The Horse

by Elsa2

Looking after a Muggle animal should be easy compared to saving Hogwarts from Voldemort. Harry and Draco might disagree with that. Featuring Luna, Marauders, peppermints and, of course, a tall, black, badtempered horse named Simon.

94. Chapter 94

Disclaimer: not only do I not make any money off this, I don't even own the characters. That'll be JK Rowling. Characters will be dusted off and returned to the legal owner soon, most of them in good condition, no spindling or folding involved (may be slightly foxed, especially if we have a post-Horse party).

A/N: Off on holiday so no more updates until I get home and have Internet access again (chance would be a fine thing in NZ). In the meantime, here's what may possibly be the longest chapter I've ever posted. Whoo. Yeah. (fans self to recover from over-excitement)

Warning: Blood. Gore. Mayhem. Bad words. Rated M. Yay!

ooOOoo

Chapter 94

Harry was glad he was under the shelter of the trees, not just because of the rain, which was going through one of its more determined phases. He could hear it on the leaves all around him, making him extra wary because it muffled the sounds of people who might be creeping up on him. Somewhere out there was a very angry Dark Lord, and if he had any sense he'd be investigating the hole in the hedge and any hoofmarks leading away from it. Simon looked around and hunched up his back unhappily as a brief scatter of rain made its way through the leaves and pattered down over them.

There was a rustle from above.

"Hey! Psst!"

Harry and Simon looked up.

Draco was flickering like a strobe light, hovering as best as he could in the trees. The wind wasn't so strong down here in the valley, but the branches were catching in his sleeves. Simon gave him an interested look and sniffed at the bristles of the broom when Draco came down lower.

"Got something for you."

"Portkey big enough for a horse?" asked Harry. You never knew.

Draco frowned. Harry had ruined his good news. "No. You'll just have to settle for second best." He fished something out of his robes. A wand.

It wasn't until he held it out that Harry felt the blood rush in and out of his face and sing in his ears with relief. "My wand. Draco – how did you –"

"It didn't involve patricide. But I'd appreciate it if you never told my father that it was me who gave it back to you."

"Oh. I think I can manage that." Harry grinned. His wand sat in his hand as if it had never left. "Thanks."

They were speaking barely above a whisper. The weather muffled other sounds, but Harry had already been surprised once in the last five minutes by Death Eater scouts.

"You're welcome. But are you going to stay under these trees all night?"

"No, and isn't it meant to be day?"

"Er, I guess so. Day, artificial night… whatever. When I was waiting to find your wand for you I overheard them talking. Someone grumbling that, uh, whatever spell the Dark Lord was using on them to help them see in the darkness was making their… their eyes itch." Draco's own eyes looked a bit red from lack of sleep. "I don't think they can see too far with it, either."

"Any idea why he's made the sky so dark? I mean, if he's hobbling his own troops like that…"

"I think he's worried the Aurors are looking for you. Better a myopic Death Eater than Eagle Eye the Auror."

"He must be counting on finding me through my scar."

"Can he do that?"

"That's how he found me at the bridge."

Draco's nostrils twitched. It might have been the shifting planes of his face, but he seemed to have gone paler. "Sounds like I got out just in time."

Harry sighed, loosening the reins for Simon to put his head down and scratch his nose on his foreleg. Other than dealing with that itch under the bridle, the horse seemed content to stand still. Possibly Simon, who hated getting rained on, was aware that things would be even damper out in the open. "Mm. You did." Draco had been very twitchy leading up to that departure. "Intuition?"

"Merlin knows. But I've never enjoyed sitting still when something odd is going on. And this surely falls under the category of odd." Draco squinted up at the sky, slitting his eyes so any raindrops getting past the leaves didn't hit his eyes. "The spell – the darkness – it's only the unicorn blood that lets me see anything now."

Harry nodded. "But it's worn off. A lot."

Draco looked uneasy. "Yes. And the darkness had a… a disorientation spell incorporated that needs a Dark Mark to navigate around. That's what I surmised, anyway."

Harry would have asked how, but something on Draco's face stalled the question. "Okay. So can we get through it?"

"Yes, thanks to the unicorn blood. It was incredibly easy for me to find you once I stopped fretting about what you were doing to my horse. If you don't think too hard about where you are going," he continued before Harry could object to the possessive, "you can get there just by wanting to –"

"Like how Simon moves in the direction you're looking when you're riding?"

Draco nodded, brightening. "Yes! D'you think horses have some Legilimency business going?"

"No, Luna says they're just really sensitive to changes in the rider's balance."

"Oh." Draco looked disappointed. He bobbed lower on his broom to give Simon a puzzled look. Simon took the opportunity to scratch his head on Draco's knee. "Ouch. Your head's really… bony, Simon." He floated higher. "Well, the trick of it is to keep in mind that you're on the way to Hogsmeade, but not concentrate on it. I think the unicorn blood works on the subconscious level."

"So think about something without thinking about it?"

"Precisely."

"That makes no sense."

"You Gryffindors are so literal. Loosen up. Get intuitive."

"You'll be telling me to tune into Trelawney next."

"I said get intuitive, not get insane." He cleared his throat softly and moved his foot out of the way before Simon could nibble on it. The horse had a thing about shoelaces and had untied them in the past as practice for leadropes. "Simon. Stop it. There's a good boy. The Aurors don't have the advantage of unicorn blood," (he said to Harry) "but I think Tonks might have something supplied by one of the Ministry boffins that will help. Not that she said as much, but…"

"That old Slytherin intuition?"

"Don't mock it. You-know-who thinks he knows everything about magic, and look what happened to him back in eighty-one. Speaking of that particular person, I sincerely doubt he wants you found by anyone other than him – something about a triumphant entrance, they were saying."

"Yes. My head on a pole was what he said."

Draco swallowed and blinked like something was in his eye. "Oh. That's… nice. Well. Yes. Our best bet is to get you to the Aurors in Hogsmeade. Fast as."

He looked a bit ill. Harry took pity on him, touched that a Malfoy was human enough not to want another human's head to be stuck on a pole. "Okay. Do you want to go invisible again?"

"Okay. We've got enough for Simon and me – maybe three or four more doses…"

There was no warning. One moment the tree next to them was moving sap and nutrients in its tree way, and in the next moment it exploded.

There was a muffled cry from Draco, who threw his arm across his face. Simon reared and leaped sideways as shards of wood sprayed him. Harry grabbed at the pommel and managed to stay on Simon's back – just – as the horse bolted.

