Nothing is mine.

On we go!

Peryn's Fury

A steep mountain of white marble stood before him, drowning him in its looming shadow, but beyond its dark rose a distant glimmer of golden light.

The storm. Harry felt it stir, that desperate scream of need, hot as molten flame in his heart, but breathlessly sharp, slicing through him like searing shards of glass. It hurts.

The yearning dragged him up the slope, stumbling, scrambling and clawing, and beneath his hands and feet, the stone shifted to sprawling stiff icy corpses, their pale limbs sticky with cold crimson.

And he knew them. Knew every face.

But the storm swept him on, dyed-red to the elbows and spattered with it, over body after body, past the still, dull stares of Hermione and Katie and Gabby and Liliana and countless more, up and up and up.

His daughter lay upon the summit, pale as Petunia's wilting lilies, still as stone, the dark veins writhing and wriggling beneath her skin like worms of thick black tar.

'Hello, baby bird,' Harry whispered, gathering her cold body into his arms. 'Look at you…'

All the world hung below him, awaiting the distant flicker of light upon the horizon.

The dawn.

Harry sat down atop the mound, cradling Katie in his arms.

'Come to watch the sunset with me?' Fleur murmured in his ear.

She was ashes and smoke and dust as she sat beside him staring out over the dark world, less than a shadow.

'It already disappeared.' Harry reached out with one hand, but his crimson slickened fingertips passed through her and he dropped it back into his lap. 'But I'm going to make sure that when it comes back up, it's the most beautiful thing anyone could wish for. Je te le promets, mon Rêve.'

The dawn came; its bright light broke across a quiet gentle world as Harry stroked their daughter's silver curls off her face and watched the soft amber glow turn all the cold blue hues of midnight to warm dappled greens.

'And when it's done—' Fleur's shimmering silhouette wavered before the blazing golden sun, faint as summer shade '—when your promise is kept… Will you just… disappear?'

'I hope so,' he whispered. 'There's nothing else left. I'm not afraid anymore. But if I don't, I deserve it.'

She bled away into the burning amber light, fading like morning mist from the fields beyond the willow, and Harry sat alone above the dawn, watching the blood drip from his fingers and fall into the dark like red rose petals drifting down into the drain.

A dull thud tore him from sleep.

Harry's eyes snapped open into the gloom of his stone igloo. The flickering golden glow of the mask threw swirls of amber motes over the bare white stone walls.

'Mithras!' Charlie Weasley pounded his fist on the stone door. 'Mithras!'

Something important happened. Harry snatched his wand from under his pillow and leapt to his feet, dragging on his robes and placing the mask over his face. Or maybe someone else wants to take the test.

He drove his magic into the stone and swept it aside, stepping out into the bright morning sun and a cold winter breeze.

Daphne and Astoria stood behind Charlie between the cypresses rising from the slope overlooking the beach, two pairs of cool blue eyes watching his wand from beneath golden blonde braids.

A fierce pang of loss tore through Harry, wrenching at his heart. 'What do you need?' He tucked his wand back into his sleeve.

'Tsarina Bugrov and her Oaksworn have finally been spotted,' Astoria said. 'They're running north toward the border from the forest she hid in. Smart of her to keep going north instead of bending east like we expected, but it's a longer trip.'

'She has to be captured and made to swear an oath to stabilise Eastern Europe,' Daphne murmured. 'Grindelwald wants to regain momentum swiftly, he is… impatient.'

'You're going off to make sure the eastern front is resolved.' Astoria grinned, a glimmer of mischief in her pale blue eyes. 'And we're going to poke at the wards protecting France, for some reason, Ansgar thinks they're weakening…'

They will be by now. Harry's heart sank. There's nobody left to maintain them.

'Are you up for the hunt, Mithras?' Astoria chimed. 'They're good with lightning spells, but if you turned out to be good with them too, I don't think we'd be very shocked, right Daph?'

A long sigh escaped Daphne.

'Do you have a portkey?' Harry asked.

Astoria dipped a hand into her white robes and held out a length of copper chain. 'Here. You'll have to apparate much further north first, but Charlie has been all over the dragon preserves and can take you.'

'Charlie? You activate the portkey and do the wards when we find them. I'll do the rest with...' Harry scanned the beach past Charlie's shoulder. 'Did we misplace Bella?'

'No!' Bella sang from behind him. 'I'm up here!'

He glanced back. Bella bounced on her toes atop the small stone dome of his igloo.

'Coming?'

'To play!' She bobbed her head and apparated down with a loud crack. 'We can play together!'

'Good luck.' Astoria snickered. 'We all scream for Team Ice Cream, remember.'

Daphne poked her sister in the hip.

Harry turned to the beach, striding across the white sand and sliding his wand from his sleeve.

Marzanna uncoiled beneath the sparkling blue waves, rearing from the sea and stalking forward on her wing claws; she shed foaming white water from her black scales, glimmering with poisonous yellow magic, and snaked her head out, resting her blunt snout in the sand at Harry's feet.

'Let's go!' Bella skipped down the sand to his side. 'Come on, Charlie, don't be slooooow!'

Charlie edged toward Harry, his eyes fixed on the curved fangs protruding from Marzanna's maw, and the Greengrasses vanished with a loud pop.

