The room beyond the door was not at all what Harry had expected to see. The Room of Hidden Things was cavernous in its dimensions, large enough to fit an entire cathedral inside comfortably and still have room for something else. The wall just beyond the door was plastered, painted, and had parts with wood panelling… while the other walls were too distant to see. Light streamed in from gigantic – and quite impossibly placed – windows. And it was filled to the brim with so many things Harry didn't know where to start looking.
Stacks and stacks of broken chairs, desks, and other assorted furniture; towering columns of battered books with pages missing; bits and pieces of broken statuary, dead portraits and other decorative oddments; and seemingly everything else under the sun made up the 'Hidden Things' for which the room was named.
Harry spent a moment taking it all in before racing away from the door, keen to get a head start on Lucius Malfoy. Far from being a repository of all sorts of awesome things, the Room of Hidden Things looked to Harry to be a place where generations of students, teachers, and other assorted personages had tossed their various bits and pieces of junk.
A decent enough sort of place to hide something, Harry supposed. It would be difficult to find anything unless one knew where to look, which Harry thought Draco must have done. It was difficult enough finding a path through the junk that Harry thought it could take days – even weeks – to properly sort through it all even if he knew more or less where to look. No wonder Draco had been at it all year.
Harry rounded a corner and started to look for Draco.
"Oi! Draco! Where are you? Your dad's looking for you and I think we've missed the duelling—so I'm pretty pissed off!" Harry shouted into the room. His voice echoed.
Draco gave no answer.
"Oh, for fuck's sake..." Harry said. The least Draco could have done after ruining both their duelling aspirations was to make himself available. Although given what Lucius Malfoy had indicated, perhaps he really was in danger and couldn't answer.
Harry groaned and pressed on through the stacks and columns of tat as he looked for Draco. There was no order to the gigantic space, no organisation that made any sense to Harry. There was no part of the room which was for storing broken furniture, as every part of the room had stacks of the stuff. Piles of books sat scattered throughout, sometimes next to broken wands and discarded board games, and other times stuffed amongst bits of tattered upholstery. It was a never-ending pile of junk, stacked haphazardly and without any care for whoever would have to look through it. Broken glass orbs, stray tarot cards, even a cracked tea set.
Harry ignored it all.
Whatever Draco had been looking for – and therefore, Draco himself – could be literally anywhere in the room. If Harry knew what Draco had been looking for, perhaps it would have been easier to find him, but given that the Room of Hidden Things appeared to have no underlying structure to its collections of junk, Harry doubted it.
To make matters worse Lucius Malfoy was inside the Room too, calling out for Draco.
"Draco! Draco, come here at once! You will not be in trouble," Malfoy was shouting into the vastness of the room, "but you must listen! The Diadem is dangerous..."
"Diadem?" muttered Harry. Harry wracked his brains trying to figure out what a diadem was, searched through all his memories trying to see if he'd ever heard of one before, but came up with nothing.
Fortunately for Harry Draco didn't answer his father, either.
"Draco, if you don't want to bother with all this Voldemort shit, just tell me!" Harry tried as he tiptoed past a wobbly tower of broken cauldrons. "We can go to Dumbledore and he'll make sure you're safe, I promise! Just bring the Diadem-thingy."
Harry didn't think Draco would be on board with going to Dumbledore about anything, given his opinion of the man. Draco had troublesome views on muggleborns and blood politics, but Harry did still wonder if that meant he would truly support Voldemort. It was one thing to have a general dislike for muggles and muggleborns, and entirely something else to want what Voldemort and his lot wanted – or so Harry felt, anyway.
But Draco didn't answer Harry.
Harry could only hope that Draco didn't really understand what he'd been getting into. That Draco thought what he'd been asked to do was some sort of favour for his parents, and now with Voldemort entering the picture… well, maybe he would think again. Decide something different.