The horse tore through the trees and the trees tried to tear Harry from its back.

He leaned forward and kept his hands wrapped in Simon's mane, trusting to the horse's ability to run fast without running into anything.

Behind him there was a snapping spell-shot and a yelp. Not Draco's voice in pain – this one sounded like a witch's.

Draco had got a hit in. Good for him.

Harry crouched as low as possible as Simon zig-zagged in a mad dodgem-car ride through the trees and then burst onto a trail. The trail was only a rutted track; if there had been more rain it would have been mud. This morning it was dirt – slick dirt, but not yet churned up.

A black-cloaked figure Apparated down the track from them and lifted his wand.

The track was slippery. With a cry of "Shit!" the Death Eater lost control of his feet, skidded sideways, and then looked up with an expression of sudden terror as Simon, teeth bared and ears back, came cantering down on him.

Simon wasn't about to stop. Harry could feel the horse's anger thrumming through the arched neck as the horse prepared to run the human down.

This morning Simon was prepared to take his chances with standing on squishy things.

There was a pop: just in the nick of time, the wizard Disapparated.

Simon snorted – it sounded to Harry's ears like a sneer – flicked his tail, and sped up.

It seemed like the pace was too fast for the track, but Simon's sharp hooves sliced at the clay and there was just enough moisture to give softness without Simon losing traction. At the base of the valley was a small stream – tributary to the river the blasted bridge had crossed – with a little wooden plank bridge lying across it.

Simon eyed the bridge as if it housed an entire family of trolls, and jumped it rather than risk setting foot on it, and cantered up the far side.

He jerked his head and changed stride as a broom came flying down to keep pace with him.

"Keep going along the hillside," Draco said, pitching his voice just loud enough for Harry to hear, and edged in front of Simon so that the horse altered direction. "There's a gate just along the way – small and out of sight from the Death Eaters, I hope. I've opened it ready for you. Then there's another really big field, and after that is a small lane. Probably leading to a farmhouse. If you can get onto that and onto the next farm, you've got a good, clear gallop ahead through a sheep paddock and then you're in shouting distance of Hogsmeade."

"Okay."

Harry didn't need to urge Simon on. The horse seemed determined to gallop, no matter what Harry had to say on the topic. Simon settled into the ground-covering stride of a racehorse going the distance that brought them to Draco's gate in less than a minute. The horse slowed to a trot, wary about what might be on the other side of the hedge, prancing awkwardly through the gap in the hedge, and then as soon as he was through went back into the gallop. There were sheep in this paddock – some were threading their way towards the gate – "Leave it!" Harry hissed as Draco turned, apparently intent on shutting the gate before the sheep could wander through.

Draco muttered something about manners, but kept pace with the horse.

Another minute or so later and they were halfway along the track leading from the gate across this much larger paddock, shielded from sight of anyone uphill by a row of bushy trees to their left, and Simon had just stumbled over a rut, making Harry lose a stirrup and drop the reins.

There was the first crack behind them of someone Apparating.

The racehorse charged forward at that sudden, startling sprint that sent the air whistling back through Harry's teeth and left Draco on his broom behind.

Harry, trying to get his foot back in the stirrup, gave up and settled for clinging to the saddle with both hands.

A spell flew over their heads and exploded in a shower of sparks. If it was meant to scare the horse, it worked.

Simon made a small grunt of terror. Harry might have tightened the reins at this point, letting the horse know he was still in charge and making sure everything was under control, but the reins were halfway up Simon's neck. Without his rider telling him to slow down, Simon put his ears back and swept forward at full speed.

Draco caught up in the next moment. He spotted the dangling stirrup bouncing against Simon's side. "Get the reins, already!"

Harry was busy hanging on and praying Simon didn't trip on the uneven ground and break both their necks. "You get the fucking reins!"

Draco swerved closer, but Simon only moved off to the side, scrambling up the bank and brushing against some trees that might have been planted as shelter, but right now were anything but.

Another Death Eater Apparated just down the hill and sent a binding spell that would have tangled Simon's legs and sent horse and rider crashing down the bank, probably crushing Harry in the process, but Harry risked letting go of the pommel with his wand hand to cast a shielding spell. Draco followed up with something Harry had never heard before, but the Death Eater collapsed into a pile of black robes and did not move again.

He ducked as the trees scratched at his face. Simon leaped back down onto the track, then up again as another Death Eater popped into existence twenty yards ahead. Only Draco flying on his right stopped Simon from whirling and galloping down the hill – Harry would have fallen for sure, given the bouncy way Simon cantered down hills. Harry, who'd been trying to get the reins back now they were on the track, nearly dropped his wand.

The Death Eater was busy concentrating on the horse and rider. Draco hexed him where he stood with the same spell he'd just used, and the wizard dropped like a stone.

"He should live, but I hope he doesn't remember," Draco muttered, checking again that his hood was up to cover his face.

"Stop, Simon," Harry muttered.

But Simon didn't want to stop.

"Right. Go right. The gate into the lane is just down a bit. Steer him to the right!"

Another spell exploded nearby and Simon tried to run up the bank before realising he'd never get through the thick brush and bounding back down again, all at the gallop, hooves sliding in the clay, stumbling and nearly falling sideways until he put in a huge leap that landed them back on the track.

Harry spat out a leaf. "Steer him how?"

"With the reins, prat. Right in front of your hands."

They might as well have been on the other side of the moon. The moment Harry let go of the saddle he'd fall. He ducked as Simon's wild gallop brushed them up against the trees again and a branch tried to scalp him. If Simon had been galloping along a nice flat road that would have been one thing, but he was terrified by the explosions and having his rider lose control, and swerved dangerously over the rutted track, his pace uneven. It was worse than the time Quirrel had jinxed Harry's broom… what was the counterspell for a horse maddened by terror?

"Grab the reins, you idiot! And keep your heels down!"

Draco was right – he needed balance. And he needed those bloody reins. He needed control. All he had to do was let go of the pommel with a hand just long enough to –

"Wall!" Draco called out.

Oh no.

The wall was stone. It was high. It was definitely higher than anything Harry had jumped, or seen Simon jump.

Simon, you idiot! STOP!

