The smell of the sea breeze had gone. He and Dumbledore were now back in the astronomy tower, shivering and dripping in water. For one horrible moment, Harry's imagination thought some of the Inferi had rode along with them, until he blinked and saw the dark shapes around them were no more than Professor Sinstra's astronomy equipment. All was still, in fact, the darkness total, except for a faint green glow emanating from somewhere.

Dumbledore staggered against him. For a moment, he feared his inexpert Apparition had thrown him off balance; then he saw his face, paler and harder than ever in the distant green light. He glanced sideways at him, ready to grab him should he fall, but something seemed to have acted upon the Headmaster like a stimulant. He was staring, with determination, out the tower and at something beyond Harry's line of sight. They gently disengaged from one another, Harry leaving him leaning against the ramparts as he crossed to the balcony and looked out.

Sickening dread flooded him. His face was drained of the little colour left in it. Fear swelled inside him like a venom, compressing his lungs and driving all distractions and discomforts from his mind.

There it was, hanging in the sky above the school: the blazing green skull with a serpent tongue - the mark Death Eaters left behind whenever they had entered a building, wherever they had murdered... They were here. In the castle. Probably walking its halls at this very moment. On their way to him, on their way to Dumbledore… or to Daphne. His stomach dropped a few inches; he swayed on the spot at the thought.

In the green glow from the mark, he saw Dumbledore muttering wearily, clutching at his chest with his blackened hand.

"Go and wake Severus," he said faintly, but clearly.

He hesitated. He had said he would obey, but leaving anyone in this state, never mind Dumbledore, was wrong. Death Eaters or no Death Eaters.

"Go," he repeated feebly. "Tell him what has happened. Bring him to me. Do nothing other than exactly that and speak to nobody else on your way. I shall wait here."

"But, sir, Madam Pomfrey - the Order - !"

Despite his feeble and weak form, Dumbledore's eyes were ablaze.

"I will be fine, Harry. Now do as I say... And trust me."

His met Dumbledore's eyes.

"Sir?"

"You swore to obey me, Harry — now go!"

His voice etched through the stillness and, against his better judgement, Harry forced himself to comply. He would do as he was told. Those were the terms he had agreed to.

But as he hurried across the room, tore back the iron ring of the door and thundered down the stairs, he knew it was wrong. He knew he was heading the wrong direction. His fight wasn't in the dungeons, with Snape, it was up here protecting Dumbledore. He would do as he was told - find Snape - but he would do everything along his way to let as many people as possible know what was happening as possible. He would call for Sirius, for Tonks, for Mad-Eye, for Peeves, for anyone that would hear him.

Dumbledore bore this castle's protection. And now, while his life hung in the balance, that responsibility transferred to Harry. If Death Eaters were here in the castle, and of their three possible targets, Dumbledore, himself and Daphne, they were not going to stop at anyone coming between them. The fate of the castle rested on him, he was not going to let down the only home he had known.

Deep in his determination, Harry had not been expecting to run into somebody so quickly. He came out of the astronomy tower and reacted too late to avoid crashing face-first into a head of long, blonde hair. He cleared a few feet of air before hitting the marble floor painfully, having his unintended victim land just as messily next to him.

"Daphne!"

She was okay - minus being upside down on the corridor floor. She did not share his enthusiasm at seeing him, however. Her eyes bulged out their sockets and she looked as though a mother catching her son out of bed. Relief soaked his heart that she was okay, but he pushed to keep his orders at the forefront of his mind.

They leapt up.

"What were you doing up there?!"

"What? Just - where's Snape? Dumbledore needs him, it's urgent!"

She didn't answer. She looked like she was going to, but her face changed and she looked though she was fighting down the urge to shout, or to vomit. He hadn't slowed down enough for fear to occur to him, but if he had, he'd probably look in a similar state right now. She gulped and took several deep breaths, glaring at him.

A long second ticked. A pumping heartbeat was loud in his ears.

"Daphne?"

"This way. I'll show you."

He blinked, but she said nothing more. Just turned and, at speed, led him down the corridor. She mentioned she hadn't had a chance to exercise much this year, but even running at a mere jog she was easily quicker than him.

"Dumbledore is injured…" he said between pants of breath, "... we were searching for a Horcrux, we found it, but… Inferini… god, Daphne, that locket I gave you... and then… the Dark Mark… Was it Malfoy? What's happening, Daphne!?"

She mustn't have heard him.

The next corridor they crossed was in ruins; dust and shattered brick everywhere, half the ceiling fallen in - a battle had been raging here moments before. But as he tried to look for survivors, or figure out whose favour the fight had been in, Daphne rushed past down a different passageway.