"Draco, when the Dark Lord returns to his full power he will remember this!" Harry heard Lucius shout from across the room. "If anything happens to that object he will not be pleased! Please, do your duty to this family and return with the Diadem before it's too late!"
Harry's head whipped around in the direction of Lucius's voice at that last statement. Voldemort, returned to full power – and apparently without the aid of whatever it was Draco had found. Or been told to find. Harry was still unclear on what had happened, exactly.
But it apparently didn't matter. Voldemort was coming back… and didn't need the Diadem to do it. Just wanted it.
Harry took a deep breath and glanced up and down. The path ahead split, diverged in two opposite directions. He needed a better view.
Harry clambered over a mountain of torn gloves and unpaired boots to get a better look around the room from a high point. Raised slightly above many of the stacks and piles, he managed to get the lay of the land in his section of the Room of Hidden Things. Harry scanned through the room until he saw a little space where various paths through the clutter converged, at the centre of which was some sort of chair surrounded by lit candles and runic markings.
It's not a chair, thought Harry. It's a throne!
Upon the high-backed chair at the centre where many paths converged lounged Draco. Harry skidded down the mountain of gloves and boots and once at the bottom headed right for where Draco was at the centre of pathways through the junk.
Not that it was easy – he had to duck under a squat archway formed out of chairs, and then climb over a battered old suit of armour just to get back onto the path. But now that he'd had a proper look above the stacks it was easier.
When Harry reached him – stopping just at the edge of the runic markings ringed by candles – Draco shifted in his chair and turned to look at Harry slowly. Atop Draco's head, hidden only slightly by his hair, which was messier than usual by far, was a crown. Clearly a beautiful object once, the crown seemed somehow dirty. Almost sad. Angry red skin threaded with stark black veins blossomed from beneath the crown, marring the features of Draco's face.
And though Harry couldn't understand how, the smell of hatred filled the air, palpable in its ferocity. Hatred and anger radiating out from where Draco sat, a near physical presence.
Harry's scar throbbed.
"Ah. You found your way here, then. He is quite obsessed with you; did you know that?" Draco said. Or at least, someone said it with Draco's voice. But the person speaking had an entirely different mien, a different cadence to his words. "He was sure that you would figure out what he was doing here this year. And you did, didn't you? Clever." Draco glanced down at his nails, the gesture casual, almost bored. "It would have been better for us all if you hadn't, of course. But then your name does appear often in recent history, doesn't it?"
"You aren't Draco," Harry said. He grasped his wand. The Diadem Lucius had said about was most likely the thing on Draco's head, the little tiara that seemed stuck to his skin and which radiated a hateful, spiteful energy. "What are you? Who are you?"
"Ah, come now, Harry. You are not nearly so stupid as to not know. Consider again," chided not-Draco. "We have never met, but you have encountered an inferior iteration. Twice, if I am not mistaken. Do you know now?"
Voldemort? wondered Harry. He knew it was true, but how? Voldemort was hidden at Malfoy Manor just outside Nimlet's Head. He couldn't have been possessing Draco over the course of the year without Lucius having noticed his absence from the Manor. And quite aside from that, Lucius seemed convinced Voldemort was an external problem, not someone hidden within the school. Hidden within Draco himself.
Yet the pain in Harry's scar suggested otherwise.
"So how are you doing this?" Harry asked. "A spell on the tiara? So you can possess someone even from far away...?"
Voldemort-in-Draco laughed. Not the rasping, choked thing Harry had heard from Quirrell, but a full-bodied and rich laugh quite unlike Draco's own even though it used his voice.
"Harry? I—how—the duel—" spluttered Draco, Voldemort's cool detachment gone. The change was instant, and recognisable, though Harry wasn't sure how. But Draco's posture changed, even the tilt of his head. The eyes, maybe?
So Draco is still in there and Voldemort doesn't have full control, Harry thought. That was useful to know. Probably. He just needed to figure out what he could do about it.
Anger replaced confusion on Draco's face.