Perhaps there was something to that equine Legilimens theory after all. Simon slowed, as if picking up on Harry's thoughts, and for a moment Harry thought he had a chance – Simon would stop and Harry would get the reins and –

The ears which had been tilted back listening for the increasing number of cracks and pops of all the Death Eaters who were Apparating into the field suddenly flicked forward. The head went down a degree. The gallop slowed from frantic to something more deliberate, but something that wasn't going to be a halt.

Oh. Hell. Simon, no, you MANIAC!

Simon put every last ounce of strength into the jump. If Harry hadn't already been leaning forward there was no way he'd have been able to hold onto the saddle. The horse went up like a Firebolt fresh from the factory, arching neck and back to get the maximum clearance.

There was a moment of silence as they flew over the wall. At the top of the arc Harry met Draco's eyes for a split second. Draco looked as astonished by the fact Harry was still on Simon as Harry was, but grinned encouragingly.

Merlin! I'm still in the saddle! We're going to –

Simon landed.

He tripped as his bare hoof hit the loose stones in the lane, and barely kept upright. His nose almost grazed the ground. For a moment Harry thought Simon was going to roll head over heels, crushing Harry beneath him, or that his head had been cut off by a hex. There was a small, annoyed noise from the horse, a grunt of pain from the stones under his bare hoof as he stumbled across the lane to the mown grass on the other side, long legs tangling with each other, barely keeping the horse upright, Simon a juggernaut unable to stop; but it also sounded like disappointment that he, Simon, had failed at something…

It was the last thing Harry heard as he fell out of the saddle, sliding down the black shoulder satin-slick with rain, grabbing at mane, reins, whatever he could find… sliding down to where hooves shod with silver sliced the turf and –

The last thing Harry saw was a galaxy of stars exploding out from behind his eyes.

ooOOoo

Harry lay on the ground. He was pretty sure those were Simon's reins in his hand. Where was his wand? He'd had one, hadn't he? Yeah… Draco had found it for him… The ground must have had one hell of a grudge against him to have smacked him like that, he thought dazedly.

As if to make amends, the sky was kissing his face with the lightest of raindrops, sparse and cool, little mementoes of Luna to remind him he had to save the world and give it to her on a silver platter.

A shadow drew itself almost out of the blur at the edge of his vision. What –? … Who –?

Voldemort.

Harry realised bitterly the sky hadn't been kissing him – it was spitting at him. Even the clouds had it in for him this morning. They were stained black and sucked the light out of the world. The sky was on Voldemort's side – clever sky: it knew how to play the odds.

"Hello, Harry." The Dark Lord's voice curled lovingly around the syllables of his name. Faint silver mist shifted over his skin, moving like a cloud of midges in designs Harry couldn't quite follow. Where it skimmed his robes, it was more obvious, and formed small galaxies against the darkness.

The potion? It would never get past the personal shielding Voldemort had put up – not if it hadn't done so already.

"Voldemort." Harry's voice sounded coarse beside it. He should probably say something defiant. Something heroic. Something memorable. But all Harry could think was that the next words he spoke could be his last.

So what would they be?

Voldemort straightened. His face was flatly emotionless, but his shoulders were tilted. Preparing to pounce, but not sure what angle to attack at; pleasure in the anticipation threaded through his very stance. No mucking about like at the bridge. No grandstanding. Just a quick kill to assert dominance.

Great. Now I'm a Dark Lord mutterer.

"Well? Aren't you going to get to your feet? Or shall I kill you in your happy little gutter?"

Oh, good. A little bit of mucking about after all. Some Dark Lords never learned, but Harry had learned that where there was life there was hope. "Not offering me a hand?"

The red eyes gleamed. "Isn't it enough for me to offer you the chance to die on your feet?"

Harry had to admit that was probably the best offer he'd receive today. He pulled himself to his feet using the reins.

Simon shook his head, annoyed at being used as a crane. He was panting after the gallop; hot breath steamed in plumes from his nostrils as the air temperature made an abrupt dive.

Voldemort kicked at something. It skittered across the road and away from Harry. A Death Eater picked it up at his master's nod.

Harry's wand. Harry felt a tight rage seize him.

"Give it back."

Voldemort chuckled pleasantly. "Give… it back? Why, I can hardly do that now, can I, Harry?"

Harry breathed hard through his nostrils; at his shoulder, Simon did the same. The horse was still getting its breath back.

"Aren't you meant to be off destroying innocent people?" Well, it was better than nothing. Sarcastic. That counted for something, surely?

Voldemort's lipless mouth curved in what was probably meant to be a smile. Like those seen on sharks. "Yes, yes. All this time you thought the focus of my attention was on attacking Hogsmeade at dawn, thus giving you a nice little distraction for your barrier-breaking potions or spells. Unfortunately for your happy little plans, you are central to my plans – you, then Hogwarts now you've destroyed my barrier. Thank you for coming to my party, Harry – and responding to my invitation with such precision." His smile took on a sharper edge – his anger thrummed through Harry's scar. "One would almost think you were forewarned. I've suspected a traitor for some time now." Voldemort pointed his wand and a loop of crimson fire leaped out, snapped around a slender Death Eater, and spun the person up and around and smashed the luckless one down in the middle of the road.

There was a wheezing from behind the mask. It didn't sound feminine, but Harry held his breath, hoping against hope it wouldn't be Draco's mum… and then it suddenly struck him – they'd never found Snape's body.

Was this Snape here, struggling up onto his elbows as he groaned (yes, definitely a man by the depth of the voice) and tried to get his breath back? Voldemort stepped forward and kicked him in the stomach and the Death Eater cried out hoarsely.

"Enough," said Voldemort, almost lazily, and flicked his wand.

The mask and cloak vanished and Harry was staring down into the familiar face of… he couldn't quite remember…

…and then he did remember. And he wished he didn't. He couldn't stop his small gasp and the Dark Lord's eyes gleamed all the colder.

"Nott. Nott my most devoted follower," Voldemort laughed, and the other black-clad figures laughed sycophantically. "Crucio."

Nott writhed and bit his lip until blood streamed down his chin. He didn't scream. Harry watched, sickened, thinking of Theodore Nott who shared classes with him, thinking of how he'd met this man now lying retching in the road in the aftermath of the curse – then a year older than Harry – twenty-one years ago. The memories of watching him read the Daily Prophet that morning Harry'd eaten breakfast with the Slytherins, the same rectangular glasses now askew on his long nose, rose and left him chilled to the bone.

