Slowly, Harry turned around to face his worst nightmare, standing mere feet away, but it wasn't a Dementor – it was three.

They stood in a triangle, one leading and the other two close behind to either side. Their hoods covered the gaping hole Harry's imagination could still see, and the rotting hand of the leader was reaching out to him.

For a moment he stood perfectly still in shock, his wand forgotten in his hand. Somehow three Dementors had snuck up on him!

That thought seemed to release him and he brought his wand up quickly, but then hesitated. Why wasn't he feeling the mind bending effects of the vile creatures? By now his mother's voice would normally have been echoing in his memory as he passed into unconsciousness, but instead he had just been imagining what the world would be like if his worst fears came to pass.

The answer came in a flash of intuition – his memories. They were unable to get to his memories anymore. Slughorn's training had made him almost immune to the Dementors!

"Go away," he told the horrid beast in the lead, with bravado that was only half false. "Run back to Azkaban and hide from me," he said. "I am not scared of you or your kind anymore – you have no power over me."

The Dementor hissed and rose up to its impressive height, towering above Harry. It was at least as big as Hagrid, and infinitely more terrible to behold.

"Don't make me hurt you," Harry warned it, feeling quite silly at his choice of words.

He could cast a Patronus and chase them off, but the chances were that would reveal his presence and attract unwanted attention, since his stag was very noticeable and distinctive.

The lead Dementor swelled even more, and his two companions rose up as well. Harry raised his wand, ready to toss aside the cloak and attack if he had to.

The beast let out a roar of anger, then lifted from the ground in a smooth motion and flew off into the night. Its followers screeched and immediately leapt into the air to join it, leaving Harry so abruptly that he almost collapsed at the sudden withdrawal of the cold and the negative feelings that had been dominating his thoughts mere moments ago.

"That was close," he said, breathing a huge sigh of relief.

It took a few minutes to overcome the weakness before being able to head off after Draco and Ron. He guessed they were a few strays, ones not waiting with the main force Goyle believed was waiting to attack. If there were dozens of them and he ran into them, he knew he was not going to be able to bluff his way out.

Stumbling along as his strength came back, he rounded the last corner before Honeyduke's, and caught the tail end of a loud conversation between several Death Eaters.

"-And I am telling you, Snape, he tried to do me in!" yelled one of the cloaked figures at another.

Harry's heart started racing, the Dementor induced weakness swept away in an adrenaline rush.

Snape was there, standing not ten metres in front of him, getting yelled at. A dozen other Death Eaters stood to the side of the arguing pair, all with their wands out, looking alert. Another lay on the ground, unconscious, or dead. Harry recognised Draco standing impassively slightly behind Snape, somehow looking bored by the whole thing.

Snape spoke, but Harry was too far away to hear him clearly.

"Stun him? Are you serious? I don't care if he was one of your students once upon a time in your previous cushy life – he tried to hit me with a spell. I don't take lightly to somebody drawing a wand on me, former student of yours or not!" yelled the first Death Eater.

Snape pushed the man aside and bent to the figure on the ground. Harry carefully moved closer, determined to hear what was said.

"He is dead," said the former potions professor, pushing back his hood and mask to reveal the shallow complexion and anger twisted face Harry knew so well.

"Of course he is dead," yelled back the man, pushing his own mask and hood up. "That's what happens when you point a wand at me, you die."

Snape stood up, apparently enraged, and Amycus took a step backwards in surprise at the sudden movement.

"Did it ever cross your feeble mind to wonder why he was pointing a wand at you?" Snape growled at the man, who stood frozen in place by Snape's wrath. "No? Well perhaps next time it might occur to you to think before you kill one of your comrades. That way we may have a chance to find out what was really happening. I came here because of a report of a disturbance on this side of the town, but what do I find when I leave the Dark Lord's side to investigate? You – murdering the children you are supposed to be in charge of!"

"Children?" spat Amycus, getting some of his composure back. "They're not children once they take the mark. You know that."

