AN: Longer chapter than usual to accommodate the scenes of both characters whose Interludes were posted previously. Also, just a reminder that this story will, in fact, end the Dark Wars series, although I may use it at a later date for another project I'm toying with. Enjoy - MB

Imperial Palace…

The scene outside the Imperial palace, in the central island, was not as pleasant as it had been elsewhere. While part of the garrison had been saved by the arrival of the Texan Dismounted Lancers, the Death Eaters who had arrived at the southern island in a flanking attack had no opposition.

While the inhabitants were safely guarded in their bunkers, this meant that there was no populace to rise up against the invading Death Eaters, who marched in uniform towards the Imperial Palace in the centre island, using the massive suspension bridge that led to it as a route.

Unfortunately, destroying the bridge was out of the question, as it was the only thing that connected the Southern island to the central island. As such, if reinforcements were to be sent there, the quickest way was through the centre, and that couldn't be done without the bridge.

As such, the end of the bridge was being blockaded by the remaining garrison forces, all 900 in total. Unfortunately, while they were better armed and better entrenched than their 100 comrades elsewhere, they were outnumbered over ten to one.

One by one, the redcoat soldiers inspected and cleaned their rifles as the lookout regularly reported the advance of the Death Eaters. At the back of the barricade, several civilian volunteers were quickly organizing and distributing the ammunition. Towering, wooden crates of bullets and ME grenades were placed behind sturdy structures, in order to avoid the random spell that could blow the entire defence to kingdom come.

In the midst of the 900 men was Susan Bones, who had taken it upon herself to organize and lead the whole initiative. It wasn't that she didn't trust any of the other officers, some of which outranked her in fact, but rather that she saw this as the final stand she was looking for. The one moment where she could give her all, and still find her way back into Neville's waiting arms on the other side.

The pretty redhead had one pistol in hand as she pointed men to their positions with loud, barking shouts. The barricade itself had been her idea. The garrison had scrounged up whatever material they could find in order to build it. Carriages, benches, tables, door frames, bar stands—anything that looked remotely sturdy had been confiscated by her men and brought to bear in the defiant barricade that separated the Death Eaters from the Imperial Palace.

Amongst the 900 awaiting men were an additional 50 from the Imperial Guard. Dressed in their blood-red cloaks, imposing spears in hand, the Guards were to serve as a middle line. They would engage and battle any Death Eater who made it past the barricade, and considering their build and ability, Susan knew that any one of them would take five Death Eaters down with them.

It was a striking sight to behold, however. At the front, nearest to the barricade, the British redcoats jokingly cleaned their firearms with nary a dark thought in mind, it seemed. They seemed as lively as they would be in a mess hall, and they were not remiss in letting fly all sorts of humour. Even now, Susan could hear them throw around several crude jokes which made even her blush.

However, a little further into the island were the Imperial Guards, who were diligently cleaning and sharpening their lances. Like Spartans of old, they acted laconically and rarely spoke, and only then in order to request a fellow Guard for sharpening tools or a piece of cloth. They meticulously prepared for combat, and their neutral expressions gave way to no emotion. They were the ultimate soldiers, and they knew it.

Then, at the very back, the civilians were hard at work making inventories of the ammunition, and distributing it accordingly. The bartender who had comforted her was the one leading the whole distribution process, his Irish descent having initially put off the British-born civilians. A quick reminder that it was his fight, too, however, quickly stifled all protests, and they were now efficiently running the ammunition distribution with little problems.

For her part, Susan was sitting against the wall fence of one of the privileged few houses that resided in Central Island. It belonged to the Prime Minister, who had remained at the Palace with the Queen, just in case. Further down the beige wall, Susan spotted a British redcoat and a civilian woman exchanging whispers in what seemed to Susan to be a very sweet thing.

It made her envious, in fact. Before Empire's Helm, she would have been the one exchanging sweet nothings with her boyfriend—Neville. But ever since that blotched operation—which she fully blamed on the now-defunct Order for having pushed it—she had been left alone in the world. Her entire family was gone—a report had confirmed her aunt's death a few months after the coup—and now the love of her life had left her too.