"I see young Mr Potter knows you," Voldemort purred with satisfaction.

Harry swallowed – had he given something away? Was Nott really a traitor?

"I didn't –" choked the man on the ground, his voice a strangled whine of pain compared to the light smooth tones which had once told Severus that one day politics might be interested in him.

"This – finding our plucky young Gryffindor hero Potter out here at this particular time – this only confirms what I've suspected for some time. I told only a few people of the proposed attack in hopes of shaking loose some treachery while at the same time luring an enemy out from the sheltering arms of Hogwarts. I've suspected you for some time now, Nott. And look what my suspicion has done – why, it's netted me Harry Potter as well as you.

"How strange you weren't at the bridge earlier. Were you busy setting explosive spells? No, you were off sabotaging the initiates' efforts at Hogsmeade. Ah, ah… don't try to deny it. But you are here now. Delightful. Don't worry, my friends," he said over his shoulder to the circle of Death Eaters, lifting his voice to rally those who were shocked by the sight of their comrade on the ground and accused of treason. "We go to Hogwarts straight from here. The barrier is down, and it will be weak with the shock. All the time we spent practising for the battle will be rewarded with the jewel of Wizardry. We shall liberate it – hearts, minds, magic. And once we have cleansed it of all traitors and those of impure heritage it shall be the seat of my power. From there we will finish our conquest of Britain. And, from Britain, unite the world under my banner. What say you, my Death Eaters?"

"We say aye, Lord!" a Death Eater Harry thought might be Mulciber rumbled.

"AYE, LORD!" shouted the others, all trying to outdo the others in enthusiasm. Harry, who could still get glimpses through the masks, thought many of them looked nervous. Had they not been doing their Death Eater homework, practising co-ordinated mayhem at home? Or were they less sure of Hogwarts' vulnerability? Maybe they didn't feel quite as confident of going up against Dumbledore as their fellows.

Or was it something else?

Some of the nervous ones looked familiar – were they parents of students?

One of the fathers was still down on the ground, curled around himself as he struggled with the aftershocks of Cruciatus.

Voldemort smiled down at Nott, but the smile was cold and predatory. Harry shuddered at the sight of it. "You've been sneaking messages in to your son. And now that the barrier down I'll take my time explaining to him the error of his ways. Don't worry, Nott – I'll send him to meet you far faster than the son of a traitor deserves."

"No – I'm not a traitor, I swear, my Lord!" Nott gasped. "And Theo – he's innocent… he knows nothi-!"

"Avada kedavra."

Green light enveloped Nott and when it vanished Harry was looking into the eyes of a dead man. For a moment he thought he was going to faint. Your father is dead and I'm sorry for it, Theodore Nott. But – forgive me – I'm glad it's not Narcissa Malfoy lying here.

"Pity I didn't have more time to treat his treachery as it deserved. Oh well – it's a busy life, being a Dark Lord."

"Maybe you should try staying dead for a change."

Voldemort's lipless mouth curved in a smile. "Let's get that head of yours."

Something barrelled down from the cloud-clotted sky, hints of a black cloak whipping and flickering raindrops. Another Death Eater?

The flyer threw something. Harry ducked, thinking it was aimed at him. Simon's hooves skittered on the ground as the horse shied and knocked Harry over.

The missile missed Harry and shattered uselessly a foot away from Voldemort's shoulder when the Dark Lord hissed something that made his wards pulse outwards.

Twinkling stars of glass and silver mist billowed away in the wind. None touched Voldemort.

Harry's heart sank. But if he's going to Hogwarts, Dumbledore will know how to get the potion through the wards. Please let Dumbledore or Flitwick or Hermione or Elmsworthy or someone know how to get that potion through the wards.

Voldemort cursed, aiming a spell into the clouds.

There was a faint scream, and something flickered through the rain. It dodged the second curse and sped away, occasional rags of black showing off and on as an invisibility potion wore off. The scream had been Draco's, but Harry was sure he'd dodged the worst of the spells thrown at him.

"Avada kedavra!" Voldemort shouted. A green light flew towards Draco, but he went out of sight as he flew up towards a low cloud rolling down from the sky. The darkness of the cloud was absolute, to unicorn sight and, from the annoyed murmurs of the Death Eaters squinting upwards, to whatever spell Voldemort was using to aid their vision. It could have been the Invisibility Potion hiding him, but if he'd been killed, wouldn't there have been a sound from the body falling to the ground?

The wind was strong… it was hard to hear much over it. And then there was an uproar as the Death Eaters all started shouting locating charms, stunning and binding spells, spells to reveal hidden enemies, curses to cut them to ribbons… sending charm after hex after curse into the black sky.

One Death Eater stood slightly apart from the others, his entire body radiating terror as he turned his head to scan the skies. He was the only one not trying to impress his master with his spellcraft.

Lucius Malfoy. Harry spared a brief moment's pity for him.

Voldemort cursed again: "Fuck!"

Harry didn't think this was the time to point out to Dark Lords that swearing like that made them sound like Muggles. He rolled, taking advantage of the confusion to kick out the feet of the nearest Death Eater. Harry jumped up and tackled Voldemort, grabbing his wand just as someone cast a spell. The misty potion vapour from the first bottle tingled against his skin. He couldn't quite tell where the spell was coming from but he had a good idea that it was aimed at himself, so he swung Voldemort around and the curse – a Stun going by the crimson sparks – blossomed and died on Voldemort's shields. Voldemort shoved at Harry and knocked him down again. His strength was not natural – Harry's shoulder felt dislocated.

"STOP!" Voldemort roared. There was an immediate hush; the only sound that of Voldemort's harsh breathing as he struggled with his rage. He grabbed Harry by the scruff of the neck, picked him up and shook him with a strength that would rival Hagrid's.

"FIND THAT PERSON!" he roared, then jerked his head and slashed his wandhand down in sharp negation. The Death Eaters froze. Even Harry felt the command in his scar, and went limp. Only his hands holding the reins seemed to be under his control.

"No," Voldemort said softly, although each breath he took rasped in his throat. "No. Whoever that was can wait. And then wait further for a long-delayed death. Here and now, I want you all as my witness." He lifted Harry and turned him so that Harry's green eyes were looking straight into Voldemort's red. Harry looked deep and saw the cold calculating madness that had followed him all his life. He felt it cold down his spine, but he couldn't blink, couldn't look away.

The horse shifted on its hooves and nickered uneasily.