Snape looked angry enough to strike the man, but then, suddenly, the calm face he usually wore dropped into place and he stood back.

"I am sure the Dark Lord will be most interested in your explanation, but unless anybody else here knows why one of your subordinates supposedly decided to attack you, we may never find the truth."

Snape turned to look at the surrounding cloaked figures. "Well? Do any of you have an idea - a reason perhaps?"

"I know why," said Draco.

Harry swore. Draco would of course obey Snape and answer his questions.

Snape whirled to face Draco. "What?"

"I know why Nott attacked Amycus," he repeated.

Snape waited for a second for Draco to continue, but the blonde boy just stood there looking at him.

"Well Draco?" he snapped out impatiently. "Don't keep us waiting here all night in suspense. Tell us. Why did Nott choose to throw away his life and attack a far superior opponent?"

"Because I ordered him to, after putting him under the Imperius Curse," answered Draco, sounding like he was expecting to get house points for answering a question correctly.

The answer appeared to stun the Snape and the other Death Eater, but Harry swore again under his breath and started moving back away from the group. If his name came out, the chances were that the place would soon be flooded with people looking for him. They needed a new plan, and quickly.

"What?" asked Snape. "Why would you do that, Draco?"

"Because I was ordered to," answered Draco happily.

"Ordered to? By who?" screeched Amycus. "Was it Bellatrix? Did that bitch of an aunt of yours tell you to assassinate me?"

Draco ignored him.

"Well, Draco?" asked Snape. "Who ordered you to leave Crabbe and Goyle and return to the town?"

"Harry Potter."

"Potter!" yelled Snape and Amycus at the same time. "Where is he?" added Snape.

"He is around here under an invisibility cloak somewhere," answered Draco, sounding positively gleeful.

He had almost reached the corner when Draco made his announcement.

"Accio Potter' s cloak!" shouted Snape.

Harry's cloak tore from him, tangling with his legs and tripping him over in its haste to fly to Snape. Harry rolled to his hands and knees and thrust his wand towards where he had last seen Snape.

"Reducto," he cast, aiming blindly.

Amycus's wand arm exploded in a shower of gore as Harry lucky wild shot slammed into the unprepared man, and he fell to the ground screaming.

Snape dropped Harry's cloak and threw a spell at him at the same time. Harry leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding whatever Snape had cast as it smashed into the corner of the building tearing off chucks of wood, but now he was in full view of the other Death Eaters.

Pandemonium reigned as more than half of the group turned on each other at the sight of Harry.

Snape, caught by surprise by the sudden attack from behind, dodged to the side and cast several successive shields to block the barrage of spells flying his way. Spells flew at high speed from the senior Death Eater's wand as he fought back against his unexpected attackers. Draco was tossed aside like a rag doll by a blue light that Snape swept across the line of masked men, cutting them down.

Harry took advantage of the distraction to cast a bludgeoning curse at the man, clipping him in the shoulder and sending him tumbling to the front of the post office steps.

The other Death Eaters fell silent as the last of them succumbed to a stunner that Harry was sure had come from out of the night sky. He didn't have time to think about it, as another spell cast by Snape flew towards him and he hastily erected a shield.

The impact of the spell tossed him over backwards. He landed painfully on his back on the road, but he managed to roll aside just as several red beams impacted on the ground where he had landed, tossing rocks and dirt into the air.

Harry kept rolling, firing off curse after curse in Snape's direction as he sought to get the building between them.

A lucky shot caught him in the leg and he was suddenly wrenched viciously upwards by the limb to hang upside down, just as he had seen Snape do in the Pensieve memory so long ago.

Remembering his lesson with Ron, Harry kept a firm grip on his wand and cast a wind spell to throw as much dirt as he could at the murderer of Dumbledore.

Snape was caught unprepared by the counter attack and ducked back down behind the steps, only managing to throw a wild shot at Harry as the whirlwind driven sand and dirt tore at his eyes and face.