But she had promised not to take her own life. Not willingly, anyway. This battle was going to take care of that for her. There were many other competent officers here, so she didn't worry about leaving the garrison leaderless. She just wanted to slip into the blissful oblivion that was the after life, and there reunite with Neville.

Susan sighed deeply as she let her head fall backwards, gently hitting the wall behind her as she waited for the sentry to report the Death Eaters to be within firing range. She knew they had time, though. Apparation was strictly forbidden within Harrisburg, and wards prevented the use of this ability—and thus far, the Death Eaters had been unable to crack it. All of their landings had been through the use of transports.

Susan was so entrenched in her own depressed thoughts, however, that she did not notice someone plopping down beside her, cigarette quickly to find itself hanging from the man's mouth.

"What a day," sighed the man as he blew out smoke in a heady sigh.

Cracking open an eye, Susan smirked as she closed it once again. "Fancy seeing you here, Colonel Sharpe. I thought you were ill."

Richard Sharpe merely grinned at the welcome, despite coughing a few times. "Couldn't bear waiting for them to come to my home. Figured it'd be best to get this over with now," he mentioned before taking a drag. "Better to die on the field than on a bed."

"I didn't know it was that bad."

Another puff of smoke, followed by a cough. "Aye. Doctors reckon' it's terminal now."

"What was it again?"

"Tuberculosis."

"Shouldn't you not be here, then? Might infect the men."

"Bah. You know damn well everyone here's been vaccinated."

"So why not you?"

Silence. Another puff of smoke. "Never got around to it."

"Bullshit."

A grin. "Language, lass."

"Need I repeat myself?"

"Never felt the need," came the reply after a moment of silence. "Figured since the war would most likely do me in, what was the point of getting a shot?"

"It never crossed your mind that you might survive?"

"Nope."

"Wow, and I thought Ernie was bad."

"Ouch, lass. That one stung."

"I call them as I see them."

"Touché."

Silence reigned for a minute as smoke rose from Sharpe's cigarette.

"Those things'll kill you."

A hearty laugh. "The Duke said the same thing. Five years ago."

"When?"

"Serpent Fortress. Right after we took it."

"Good times."

A nod. "Indeed they were."

Silence. "He was right, you know."

A shrug. "Eh. Between them and this damned disease, it's a bloody competition."

"Could die with some dignity if you lied down and let it kill you."

"No one dies with dignity."

"Hmm? How do you figure?"

"It's always ugly, and it's never pretty. Your body decays, and where once was a healthy human being is later a bunch of dust."

"That's kind of cynical."

"It's the truth, though. You only live with dignity. You can't die with it. Might as well go out with a bang, then."

"Heh…"

Another moment of silence.

"I know what you're planning to do."

"Eh?"

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

Sharpe turned to face Susan with grim, serious eyes. "Don't let the bastards take you."

Susan looked back for a moment before turning away, uncomfortably. "What would you know?"

Sharpe shrugged as he turned his attention back to the troops before him and took another drag from his cigarette. "I know that suicide's a damn stupid thing to do."

"Says the man who wants to go out with a bang," she pointed out bitterly.

"It's not suicide if it's going to happen anyway. This way, I do it on my own terms," rebutted Sharpe. "What's your excuse?"

"Leave it alone, Sharpe. It's none of your business."

"Neville was a friend of mine too. It's sure as hell my business if his girl thinks about offing herself out of some idiotic desire to meet him in the afterlife."

"You wouldn't understand," Susan asserted blithely.

"I'm a widower with no kids left. My son's dead, and my daughter's missing. Hawke is dead, so is Neville, Wolfe's with the Duke, God knows where Wolf is, and I'm going to die alone from disease. I think I do understand."

m

Silence descended upon the pair as Susan refused to look at Sharpe, and the ruggedly handsome officer took another drag from his cigarette before letting it drop harmlessly to the floor. Barely lifting a foot, he squished the burning remains and promptly dug another one out from his coat and lit it up before taking another drag.

"Neville was my everything," Susan said eventually.