"Hush, now," Voldemort said softly to Simon, eyes never leaving Harry's, whispering something in a language Harry had never heard until the horse stopped fidgeting.

This close, Harry had a good look at the Dark Lord. His skin was still pale and slightly scaly. But something was different from that time by the bridge. The silvery mist that was crawling over his robes and skin without quite touching him was now curling in eddies of accretion. The motes twinkled against the outside of Voldemort's wards. Distant stars more evident against the black of robes than skin, but just as strong wherever they had sited themselves. Small wrinkles washed in waves as the potion found energy points on the Dark Lord's body; Harry recognised a few of them from Charms class: the parallel lines running from brow down nose to chin; the swirl in the crook of the elbow that linked to heart; the mirror pinwheels at Voldemort's temples, on the front of his shoulders (and probably on the back) and on the backs of his hands were miniature galaxies striving towards a cohesion beyond what was considered the normal human sphere of magic.

It was said that centaurs were the only ones who had delved this magic, and they said even less about it than they did about the pull of the stars.

It was the first time Harry had ever seen them outside the diagrams shown by Professor Flitwick. He tried not to stare as they turned and shone and tried to burrow unsuccessfully through the wards.

And there was something else. Something beneath them. Little pulses as something else tried to rise up to the surface of the skin on the interior of the personal shield. Harry couldn't see it under the robes, but he sensed it. His own skin itched in subconscious recognition. And on Voldemort's exposed skin of hands and face and neck he saw the shadows.

Moving. Waiting. Expecting.

He was pretty sure even the centaurs wouldn't know anything about that.

Something at the back of his mind said: Ah.

Harry began to tingle, but it felt like a spring wind rustling green leaves rather than the chemical burn of the resonance from his scar. The silvery mist was blurring Voldemort in his eyes.

And, as his fingers twitched, he felt that soft voice again, a velvety presence echoing half a beat behind his heart. It was the answer to the moving and waiting and expecting.

Something about Harry's expression – some faint light of hope or wonder – must have given him away.

Voldemort's eyes hardened. His mouth shivered with anger.

He had his wand pointing at Harry, holding him up, but it wasn't really necessary. What with all the Death Eaters training their wands on him, Harry couldn't have twitched without being blown to smithereens and tentacles. And whatever spell Voldemort had cast through the Dark Mark had affected Harry too – his arms and legs tingled. He had the terrible surety that this time if he ran it would be in whatever direction the Dark Lord commanded.

The tingling was beginning to burn. Harry's breath came in short, angry gusts through his teeth. He could feel his own magic crawling under his skin, fighting against the abrasion. Was it the shielding spells Voldemort was using? Something was affecting Harry's unicorn sight. The silvery lines that should and did show life in Simon and the Death Eaters crowding closer with anticipation were smeared thin around Voldemort. Harry blinked, but the effect remained.

The vitality in Voldemort was definitely abnormal.

Even Simon was affected by it, trying to focus one eye then the other on the man holding the reins. The horse was trembling, frightened by the wands and the cloaked figures, but apart from some half-hearted tugs on the reins the horse didn't try to leave. Harry wondered if it was loyalty that kept Simon, but it was obvious Voldemort had the horse under some sort of spell.

The burning spiked in his fingers and toes. Harry winced. The burning seemed to leap like a salmon in his scar, seeking a way through it to Voldemort…

Past Harry's fear and anger, back the other way through the link in his scar, there came a hint of disquiet.

If it came from Voldemort, the Dark Lord was hiding it well. Without so much as a whisper, he Stunned Harry and dropped him onto the ground.

There was a moment when the Dark Lord could have killed Harry. But under the hungry, ambitious eyes of the Death Eaters, Harry realised, even the Dark Lord didn't dare do anything so simple. Not when he could display his power by drawing the moment out.

"My," said Voldemort in a silky voice as he stroked a thin, pale hand down the horse's nose, methodical in his demand to be in control of each and every situation, "but you are a handsome creature. And loyal, to have stayed with young Mr Potter here." He nudged Harry with his boot. Fuming, Harry could do nothing, not even shudder as the contact with Voldemort crackled against his skin and turned the mild tingling into severe pins and needles. "Now I know I can put a thrall on you and tame you, I think shall I keep you." He chuckled as the horse bowed its long neck and snuffled at a pocket in his robe. "I fear I have no food for my new equine friend… but Hogsmeade has a candy shop… there will be sugar there for you. It is sugar horses like, is it not, Lucius?"

"Yes, Lord," came that familiar drawling voice from the Death Eater ranks, sounding a little thicker than usual. As the hair up the back of his neck prickled, Harry wondered where Draco was hiding. He hoped desperately the Slytherin would get away from this and be able to warn Hogsmeade and tell the Aurors where he'd last seen Voldemort. And maybe rescue Simon into the bargain. Rescuing Harry would be nice. But Harry had known for a long time now that an end was coming. He'd never felt there was a future to plan for because Voldemort had always been standing between him and it. Strange that even though the moment had arrived he kept holding onto hope that there would be a rescue… he didn't want to die… he wanted that future…

"…Or perhaps I will simply skin the beast and turn it into a rug." Voldemort was still smiling, stroking Simon's neck. Simon turned to sniff at Voldemort's thin hands and the horse's eyes bulged as if it was trying to decipher the strange smells of the magic being used. The ears snapped back and forth between Harry, Voldemort and the Death Eaters with the intensity of equine thought.

Voldemort didn't know much about horses, but Harry knew his horse: Simon was breaking the thrall.

Then Voldemort pushed Simon's head away and flicked his wand and Harry was on his feet again, dangling with his toes scraping the road, and Voldemort was holding Harry's chin, fingers digging in until they bruised. Simon shook his head, annoyed now at being shoved around. Harry could move his eyes enough to see this but he couldn't do anything more than twitch in his efforts to shake Voldemort's hand free. Bile stung his throat as he tried not to retch. His skin felt like it was being rubbed down with acid.

Voldemort leaned forward and sniffed carefully.

The silvery glow pressed against the shields and pulsed behind Harry's eyes in time with the race of his heart, but Voldemort only smiled. "Unicorn blood?" he whispered. "You think to use the petty magics of animals against me?" His mouth widened in a smile, and his voice raised, speaking to Harry for the benefit of the Death Eaters: "You see, Mr Potter. While your spells rebound from my personal wards, your defences are no longer effective against me." He drew back the hand and, quick as a striking snake, backhanded Harry, knocking his glasses askew.