"Well, I'll just duel you here then—with the Dark Lord on my side, I won't lose," Draco said. He moved as if ready to stand, but Voldemort regained control and stopped the motion. Shifted once more on the throne, replaced the fire of Draco's anger with that eerily cool detachment.
"This child was easy to tempt. So much anger, so much envy. He needed only the barest of suggestions… The fabled Diadem of Ravenclaw, enhanced by the greatest Dark Lord the world has ever seen," Voldemort said. "A prize for any wizard, but a treasure indeed for this one in particular. Did you know that he's quite insecure in his abilities? He worries that he's outclassed by his peers. He's quite right, of course. And so when he found the Diadem, realised just what it was… I needed only for him to wear it once, and the process could begin. Incomplete at first, I was only able to observe. To suggest, offer advice… words of wisdom. But in time I was able to exert far greater control."
"I knew Draco wasn't that good at duelling," Harry said. "It was you, wasn't it? Whispering, giving him tips, making him better at ... well, everything." No wonder Draco had been so weird all year – he'd had Voldemort in his head. "And it was you stealing from the alchemical supply cupboard." Harry glanced at the ritual circle, at the candles and other materials Draco-Voldemort had placed there. For what purpose exactly, Harry couldn't say, but it certainly wasn't anything good.
"He wanted to kill you, Harry," Draco said – and it was Draco again, the tone different, his voice almost a whisper. Grey eyes. "I never wanted you dead—"
"Such powerful hatred this child had. Jealousy in abundance. I could use it, of course. Feed upon it. He thinks of you often. Powerful contradictions. It is how I learned of you, of who and what you are. It is curious that a mere child could best me," Voldemort said, taking over once again. "When I first gained access to this child's mind, I did not believe it. I, the great Lord Voldemort, laid low by a wretched babe? And yet it was a truth. And so I sought more information. I learned that we are more alike than—"
"We did that already," Harry said, interrupting. He wasn't about to listen to it over again, and this time from Draco's mouth even if not his mind. "Last year when you were possessing Quirrell. 'More alike than you know', 'both half-bloods in Slytherin', blah blah blah. It was boring then and it's boring now," said Harry. "So let's just cut to the point, shall we? You want to kill me; I don't want to die."
Draco-Voldemort smiled.
"I am not so unlike myself even in my diminished state, it seems," he said. He lifted his wand – Draco's wand – and pointed it at Harry. Before he cast anything, though, Lucius Malfoy came running from around a stack of books and stopped just short of the ritual circle around the throne.
"Draco! Please, you must—" Lucius stopped talking when he saw the crown upon Draco's head. "Oh, my stupid, stupid boy... what have you done?"
"Father! Father, please, I need you—" shouted Draco, a strangled, desperate plea. His manner changed, he shifted within his place on the throne and gained a crazed, frightened look in his eyes.
It lasted only moments, and then the casual, cool and detached, stance was back. Voldemort – or whatever was inside the Diadem – had regained control.
"Ah. Lucius Malfoy. I tried so hard to recruit your father, Abraxas. Did you know this?" asked Voldemort. "I never thought I would count his son among my followers. Kneel before your Lord."
Lucius hesitated.
"I—you are not my Lord. You are a curse upon the Diadem, placed there by my Lord to protect it from harm. Leave my son at once! He is protected by your creator, the true Dark Lord," Lucius managed to say eventually.
Draco-Voldemort turned and pointed his wand at Lucius instead of Harry.
"I said kneel."
Lucius dropped to his knees immediately, and Harry started to back away from the scene. He didn't want to get caught with a spell, and with Voldemort distracted...
"You are naught but a construct," Lucius struggled to say. "A servant created by my Lord to defend his treasures."
"You know nothing," spat Voldemort. "I am your Lord. What you have served is but a pale imitation of me, a wretched madman who lurks in the darkness. A wizard so great he is beaten by a child. A mistake. When I am done with the ritual you see before you, when I have consumed the body of this pitiful child and remade it in my image, returned to my full power, I will attend to your so-called Lord." Voldemort laughed. "But first, I will have the respect I am due."