"Wait!"

She didn't.

He rushed after her. Together, they sprinted toward the landing and down the remainder of the grand staircase. There was no destruction here, nor was the sign of any of their classmates coming out of their common rooms. That either meant the battle hadn't reached here yet, or it was only involving a limited number of people. Less involved meant less deaths - but also considerably weakened their chances of winning.

As they thundered down the staircase steps at a time, perhaps the most alarming thing was how irreversibly still the castle felt. He had seen the grand staircase at night multiple times before, but this wasn't that. This wasn't any mere night, this was death in the air. He should be in the midst of the battle right now, fighting to protect the only home he'd ever known. Together, he, Daphne, Sirius and Dumbledore together would be unstoppable - there wasn't a Death Eater in Voldemort's arsenal that could stand against them. But they were separated, divided and not at their full strength. For gods sake, where was Snape?

Somewhere in the depths of the castle he heard a muffled yell echo. Daphne stiffened and glanced over her shoulder, but said nothing. They both picked up their pace.

Reaching the end of the staircase, the oak doors of the entrance hall had been blasted open. There was what looked like smears of blood on the flagstones beyond. The giant Gryffindor hourglass had been hit by a curse, the rubies within were still falling, with a loud rattle, to the marble floor below. Daphne took off, not towards the dungeons like he had been expecting, but out into the courtyard. He hesitated, but scared of losing sight of her, followed.

"Where are we going?"

This wasn't right, he was starting to feel anxious. As he and Daphne ventured across the wooden bridge that led out into the grounds, the sounds of fighting were not getting louder, but dying out. They were getting further and further away from the battle. What was Snape doing out in the Hogwarts grounds?

"Where are we going?"

Still, she said nothing. She was listening to whatever was happening behind them, and still seemed terrified.

"What's Snape doing this far out?"

There was another yell from behind, rather louder than the last. Daphne looked nervously over her shoulder again, then back at him, and went on. Harry looked through the glass-less windows up again at the green skull, with its serpent's tongue glinting evilly above them. It was clearer now than ever out in the grounds.

As they reached the end of the wooden bridge, the silence lingering strictly over them, he lost confidence in his strides. His heart was pulling him too far in the other direction. Maybe she was right, maybe this was exactly where Snape was, but his anxiety had won it's battle with the blind faith he entrusted in her. They reached the stonehenge - the spot where the two of them had confessed their love to each other, what felt like a life-time ago, and he stopped.

It took her a moment to realise his footsteps had ceased, then she turned back to him, slowed in her strides but did not stop.

"Where's Snape?"

"This way."

"Daphne, stop."

She didn't.

"No, Harry. Snape is this way."

In exasperation, he threw his arms out around them.

"Where, then? Where is he? Just tell me!"

Her direction changed finally. Moving back towards him now, still with the cold look of a woman on a mission on her face. He didn't know why he felt as threatened by this as he did.

"He's this way. Just keep coming. Please."

"Where are we going? Daphne, Dumbledore needs Snape! I need to know where he is! If he's down by Hagrids, or by the entrance, there isn't time to go on foot! I'll summon brooms, we can fly down, or - "

He went to raise his hand, his wand hand, but froze on the spot. At that second, a particularly cold shiver had gone down his spine. And it had nothing to do with his sopping wet robes in the cold night air. In fact, how freezing he was now paid him absolutely no mind - for all he cared, the hillside could have been covered in ice or fire, he still wouldn't have noticed.

All his attention, right now, was focused on the tip of the wand aimed at his face.

"I'm sorry, Harry... I'm afraid I can't let you do that."

His eyes focused on the wand, then back onto its owner. She was not fearful anymore. Now she looked determined and venomous. Now, she looked like The Ice Queen.

"... what?"

"The Death Eaters are here, they want you," she answered quickly. "They want both of us, actually. We need to get awa-"

At once, he understood. In a rushing realisation, he felt incredibly frustrated at both her deception and in himself for believing it. More than that, he completely understood her. Though annoyed at the deviation from Snape, he couldn't find it in him to be mad at her. She was trying to protect him. He didn't blame her in the slightest.

But just because he understood, did not mean he agreed. In fact, she looked so sure of her resolve, he doubted there was anything he could say or do to get through to her. There would be no compromise or convincing had here. He remembered, as though from a former life, his years worth of duelling experience. He wondered if this would be enough to defeat her, if it came to it. She was more knowledgeable than him, academically at least, but how well would that translate into duelling? It wasn't a question he had ever realistically considered.

