FROM THE BEGINNING AND UNTIL THE END

A gray curtain of rain was falling on the island, turning the fires in columns of thick smoke.

The magic bubble that protected the camp was gone and several tents were down. Their fabric was caving in as it filled with water. Pans, blankets and other precious resources were sinking in the mud. The tree under which Harry had sat down to watch the training was now a black torch. The flames were burning, hissing on the scattered barricades that protected the Aurors from the fury of dragons.

Curses were blasting in the fading night, a roar of colorful and deadly sparks which mingled with groans, threats, calls.

Teddy was soaked and his shoulder was sending hot white flares of pain through his brain whenever he raised his arm, but he kept fighting, back to back with his godfather whose swollen face was almost unrecognizable behind his cracked glasses.

Scorpius was still standing, but only by miracle. His dripping blond hair was plastered to his forehead, his left arm was dangling limply along his body and a sarcastic grin had settled on his lips, but he was not ready to yield. In between two hexes, Ron glanced at him from time to time and a strange pride tightened under his scratched breastplate.

Terrence had the feeling his heart had moved to his knee and was beating there at a frantic pace. His voice was hoarse from casting spells with desperate obstinacy, his right eye was bloated and closed. He was stumbling behind Darren who was chasing after some rebels, like an indefatigable dark figure in his homespun cloak.

At the feet of the mountain, the body of one of two dragons lay panting, imprisoned in multiple silver chains, his maw sealed, fiercely guarded by Aretho and Charlie. Hermione pushed back her brown hair sticky with blood. Their plan had worked.

Dawn would come soon.

The Scott brothers were dead. So was Nigel. Dean's freckled cheeks were resting on the plowed dark earth, his blue eyes open like if they were staring at the broken guitar abandoned a bit further. Lizzie crouched beside him and closed his eyes, swallowing a sob, then hurried to an injured Auror who was moaning behind a fallen tent.

Skyler and Wendy, who had disappeared for a moment on the other side of the ridge, were coming back at full speed, leaning on their brooms, slaloming swiftly in between hills like if they were on a Quidditch pitch. They were much more in sync now than at the beginning of the evening and almost seemed to play with their attackers, like two swallows pirouetting above a lake.

Wendy's thighs, shins, forearms were hurting horribly and she was almost sure that if she'd tried to straighten up, her back would break with a sharp crack. But she refused to listen to her aches, forcing her muscles to overstep their limits, squinting to keep her eyes open and focused.

The rain was diluting the blood caked on Skyler's brow while he was bombarding the enemy, skimming above the battlefield, but he kept grinning ferociously because he was not about to slow down – impressed by the endurance and agility of the girl.

These four kids overthrew any notion of logical or appropriate. They were intelligent, dedicated, bold and brave to unconsciousness.

They were anything but what one would have expected them to be.

And Skyler was pushing back the thought that his son was a good for nothing, that if he had been there by accident or vanity, he would have been boastful, would have whimpered, tried to get attention or comfort, sought to protect his own butt and never proved useful.

But them...

Scorpius Malfoy was fighting despite his obviously painful wound, never backing down.

If it hadn't been for Terrence Swanson's brilliant idea, they would never have been able to complete the operation of capturing one of the younger dragons.

Wendy Philips's audacity was breathtaking, she was undeniably born to fly on a broom and to handle a bat. Skyler never would have imagined you could use a wand that way.

And Albus...

Skyler leveled up the broom to take the curve at the end of the plain, slowing just enough time to glance at the sky full of dark clouds, before flowing back into battle.

Up there, Harry Potter's son was facing alone the Anghenfil.

oOoOoOoOo

The night was strangely clear above the dark swirling of mist, and the two intertwined silhouettes of the fighters were carved on it like an abominable ballet of Chinese shadows.

- "Again!" shrieked the Anghenfil's rider hysterically.

The monster's jaws crushed the wing of the small black dragon and excruciating pain burst like fireworks in Albus' head, sending him sliding into a new vision.

He was fifteen years old. His black hair fell in unruly locks over his green eyes...

No, it was not him. It was his father.

Harry was covered in blood, he could hardly see, he felt sick. He was terrified and yet he knew he could not back down, he could not escape, he had to fight.

There was no other solution.

Clutching his wand, he forced himself to get up with the help of the cold stone, and stepped on the soiled lawn of the cemetery to face Voldemort who was howling in cruel joy.