Harry ducked behind a crumbly statue and groaned inwardly. He would have been happy to sneak off and find Dumbledore – anyone, really – had Voldemort not said he was planning to kill Draco. Or eat him, anyway, and it seemed like a time-sensitive affair. Draco was an arsehole, but he didn't deserve to be turned into Voldemort's newest body.
And even if he did, Harry didn't particularly want a new Voldemort walking around. He wasn't sure how it worked, or even what was happening, but he was sure that whatever it was would be bad news for Harry.
So Harry had to figure out how to stop it.
"Bow to your Lord, Lucius," said Voldemort.
"No! I will not!" shouted Lucius. "Unhand my son!"
Harry glanced around the statue for a look at what was happening. Lucius struggled to his feet, Voldemort's Imperius Curse broken. He gestured with his wand and blew out the candles ringing the ritual site.
"You are a fool," Voldemort said. "The ritual proceeds—it cannot be stopped now. I will have you watch as your son is taken from you. And then you will serve me!"
Lucius pointed his wand at the legs of the chair and shot at it with a Blasting Curse. The legs exploded into a rain of sharp splinters and the piece of Voldemort controlling Draco slid from the chair and went clattering to the floor. He followed it up with another spell, cast non-verbally, but Draco-Voldemort batted it away with his wand as if it were nothing.
Lucius writhed on the ground as Voldemort placed him under the Cruciatus Curse – at least until Voldemort's posture changed, and Voldemort was no longer in control.
"Father!" screamed Draco. He dropped to his knees and nudged the now unconscious Lucius. "Please, I'm sorry—I can't take off the Diadem. He won't let me. Please, you have to get away..." The black veins emanating from the Diadem pulsed, twisted, and Harry realised Voldemort was taking over again.
"I really hope I don't regret this," Harry muttered to himself. He came out from behind the statue and whistled to get Voldemort's attention. This piece of Voldemort was disconnected from the main one, and although Harry didn't know quite when the split had happened, he assumed it would have to have been before that Hallowe'en night or he would have known about Harry.
Which meant that Harry knew some things this version of Voldemort didn't.
"Oi!" Harry said. "Forget about new bodies and making Lucius Malfoy squirm. You haven't heard why I was able to defeat you as a baby, have you? I don't mean what everyone thinks happened—I mean what really happened." He paused for a bit of extra drama, knowing that Voldemort – in all his iterations – had a flair for the dramatic. "There's a prophecy."
Voldemort whipped Draco's head around at the mention of a prophecy, though kept the wand pointed at Lucius Malfoy.
"You lie."
"Nah. I only lie when it's more useful than telling the truth," Harry said. "There really is a prophecy. It says I'll kill you."
"I cannot be killed," Voldemort said, though there was hesitation, some uncertainty, in the voice he shared with Draco.
"You've been killed at least once," Harry said. "You just didn't stay dead. But that's fine—I'll keep on killing you until you do." Harry shrugged. "The prophecy says I kill you, but it doesn't say how many times."
Voldemort snarled. The expression was odd, a merger of Draco's features with Voldemort's behaviour. He lashed out with Draco's wand, but Harry ducked back behind the statue. A set of iron manacles clashed to the floor just beyond him.
Harry thought that if he could get Voldemort – and Draco's body – outside of the ritual circle it might disrupt the ritual enough to put a halt to it, buy Draco some time. The possession clearly wasn't complete, the merger messy. Draco was in there and fighting for control, at least some of the time. His jealousy of Harry might make things more difficult, but Lucius had been able to break out of Voldemort's Imperius Curse, which suggested to Harry that what he saw in front of him was more than Draco, but still less than Voldemort. Voldemort's knowledge and experience, perhaps, but limited by Draco. An amalgam. Something new, perhaps even something Harry could manage.