So instead, he didn't leave her time to finish. Ducking out of the aim of her wand, he tore himself back the direction he came and took off in a sprint.

"PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!"

By sheer chance, her spell struck just as he crossed behind a pillar of the white stonehenge. It collided with a loud CRACK into the stone, dislodging a large, probably thousand-year-old cloud of rubble in its wake.

The hurtful shock that she had actually cast at him was quick to wear off, and he dared a glance out from behind his shelter. She had cemented herself between him and the entrance to the bridge, her wand pointing directly his way. Slowly and with his hands hung up by his shoulders, he pulled himself out from behind the stone pillar, into range of her wand. Her hand was shaking very badly. He couldn't find the heart in him to raise his against her.

"Daphne, listen to me! Dumbledore is hurt, he's injured! He needs help, and only I know he's up there! He needs Snape!"

She shook her head.

"The Death Eaters are here to kill us," she repeated. "We need to get away. They wanted me to bring you to them, when they find out I'm betraying them they'll kill me on the spot. We need to go into hiding or we will both die."

"If Dumbledore dies then we all die!" he shouted.

She gave a disgusted laugh and her mouth contorted involuntarily, as though she had tasted something very bitter.

"You are good… and pure…" she breathed hotly. "And you make me happy. And I'm not letting you throw that away so you can die playing hero! I don't care about the rest of them! I never did! I care about me and you!"

At this, his emotions burst to life like a burning torch.

"You don't mean that…"

"I do! What have they ever done for us!? We don't deserve the lives that they made us live! We can go - we can start something new - but only if we go, now! These people aren't who you think they are!"

His threw his arms out in exasperation.

"So, what? Just leave!? What about Ron and Hermione? What about Tracey? About Astoria!?"

His words echoed across the grounds. Her face twisted and shimmered, looking like she was having to swallow down a particularly heavy gulp of fire whiskey. He had thought bringing her sister into it would be her ultimate trump card. He was wrong.

"Right now... the best protection we can give them is leaving. They're after us, so if we leave, they'll come after us. Doesn't take a genius that figure it out. Haven't you had enough people die for you already, Harry? Isn't it time to end that vicious cycle?"

Harry stared, wishing his ears had never heard her

"Don't say that…"

Daphne's lips peeled from her tear in a venomous grimace.

"This is me, here, taking a stand against it. I'm in control of my own destiny. And so are you."

There was a bang and shouts from behind them, louder than ever. They both turned to look. It sounded as though people were fighting in the entrance hall, not 30 meters away from where they were standing. His heart thundered in his chest. Every second they spent away was increasing the likeliness someone was dying.

She was right, enough people had died in this war, and there were people dying from it right now.

"I need to go down there."

"I can't let you."

He edged closer.

"I need to go down there."

"I don't care."

She really didn't, did she? This situation, the one he had preyed from day one they would never end up in, had finally happened. He did not like the sight of Daphne he was getting - but this was her. This was the real her, through and through.N ow that this drop of ink had been slipped onto the sheet of satin, he found it unlikely they could ever return to what once was.

His head was ringing uncomfortably.

"People are dying. I understand what you are doing… " he spoke slowly, with meaning. "But I can't let others fight for me without helping. I can't let them die for me on the front lines while I'm running away. Together, we can fight. We can win. Neither of us will die tonight, I promise. And if we get Dumbledore's help - he can help us -"

Her answer was a predatory snarl.

"Professor Dumbledore is not the wizard you think he is!"

"What does that mean?"

She shook her head.

"We can just go, Harry. Change our names and start a life away from all this. We can even live as muggles, if you want! Because there is nothing but pain and death for us here. We don't need to argue, we're on the same side."

He agreed. He agreed a thousand times more than he knew he'd be able to communicate. His head was flooded with a dozen different ways they could have gone about it, but none of them seemed important now. What mattered right now, as in this exact second, was getting past Daphne. Harry looked at the only woman he had ever truly loved, feeling nothing but heartbreak at what he knew he must do.

"You're right. It didn't need to be."

She had been anticipating him.

"STUPEFY!"

"PROTEGO!"

As he dropped his wand hand to aim at her, she fired off a jinx that he was barely able to deflect in time. She raised her wand again, but now he was ready; with reflexes born of his Quidditch training, he flung himself sideways onto the ground and rolled behind a pillar of the stonehenge.

"FLIPENDO!"

He heard another stone crack as the flying hex missed him.