Sharpe nodded, eyes aimed skyward. "I know."

"How can I live knowing he doesn't?"

"I asked myself the same when Andie died," noted Sharpe. "Then, when Hawke died, it became worse. Ever since the coup, it'd been Hawke, Wolf, Wolfe, the Duke, and I. We were the closest of the officer corps. Then Hawke died. Wolf turned to alcohol, the Duke found his wife, Wolfe threw himself into his work, and I became ill."

"So you're dying because of Hawke?" asked Susan, incredulously.

Another puff of smoke escaped Sharpe's lips. "I'm dying because I was stupid and overconfident. I'm dying because I'm tired of seeing my friends die, or self-destruct."

"But, Sharpe…"

"Not much room left for the old guard, now that the Duke's got you kids helping him. Wolfe, Wolf, and I—we're old school. We've been around far longer than this war's been around. We had graduated long before the Duke did."

"But Sulu…and Admiral Staples!"

"They may look twice his age, but Sulu's only a year or two older, and Staples is three. I'm ten years older than the Duke, and Hawke was twelve."

Susan gaped incredulously at Sharpe. Sulu and Tybalt were practically her age, then! And yet, both men seemed at least thirty in appearance! Admittedly, she'd never inquired about the men's age, seeing as how they were at the top of the chain of command, and she never questioned it. Still, it was quite the shock to know that the two men she trusted to lead the army were barely a few years older than her.

"Anyway…I've let my grief consume me, lass," digressed Sharpe. "Except, unlike Wolfe, Wolf, or the Duke, my grief turned material."

"The tuberculosis."

Sharpe nodded. "Aye. It's God's way of giving me the release I want. It's just not sudden enough for me. I don't want to die in some bed—I want to go with my comrades around me."

"What's that got to do with me?"

Sharpe puffed out some smoke as he shrugged. "You feel like nothing's left for you. You're wrong," he asserted, much to her outrage. "You've got the Duke relying on you. He's already lost Neville. If he loses you, that's another of the Hogwarts crew he fails. He can't take that. Not even with his wife present."

"How do you know this?" asked Susan shrewdly.

Sharpe laughed hollowly. "Fight alongside a man for five years and you'll know him inside out. The Duke's got one mad messiah complex. He feels the need to rescue and protect everyone he loves, but his rational side keeps getting in the way and he accepts loss," explained Sharpe. "But not all. There's a few losses that would kill him if they happened. Losing his friends from Hogwarts is one of those things."

"Harry isn't that weak…" protested Susan, but it sounded hollow even to her ears.

"Yes he is," asserted Sharpe strongly, causing him to cough heavily. "The Duke is tainted. He's had the Darkness touch him on a personal level. He's fought it, and killed it, but it still left a scar."

"What are you talking about?" asked Susan, bewildered.

"The Duke's been fighting his own demons for a long time," said Sharpe cryptically. He then took a drag, puffed some smoke, then gave Susan a sidelong, shrewd glance. "He's never told you guys about India, has he?"

Susan shook his head.

Sharpe chuckled bitterly. "Figures he wouldn't," he muttered. "That's when I met him. I was a Sergeant back then. Got caught up in this nasty little fight with the local Dark Lord wannabe. Ended up pretty bad," he explained. "Mad bugger let loose something he shouldn't have. Something he couldn't understand or control."

"What?" asked Susan in a near whisper.

"Venati" whispered Sharpe, as his own face paled at the thought of the horrible creatures. "Dark…things. Born out of the darkness of men's hearts. Vile, brilliant predators."

"What happened?"

"Damned things tore us apart. All of our officers were dead within minutes, except for the Duke. He, along with the rest of us who were smart enough to think, ran away from the field. Just in time, too. Damned things turned against their masters and tore them apart too."

Susan could only look on in horror. Why hadn't Harry told her and Neville about this? For that matter, she didn't think Ginny knew about this, and she was his bloody wife.

"The Duke'll never tell anyone," Sharpe then said, as if reading her mind. "He can't. To him, it was the most vulnerable he'd ever been in his life—when he was closest to losing everything. He actually died for a few minutes at one point. We only barely brought him back."