More Voldemort than Draco, to be sure, but Harry felt like he could manage that. He just had to avoid touching Draco, since the last time he'd touched someone possessed by Voldemort, they had burned to a crisp. Died. Hadn't lasted half as long as a tea candle.
Perhaps he could make a break for it, lead Draco-Voldemort somewhere more public where Dumbledore could contain him.
He just had to get him out of the ritual circle first.
Harry ducked out from behind the statue.
"Flipendo!" Harry cried and cast a Knockback Hex at Voldemort to get him unbalanced. While Voldemort stumbled, Harry stepped out back into the path.
"You want to know who knows the full prophecy?" Harry asked. "Me and Dumbledore. And I know you're afraid of him, so... So come get it!" he said and ran.
Fortunately for Harry the Room of Hidden Things had more than a thousand years' worth of assorted tat, junk, and odds and ends piled haphazardly throughout in stacks, mounds, and every other shape imaginable. The end result was a sprawling, chaotic maze with dead ends and hidden paths – the perfect place to lead Voldemort-Draco on a merry chase while he thought of what else he could do.
Voldemort followed him. Harry had been worried he wouldn't, but Harry knew Voldemort's other incarnation placed a great value on prophecy and divination, so he'd hoped this other one was the same.
It seemed like he was right.
Voldemort didn't bother following the paths exactly. Instead he blasted away obstacles and levitated things out of his way.
But this Voldemort was sloppy. He had none of the finesse Harry would have expected, or even the raw power behind his spells. Even as he cleared a path through the junk with his spells he caused avalanches. Closed older paths.
That, Harry could work with.
Harry dodged an angry yellow spell he didn't recognise. With Voldemort casting it, it was certainly nothing good. He chanced a glance back, then conjured some marbles behind him in the hope that Voldemort slipped on them.
He didn't.
Worth a try. Harry ducked under a leaning statue.
Voldemort didn't bother – he smashed it to smithereens and dashed through the gap it left while Harry scarpered.
Voldemort's aim was better than Draco's. His spells stronger, too, but not by so much that Harry could see what everyone had feared about the so-called Dark Lord. Which meant that Harry was right — Voldemort was being limited by Draco's body, and possibly his soul, in ways more complex than it seemed on the surface. Voldemort scattered the junk in his way with a lazy sweep of Draco's wand.
"Scared to stand and face me like a man, Harry?" Voldemort shouted after him as Harry skidded around the corner of a particularly wobbly stack of broken desks. "I am disappointed."
"Positively quaking in my boots," said Harry. "Literally about to piss myself through sheer terror." Harry rolled his eyes at the thought that he could be goaded into forgetting his plan like that. Harry felt like the further he got Voldemort away from the ritual circle, the better, and the Room of Hidden Things was nothing if not absurdly massive.
He doubted Voldemort would follow him outside the Room. But a merry chase around it while Harry thought of something else to do? That was doable.
Harry glanced over his shoulder. Voldemort was too close. But… there.
"Flipendo!" Harry said, jerking his wand at the stack of desks just as Voldemort reached it. The desks tumbled, crashed to the ground with a thunderous clatter. Harry kept moving. Voldemort wouldn't be kept away by a bunch of broken wood, at least not for long.
Voldemort blasted his way through the desks just as Harry ducked around the sharp corner created by a leaning pile of portrait frames.
"Ventus!" shouted Harry. A sharp jet of wind shot from the end of his wand and sent the portrait frames crashing every which way. Bits and pieces of gilded wood went flying everywhere as Voldemort blasted his way through Harry's hastily toppled barrier like it was nothing.
"I tire of this," declared Voldemort. With a dramatic flourish of Draco's wand Voldemort conjured a great big snake in front of himself. Some sort of constrictor, although Harry wasn't knowledgeable enough about snakes to identify the species. It was easily larger than any of the snakes Draco had conjured during the duelling.