An echo of this sardonic laughter brought Albus back to reality. Spasms of pain were shaking him. He did not know who he was, what he was, where was the line between the conscience of the boy and the dragon's body.

He could feel the fetid breath of the beast, burning on his skin.

- "Did you have enough yet?"

MacFusty's voice was cackling somewhere close.

The old man was leaning on the Anghenfil's neck, sitting in his steel saddle, and his blue bulging eyes were watching his prey with interest. The moon silvered the white tufts of hair over his ears and his long black cloak fluttered in the night, as if to scatter off the stars.

Suspended upside down, Albus tried to swallow. He had to stay conscious. He could not give in... he had to... He struggled to keep his eyes open, but the red glare of the Anghenfil caught him again, sucking in thoughts, memories, doubts, fears, regrets of the humans around him, indiscriminately mixing truth and hope, painful pasts and irrational terrors and drowning the boy in another whirling of visions.

A very young Hermione was tying a scarf around a tree trunk, stifling her tears, and then apparating away, holding hands with Harry.

Ron... no, it was not her uncle. It was James. He was sitting under the willow by the lake of Hogwarts. "You're nothing", he said, carelessly playing with a snitch.

He casually drove a hand in his untidy hair, a spark of defiance in his eyes, then turned, sneering, to his friends.

Terrence was laying on the ground in a cave with crystal walls. His features were drawn, his long blond hair dirty, his lips bluish. He was not wearing his glasses. A dark red stain was spreading on his white chemist coat. A glimmering breath, like a glass dust, was coming off his mouth and someone was singing somewhere.

Lizzie was begging her husband to stay, standing on the lawn in front of a brick house. The man curtly freed himself from her arms, got into a car and drove off without a look back. Lizzie closed her eyes, shame written all over her face. Onlookers were whispering. On the kitchen window, someone had spray painted the word "witch" in hideous yellow letters.

In the Great Hall of Hogwarts, someone was jeering as Scorpius was stumbling on an unfriendly stretched leg and falling ungracefully with his plate. Then he was getting up, plastered with treacle pie and no one was coming to his help.

A disappointed and angry looking Skyler was yelling on a teenager with receding chin and greasy hair who then left the room, slamming the door in the face of his father.

Wendy was sitting on a flowery quilt and she was sobbing, her head buried in her arms holding her knees.

He tore himself from the images in a desperate effort, clawed in, bit, pushed off and slashed the dragon's jowls. The fangs of the monster barely quivered, tightening their grip on the black satin feathers gorging with blood. A bone snapped and Albus screamed in pain, while a new vision engulfed him.

An old man was crying alone in the dark. He was leaning on a table covered with a white sheet and holding the hand of a young girl with milky skin who seemed to be sleeping.

- "No one will come, Father", said a young man hoarsely, stepping closer.

- "We have well served the ministry, Josiah", mumbled the old fellow, lifting his head. The moonlight bathed his wrinkled, pale, crying face - and with horror Albus realised it was Bercelak MacFusty. "All these years, we have kept the existence of the dragons a secret, erased Muggles' memories, guarded the Hebrides with our lives... they won't ignore us."

- "It's too late, Father. She's no longer there."

The wind sweeping under the wings of the monster threw ice droplets on the little dragon's muzzle and Albus came back to reality.

MacFusty was staring at him, yet his blue orbs, in their white globes streaked with blood vessels, seemed to contemplate something else.

Did he also see the images the Anghenfil was pulling like a string of nightmares?

"He does not see anything. But he can feel it," said a soft, deep voice to the question that had stealthily crossed Albus' feverish mind.

"Dewis!" A sob choked the boy when he let himself be wrapped in the immaterial presence of the dragon from his childhood. "You were here..."

"I won't leave you. I was and am still here, little one."

"I couldn't hear you anymore... I'm scared. It hurts... I just want... everything to stop."

He felt like he was swirling down in darkness, alone, abandoned. The red eye of the Anghenfil was drilling power and suffering in his heart. He was losing the battle.

"Hold on, Albus."

He had no strength to free himself from the monster's jaws and he pitied the madman who laughed hysterically in the night. He did not want to kill him. He could still hear the plaintive cries of the dragon that he had attacked the day before: a simple creature with no understanding of this war, struggling to stay alive, that did not control its violence and had not chosen to be there. And Albus had murdered it.

