The survivors of the wall team were knocked unconscious and restrained. Harry was surrounded by Death Eaters. Though he still had his wand, he could only imagine the terror that would befall the others if he even tried to use it. Even if he decided that their lives were forfeit and he had an obligation to escape on his own, he did not know how to apparate wandlessly and it was not so simple to keep a portkey on him at all times. Basically, all the ideas to that effect had been shot down; if he in any way had it on him, then it would just take him to its intended destination.

"Shall I go to the others and bring word?" one of the others asked. From his voice, he sounded younger, but he wore a mask like the others.

"I suppose at this point, it's warranted," the man who had introduced himself as Augustus Rookwood said.

"You worked in the Department of Mysteries," Harry put together as the other one left. "That must have been what you meant by the Time Room earlier. The Hall of Prophecy's down there too..."

"I never heard the one that pertains to you. They can only be retrieved by those about whom they are made. As many rules as I violated during my time there, that was one that even I was never able to break." He smiled, or that was what Harry would have thought. "It seems like we already know how that one turns out."

"You don't really believe in prophecy, do you?"

"I heard about Sybil Trelawney from some of our younger members. I can see why anyone would think Divination a useless subject after that kind of presentation. Those who have seen past her would be tempted, oppositely, to think it a source of almost infinite knowledge. That, however, belies yet another reality. If it truly predicted the future, there would be no point in reading it, and if not, there would be no point in reading it."

"Believe it or not, she actually made us go over that argument in fourth year," he said. "She seemed concerned that we all thought the subject wasn't meaningful to us, and so we were assigned reading in the forward to that year's book, and it presented an argument."

"What's that?"

"Well, the future might change by your having looked at the prophecy."

"Then it's useless."

"Not entirely. It only might have changed. You would still have a chance of knowing what will happen." He shrugged. "That's only for certain kinds of prophecies, though, and I'll admit that I didn't pay much attention to it at the time."

"I had suspected that you were a worthy foe, or you would be if the Dark Lord intended to let you live longer." He looked around. "Did you know that in his day, he also assembled a group of aligned students to fight for his cause? He called them the Knights of Walpurgis. It's a pity that you didn't come about in the same time."

"That's pointless," he said before he could stop himself. "I was only ever his enemy because he killed my parents. He chose me to be his enemy. I don't think there's any circumstance where I ever would have liked him, but his whole campaign to kill me is all by his own choosing."

"What do you mean?" he asked, turning back, having looked to see if the younger wizard had returned. "You speak as if you truly understand this topic. I wouldn't think that anyone would have told you."

"I've demonstrated that I'm capable of shielding my mind and that I can-"

Right then he was assaulted like never before, but he was ready for it. Hermione knew him infinitely better than any Death Eater and her practice sessions had been thorough; any evil thought that could creep into his head had not a chance in hell. Not only did he drive the enemy out, he started pushing against his shields, but was quickly defeated. They stared at each other a moment before Rookwood laughed.

"It really is a pity we have to have you killed. Another ten years or so and you could have been a formidable enemy." His smile faded. "The Dark Lord wants to know the exact nature of the prophecy, as we've effectively confirmed you know. As he decided the night he killed your parents, though, he knows that if he kills you, the whole thing becomes irrelevant anyway. It makes sense to the rest of us. They wouldn't have been guarding you for so long if you weren't a worthwhile target."

"That's not really it," one of the others said. "They would have guarded anyone who's been attacked before."

"Why, out of the kindness of their hearts?" another asked.

"They're just doing their jobs," he muttered back. "You don't have to assume they'd leave their little hero defenseless if he didn't have any further use for them. Every other day I hear someone going on about how they're too soft-"

"The ones that are too soft are those that see the truth for what it is and can't act on it-"

"That's enough, both of you," Rookwood said. "We shouldn't assume our enemies are void of compassion, but there were several other survivors that did not receive the same treatment as Potter here. It's obvious that they were protecting him for a reason."

It was the strangest conversation he had ever heard; even Lockhart, deprived of his memories, had been making more sense in Saint Mungo's. Did the Death Eaters really believe what they were doing was right? Did they think about things like mercy and kindness, even if they did not project that image toward their enemies? He had known already that they had reasons for everything, but perhaps there were more kinds of them than he had suspected. It was his turn to think it was almost a shame that he had to kill them.

"What do you want for the information?" he asked. "Voldemort's not coming here."

"You don't know that," one of the Death Eaters said. The one who had been talking looked less certain.

"I can feel his presence. He might have said this to you to at one point. He might not have. I don't know where he is, but he's not coming here. He's not even getting closer. Don't tell me you feel like he is with your marks." They were not so blind that they could not tell what he was doing.

"Even if you told us the prophecy," Rookwood started back. "That could never be worth as much as you are."