"DON'T MAKE THIS HARDER THAN IT NEEDS TO BE!" she said in a hard, cold voice as she drew nearer. "WE CAN GO FROM HERE! WHEN THE DARK LORD KNOWS WE'VE GONE, HE'LL LEAVE EVERYONE IN PEACE! IT'LL BE LIFE ON THE RUN BUT AT LEAST WE'LL BE ALIVE! YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE THE HERO THIS TIME! YOU DON'T NEED TO PROTECT ME, I'M TRYING TO PROTECT YOU!"

He leaned against the stone pillar, but his arms would not support him. He buckled and slumped against the muddy ground. Tonight's actions with Dumbledore, combined with the emotional weight of what he was experiencing, was becoming too much. He needed to examine his options. There was no hope fighting her while he was in this state. Even if they were evenly matched - a duel would take precious time that they did not have.

"HARRY, I'M BEGGING YOU, LISTEN TO ME!"

As she drew nearer still, he knew one thing only, and it was beyond fear or reason: He was not going to let his friends die for him tonight. Anything else was irrelevant. He would not let anybody stand in his way, even her. He would not hate her for it, but he could not allow her to win.

Before she could appear around the headstone, he stood up, he gripped his wand and threw himself around the headstone, facing her.

"FLIPENDO!"

The hex blasted her back into a stone pillar, smashing breath from her lungs, leaving her panting and swaying. He dared not move closer, because she seemed ready for that.

"EXPELLIARMUS!"

"EXPELLIARMUS!"

Both spells hit their mark. Harry's wand was torn from his hand, as was hers, and were flung feet behind them in opposite directions.

She was quicker than him - that was something he wasn't used to. On a broom he was one of the quickest there was, but on the ground, she was more athletic than him. Even in the mud she was able to sprint in and out of the stone pillars with relative ease, and he had made the mistake of losing sight of her a moment too long. Just as he reached his wand, something caught him hard in the back of his head and he fell forward, his face smacking the mud, blood pouring out of both nostrils. He knew, even as he rolled over, his wand ready, that she would not be in the same spot.

"STUPEFY!"

The jet of red light soared past her head as she again took shelter behind a stone white pillar. She was coming out around the next one, he anticipated. But she had the good sense to expect him to know this and as she sprinted out the other side, she aimed another spell at him. He dodged behind the closest pillar; the spell zoomed past him and hit the trees beyond them, sending a loud group of crows flying into the sky.

Frustration rose in Harry like he had never known. They shouldn't be here. They were wasting time, and people were going to die because of it. He needed to tell her this - if he could only communicate it properly to her than she'd understand. But, his heart in his throat, complex words were the last thing on his mind right now.

Each spell, impact or shout they produced sent a rippling echo across the hillside. It gave the scene the biblical air that it perhaps deserved.

They were slowly destroying the stonehenge. This area had been a home to him and the other Hogwarts students since first year, as it had likely hundreds of students hundreds of years before that. Now, two of the pillars had been completely destroyed, the others were scorched or scarred in some way, large chunks of the earth around them missing, the result of their misfired spells. But this was about more than just the henge. This had also been the spot that, not two weeks earlier, they had confessed to each other. And one year previous, where she had risked everything to be with him. This was an important site for the both of them, and as they stood destroying it, Harry couldn't help but feel his love for her chipping away with it.

The woman across from him was everything he hated. A blood puritan, and a traitor to her friends and family, who was only concerned with making sure she got out okay. Just like Peter Pettigrew. The signs had all been there all along, but he had argued for her, made excuses to their friends, covered for her again and again; all the while denying the dark path she was going down. She may not have been on the side of the Death Eaters, but it was a guttural and opposing moral belief system that was spurring them to be at odds tonight. When it had come down to it - when their friends, their home, had been in danger - he wanted to fight and she wanted to run.

Yet, despite it all, he still loved her as much as he had the night he first confessed as such.

This was not about the Order of the Phoenix versus the Death Eaters anymore. This wasn't Gryffindor against Slytherin. This wasn't light versus dark, good against evil, or anything as philosophical or symbolic as that. This was Daphne Greengrass against Harry Potter. And it was personal. Just the two of them, and the frustration of their lives being taken out on one another.

"WE CAN DO ANYTHING TOGETHER, DAPHNE! IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE LIKE THIS! WE DON'T NEED TO FIGHT!"

They looked at each other for a sad, long second, before raising their wands simultaneously.

"EXPELLIARMUS!"

He parried his hex, failing to knock her wand away but succeeding in cutting off her spell before she had time to complete it. She hit the mud, rolled, scrambled back up and yelled back at him.

"BOMBARDA!"