Harry blinked back angry tears. One side of his stung like it was burned. Then: crack! Voldemort brought the flat of his hand back across Harry's other cheek. Each time Voldemort's warded skin touched his face the silver light jumped and the world jerked and hissed in Harry's ears. Like static electricity, the magic under Harry's skin was trying to contact Voldemort's.

Was it really the unicorn blood? That had only been applied to his eyes.

Simon's ears stopped flickering. The horse seemed to be thinking. Simon looked up. Then around as if he had heard something.

"Much easier now, hmm?"

Harry didn't have time to reply – to the sound of a muffled pattering like heavy raindrops, an eerie glow was coming down the road towards them. Simon lifted his head and stared.

"What the…" someone said. The voice was Pettigrew's. Harry marked the direction. Voldemort frowned and turned towards the disturbance, lifting his wand, coincidentally swinging it towards Harry.

Simon snorted, crinkling his nostrils. The horse's ears flattened against its skull.

He lunged.

The aim was uncanny: long, yellow teeth sank deep into Voldemort's shoulder, right where misty silver spun. The barrier spell on Voldemort wrinkled and undulated as it fought back, but the furious Simon was determined, and his teeth went through it like butter, as easily as Simon had cantered through the barrier itself, and the silver mist quivered once then raced across Voldemort's skin and robes and was sucked into the black hole beneath Simon's teeth.

There was a ferocious flash of silver light from Simon's jaws, so bright it left black and yellow lights popping at the back of Harry's eyes, and the wards crisped and were blown away on the wind. Voldemort howled in agony and his features began to melt like the barrier spell on his skin. His pale skin darkened with the patterns of nacreous flowers, green with the underlying long-denied poison, tendrils of black blood branching up across his face and down his arms to his fingers, where the weight of all the poisonous magics of hate and cruelty he'd stored up over the years curled in his fingers and the weight of it pulled at his shoulders and bent his spine and the Dark Lord staggered and would have fallen if he hadn't been held up by the horse.

The anti-Vivicus potion! Simon's teeth had done what the glass hadn't, and now the potion was in the Dark Lord.

Voldemort was withering before Harry's eyes. A darkness was eating him from the inside out. The red eyes rolled back in his head, and veins as dark as Simon's hide spiked inwards towards the irises.

As if echoing the darkness flowing through the wizard, the sky began to turn a bloody red as the light returned.

In the darkness burning its way through Voldemort's body, flecks of smoky pewter glimmered and Harry shivered and the feeling at the back of his mind gained focus. The metallic grains were wrong. Harry had never been religious, but the word sin came to mind.

(Those specks are a sin. They are why Harry is here.)

Harry shook off that voice. It was just the tiredness making him hallucinate – and hallucinate in the third person. He forced himself to focus.

The potion was working, yes. But would it kill the Dark Lord?

The shock of the attack resonated through the Dark Lord and into Harry's scar. Harry felt it like a Stunning spell. The Death Eaters were immobilised by it, although some clapped hands across their forearms as if their Dark Marks were burning them. A witch moaned. Voldemort lifted an arm. The elbow had drifted further towards the wrist and the whole arm flopped as the magic flowed out of it, but he managed to punch Simon hard in the cheek.

Simon didn't appreciate this new nonsense. His ears flattened and he bit down harder.

Over the Dark Lord's scream, Harry could hear bones grinding. Then, as the horse lifted Voldemort off the ground to shake him like a kneazle shaking a rat, a voice shouted, "Nox totalis!" Harry was sure it was Draco, and his spirits lifted at the realisation Draco hadn't run: he wasn't alone.

The last thing Harry saw before inky night rushed back into the world, darker than the horse's coat, drowning out light, was the rag-doll figure of Voldemort being dashed to the ground and the horse rearing up like some monstrous shadow against the rising sun.

He heard the hooves come crashing back down to earth. There was a sharp, wet, splintering sound, and something slimy splattered Harry's cheek. The thud-thump-thumpetty-thud of the horse's hooves slamming into something soft kept going even after Voldemort stopped screaming.

Against the night was a glow, coming from the south. It was all colours of the rainbow, and it put the world into bas relief.

Harry looked around at the fallen Death Eaters and realised that unless he learned to Apparate in the next three seconds he wasn't going to live much longer than Voldemort.

The Death Eaters were pale behind their masks, eyes wide in shock, but already some were recovering.

"Petrificus totalus. Stupify. Nox." Harry began casting spells, whatever he could think of, but he was too late.

Mulciber raised his wand. "Ava-"

Then the rainbow glow from up the road was rushing down on them amidst a clattering patter of little hooves and manic baa's.

A flock of sheep – fleeces glittering with a child's paintbox of light, crashed into the muddle of humans and horse. The noise of the sheep was suddenly eclipsed by the screams of the Death Eaters, and soft thuds of bodies hitting the road. By the thin illumination of the sheep, Harry could see the tall, black-clad figures clutching their left forearms, bending over in agony, then dropping as the pain overwhelmed them.

Sheep shouldn't be able to do that.

They also shouldn't make his head feel like it was going to split open…

Unicorns. Luna. Luna. Ron&Hermione…

The pain gave him some space. Able to think again, Harry looked around.

From the mangled body on the ground ran red veins of magic out into the world. They reached out and flicked at the people, including Harry, who dodged as it tried to attach itself to his scar, and Simon, where one burrowed into one of the horse's legs. Voldemort was down and he was broken and he was losing his hold on his own body and yet he was still fighting.

The closest Death Eater fell to the ground, nearly squashing a sheep, ripping his mask from his face as he struggled against the force eating him, and in the last of Harry's unicorn-sight he saw the man's face blurring and beginning to age and wither as time sped up.

Horrified, with the scattered fear and rage of the Dark Lord fighting for his life echoing from the scar in his forehead, Harry realised the Dark Lord's power over death, the ability to steal life for his own ends, feeding from the lifespan of others: the Vivicus had been only a part of his layered attempt at immortality. Thanks to the Dark Mark he could drink his followers dry to resurrect himself.

The charm on Simon's chest seemed to be reacting to it – it was spinning again, sending out yellow and grey lines that fought back against the sparks of red. The horse snorted in alarm and pawed at the ground, kicking out at a sheep.

