A/N: And trust me, if ever a chapter needed an author's note, it's this one.

But all I'm going to say about this chapter is one thing. Echoing Voldemort's words, 'Hear me out.'

Then, based on everything else you know about the story so far, draw your own conclusions.

Also, I apologize for not realizing just how long this chapter ran. In order to post it correctly, I had to slice it up into four separate sections. So the chapter 'Point Of View' actually has four parts.

And as always,

Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Go back and read the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before this one.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: POINT OF VIEW

(PART TWO)

Harry stood looking about the corridor for several moments while Voldemort walked back over to the doorway leading to the stairs. Leaning through it, he looked about, calling to the others several times.

"Roland, what's going on?" Harry ask, holding the little snake still in the palm of his hand.

Roland looked slightly taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"What's happened to the others?"

"How should I know?"

For once Harry thought the little snake looked either as lost for a answer as he was or a little ill at ease. "Calm down, Roland." Harry said with a slight smile. "It isn't like I think you made them disappear. But you seem to know an awful lot about this castle, and especially about the wards here. If you've used the stairs before, did you ever encounter the ward at the top of them before?"

"The wards can be moved, Harry." Roland offered quickly. "And I wasn't looking for one. Also, we have no proof that what happened to the others has anything to do with a ward."

Voldemort joined them again. "Meaning?" He ask, staring down at the little snake.

Roland all but cringed under the man's stare this time. "All I meant was that there are lots of ways for people to disappear. And you can't be too sure of anything in this place."

"And I think we've heard all we need to from you for a while." Voldemort stated.

The little snake seemed all too willing to take the hint as he scurried up Harry's arm and over his shoulder, finally escaping back into the safety of the sweater's hood.

"He was only trying to help." Harry commented as Voldemort watched the little snake disappear.

"And I think we can do without his help for a while, Harry." Was the only answer he got.

Sighing to himself, Harry took off after the older wizard, who had already started off down the corridor. "Shouldn't we stay near the stairs?" Harry ask quickly when he caught up to him. "Maybe the others will find a way back and they'll be looking for us there."

"Unlikely." Voldemort replied. "If they did cross through a ward, then our best bet of finding them is to keep moving."

Harry sighed again and resigned himself to having to follow Voldemort's lead for a while. To occupy himself as they walked along, Harry kept up a near constant stream of dialogue to Roland, all based in trying to coax the little snake to come back out and at least sit on his shoulder.

But after five minutes of trying, it was Voldemort who finally put a stop to it.

"If you're hoping to coax that snake back out, you can forget it." He snapped. "He's obviously a coward at heart and has no further interest in helping us."

"Roland's not a coward." Harry replied, coming to the little snake's defense. "He's probably just having a quick nap. Snakes sleep a lot when it's cold, and this place certainly qualifies."

"Or maybe he finally ran out of quips to throw at me and now you see what's really behind his sharp tongue." Voldemort answered, casting a hard glare at the hood of Harry's sweater where the little snake was curled up. "A coward."

"Roland is not a coward." Harry defended again, unsure of exactly why Voldemort had suddenly taken such an intense dislike to the little snake. True, he never liked him much to begin with if appearances were anything to go by. But this was going a little overboard in Harry's opinion. "He is, after all, helping us get out of here."

"For a price." Voldemort answered as he turned back to the corridor before them. "Most cowards will exact one for what they do. He would never think to help someone because doing so would simply be the decent thing to do."

"All he wants is to get out of here." Harry said. "Like us. It's not too much to ask that we take him with us when we leave."

Voldemort laughed softly. "You are far too trusting, young Mr. Potter." Voldemort stopped suddenly and turned back to Harry, leaning down until he was eye level with the teenager. "Just remember this, Harry, and it will serve you well the rest of your life." He said. "People, almost every one of them, deep down at their very core, are cowards. Sniveling, greedy, fearful cowards, who think only of themselves and what you can do for them."

"Not all people are cowards." Harry stated firmly.

"I didn't say 'all'. I said 'most'."

"Not even most." Harry answered back. "Peter Pettigrew was a coward. But people like Arabella, and Sirius, and Orion, and Professor Lupin, and Katlin...they aren't cowards. They're some of the bravest people I know. Even Roland is brave. He's standing up to this wizard by showing us the way out."

Voldemort turned a sinister smile back towards the hood again where the little snake was. "Reeeeeallllly." He drawled. But then turned his attention back to Harry. "So, brave are they, Harry?"

Harry quickly nodded.

"So tell me, from how you see it, is Orion Black really a brave man, or just someone who likes what he does?"

The question caught Harry by utter surprise. "What?"

"Is the man brave, Harry, or does he just like killing people? And what about Remus Lupin? Is the man brave, or just foolish? Sometimes there's a very fine line between the two. And Katlin Griss isn't really much better on that count. What she does she does for the worst reason of all. She does it out of love."

"Non of that is true." Harry spoke up quickly, but the man just as quickly cut him off.

"My point, Harry, is you really don't know what motivates people. But when you strip it all away, more than not, you find they do what they do because they are cowards. Even your godfather is one. Risking his life while he tries to live up to the standards of a brother who hates him."

Harry felt his temper rising by the second. But the attack on his godfather was the final crossing of the line for him. "Sirius is not a coward!" He shouted at the man. "And Orion does not hate him. What are you going to tell me next? That my parents were cowards who had some self-serving reason for what they did?"