In the spit second break while Snape overcame the whirlwind, Harry cancelled the Levicorpus spell and fell heavily to the ground, just as another spell sliced through the air where he had been hanging moments before.

Although the breath had been knocked out of his lungs, Harry silently transfigured a solid stone wall out of a rock on the ground directly in front of his face. It came up just in time and several spells slammed into the new barrier, cracking it and showering him with a rain of broken granite, but not breaking though.

Scrambling to his feet, Harry conjured a metal shield to reinforce the wall and leant around to shoot an array of spells in quick succession.

Snape had erected his own barrier and was leaning out casting at Harry. He deflected Harry's bludgeoning spell into the post office, where it continued through the wall to rip a hole in the roof, but was nearly caught by the hose-like spray of fire Harry bathed the area with, only just managing to duck behind his wall as the fire ignited the building next to him as if it had been doused in alcohol. His hastily aimed return shot was close enough to force Harry to duck back behind his own wall.

There was a pause as both combatants regained their breath.

"Give in, Potter," called Snape, typically taking the time to once again taunt Harry. "Your foolish bravado and extraordinary luck won't save you here. Run away and come back when you have enough talent to duel a real man."

"Hey, Snivelleus?" yelled Harry, staying behind his shield. "Remember the advice you gave me last time we met? Not the one about keeping my mind and mouth shut - the other one. Well I took it."

Harry leapt from his hiding place and ran into the middle of the street where he hoped he could get a clear shot at Snape.

"Now, Ron!" he shouted, as he ran away from his barrier and out into the open.

Snape stepped out from behind his barrier and raised his wand to curse Harry.

Ron's spell, fired from the roof of the building behind Harry, caught the unprepared Potion's master in the side, lifting him off the ground as Harry cast the strongest bludgeoning spell he could. It caught the defenceless man mid-air and smashed him backwards into the front of the post office.

The force of the impact drove Snape's body through the weakened wooden wall and deep into the fiercely blazing building.

With a shudder, the roof gave way and fell in with a titanic roar. Dust and debris flew in every direction, driving Harry backwards as flames leapt high into the sky.

Harry turned at a noise next to him, and looked directly into the wand of a furious, maskless Draco Malfoy.

"I should kill you," the obviously no longer controlled man said. "But I-"

He never finished the sentence as both Harry and Ron hit him with bludgeoning curses.

Blood sprayed from Draco's face as he flew backwards and landed on top of the pile of Death Eaters that had been formed when they had turned on each other at close quarters.

"Stupid git," said Harry, spiting out a mouthful of blood as he picked up his invisibility cloak.

A visible Ron joined him a few second later. "What advice did Snape give you?" the red-haired man asked.

"He told me my father never faced him unless it was four to one," explained Harry.

Ron looked at his bleeding friend curiously.

"Mate, you realise there is only two of us, and you didn't even know where I was, let alone if I was going to do anything when you pulled that stunt."

"I knew you were on the roof, and I figured you were waiting for a clear shot," Harry said. "But I reckon the one of you is worth three Snapes any day, mate."

Ron smiled. "Well that's all right then," he said. Then he kicked the bleeding form of Draco Malfoy. "Stupid git."

"That's what I said," agreed Harry.

In the distance, a loud roar signalled another building collapsing, sending bright plumes of sparks into the night air.

"Any more insane plans?" asked Ron laughingly, after they had petrified the captured Death Eaters and stashed them behind some bins next to Honeydukes.

Ron was pulling his cloak around his shoulders, leaving just his head exposed. "Or are we going to try something different this time and just wing it? You know, make it up as we go along, just for a change of pace?"

He was smiling as he spoke, but Harry could feel the nervousness - he felt it too.

Harry closed his eyes and felt for the blackness of Apparition. He quickly found it blocked by wards, just as he had suspected would be the case.

"I don't suppose you ever got around to having Bill teach you how to break wards?" he asked Ron.

"Nope. You?"