"Ensnare him," Voldemort commanded in Parseltongue to the snake. "I want him alive."
"Er, don't, actually," Harry said to the snake. "Just go... er... do what you want. There's probably rats you can eat here, somewhere. Over there." He waved his hand vaguely.
The snake looked between Harry and Voldemort, clearly unsure what to do. Conjuring an animal gave the conjurer absolutely no control over it, so Harry knew anything could happen. The snake said nothing. In the end it slithered off in the direction Harry had indicated, though whether because it was following Harry's order or because of the promise of rats, he couldn't say.
But it didn't matter.
Voldemort snarled, the sound all Draco. For a moment Harry thought he saw a flash of something behind Draco's eyes, a return to his usual grey colour, although it was gone instantly, replaced by Voldemort's red tinged iris.
"What secrets you keep," Voldemort said. "I shall enjoy ripping them from your mind."
That gave Harry an idea.
"I'm like you, except I'm not a genocidal racist murderer," Harry said with a little shrug. "Anything you can do, I can do better. And that goes triple for Draco." It was a hollow boast, as Harry knew there were myriad things Voldemort was a master at and which Harry had never even tried to do, but he had the measure of what sort of man Voldemort was and knew he would respond poorly to such a thing. And Draco would be furious at the thought, so perhaps the combination of emotions would be enough to disrupt the possession in a way more useful to Harry. "You really did get saddled with a shit host. If I were you I'd be worried."
Harry's jibe had exactly his intended effect as Voldemort contorted Draco's mouth into a series of apoplectic snarls. More than that, Draco's eyes flashed between his usual grey and Voldemort's red. Harry took advantage of the momentary confusion to cast his flashbang, and followed it up with a Knockback Hex. Draco staggered backwards, but Voldemort took over and deflected the hex away with an easy, fluid movement.
"Children's games!" Voldemort said. "This ends—"
Harry ignored him. He cast a Bludgeoning Hex at Draco's arms. Then another at his legs. Voldemort knocked away the first of Harry's Bludgeoning Hexes with an easy, almost lazy motion, but the second connected with Draco's legs in a sickening crack. Voldemort-in-Draco crumpled to the floor.
Harry didn't waste any time.
"Expelliarmus!"
Voldemort jerked Draco's wand upwards and a pillar of stone from the room's floor shot up in front of Harry's Disarming Charm, blocking it. Voldemort cast a violent purple spell which Harry dodged, although it went careening into the cauldrons behind him, melting them into a shower of molten iron.
Harry rolled away. By the time he righted himself Voldemort had got back to his feet, healed his leg, and was advancing.
Voldemort tried to cast another spell, but this one backfired, sending soot and smoke out instead of whatever he'd intended.
A chance.
Harry tried all the spells he'd mastered over the course of the year – a Pimple Jinx, the Knockback Hex, even another Bludgeoning Hex and a Scalping Hex – to slow Voldemort's advance. It didn't work. Voldemort knocked aside each and every one of them. He might not have been able to muster the sorts of arcane power he could in his own body, but he could still make short work of Harry's schoolboy spells.
Harry backed away slowly. He knew it wouldn't make a difference – the only route out was blocked by melted cauldrons – but he couldn't just stay put for Voldemort to get him.
Voldemort sliced the air with Draco's wand and Harry felt a wet tingling all across his chest. He chanced a look down and saw his robes were ripped. At first blood dripped from a tight, almost imperceptible, wound but it soon started gushing.
Ah, fuck, Harry thought. He pushed the panic away. He could – would have to – deal with that later. The more pressing concern was getting that stupid crown off Draco's head and knocking Voldemort unconscious. In that order, and without Harry physically touching Draco.
Easy peasy.
Harry scanned the junk at either side of him for something to help him carry out his plan. The Diadem seemed quite well attached to Draco's head, but perhaps if Harry knocked it about in the right way it would fall off. It was worth a try, at least. The only things around were a massive stack of board games, a chipped bust of some old wizard, and a sculpture that looked like the sort of modern art Vernon hated but loved to complain about.