Harry felt Voldemort gather all his will – and Voldemort's will was impressive – and there was a strange rushing in his ears as the Dark Lord ripped life and magic from his followers.

One of them must have managed a spell Harry missed seeing: Simon screamed in pain, an almost human sound, and lashed out with both back feet, missing a sheep by inches and catching one of the cloaked figures in the chest as the Death Eater fell. There was a splintering sound. The man made a few wet, breathy noises, twitched as he hit the ground, and was still. Harry drew his wand and slashed it down in Simon's direction: "Finite incantatum!"

It was the only one he could think of at such short notice with his mind befuddled by pain and the stress of Obliviation and the barrier. And it didn't work.

Harry groaned in sympathy with Simon and at his own pain as Voldemort wrenched magic from Harry, too. He clapped a hand to his scar and bit back a scream. God, he was going to die. He was going to die unless he could think.

A magenta sheep skittered between them, lighting the belly of the horse a bloody purple as Simon reared. Simon screamed again and the trailing reins swung and lashed Harry's face. Harry caught them and held on before Simon would bolt and break a leg in the dark, a small, set-aside part of Harry's mind equally terrified that Simon would strike out and hit Harry by mistake. He shouted the spell again – "Finite incantatum!" – knowing it was too simple and doomed against the powers of Death Eaters and Voldemort, and felt something twist behind the scar in his forehead. The pain built and Harry screamed the spell for a third time, not knowing if he was defending himself or Simon or something entirely different; all he knew was that he had to say the spell and he had to say it with every magical fibre of his being. He just had to say it… say the spell…

Spell? What spell?

He couldn't think. His brain had completely clouded over like the sky. No ray of light to illuminate Harry Potter. And then, as Simon reared and twisted and yanked the reins free, and Harry looked up at the horse towering over him and saw the life demanding to continue pulsing bright from the great heart of a racehorse, saw it with the last of his unicorn sight, his eyes widened with shock as he saw the hitch below the horse's heartlight and he turned to Voldemort and saw the darkness curdling where there should have been light.

His eyes snapped back to Simon.

There was something – something exactly like Voldemort's magic seeping out of Simon's foreleg, just above the knee. The spell he'd first seen when the barrier broke. Where it had come from he didn't know, but it was hurting his horse. A red forked tongue of Voldemort's life-draining magic flickered out of it. It pulsed along with the agony in his scar and Harry lost the last of his rational thought, only knowing that he had to get the spell, had to break it, had to free Simon….

He reached out with a hand as he stumbled forward, trying to catch the reins, and felt his fingers snag in the Dark magic of the spell which somehow had anchored itself to Simon. He caught the reins and instinct helped him hold the spell, too.

It felt like… it was the Dark Lord's hate screaming through his scar, a living link with Voldemort that pulsed between his fingers, sucking out Simon's life, feeding off the horse exactly the same way as Voldemort was trying to draw life from Harry through the scar.

Harry's head was going to split like a pumpkin…

He dodged a hoof and clawed at the spell.

Simon groaned from somewhere deep in his bones and reared up one more time, trying to escape.

The spell stretched and pulled and broke and a skull with a snake pouring from its mouth evaporated in the night. Drawing on pure intuition, Harry wrapped the last of it around his fingers, wrapping it up with the reins, and he stabbed his fingers at his scar, pressing the spell deep into it.

Pain. Blinding pain.

The dregs of the spell from Simon's leg writhed against his scar, finding something akin, something horrible and deep lurking behind Harry's eyes.

There was a soundless crack that he felt in his fingers, and then Harry was inside Voldemort's mind as Voldemort had been inside Harry's –

– hate fear determination MALICE will will will ME at all costs MY GLORY at all costs and BURN the world at my will and YOU you YOU will tremble at my STRENGTH, boy! –

– and Harry knew, knew in his heart that whatever spell he said didn't matter, because no single wizard spell he had ever learned could shatter this knot of Dark magic and hate.

Harry's own heart faltered.

How can I beat you? he found himself asking.

Voldemort's laugh sounded in his mind.

How can I let you go free? Harry demanded, ashamed as he did so, because he was trying to bargain with the monster.

It is not your choice, Harry. This is all you are now… nothing. I am all. As it was meant to be from the beginning.

Voldemort's certainty was like a tsunami. Despair engulfed Harry. And Harry, for a split second, gave up. This was a battle he could not win. Voldemort would go on and on and on; killing, destroying, butchering the world.

Yes. And once again you will aid my rebirth.

Sensing Harry's defeat, Voldemort coiled up his power and unleashed it as an attack directly into Harry's chest, ripping Harry's magic up and out through their connection of the scar, adding Harry's power to that he'd already taken from the Death Eaters, and then Voldemort was a darkness rising, rising, rising from the ground, the darkness of the sky reaching down to cloak him, a thin hand of smoke reaching towards Harry's heart, reaching down to strip Harry's magic to the very dregs and use it to rebuild himself, and Voldemort was rising and Harry couldn't think of a way out he was so tired the world rocked and his brain was seizing and fingers of Dark magic closed around his heart and squeezed –

Tha-thump.

Between heatbeats lay a full moment.

No fear, no hate, no frantic need to plan intruded. This moment was a moment of experience. This moment was Harry and it was the other, twenty-one-year-old shadow of Harry.

It was the soft scent of unicorn breath and figs.

It tasted of chocolate cake and berries and the bitter-metal betrayal by omission of truth of an enemy who'd become a friend.

It sounded in the deep bass voice of the Forest, that single note thrumming in the dark depths of a unicorn's eye holding reality pinned; threaded through and lifted by the golden hum of the Sickle.

It was the casual bump of shoulder-on-shoulder of Ron and Hermione telling Harry to cheer up and stop being a git, and the hugs they gave him when he'd been found after being lost, and the hand of shadow-eyed Sirius on his shoulder, trying to give Harry what neither of them had ever had – the permanence of family, and it was the steady presence of a horse and the hand-in-hand and lip-pressed-to-lip of Luna.

Its arc was the motion of a horse, supple and ready to work with a friend, leaping across dimensions if need be, standing four-square against the stars in a world that rolled with the tides of the galaxy.

It was the smile of enemies who'd become friends thanks to patience and perseverance and the advice of a book, and it was the determination to keep trying that burned in the hollows of Sirius' eyes and at the corners of his mouth – because Harry was worth it, even when he was being a pubescent puke; it was the recognition of the fortitude with which Remus Lupin faced the full moon and Slytherin students.