Voldemort's whole expression changed at Harry's mention of his parents. "No." He said in a quieter voice. "Your parents, Harry, were not cowards. Foolish? Perhaps. Over trusting of the wrong people? Definitely. Self-serving? I suppose that could be defended on how you look at things." Voldemort pulled himself back up to his full height with a sigh, his attention fix back down the corridor. "But cowards? No. Your parents were unique people, Harry. People with foresight. With vision." The older wizard turned back to him as a slow smile spread across his lips. "People like myself."

Harry stared up at the man as they continued walking, none of his anger dispelled by the man's words. If anything, it only increased. "Then why did you kill them?"

Voldemort paused as he turned back at Harry. "You won't believe me." He said finally, turning back once again to the corridor.

Despite his anger, Harry found himself recalling Katlin's words as they walked a few moments in silence, that to ever story there were two sides. And he found himself suddenly curious if it was even remotely possible that the story of his parents deaths had one as well. "Try me." He said finally.

Voldemort shrugged slightly. "Why did I kill your parents? I didn't." He said simply.

Harry started to say something, but stopped himself abruptly.

"You see." Voldemort answered anyway. "I told you."

"But you did kill them."

Voldemort seemed uninterested in the statement. "I answered your question, Harry." He replied instead. "Now it's only fair you answer one of mine. How do you know for a fact that I killed your parents?"

Harry stared back at the man, thinking over the question.

"Well?" Voldemort pressed for his answer. "What is it then? Because someone told you that? Because Dumbledore told you it was so? Or Black? Or Lupin? Or Snape? Or even that miserable little Pettigrew? Is that your evidence?"

"Everyone knows the story of how my parents died." Harry replied in a low, careful tone. "Every one knows..."

"What they were told." Voldemort cut him off quickly. "And who told them that, Harry? Who told Dumbledore, and Black, and Lupin, and all the others? Who told the wizarding world that Lord Voldemort killed James and Lily Potter?"

Harry came to a halt, thinking for a minute, but not really sure of the answer. He had heard the story. But never who had really broken the news.

Voldemort leaned a little closer to him. "Try the Ministry." He suggested.

Harry looked back at him, a slightly startled look on his face. "But...but Sirius was there. He said..."

"That he found you as the only survivor of an attack. Black had no more an idea who was responsible at that moment then anyone else did."

"Professor Dumbledore told me it had been you." Harry pointed out defensively. "And he would have no reason to lie."

"Indeed not. Nor would Lupin, Black, Snape, or any of the others who have told you the story. But where did they get the story from, Harry? According to the story, there were only four people there. I was one of them, your father was the other, your mother, and you. Now, who among us told anyone anything? Certainly not your parents. Or you. That would leave me. And do you really think I was going to go around shouting to the world I had just murdered your parents?"

Harry thought about the suggestion for a moment.

"So who told everyone the story they have been repeating for the past fifteen years? Repeated so many times that its all people believe anymore?"

Harry stared up at the older wizard, not liking what the man's words were implying. "Why would the ministry make it up?" He asked in a quieter tone.

"I'll tell you why, Harry." Voldemort readily offered. "Because there is an evil in our world. And that evil is the ministry." Think about it for a moment." He added. "They control everything that the wizarding community sees, and hears, and believes."

"Why tell a lie then?" Harry shot back, fighting for his rational belief. The one he had built his whole world around. "What did they have to gain by lying about what happened?"

The man smiled down at him. "Everything, Harry. Absolutely everything. Your father and I were fools. It took me a long time to see that, but we were. We played right into their hands and they took advantage of the situation we ourselves set up for them."

"What do you mean?"

Voldemort sighed quietly, staring at his feet for a minute before he turned back to Harry. "I won't asked you to believe me, Harry, because I honestly think that's too much to ask of you at this point. But I will ask that you hear me out. Will you at least do that?"

Harry paused for a moment, then slowly nodded.

"A very long time ago...a whole life time ago it seems, your father and I were not enemies. We were, in fact, friends."

Harry started again to say something. But remembering his promise, bit back his protest and settled down again to listen.

"We met while your father and mother were still in school. Their last year. Your father and I found we shared a great many of the same ideals about the world." Voldemort quickly raised a hand as Harry opened his mouth again. "Not the ones you hear connected with my name today, Harry. Very different ideals from those. Your father and I saw the old hatreds in the wizarding world. Hatreds that were threatening to tear our community apart. Stupid, foolish hatreds started between children in schools. And the worst seemed to come out of Hogwarts. Even in my day there, the hatred was so intense you could feel it in the stones themselves. Gryffindors against Slytherins. The two houses couldn't stand each other even back then. A rivalry going back as far as the founders themselves. Your father and I saw the rivalry as petty at best, and we each sought a way to stop it."

"That's it?" Harry asked incredulously. "You were going to solve all the problems of the world by stopping a petty school rivalry?"

"'Clean up your own corner of the world before you try to clean up the rest of it', Harry." Voldemort answered. "If we could unite two houses, why not two rival schools, and then two rival countries. You have to start somewhere, you see? And that was just how your father and I looked at it. The great peacemakers, we thought of ourselves as. But then something...rather unexpected happened."

Despite himself, Harry found he was actually starting to get interested in the story as he listened to the man's words.

"You see, with the approach of our last year, I had an idea. One I unfortunately didn't keep to myself."

"What idea?"

"I thought...perhaps the way to bring the houses together, was if there was a permanent union. Something the two houses would share in common forever."

"Like what?"
"Like a new bloodline. One that was both Slytherin and Gryffindor. What if between the two houses...there was a child."