Harry opened his eyes.
Which was, in itself, unexpected. Did he not even manage to die correctly when he was trying to?
He stared at the bright white mist above him. Which was also unexpected. He had expected the Dark to be, well, dark.
He sat up and looked around.
"Well, that didn't take you very long at all. I was hoping that you would last at least a little while."
Harry gawked at Albus' twinkling smile as he started to put the pieces together.
"You smug bastard! You're one to talk, you couldn't last another thirty seconds against him? I was literally in the process of apparating back when Fawkes arrived."
Dumbledore just laughed until Harry couldn't help but join in.
He stood and silence fell once again.
"So, am I dead?"
Albus hummed like it was a difficult question. "Possibly, but I think not. I think that you are only mostly dead."
"What's the difference?"
Dumbledore chuckled. "Mostly dead is still slightly alive."
Right. Because that made perfect sense. Cheeky old man.
Harry looked around and was surprised to find that they were not alone.
"Ummm… Albus? What the hell is that?"
There was a whimpering fragment of a familiar broken soul lying on the floor, wrapped in rags.
"That… is something that you would probably include under your category of 'Things you should already have been informed about', but I do hope that you will understand my reasoning."
Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. "What is it this time, Albus?"
"I lied to you when I told you that the Mark of Sacrifice created the connection between you and Voldemort. The connection was actually due to the Horcrux that hid within your soul."
Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Continue."
"Having already fractured his soul in numerous ways, combined with the many fragments of divinity contained within, Voldemort's soul was in a uniquely vulnerable place when he tried to bargain with the Other that fateful night. He came before it without a sacrifice that would allow him to shed his humanity, but instead brought a sacrifice that affirmed his humanity, an attempt to end the prophesied champion who could potentially deliver him destined Death. The Other, apparently having something resembling a twisted sense of humor, shattered his soul when it laid his body to ruin. It allowed one of the fragments to combine with your own fledgling soul."
Harry paced back and forth through the shining white mist. "So, Voldemort can't die while I'm alive? But I died! On purpose! Stabbed myself in the heart and everything!"
Dumbledore's smile widened. "Correct, but also wrong. Voldemort couldn't die while you were alive. But now that you have died, he can too."
"But I thought you said that I'm not dead?"
Dumbledore nodded. "Curious, isn't it that you have died but are not dead?"
Harry gritted his teeth. "Just spit it out, Albus. My patience is wearing thin. It's been a really long day, if you haven't noticed."
Albus' smile didn't waver. "Of course. The reason that I did not inform you of the Horcrux is that I believed, correctly I might add, that the only way to remove the Horcrux while not remaining dead yourself was to truly intend to die, on purpose, as you said, by your own hand, with the aim of defeating the Enemy who placed it within you, in service of the Other who allowed it. The events and machinations required to pull off that specific combination of circumstances were difficult to arrange, but I am quite pleased to say that it worked beautifully."
Harry froze. "This was your plan all along. You kept me in the dark and let me have just enough leash to do all of this by my own choosing. Because if I had known, it wouldn't have worked."
"Precisely. You had to choose to go before the Other, with Voldemort's Horcrux in your soul, and choose to die by your own hand, so that another may ascend and defeat him. It was quite brilliant of you to play your part so well, if you don't mind me saying."
Harry started to grin. "So, Hermione gets to keep her wings, Voldemort's Horcrux dies, and I get to go back?"
Dumbledore chuckled again. "That is a very simplified summary, but yes. You're welcome, by the way."
"Shut up. If it hadn't worked perfectly, I would be so pissed at you right now." Harry took another deep breath. "Okay. I'm going to miss you, old man, but I need to go. I'm sure that Hermione is furious with me."
"Oh, she is absolutely livid. You're going to have quite a bit of groveling to do. Sacrificing yourself for her benefit, taking the easy way out. How could you, Harry?"
Harry laughed in spite of himself. He did deserve it, after all.
"It occurs to me, Albus, that when I return, I will have five of the fragments of divinity."
Albus just hummed and twinkled at him.
"Voldemort has the other four."
Albus nodded.
"What happens if all nine fragments are united within one soul?"
Dumbledore chuckled again. "I haven't the faintest idea, Harry. It would be interesting to find out."
Harry grinned at him. "Enjoy your next great adventure, Albus."
"You as well, my friend."
…
Golden light broke through the oppressive clouds as she rained divine Death upon her Enemy.
They were evenly matched, the Light and Dark equal and opposite as they clashed across the ruined skyline. They flew and spiraled, dove and dodged around each other in a wild dance of divine power.