"Nope. Scratch plan A then. Maybe we could make a distraction, something to confuse the Death Eaters and make them think somebody is attacking them from behind," he said.

"We are attacking them from behind," pointed out Ron's disembodied head.

"Yeah, but we need to make them think it is a lot more than just two of us," said Harry, walking slowly towards the fight they could still hear going on in the distance. A dull pain began to ache his scar, and his bruised body was beginning to protest at the abuse it had taken. "That way Voldemort will spring the trap and call in his reinforcements too early."

"Can we go get Grawp?" asked Ron. "He could be very handy in a fight."

Harry thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. "I am not sure he would be much help, and might even be a problem, especially if Voldemort has his own giants."

"Well Centaurs are not going to be interested in helping out, and don't even think about going to those bloody big spiders," said Ron. "Not that we have the time anyway."

They were nearing the corner leading to the Hog's Head Tavern, where the fighting sounded like it was concentrated. Most of the buildings around them were already burning.

Suddenly the night air was rent by the sound of dozens and dozens of apparition cracks around them.

Harry instinctively threw himself to the ground and saw Ron doing the same thing as several voices called out into the night.

"Stand down or be stunned!"

Harry's felt a crushing weight in his chest as he looked up and realised what had happened – the Aurors had arrived, and he was right in the middle of them.

"It's a trap," screamed Harry, struggling to stand up. "Get away! It's a trap!"

A green flash of light took the life of the red robed Auror standing directly in front of him.

Shouts and yelling filled the air as more apparition cracks signalled the arrival of Voldemort's main force of Death Eaters, who immediately started shooting spells into the disorientated Aurors.

Harry felt himself grabbed roughly by the neck of his clothes and was virtually tossed into the store they had been standing in front of.

Twisting as he landed painfully after bursting through the remains of the broken door, Harry saw Ron was the one who had pushed him, and had followed him in, leaping through doorway to land on the floor as spells impacted on the wall behind him.

Outside on the street, pandemonium reigned as the Aurors were cut down from all sides.

"Out the back," yelled Ron climbing to his feet. "Move!"

Harry was torn. The Aurors were fighting back, but they were surrounded and badly outnumbered. He used a pile of boxes to help him get to his feet, ready to go back out the front and join the fray.

The store was filled with smoke and one wall was alight, sending the temperature soaring. If they didn't get out quickly, they would be incinerated.

"It's too late, Harry," coughed Ron, grabbing his arm. "We have to get away."

Indecision wrenched his heart. To leave the Aurors fighting a battle they couldn't win, to abandon people in need of all the help they could get, went completely against his instincts – but he knew Ron was right. He would not make much of a difference, not in this battle.

That was when he noticed the writing on the box he was leaning on. In bright glittering letters that shone magically in the glow of the fire consuming the shop was a name Harry knew well.

Dr Filibuster's Fabulous No-Heat, Wet-Start Fireworks

"Ron," he said. "Grab these."

Ron gave him a confused look.

"We can use them as a distraction," explained Harry, grabbing the largest box he could lift.

Understanding lit Ron's face, but instead of picking up a box, he raised his wand and shrunk down the whole stack. Harry nodded and copied him before stumbling through the burning, smoke filled building to the back of the store, hoping there would be a door.

There wasn't, so they made one.

"Reducto!" they said at the same time, pointing at a section of wall.

The subsequent explosion as the spell removed a large portion of the back wall of the shop stunned both of them, but was deadly to the Death Eaters that had been taking cover behind the store.

The roof gave a teeth jarring screech and began to collapse.

"Go!" yelled Ron, pulling his invisibility cloak back over his head even as he started running.

Wasting no time, Harry did the same and headed out of the store at high speed, just as the roof let out an ear shattering roar and fell inwards, missing him by mere inches. The shockwave of the demolition actually propelled him along faster, giving momentum to his flight.

They jumped over the prone bodies that lay broken and bleeding from the shards of the blasted wall and headed out into the night.