"You were defending your people. You saved lives by doing that," gently countered Dewis.

"It wasn't him I should have attacked. The Anghenfil is rotten with hatred and cruelty. He was my opponent. It's him I should have killed, to break his link with MacFusty."

"But you do not want to kill anyone, now."

The stars were falling in a rain of fire around him. He wanted to touch them – they looked like petals floating on an ink sea. There was no more suffering, no more demonic laughter, no more sound, nothing.

"MacFusty is an old man who's in so much pain he lost his mind, Dewis," Albus murmured with infinite sadness. "An old man who gazed too long in the eye of a dragon, who let it feed his bitterness and anger. I can't make him go back. I can't change the past. I'm not strong enough."

"You cannot change the circumstances, but you can decide what you'll do to face them. You have no power over what happens to you, but your choice belongs to you. This is what you have to remind him."

"I'll never make it!"

The monster spread his wings, hovering. Its long neck rippled as if he was about to regurgitate. The old man leaned forward to better see the little fur dragon still trapped in the giant fangs. It barely moved, like a black cloth stained with blood.

Yet the Anghenfil was fidgeting nervously.

"Someone gave his life. Someone wept. Someone forgave. You were born because of these three choices, Albus Severus Potter," continued Dewis, his deep voice filled with love. "You exist because Lily Evans reached out to someone nobody wanted and because due to this, a man sacrificed everything to protect another's child. You were born in the light, because your father decided to erase the past by giving you the name of Severus."

The monster growled. It bared its fangs. Bercelak MacFusty shuddered. There was something like a song around him. Inaudible, yet powerful. Beautiful, yet terrifying.

And the body of the furry little dragon was slowly brightening as if all stars were gathering around him.

"The world is a dark place, Albus. There will always be people eager to quench their thirst for power, their lust for revenge, their desire to own. It will be difficult and you may not be able to change the way people look at each other. The dragon's gaze gives you great power, Albus, but it's your heart that draws people to you. The light comes from you. You love. You love so much that you instilled life and hope, and that is what brings them to you."

Albus thought back to the scene in the cemetery. He was sure it was a memory, not one of the unhealthy illusions of the Anghenfil.

A memory of his father when he was his age.

A memory in which, despite the fact all hopes were lost, despite the pain, despite his fear, he was standing up and facing evil.

Perhaps this memory was the one Harry had wanted to share with him - if they could have spent together his fifteenth birthday...

So he breathed in deeply, forgetting the pain waves wracking his body, and listened to the voice of the dragon, let himself be overwhelmed by the magic he had accepted, years ago, on top of a snowy mountain.

"It is you who have given desire to live to the ferret. And it is you who enlightened the world of Wendy, who opened the door behind which was locked Scorpius, and who gave Terrence a goal. This is what you are, little one. From the beginning and until the end."

Albus smiled.

And Lily Evans' green eyes, these eyes that had changed the course Severus Snape's life, the eyes that had faced the enemy of a world and defeated him - these eyes that reflected Albus' soul and that of a dragon named "choice" - opened and looked compassionately at the monster and the old man.

oOoOoOoOo

The last star disappeared and the sea wind dispersed the clouds. In the silky pink sky, a golden ray spread like an arrow and hit the ground, flooding the plain in pure light.

All wands lowered when the dragon fell into the shimmering shower of sun raindrops.

Slowly, so slowly.

The Anghenfil crashed, making the ground shake. Its monstrous head crushed one of the last standing tents and its wings crumpled down with a frightful noise of sheet metal. Its tail waved a moment, like a long steel snake, then toppled heavily and did not move anymore.

The beast was holding in its jaws the broken body of Albus.

TBC

Next Chapter: TEARS

Dear Guest,

I'm so happy you like this story! I hope it'll live to your expectations till the end! As for Ginny, she couldn't come over to the battlefield because all communications were cut after Harry, Albus and Charlie left for the Hebrides. I'm sure she wants to be with them… I've made up for all the bad things I dumped on her character (and on James Sirius) in the coming chapter. I hope you will enjoy it too – although using a word such as "enjoy" in that context might not be very appropriate… ahem. I'll let you be the judge of that.

Thanks again for your reviews!

'Read' you soon!

Lia