For every torrent of living Dark that her Enemy sent her way, she sent back a golden pillar of searing Light.
She roared in frustration as she dove and tried once again to drive her blade through the demon's heart, but again he cackled and evaded her on pale wings of death. The fires of the ruined city below lit his bone white skin with a ghostly cast as he threw wave after wave of Dark to try and stifle her infinite Light.
Her pain and fury and grief both weighed down her soul and forced her to continue.
She dodged another blast of dark crimson power and launched a shining volley of golden death, grinding her teeth as her Enemy dodged again and-
Powerful chains of emerald magic wrapped around the Dark Lord's wings, and he screamed as her divine power struck true, the force of the blow throwing her Enemy through another broken skyscraper and into the blackened earth.
Her dead heart thundered in desperate hope as she felt the familiar song of safety and home and love and-
Want some help, Ice Queen?
She almost fell out of the sky.
Sorry to keep you waiting; Albus was feeling chatty in the afterlife.
She turned and wanted to scream and sob and stab him and kiss him and her chest felt like it might explode as he flew towards her with that stupid grin on his stupid face.
She shot towards him in return, and they crashed together with an explosion of Light and triumphant song as their souls reconnected once more. Her golden wings wrapped around them, and she flooded his body with divine power so that she didn't break him as she smashed her lips against his. She kissed him with reckless abandon as joy and fire surged through her and his own love and awe flowed back to her through their joined souls as they hung above the desolate skyline as one.
She reveled in the feeling of his lips moving against hers, tasting him and running her hands over his face with wondrous elation as her dead, broken heart swelled and was reforged, banishing the hollow feeling in her chest until she felt like she might break the fabric of the world with her divine rapture.
She wasn't alone.
…
Harry grudgingly pulled his lips away from hers as he felt their Enemy stirring below them.
He met Hermione's golden gaze with wonder as he took in her divine brilliance. Her golden eyes now shone with a dazzling light, her skin radiant and her hair rippling in a non-existent breeze. The metal feathers of her gorgeous golden wings spread wide behind her, and he could feel the transcendent gravity of her soul, drowned in supreme Light.
She had never been more beautiful, and he had never been more entranced.
Unfortunately, they still had a genocidal divine cockroach to deal with.
He floated away from her as she spread her wings and they both looked down at Voldemort's ascended form where he floated up towards them.
The Dark Lord looked like he was going to start speaking, but they were both done listening to his broken ideology. He did not deserve it anymore. Not after Hogwarts, and not after this desolation of innocence.
Their connection was strong enough that they didn't need to send thoughts back and forth anymore. Harry's enhanced brain and Hermione's divine existence were more than up to the task of thinking together and apart at the same time.
They split and circled their Nemesis, Harry summoning forth the emerald chains once again and his Queen calling down a firestorm of golden celestial flames. Voldemort tried to summon his living darkness and dodge, but he was once again outmatched and one of his long, skeletal arms was caught in Harry's chains even as the Dark fizzled out in the face of Hermione's now joyous and determined divine authority.
Harry used his grip on the verdant chain to whip their Nemesis around in a wide arc and slam him into the scorched concrete below.
Hermione was already descending even as the dust and ash billowed.
Voldemort screamed with a shrill and echoing wrongness as she drove the Blade of the Castle through his chest.
The Dark Lord ripped himself off the sword with a beat of his great wings, throwing himself forward recklessly to try and escape. The living Dark pooled around him and he leaked crimson ichor from his chest.
Emerald chains rose from the ground and yanked him back down to the earth, his manic cursing and screaming growing even more intelligible as he was brought low once again on the cracked asphalt. Harry looped the chains deep within the earth and held them wrapped around his clenched fists as he strained to hold the divine avatar of the hungry Dark in place.
His Queen didn't waste any time.
Hermione slammed into the Dark Lord's back and brought her foot down with a thundering shockwave of golden power, driving a wide crater into the street.
She flew upwards with a flap of her great wings and stomped back down on him again and again while he screamed.
She drove his broken body deep into the pockmarked earth and braced her foot against his back, reaching down to grab one of his enormous skeletal wings with both hands as she heaved.
She brutally tore one wing after the other from Voldemort's back in an explosive shower of ichor.
With a final scream of righteous anger, she grabbed him by the back of his head and took to the sky with his long, thin, broken body dragging behind her.
They rose together like a shining, golden star as Harry watched with a wide smile.
Her radiant golden wings shone as the clouds parted and the stars above were alight with her almighty brilliance.
She detonated a massive explosion of divine Light, scouring the very soul of the universe with her celestial authority as Voldemort's soul was finally burned away once and for all.