A thunderous bang echoed across the grounds and he was thrown clear. Spots of light burst in front of his eyes and for a moment, all the breath seemed to have gone from his body.

One of the stone pillars exploded completely - shattering and producing a giant cloud of dust and debris. He hit the grass a few meters away and was unable to stop himself from skidding down the greasy knoll. As he tried to steady himself into a sitting position, his head swimming from its last impact with the ground, he saw Daphne stumbling in the dust. He struggled to his feet, looking groggily for his wand, hoping to rush her again, but even as his fingers fumbled in the grass, discarding twigs, he knew he was losing the battle.

Wand now in hand and limping, he began the treacherous walk back towards her. Another spell came his way. He mumbled something on instinct, deflecting it. Either he was quicker than he thought, or she was tiring. They were mere feet away now and he could see her face clearly at last. Though she was sobbing like he had never seen her sob in his life, she was still fighting. The sight of her like this, the girl he had sworn to her face to protect, shattered him to his core.

"Daphne, please…"

There was a loud BANG and he felt a white-hot, whiplike something hit him across the face. He was slammed backward into the ground. He only narrowly kept grip of his wand, this time. There had been a steady ringing in his ears that was steadily growing with each spell cast - now it was almost impossible to hear anything else.

He got up again. And again. He thought back to his time in Primary school. Miss Evans, their history teacher, made them watch a documentary on world war two once. As the soldiers, tired and broken, thundered fearlessly over the top and across no mans land, that's rather how he felt, in this particular moment.

Pushing himself to his feet again, he staggered blindly toward her. The air distorted around him as he narrowly missed another curse. He glared at Daphne. Her mouth was open, her wand hand still trembling.

"I'M SORRY!"

That one was genuine, that time. He could tell she had not meant for any of this to happen. He saw her wand drop by a fraction. It was the gap he had been waiting for. In that instant, he let go of who was in front of him. He did not care that it was her. He did not care for anything they had been through. She was just another obstacle. She was just another dark thing that was out to hurt his friends.

He uttered an inarticulate yell of rage and with impossible strength mustered from god knows where, he threw his full force into her.

"PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!"

His tackle hit it's mark - her spell had not. With a painful cry, he smashed his full weight into her and threw her to the ground. For a second, she did not move. Then, groggily, she started fumbling for her wand in the mud. Then, she caught sight of him descending on her, his wand aimed, and froze. Her head went down.

She had yielded.

With a cry of thankfulness, he sank to his knees; shaking in every limb, his body ached all over, his breath coming in painful stabs.

There was a far off explosion, he felt the darkness closing in around them both. Before he left - before he had to go save Dumbledore so they could reclaim the school - there was something that had to be said. A lot had been said between them tonight. He got a sense that only now, only tonight, only after this battle, had they truly, really met each other. But there was one thing specifically that had been haunting him, and he refused to let it linger in the air.

"I don't want to protect you... because I think you're weak..." he panted, "I want to protect you... because you're important to me… and because I love you."

She lifted her head. Black streaks of mascara stained her cheeks, but her breaths had finally slowed. She was gripping her arm like she was in pain - he knew this wasn't from a misplaced spell, but was the area her dark mark was ingrained into her skin.

He inched closer and brought his arms around her, her sobbing wails now loud in his ears.

"I'm sorry, Harry..." she cried into him. "I'm so sorry..."

He tried to gather her as best he could. The position they were in was barely a hug to begin with, but now she had gone completely limp in his arms. He was just grateful she wasn't fighting anymore. He tried vaguely to pull her to her feet, unsuccessfully.

"Come on. We need to go. We can do it together, I'll show you."

She gave a few steadying gasps.

"Okay… Okay…"

Her hand came down over his wand hand, taking his fist tightly in her own. Supporting her weight, he pulled her onto her feet. She wobbled on the spot for a moment, before looking into his eyes, the black tears still streaming down her face from where her makeup had once been.

"There you go. Let's go. Together."

She sniffed.

"I'm so sorry…"

He nodded, sure.

"I am too. Now, come on, lets-"

"Imperio."

He felt a floating sensation, as though every thought and worry about Death Eaters had suddenly been wiped gently away, leaving nothing but a vague, untraceable happiness. He stood there, feeling immensely relaxed, prisoner in his own paralysed body, as he stared into her teary green eyes, only vaguely aware of what had just happened.

"I love you too... That's why I have to do this. For us, not them."

He could not understand how it had happened. How he had let his guard slip, or how she could even have thought about doing this to him - then he realised. She had stunned him with his own wand.

She did nothing but stare down at him, tears in her eyes.

"We deserve the right to be happy."