Susan gasped at this. Harry had actually died at some point? And she'd never known?

Sharpe chuckled now. "He's lucky. He got to actually see the other side for a few minutes before we brought him back. But he'll never tell anyone any of this. He's the Iron Duke, after all. He's a legend—a symbol now. If people actually thought he was mortal, why—it'd cripple morale!"

It was an extremely pragmatic statement, but one that rang true with Susan. Even as she tried to logically disassemble the argument in order to reason with herself that Harry should have shared his past in India, she couldn't help but end up rationalizing in favour of keeping it secret.

Half an hour later, as she wandered throughout the throngs of troops waiting for action, she still couldn't help but realize how true Sharpe's observations were. Most the men defending the barricade only did so because they believed in the unbreakable, the unshakeable myth of the Iron Duke—the Saviour of the Empire, the Restorer of the Throne. They did not see Harry, the man. They saw the great hero on horseback that led his men towards the successful capture of Serpent Fortress—the man who captured Nova Scotia and British Columbia from the grasp of the Americans and Death Eaters. They saw the hero of Norfolk, the greatest strategist and leader of their time.

To them, Harry had transcended mortality. He was the living symbol of the Empire's military might, and without him, the Armies of the Empire would crumble. It did not matter that a new monarch was crowned—she had not yet come into her full potential. The men saw her as a symbol of their beloved empire, of course, but on a lesser scale than the heroic, loyalist Iron Duke.

Heroes had gathered around him like flies, as well. Had not Hawke, the Hero of Salt Lake City, sworn his allegiance to the Duke? Did General Sulu and Admiral Staples not pledge their forces to him when the American offensive was planned?

Even as the alarm was sounded, prompting every man to rush to his post at the barricade, Susan could not help but realize the magnitude of her friend's impact on the survival of the Empire. On her survival. If she meant as much as Neville did to him, then her loss would devastate him. She couldn't allow that!

With that thought in mind, Susan set her jaw firmly and, drawing her sabre, went to the front lines of the barricade, a determined look on her face as she passed by the pleased-looking Sharpe and, one foot on the ground and another on the barricade wall itself, she turned to the troops.

"Courage, lads!" she cried out. "Courage! Today, the eyes of the world are on you! Let the vermin before us fall to our British steel and iron bullets! Let them see the wrath of British men and women!"

Cheers rang out throughout the defenders as the Death Eaters came slightly closer to the barricade.

"Though the Duke is not with us today, we shall make him proud!" she continued through the cheers, merely intensifying them. "We shall beat back the enemy, with every bit of our souls! Let no Death Eater survive this day and be able to sleep well! Let us give them such a beating, that they shall have nightmares, forevermore!"

The cheers were now deafening as the soldiers pumped their weapons up and down into the air, chanting "Bones! Bones! Bones! Bones!"

Giving them a grin, Susan brought up a pistol and cocked it with her thumb. Giving them an encouraging wave, she turned her body towards the barricade. "To the barricade! To your posts! And fight, brave men and women of the Empire! Fight! For our past, for our present, and for our future! FIGHT!"

With a last, deafening roar of a cheer, the British redcoats took to the barricade like avenging angels. Unlike their compatriots under William Black, the barricade's fire here was uneven and sporadic as every man shot at will. They had not the luxury of such disciplined tactics, and were fighting every inch of the bridge as the Death Eaters advanced, their superior numbers giving them a classic advantage over the defenders.

With every step, over twenty Death Eaters fell flat onto the ground. By their lack of screaming, the defenders knew them to be Terracotta soldiers, which meant that the likelihood of breaking their formation was impossible. As such, it now resided in the unlikelihood that they could kill them all before they reached the barricade.

Their predictions turned out true. Slowly, the Death Eaters readily advanced closer to the barricade, and it was unlikely that they would be able to stop them. As such, giving the advancing hordes of black-robed murderers advance, Susan turned towards her men and gave a single order.

"CHARGE BAYONETS!"

"Fall back."