She was perfect.
She threw down their Enemy's torched husk and floated down towards him.
It was hard to look away from her, but Harry could feel something calling to him from the body of his Nemesis.
Several somethings.
He grinned widely up at his divine Love, his Queen, as she floated above him on wide golden wings.
"It's my turn to follow in your footsteps, Ice Queen. I won't be left behind while your eyes turn skyward."
She looked confused while he reached out with his soul and threw himself into the remaining four fragments of divinity.
The Crown of Madness screamed at him as he chained it within his soul, his already enhanced mind exploding with possibilities as his sense of self expanded exponentially, infinite iterations of his own soul able to think and process simultaneously.
The Unbroken Chain wrapped around his soul just as he mastered it, its ability to bolster and feed on the ambition of its host complimenting his own drive for freedom and power nicely. He felt his soul grow in potency and knew that his sovereignty was indomitable.
The Holy Grail sang a triumphant melody as it willingly threw itself into his Light, free from the tyrant and able to help the world at last. It became one with him easily and he felt his body ascend even farther than he already had on his own.
The Resurrection Stone whispered to him as he brought its power to heel, drowning the insidious presence in his infallible certainty and his willingness to enter the peaceful Dark when it was his time. He certainly did not fear Death, not anymore.
He felt the Deathly Hallows sing together in an unholy harmony, the Trinity of Death both conflicting and aligned.
He felt the Gifts of the Founders dance as one, the Cornerstones of Creation combined and united once again.
The Eye of Fjolnir, Truesight of Souls allowed him to understand the Truth of the very items he now mastered, and to rise above them.
The Immortal Fire sang a joyous phoenix song within him as the Eternal Flame rose to forge and unify the fragments of divinity.
The fragments had once been whole, and now finally were again.
Harry laughed with transcendent joy as his soul bonded with the divine.
I will earn my own Wings.
His power changed and he was singular and whole again, both above and beyond the fabric of the plane he inhabited. His already altered body, enhanced mind, and thundering soul bonded with the reforged fragments of divinity as he became one with the melody of the universe. He rose into the air as enormous, metallic Wings feathered with shining silver burst from his back and his eyes blazed with eternal silver light.
He was all of the fragments, and he was more than all of them.
He was a gestalt being, greater than the sum of his parts.
I am Sovereign!
He looked up into the awestruck face of his Love and grinned again.
"You didn't think that I was going to let you have all the fun, did you?"
Her answering smile was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Their celestial souls crashed and threaded through one another as their power rose around them in a triumphant melody felt throughout the very fabric of the universe.
She kissed him, their wings wrapping around each other in a divine embrace as they ascended together.
She pulled back and they took to the sky, spiraling over the ruined city as the jubilant joy in their exalted souls resonated to the deepest corners of the world.
They were of one mind. They were of one purpose.
Wheeling through the night sky on silver and gold Wings of endless power, they reached within the song of creation and found the scar that Voldemort's unholy ascension had caused.
By the authority of their gestalt divine right, they unmade the fabric of existence and re-wove it together to return it to its pristine glory.
Below them, the desolate city shone with radiant gold and silver light.
Harry laughed with his Queen as they took dominion of this plane and burned away the rotting scar left by the Dark Lord.
London remade itself beneath them, the destroyed buildings growing skyward in pillars of light as the river flowed true and clear once again.
The blood on the streets burned away and countless souls were summoned forth, returned from beyond the veil by the authority of their combined divine brilliance.
Millions of bodies reformed to match the souls that required them.
He felt Neville's soul return and his friend's awakened magic sang triumphantly with theirs.
Luna's broken soul knit together once again, now free of cracks and whole for first time in years as she and Neville watched from far below as Harry and Hermione soared together.
Far to the north, the Soul of the Castle sang with them in joyous harmony as Hogwarts was rebuilt, the damage undone, and the lost souls called back from the Dark as the ice melted.
For a brief moment, Harry thought of Albus and Alastor. He considered calling to them but had an intuitive feeling that they must stay where they belong. It was time for their next great adventure.
He reached out and took his Queen's hand as their song was completed, the world repaired and remade as it should have been.
He pulled her to him, and they flew straight upward towards the stars together, great wings of shining silver and glorious gold moving in synchrony as their lips met and they ascended to the starry void above.
Harry's heart soared and he felt Hermione's divine soul join his own in rapturous bliss.
They were free.
Free of their shackles.
Free from their Enemy.
The world was theirs to save.
Theirs to improve and perfect.
They loved and were loved in return.
They were sovereign, once and forever.
…