Around him Harry could see groups of black robed figures spread out to either side, firing spells into the centre of the town. Several had turned at the collapse of the building, but luckily did not see his furiously pumping legs as the cloak blew up around him.

Once he was sure he had gotten passed the back lines of the Death Eaters, Harry stopped to get his breath.

"Ron," he called in a low voice, standing next to a large tree.

Nobody answered so he tried again, slightly louder. "Ron!"

"Shush!" answered Ron from not far away. "Blimey, Harry, do you want every Death Eater around to know where we are?"

Harry dropped his cloak and enlarged one of the boxes he had managed to grab.

"What do we do now?" asked Ron, copying Harry's example.

"Levitate them to behind the bad guys and then set them off," said Harry.

Ron shook his head. "You have to touch them with a wand to light them."

"Then light them and hit them with a weak Freezing charm, that should hold them long enough to get into position," suggested Harry opening up the first box.

"Will that work?" asked Ron dubiously.

Harry shrugged. "Slughorn used the freezing charm to stop Muggle alarms from going off. But there is only one way to know for sure."

Harry tapped a small rocket he had just taken out of the box with his wand, waiting for the fuse to ignite, and then immediately froze it.

The fuse stopped, as if caught in time.

Nodding with satisfaction, he levitated it towards a group of Death Eaters hiding behind a conjured barricade they had erected. They were firing spells towards the centre of the town, probably picking off Aurors one at a time.

Just before it reached the spot he was aiming for it went off, soaring into the air harmlessly to explode into a spectacular rosette. The Death Eaters he had been aiming for barely noticed, amongst the noise and light of the battle.

"Nice," said Ron watching the lightshow. "Must be their new range."

Grabbing an armload of rockets Harry tried again, this time putting a bit more force behind the freezing charm.

As the explosions tore into the massed Death Eaters, he heard Ron whoop quietly and turned to see he managed to set fire to the ones he had been aiming at, immediately removing them from the fight as they struggled to put themselves out. Alarmed shouts sounded around them as the Death Eaters realised something was going wrong.

"Right," he said picking up a handful of rockets and his cloak. "You go that way and I'll go this way and I'll meet you around the back of the Hog's head."

Ron nodded and picked up his own cloak. "Try and make a hole for the Aurors to get out through," he suggested. "If they can break through the Death Eater lines they could circle around and help the others, or they might be able to get away."

Harry agreed and moved as quickly as he could along the attacking line of Death Eaters, sending the occasional rocket into them as he passed. Not many of his attacks hit anybody directly, but the chaos and confusion they caused was satisfying enough, forcing the attackers to at least slow down their barrage of spells to take cover from the unexpected retaliation.

Several of his targets, realising somebody was attacking them from behind, regrouped and started firing blindly into the darkness, making Harry take cover. In the distance he could see the occasional display as one of Ron's rockets misfired or missed its target and shot off into the air.

Harry changed his tactics slightly and put stronger freezing charms on his rockets before placing them. He backtracked to where he had hit them from previously and struck again at the exact moment the other rockets went off, making a wall of light that was too bright to look at.

Blinking away the spots, Harry saw a group of red robed Aurous standing in front of the downed Death Eaters, obviously having taken advantage of the situation to take out their attackers.

"Run!" he whispered to himself, urging them on. "Get away."

Incredibly, the group looked around blankly, as if they didn't know what to do.

"Run!" he yelled to them, "Get away."

Two of the red robed figures raised their wands and looked around as if searching for the source of the voice, but the rest were just standing around.

Harry dropped the cloak and screamed at them.

"Run!" he shouted, waving his arms. "Move!"

Just as they turned to look at him, a volley of green light cut them down.

"No!" he screamed in frustration, as the last one fell to the ground lifelessly.

Too late, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of red light racing towards him. He threw himself to the ground in a desperate attempt to avoid the inevitable, but the light caught him in the middle of the back, and then everything went black.