Susan stumbled on herself as the clear-cut order sliced through her own. Turning to shout at the man who'd dared to contradict her, she felt her jaw drop slightly and her knees turn weak as she saw the speaker. Falling to her knees, she stared in shock as the speaker passed right by her, a sword in hand, pointed down. It was an officer's sabre, and it looked new. The hilt looked like pure gold, and the steel shined brightly in the sun. The redcoat the man wore was torn and dirty. It had bloody splotches all over the place. His white trousers were in no better condition, and his overall appearance screamed one of having fought for a long time. The men behind him who were following him seemed in no better condition.

And yet, the defenders were certain that the new arrivals would outmatch them all.

The man glanced around once more before frowning. "I said…" he began, taking a deep breath. "FALL BACK!"

Jolted into action, the defenders quickly obeyed and pulled back from the barricade, the soldiers pouring past the man and his reinforcements as the Death Eaters began to climb over the barricade. For her part, Susan was dragged away by two soldiers who'd taken her arms around their necks and were pulling her away.

Now left facing the Death Eaters only with his men, the man smiled as he flexed his sword arm a bit. His comrades were out of his way now, and he and his men could now let loose without fear of hurting one of their own. As the Death Eaters drew nearer, the entire scene was absolutely silent, but for the marching noise of the Death Eaters' boots.

Finally, the man rose his sword so that it pointed right at the incoming hordes. The action seemed to confuse the attackers, for the column stopped, and the man could feel the confusion. For, despite being Terracotta soldiers, they were not programmed to understand what he was doing. Was he retreating? If so, why had he stayed behind with fewer men than before? It just made no sense.

A predatory smile graced the man's rugged features now. "Turn and leave," he ordered imperiously.

For a moment, silence descended upon the Death Eaters, but a single laugh soon broke through the confused silence. Pushing his way out of the throng, one Death Eater sneered at the defiant man, which meant, to the defenders, that he was the column's local controller.

"Who do you think you are?" asked the Death Eater tauntingly. "How can you imagine to stop the infinite forces of the Death Eaters with your puny numbers?"

At the man's silence, the Death Eater sneered a bit more before opening his mouth to continue, but his eyes widened as he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his neck, before nothingness.

The redcoat officer's face was completely neutral as the Death Eater's body fell to the ground limply, its head rolling in a separate direction. As the Death Eater columns suddenly sprang forward, the man grinned wildly.

"I am the Empire's Blade."

A flash of steel, and the first line of Death Eaters crumpled to the ground, stunning the rest. Meanwhile, the man kept his wild grin in place. Behind him, the rest of his reinforcements were readying themselves for battle, too.

"And as long as there lies a breath within me, I shall cut down all of its enemies."

Potter Manor…

The first indication of an attack came when the alarms began blaring throughout the entire manor. Then came the explosion as the front, oak double doors exploded into the interior of the anteroom. Next came the swarm of invaders, but the next thing threw many of them off guard.

A violin.

A very beautiful violin, to be precise, by the sounds of it. Playing throughout the air, it seemed to sing a heartrending ballad of sorrow and love throughout the manor, to the invader's utter confusion. After all, they were more used to screams of terror and panic, not violin music.

What seemed to confuse them most, however, was the fact that the music came from, well…everywhere. The vase on the nearby wooden desk, the glass in the windows, the very cutlery that seemed to be set out in the dining room for an apparently very lonesome dinner—all of it seemed to radiate the music that was slowly haunting the very minds of the invaders.

And that's when the singing started.

Slowly, the invaders, one by one, began to notice the words being sung in an angelic voice in accompaniment to the music that surrounded them. At first, it was more of a whisper, but gradually, it rose to very discernable levels, until they could hear the voice singing as if the singer was right by their ear.

What can you see?

Across that sky

The wind passes by

The clouds are whimsical

The Death Eaters seemed utterly confused now, as they spread around the foyer, trying to find the hidden singer that was tormenting them with her song. It was not unpleasant, by any means, but it certainly instilled a sense of panic in the human Death Eaters as they realized that their foe knew exactly where they were, and was simply toying with them.

What's waiting?