It was the love of parents who had put themselves between death and their baby.

It was Harry James Potter himself the boy the wizard the young man who would put himself between death and his friends not because it was the right thing to do but because it was easier to suffer than allow to your friends to hurt. It was that, this golden ribbon winding around his heart keeping the core of him uncorrupted when evil tried to corrode him.

It was the world in silver.

It was the unyielding law that the death of a unicorn cannot go unanswered.

It was the means to undo the wrong that resulted when things were so broken they had to back to their beginnings.

The roots of this moment reached deep into living soil and stretched up into the sky where the moment shivered leaves under cloud and sun and moon: fruit of the moon forever dripping from oak trees, awaiting purpose.

Harry felt that bass, wordless voice of the Forest well up in him. It needed words. It needed to strike the golden cord that thrummed through his heart and was the foundation and the strength and the determination of who he was.

The voice of the Forest needed a host.

It wanted the one it had known for twenty-one years now.

It wanted the one who had taken the Sun's Halo for unselfish purpose.

Harry agreed even before he was asked.

The golden cord sang as it unravelled.

The words demanded.

The moment ended.

Tha-thump.

– Voldemort was rising, his body smashed, his twisted spirit blistering with the hate and the terror that anchored it to life. His face was battered beyond recognition, but it turned to Harry. A sound almost like laughter came from the broken jaw. The darkness from the sky spun gently around him and laid its mantle across his shoulders and that hand of evil magic closed around Harry's heart –

Nice try, Harry.

The voice dug through Harry's scar deep into his head and his magic squeezed at Harry's heart. It should have hurt. Harry braced his feet on the earth and felt it sing back to him. The wind ruffled his hair and any pain wafted away. He barely heard Voldemort speaking into his mind. The words were distant.

… But here I stand. Eternally.

As the malice washed over him and all around him Death Eaters moaned and collapsed as the last of their magic drained into their master, Harry put his free hand – the one not holding the reins with some strength so vast it was keeping Simon from bolting – to his scar and found Voldemort's magic there.

Harry smiled.

The unicorn sight flared up and lit the world like a magnesium flare. It probed shadows and found the deepest, darkest mirror of its brightness. The echoing death of a unicorn was a bitter, tarry offence against the deep magic Hogwarts was built on. It was innocence murdered for selfish fear. It was Voldemort's bridge to the living.

"Yes," the Forest said with Harry's voice, and Harry smiled again and his laughter was a stream chuckling gently as the spirit of the rustling, whispering entity held him stronger than Hagrid's arms. With green eyes, the Forest looked out and saw the charred remnants of unicorn blood in the Dark Lord. "There you are. But nothing is eternal."

The hand trying to squeeze Harry's heart silent and dead shattered. The coiling darkness around the mangled form shuddered and drew back. What…?

Harry stepped forward, brushing aside the broken magic from his heart with a wave of his hand. Voldemort shrank back, the pillar of smoke flickering faster, but Harry reached out and pulled at the darkness suffusing his opponent, holding him with the same ease as with his other hand he held the reins of the frightened horse leaping like a marlin.

"I have you now," he said gently.

The darkness shivered and tried to escape, but was trapped like an iron pin on a magnet. Voldemort had strengthened himself on unicorn blood once – he had stolen it. Gifted, its strength was an order of magnitude greater. Harry's hand had the force of spring growth behind it and thrummed with gifted magic. It touched flesh, cold and slick with the damage Simon had done to it, and in the world of silver and gold, Harry breathed the word

Return

and knew it was the right word. The only word. The magic underpinning the wild magic of blood and fire and heart and rain and moon.

Voldemort screamed as the word – the magic beyond spells – as the will of Harry Potter and the Forest struck deep into the magical fibre of him.

Return Harry said softly as Simon bucked and kicked out at a Death Eater and did his best to tear the reins out of Harry's hands, and he felt the lining of his throat rip with the force of the word. Harry closed his eyes and held the words of the spell deep inside his mind, feeling out the link between scar and spell, bridging it with unicorn blood to unicorn blood, and finding the pattern…

Return he thought, and in his mind's eye he pushed the word deep into the scar, adding a twist to it, deeper, deeper, deeper…

Then he was touching the darkness at the heart of Voldemort – seeping tar where Harry was golden light.

In the silence of that light Harry was the spell and the spell was a gift.

RETURN

He gave it to the darkness, to the evil, to his enemy.

The darkness exploded and fell like rain into the wind which whirled it off into the soft starless night that lay beyond Dark and Light.

Voldemort screamed again in rage, in terror, in disbelief, in a voice that sounded in Harry's head instead of his ears, and then the Dark Lord's presence shrank in on itself and disappeared into a dimension Harry couldn't follow even with unicorn sight, a small blue twinkle of some stuff Harry almost recognised, and then that dimension wrapped around itself and popped like a soap bubble, leaving Harry so light he could fly away… dropping the reins… in that moment his hands and heart empty and light and open to the sky that was kissing him with raindrops, each cool kiss a salutation and a reassurance that what was happening was truth.

The world stopped.

There was an odd vacuum of sound: the blazing freedom from pain and hate exploding into life behind Harry's scar, the sucking of a wave rushing away through the sand of a steep beach, the bell that stole all noise and gave none being struck, the vacuum of sand running up through the pinch in the hourglass.

And the world started again and Harry gasped like a drowning man coming up for air as the shock of it hit him.

And Simon, who had been rearing again, taller than Hagrid, twisting upon himself so in pain that Harry, thrown back into the world and raw with mortal concerns again, looked up and feared the horse would break its back, Simon came down onto all four legs and turned his head to Harry.

The whites of his eyes were the shining edges of twin eclipses and his flanks a heaving, stormy sea in the shifting, shimmering light of enchanted fleeces. Yellow light crackled across the dark hide like lightning in the storm.

Simon managed one shaky step closer. Harry finished the distance between them and reached out and took the dangling reins.

"He's gone," Harry said in a shattered voice, and the horse dipped its head and shuddered a sigh and seemed grateful for the comfort of a hand stroking its forelock out of its eyes. The charm in his chest fluttered and calmed. The yellow light slept again.

Harry leaned his forehead against Simon's and tried to hold onto the fading memory of bobbing on something vast. It was already slipping away like the rain between his fingers, but one thing he knew:

"It's over."

ooOOoo