"I'm glad you think so highly of me. You're mistaken, though. The prophecy has to do with me, but capturing me or killing me isn't going to help. It's all dependent on something that I'm going to do at some point, but even I don't know what that is."

"This is useless," one of the others said. "We should obey our orders. We would never be able to explain ourselves if we lost the boy in exchange for something that we couldn't verify anyway. This is the end of the war."

"It's a wonder Dumbledore would have let him out of his sight," another one said. "It's not like he's going around crowded areas."

Harry had an almost instinctive notion that it would be better to interrupt them, as if he did not want them to carry on with that line of thought.

"Here's what I don't understand. How did you find us here if you've got such a problem with Divination?"

"Well, since it no longer matters, he wasn't the one calling the shots. There was a bounty on you. The one to find your location would receive a commensurate reward."

"What is it, though?" he asked. "Who won?"

"I don't remember," Rookwood said. "I think it was Crabbe and Nott. They want you dead, and they said that was enough of a reward for them."

"That doesn't surprise me. How did they do it? They must have presented something to suggest they had really found me."

"The Dark Lord took their word for it. He did not think he would be wasting his time even if it turned out to be a trap, because he intended to fight his way through it and destroy whatever you had here." He shrugged. "Besides, if it turned out to be a total waste, he could have punished them for it."

"I should have guessed," he said after a moment. There was nowhere to go from there; he had not expected the whole thing to just shut down. If they were really about to kill him, he would have thought they would boast in how they found him, but if Crabbe and Nott were among them, they would have been with Voldemort, who thought he was going after Harry. "Well, if they never revealed how they found me, I'm going to have to revert back to my previous assumption. They must have used some form of divination." He looked around. "Given where we are, they could have planted something here, something that we might have missed in our sweep... or they could have some way of watching this place that doesn't show up on our end." He shook his head. There was a long-standing cultural image of staring into a crystal ball and seeing far-off lands, but from his own experience, the orb only ever showed vague symbols... scrying was taught in upper years, and that required some other equipment that he had never bothered to purchase for himself. Was it really possible? Was it really so easy to find someone?

"He's still not here," another Death Eater observed. "Strange. We were told to wait until he showed up, and a week ago he told us to think for ourselves if he changed the plan, but... do we know if he's changed the plan?"

"Give it another minute," Rookwood said. "It seems like it's been longer than it has."

"I suppose you're not the one to ask about why the same method hasn't been used to find him, if you want to know where he is," Harry said after a moment. "If they can find me wherever I am, though, why aren't they coming here?"

"Obviously, we don't know," a masked Death Eater said. "Don't try to trick us."

"I'm not sure that this method is so reliable," he suggested. "Why wasn't it ever used to see what you were doing from a distance? Why wasn't it ever used to find out where Voldemort is?"

"You have me to thank for that," Rookwood said. "I poked holes in the theory and effectively got it thrown out. Without ever feeding information to the outside, I told my comrades where we were going to search next, having them move from place to place in a code that you would only realize if you had read our training manuals."

"I never thought of a training manual," Harry said. "Maybe if we're around for more than one generation, I'll look into it."

Even as the enemies laughed, it was strangely easy to project confidence. He did not really have a plan to escape or turn things around, but he wanted them to think that he did; it was the only thing that could potentially change the status quo. What else could he do? After all his planning, was delaying the most he could do? A memory came back, he remembered telling Lucius Malfoy after his hearing that he was good at escaping, when the last time they had seen each other, he narrowly escaped the graveyard with Cedric's body.

"There's simply no way that your organization... if it can be called that, ever could have lasted. It was the simple fact that you came around at the same time as the Dark Lord. The accident of your arrival sealed your fate."

"I can't believe it's been so long," he said after a moment. "I'm starting to wonder if anyone's coming..."

"Shut up."

"At this point, we should assume that they're not," Rookwood said. "I have the seniority to make a judgement call like this. We'll take the boy to an alternate location and hold him there. That's all we can do without further approval."

"Really?" Harry asked. "You can't go looking for him?"

"You're not tricking us into anything," one of the other Death Eaters said. "That's a particularly stupid idea."

It looked like there was nothing more he could do, and yet, he already had no idea what to do. Why had panic not taken over yet? Was there something wrong with him, or was it just because he was still in the middle of his guilt? Was there a set amount of time that had to pass? Did anyone know? The crack of apparation broke him out of his reverie.

"I'm sorry I'm late," the younger wizard said, returning. "There's been something of a misunderstanding. The Dark Lord is insisting that I bring the boy to him directly, and he's threatening to kill me if I bring anyone else with me. I tried to figure out what was going on before he made such a demand, but... now there's no point. I think we all know that."

"Very well. When he calms down, we'll receive the appropriate credit for our efforts," Rookwood decided. "We may as well take the chance to bury those we lost. Worry not, young Harry. We'll bury yours as well."