At the edge of this world

Hey, I can hear

A song of joy

Fanning out so that they even climbed the two circular staircases in the foyer, the Death Eaters began to spread throughout the mansion, slowly taking in the majesty of the Potter home. No room seemed to be locked, and yet the invaders could find not a single soul in the entire home, despite the obvious singing still going on.

Let's search for a future

That no one knows about

Ahead of the limit, a new road

Will certainly open up

I search for a you

That even you don't know about

Pain is hidden in the view of your downcast face from the side…

Hidden from their sight, the singer kept her sorrowful melody, her violin accompanying her dulcet tones as she entertained the men who had invaded her home. Sitting in front of her, completely oblivious to the happenings in her home, sat a young child, a little girl no older than five years of age. She seemed happily entranced by the music flowing from both the beautiful smile on the woman's face, and the wooden instrument at her chin.

The girl was happy as she swayed slightly at the music, which she had heard before. The girl's mother had composed it for her husband, the girl's father. He had never had the pleasure to hear it, but the girl knew that one day, one day he would.

The woman had, after all, placed her entire soul into it. She had slaved over years composing the music, and writing out the lyrics. She had poured her everything in this one musical statement of her feelings to her husband, who had slowly grown more reclusive as a result of his self-hatred for the darkness within him.

The same darkness that was slowly growing within her as well.

I will take you… take you as…you…are.

The singing here slowly died out as the violin took over, apparently giving the finishing touches to the song. As the little girl began clapping, the woman smiled happily before turning her head slightly in the direction of the multitude of monitors behind her. A dark smile overcame her happy one, though the little girl failed to notice it, as she woman suddenly raised her violin bow straight into the air and, shutting her eyes, concentrated on the objective at hand.

The woman's flowing dress began to slowly take life as an unseen wind began to twirl around her. Above her head, the bow began to glow white, starting with a dim light, before slowly growing into a blinding light.

Elsewhere, the soldiers at the secondary barricade on the island watched nervously as Potter Manor was stormed by the Death Eaters. It was odd, to them, that the secondary barricade had been arbitrarily pushed back this far in the island, allowing the Death Eaters to ransack a few of the more prestigious houses on the Central Island. They could tell that their reinforcements were doing well, but a few of the Death Eaters had managed to get through, and were now gleefully going to work destroying the homes around them.

"I don't get it," mumbled one of the privates at the barricade, as he watched the Death Eaters go into the seat of the Potter Family. "Why let them do that? Why can't we just go out there and kill those bastards!"

Mumblings of agreement resonated throughout the ranks as they helplessly watched the Death Eaters file into the home of their commander. One dissenting voice, however, was heard.

"Don't be ridiculous," chastised the voice. Turning around to meet their dissenter, the soldiers were surprised to see a wounded Sharpe leaning against a wall, half of his face covered in blood, with a massive gash running vertically along the left side of his body, a smoking cigarette in hand. "You're all best kept safe here."

"Colonel Sharpe, sir!" cried one of the soldiers. "You should be at the infirmary!"

Sharpe spat out some blood to the side in derision of the man's comment. "Don't be absurd, private," he chastised the man. "I'm exactly where I should be. At my post."

As several more of the soldiers seemed ready to protest this, one of them suddenly burst out with an entirely different demand in mind.

"Why?" demanded the soldier who'd first voiced his disagreement to letting the Death Eaters ransack the homes on either side of the street. "Why can't we go out there and kill those bastards?!"

Sharpe observed the man quietly with his remaining eye, taking a long drag of his cigarette as he did so. "Boy," he started, predictably riling up the soldier in front of him. "Do you know who lives at that mansion?"

"The Potters, of course! Everyone knows that!" snapped the soldier, who was quickly forgetting his place before a superior officer, even as his comrades tried to defuse the situation.

"And do you think that the Potters need protecting, boy?" asked Sharpe then.

"Of course!!"

Sharpe's nonchalant look was quickly replaced by a dark, knowing smile. "You're new, aren't you, boy?"

