightly in her hand. "Don't splinch us, Harry," she asked.

"So who wants to be first?" Harry asked. Hermione sighed. "Why not?" she asked, then grabbed his arm tightly.

Ron opened his mouth, hesitated, and then said, "If you splinch her, you'd better fix her too," he warned. Harry laughed humorlessly, already concentrating on the apparation.

"Great encouragement," he said back, then shut his eyes, focusing with clear determination on the most recent image of the castle that had appeared in his mind. Dark trees whipping in the wind, huge stone walls looming behind him…

He flicked his wand as he'd been taught, and felt the familiar sensation of his body moving hundreds of miles away.

"Harry!"

Hermione was looking around in shock and awe, and Harry let her go, stumbling back a step. She turned to him, and he steadied himself quickly. "You did it!" she said, and he felt a slight twinge of resentment in the fact that she sounded so surprised.

"I said I could!" he said defensively. She rolled her eyes, and then flinched in surprise as lightening suddenly split the sky. When it faded, she'd turned to face out across the open fields to their left.

"It's huge…Harry…" she whispered, staring up at the imposing stone walls of the fortress. "If Voldemort gets in there…"

"He won't," Harry said firmly. "He can't."

"I can see people moving around," she commented.

"I know," Harry agreed, having seen the dark shadows slipping through the meadows. "Stay hidden," he ordered, and then focused again on Hogwart's gates.

He appeared with only a slight pop, and the other four looked relieved to see him. "You took an awful long time," Ron commented. "Hermione's all right, isn't she?"

"Fine," Harry said. "We just stayed a moment to see what was going on. The Death Eaters are already there."

"Then we'd best get moving," Ron said, stepping forward. Harry readied himself, and focused again.

Ginny was next, then Luna and then Neville.

By the time he and Neville appeared, whole and unhurt, beside the others, though, Harry could feel the exhaustion sapping at him. He didn't know how often one was supposed to do side-along apparations, but he didn't think it was five times in a row.

Refusing to admit he was tired, though, he turned to his friends as they huddled together in the forest at the edge of the clearing, getting ready to make their move.

Harry scanned the meadow, searching hard every time lightening lit the sky, and spotted over half a dozen dark shapes moving between them and the enormous stone fortress behind them.

"You'll have to pick them off one a time…or else they'll surround you," he told them. Ron nodded, and Harry could see his strategy-trained mind going to work, determining where to start and how to best use the others to their advantage.

"What about you?" Ginny demanded.

"I'm going to work around the back, stay low, and try to get to the castle first," Harry said, voice flat and sure.

"But—" Hermione started, then stopped. "You're right," she agreed. "Just…just be careful, all right?" she asked. Harry smiled, though he knew she couldn't see it in the dark.

"I'll do my best," he promised. "As long as you guys don't get yourselves killed, all right?"

They all nodded, and Harry put up with the quick hugs of the girls, and Ron and Neville's handshakes. "Good luck," he said seriously, then slipped off into the darkness, eyes now trained solely on the dark shapes between him and goal.

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A/N: We got like three chapters left here, and then its all over! This thing is so out of date now its sad, but I hate to leave it unfinished. So hang in there, and hopefully I'll be done before the year 2006 ends.

Thanks for all the wonderful support!

Miss Laine