Things that Harry could possibly use to pin Draco down, but not to remove the Diadem. Harry wracked his brain for something that could work. Anything.
A Summoning Charm?
"Accio Diadem!" Harry said, his wanted pointed right at the crown sat atop Draco's head. Nothing happened. "Ah, shit…"
But there was another spell Harry thought he could try.
"Wingardium leviosa!" Harry said, and aimed right for the Diadem sat upon Draco's head. It shot up – with rather more resistance than Harry would have thought – although that didn't seem to end Voldemort's possession of Draco. Draco's eyes were still tinged with Voldemort's red, although a strange and dark miasma followed the Diadem into the air.
"Foolish boy. I am no longer confined to this tarnished crown; I have made this body my own," said Voldemort. He sent a swift Knockback at Harry, sending him crashing into the wall of melted cauldrons behind him. Harry hit with a stomach-curdling crunch. He'd broken something. Many somethings, even. Harry wheezed. His wand fell from his hand.
The Diadem dropped to the floor; Harry's spell broken. Voldemort didn't move to pick it up. Instead he walked towards Harry.
Harry groped around for his wand. As he did so he saw Lucius Malfoy, recovered enough from his torture at the hands of Voldemort to creep, limping, towards the Diadem where it sat on the ground. Malfoy picked up the Diadem and turned it over in his hands, then shouted for Voldemort's attention.
"Dark Lord. My Lord. Please, give Draco back his body," he said. He kept hold of the crown, its dark miasma spreading over his hands like a poisonous smoke. "Take mine instead. I give my life so that you may live yours once more. All I ask is that you return to my son his body."
Voldemort stopped in his tracks and then turned on his heel to face Lucius. Despite his words about no longer being confined to the Diadem, Harry knew it had to have some connection. The dark cloud around it, visible of course but palpable to Harry's sense for magic, alone would have told Harry that, but the way Voldemort-in-Draco looked at it told Harry far more.
Harry glanced down at his chest. Red. Blood everywhere. It still flowed, showed no sign of stopping. He didn't want to die in a hidden room. He needed to find his wand, knew it was somewhere on the floor next to him... Hoped it hadn't rolled too far away.
"For what purpose will you sacrifice your life for the boy's?" Voldemort asked. "He is likely dead even should I leave. I have taken much from him."
Lucius shook his head.
"He is my son. If there is a chance, please, my Lord. I ask of you: let him go. Take me instead."
Harry leaned to one side. Fumbled around on the floor for his wand.
"A father's love," sneered Voldemort. "A weakness. But I will give you this. This… favour. Take the Diadem and place it on your head," Voldemort-in-Draco commanded Lucius. "Then repeat my words..."
Harry grasped his wand handle. He had one chance to disrupt whatever Lucius and Voldemort were doing. One chance to hopefully stop this shard of Voldemort from possessing anyone. He just had to time it right.
Something was happening with Draco's body. As Lucius spoke words – not in Latin, but some other language Harry had never studied or even heard before – Draco relaxed. The miasma around the Diadem focused itself around Lucius, up his arms and swirled about his head.
Harry shook the warm, fuzzy feeling around his brain away and concentrated on the chipped bust and sculpture next to Draco and Lucius. If he died, he could do it after stopping Voldemort. He just… he just needed…
He waited just a moment and then cast a powerful Knockback Hex, sending the objects flying into Draco and Lucius.
They both went sprawling onto the ground, Draco pinned by the sculpture, and whatever ritual they'd been performing interrupted.
Harry struggled to get to his feet but slid right back down to the floor. He grasped his wand and prepared to cast a body-bind on Lucius and Draco – more for whichever of them was hosting Voldemort than any desire to tie them up themselves – but fumbled the spell.
Everything went black.