One of the other soldiers quickly stepped in between the two. "Please, sir, forgive our comrade. He just joined the Service a few days ago…"

Sharpe chuckled. "Hehe…don't worry, private. I'm a dying man. There won't be any penalties I can give that I can later enforce," he assured the concerned private.

The soldiers in question looked at each other concernedly at the Colonel's words, but were quickly drawn back to him when they saw him pointing his cigarette at the loud-mouthed private.

"A word of advice from a dying man, though, boy," he told the private with a feral grin. "The Potters didn't reach the top because of their wealth or influence…"

From the tip of the bow, strings suddenly seemed to materialize at its tip, extending seemingly into the very darkness of the roof's shadow. All the while, the same music as she had been playing seemed to gradually encompass the room, until it was as if she was singing it herself, despite it obviously not being true.

Suddenly, the woman gave another dark smile at the floor, eyes still shut from concentrating, and, whispering a single word, made a pulling motion with her bow hand, bringing it down once again. All at once, the strings seemed to tighten, the blinding light seemed to vanish, and the wind stopped.

Requiem

Squealing in delight, the little girl clapped at what she thought was a magic trick her mother had just pulled off. At this, the woman merely smiled, and offered to play another song, which the little girl accepted enthusiastically.

And so, bow on string, the woman played her daughter another song, this one decidedly less sorrowful, though no less romantic.

And, throughout Potter Manor, in nearly every room but the Conservatory of Knowledge, blood dripped from the very walls. In nearly every corridor, in every room, on every balcony, the red liquid seemed to have repainted the entire mansion.

Lying in heaps, the pieces of the torn Death Eaters lay as a grim testament to the power of the female fiddler, who happily entertained her little daughter, without any remorse at the action she had just committed.

And, in every spot where pieces of bodies lay, eerie, shining, razor-sharp wires could be seen, tightly strung out, blood dripping from their very fibers.

"…but because even the weakest one of them is a monster."

The soldiers watched in horror as some of the windows of Potter Manor suddenly became stained with blood from the inside, all of them simultaneously.

That day, there were no survivors of the attack on Potter Manor.

Aboard the HMIS Invincible…

The battle between the four titanic battleships of the Empire and the Death Eaters raged on.

Bullets soared through the air, their trajectory causing a screaming sound as they tore through the skies towards their targets. Dragons soared between the two fleets and engaged in battle with the Imperial Lambda Fighters. Metal met scale and skin as both sides incurred heavy damage to their respective fighter screens.

And yet, the Imperial fleet, vastly outnumbered right now, seemed to be intact. Not a single of the Invincible-class battleships had been taken down yet, and all four were performing beyond expectations. In fact, they were beating back the Armada, which caused widespread shock within the Imperial crewmen, who had signed up on the mission thinking it a suicide run. Instead, they were holding their own, and even winning slightly.

Their commanding officer, however, had not stopped smiling since the beginning of the battle. Standing atop a slightly elevated platform near the windows, Harry Potter had his hands clasped behind his back, his red uniform practically shining in the sunlight. Only those closest to him could see it, but it was widely known now on the deck that the man was had a predatory, tight-lipped smile that had not left his face since he had first taken command of the Invincible from its previous captain, acting Captain McNamara.

Suddenly, Harry's smile seemed to soften, however, as if a tender memory had crossed his mind. His hands unconsciously went to his neck, where a thin, golden chain held up a simple cross. A crimson cross, made by her.

St. George's Cross.

"Darling…" he whispered, before letting a pleased smile cross his features as his fingers brushed against the crimson cross at his neck. Thrusting out a hand towards McNamara to his left, Harry's ferocious smile returned in full force.

"Step twenty-five is complete. Commence Steps twenty-six through twenty-eight," he ordered.

The captain gave a small bow at the order. "Commencing steps twenty-six through twenty-eight. Aye, aye, sir."

Post-AN: Do not own the lyrics of the song Ginny played. It belongs to talented Japanese artist Itou Kanako, and the original title of the piece is called "Take You As You Are." There exists a violin-only version of the melody, and I've had the pleasure of hearing it, but have never found its commercially single self, to my great chagrin.