It was perhaps the most unsettling sentiment anyone had ever shared with him, and just the thing to break him out of the strange mental fugue that seemed to preclude him from panicking. Before, he always had so many options, and it might have been stressful as he tried to pick which one, but at the moment, it seemed he had the opposite problem. There was nothing he could do as the younger Death Eater apparated him away. As soon as he saw they were in an empty part of the island, he turned around and saw that the dark wizard was struggling with what looked like a headache. Taking advantage of what seemed like an opportunity, he grabbed the enemy's wand arm and twisted it, disarming him and killing him a moment later, almost stunned that it was so easy. He had killed the young man's allies before, but it took a moment to get into the right headspace, for lack of a better word. He had never killed at such a close range, so quickly. Was it possible to kill out of fear, or was it just easy to hate when afraid? Harry was not sure if that disturbed him worse than the possibility that he no longer needed any kind of basis.

The enemy dropped to the ground and his mask came off, revealing a visage vaguely familiar. He could have been an elder brother to someone he knew in school, or someone who had graduated a few years earlier. Though he doubted Voldemort had the numbers to support the idea that every single Slytherin joined him, there had to be a few. He shook his head. Whether he was known or not did not matter. Could he even honor a plan to bury the dead of the other side?

Harry felt his scar burning and he knew Voldemort was near. What if he killed him at a range, right in the moment of his triumph? As long as the killing curse was unblockable, and the enemy did not see it coming, then even the proud could be brought low. Cursing under his breath as he ran toward the uneasy feeling, intensity of the pain his scar guiding him, he saw a clearing where he was fighting none other than Albus Dumbledore, with everyone else seemingly frozen in time. Without waiting for an engraved invitation, he cast the killing curse from the trees, forcing the enemy to move; it was like he could feel it coming and he cackled in response. The former Headmaster managed to distract him with an unidentifiable spell of his own, disarming him a mere moment later by stepping in. Expelliarmus was fast; he knew from personal experience that it flew through the air and hit the target almost instantly; it was one of the best things to use if you had a good shot and your opponent was not shielding. The look on the target's face was one of absolute shock as his wand flew out of his hand; he knew it was suicide to try to retrieve it, and Harry had only the time to prove him right, casting a killing curse in the direction that it was going, intercepting it in the air, not that a wand could be killed. The only direction he could fly was away, and a moment later, he grabbed his side. It felt like he had been stabbed. He did not feel like he had been closer to death except possibly in second year, poisoned by basilisk venom.

"What are you doing?" he begged of the old warlock who approached him. "Go after him while he's unarmed!"

"That is your destiny, Harry. I am here to ensure that you live to see it. Someone cursed you to keep you from escaping."

The relief he felt ranked among his worst experiences. Because of him, they had lost the only moment of weakness Voldemort had ever seen in two years at least. Still, he was angry, and it was hard to abandon his point.

"If that prophecy is real, then I'm in no danger. It was one of the Death Eaters who did this."

"They know they are not allowed to kill you. It would not be strange for them, however, to curse you so badly that you would have no chance of winning against their master. There are countless more than you will ever know, and even one is enough."

"What if I'm only living because you're saving me?" he objected.

"Then I will not ask you to thank me." He smiled. It was gentle, and it was tired, but it was a smile. "I am not being compelled by the prophecy. I trust you and your friends looked into the context?"

"They never had time to get debriefed over it," he muttered. They told him more than enough to know that the prophecies did not compel anyone to do anything, that the world was not predetermined; there would be no point in the pages and pages of moral criticism that the book offered if they were not responsible for their actions, and there would be no sense in staying punishments after the characters expressed remorse and begged for forgiveness. "I know what you're implying. I... sir, where have you been?"

"Where indeed. A summary of my latest adventures would not answer your true question, and yet, suffice to say that I have discovered one of Voldemort's Horcruces. You were right to share intelligence with the Order."

"What happened here? How did everyone get..." He looked around to see everyone frozen in time.

"There was no other way. Forgive me if it sounds like I self-aggrandize, but I needed to keep Voldemort's attention on myself for everyone else to have a chance. With all of our allies in suspended animation, something only he and I would know how to counter, I knew that he would honor my wish for single combat, if only because he wanted to kill me in front of everyone."

"Sir, you can't be..."

"Harry, before you thank me for saving your life, let me first thank you for saving mine. Had that duel continue, I can almost certainly say that I would have died."

He ended the suspended animation after stunning a few servants of the enemy, which took a moment, oddly enough. It was a longer incantation, with three words, than he had heard in recent years. Was that why he had not ended it already?

"I just want to know one thing for now," he said, not able to focus as the other adults formulated something like a plan. "Why did you duel him if you were certain you would lose?"

"I was not certain," he said after a moment of thought. "There was always the chance that you would save me."