'This could be a trap,' he said. 'I don't trust those two…'

'You shouldn't.' Harry reached out and took Bella's hand. 'They've betrayed everyone they've fought with for the Greater Good. It would be a mistake to forget and trust them again.' He waited as Charlie took hold of Harry's arm. 'But they're not going to betray me until they're closer to victory. I'm too useful and my loyalty is assured.'

And if they do, it's them or me, and whoever wins is more valuable to Grindelwald's cause. A wry bitter flash of humour tugged at the corner of Harry's mouth. My oath won't protect them then. They can die to feed the dawn.

He put one boot on Marzanna's snout. 'Charlie.'

Charlie dipped his head.

The beach and the rippling waves lurched left with a deafening crack, blurring into forested slopes, and in another huge pop, the forest jerked left, as Charlie apparated them onto a rugged grey mountainside and dropped to one knee.

'Let me get my breath back.' He clutched the copper chain tight in his spare hand. 'I don't know how much I'll have left for the wards after this portkey.'

'I'll add my own,' Harry said. 'Layer yours over the top to make sure there are no loopholes.'

'And us?' Bella tugged on his hand. 'What about us!?'

'If they fight, they count,' Harry said. 'Except the Tsarina. Astoria and Daphne said captured.'

Charlie rose to his feet with a groan. 'For the Greater Good.'

A flash of golden flame seared Harry's eyes and he stumbled forward onto the summit of a shallow hill.

A wide brown river bent through the crumbling ruins of an old castle, winding away past the fallen, grass-tufted walls through a broad plain of low barrows.

'I can't see anyone,' Charlie said. 'She's clearly been following the river downstream from the forest and avoiding any muggle areas where they'd stand out and easily be spotted. This looks like an old Varingian burial site. Bill said they're not very dangerous, but they're well concealed from muggles.'

'Hide and seek!' Bella huffed and stomped her foot. 'Not again!'

'I'll find them.' Harry lifted his foot off Marzanna's snout. 'You two keep heading north carefully. Follow Marzanna.'

Marzanna spread her vast dark wings and leapt from the ground, powering herself aloft with fierce gusts of wind that buffeted them all several steps backward.

'Where are you going?'

Harry watched Marzanna glide overhead. 'Up.'

He disapparated with a soft snap, staggering along Marzanna's back and snatching hold of one of the long jagged spines. The cold wind rushed past, wrenching at his robes and sweeping through his hair as he peered down past the dancing yellow magic and the gleaming black scales of her neck at the barrows below.

It's been a long time since I did any flying. Harry watched the distant world sweep past below him, the tiny trees swaying in the wind beside the muddy ribbon of the river. Not since before Katie was killed.

A handful of figures apparated across the mounds, appearing and disappearing together.

Found you.

Harry spun the world back past himself, stepping out onto the burial mound before them and thrust his magic into the air, layering it with thick wards.

Tsarina Bugrov raised her arm, the silver charms in her blonde hair glinting and dancing as she skidded to a halt. 'You are either very confident or very stupid.'

The seventeen Oaksworn spread out into a loose semi-circle and levelled their wands at Harry, the white fur of their cloaks fluttering in the wind.

'I'm going to walk from here—' Harry pointed into the long wet grass beneath his boots '—to you. If you're fighting for any reason but bringing about a better world, you should throw your wand down now, because I will only spare the Tsarina of those who fight.'

Tsarina Bugrov laughed. 'Turn him to dust.'

I'm already dust.

Spells flashed up the short steep slope of the mound in streaks of glimmering orange and yellow and red. Harry swatted them back with short flicks of his wrist, conjuring a swathe of dark butterflies and sending them fluttering out to intercept curses in bursts of black mist; he deflected the ones that tore through the butterflies back at the edges of their line, forcing their flanks to clump back together behind glowing white shield charms.

Marzanna's shadow drifted overhead and someone swore harshly in Russian.

Harry took one measured step forward, his arm a blur as he slipped his own spells into the ones he deflected; the streaks of bright purple tore through the shield of the witch on the far right of the line, scattering white fur and gouts of bright red blood across the grass as she crumpled onto her face.

The Tsarina glanced left, her pale blue eyes bright with fury.

Harry took another step, his spells bursting upon the glowing shield charms in ripples of colour and showers of white sparks. Three glimmering orange curses punched fist-sized holes through the shield and chest of the wizard at the right end of the line and he flopped into the dew-drenched grass with a dull groan.

Tsarina Bugrov snapped something in Russian and bright white shields flared up before Harry, but he transfigured the butterflies into gleaming steel spikes and sent them hissing across the gap, ripping ragged holes through the line.

Marzanna snatched three of the remaining five away into the sky with despairing screams. Desperate spells splashed off her scales and wings as she crushed them in her talons, and three lumps of flesh and splintered bone splashed into the river, sinking into the brown waters.

'Grindelwald.' Tsarina Bugrov raised her wand to her shoulder, her lips pale and thin and quivering with rage. 'I feared as much when I saw the dragon inferius.'

'No.' Harry took one more step forward and levelled his wand at her. 'But you'll see Grindelwald soon one way or another.'

White sparks crawled and flickered upon the Tsarina's wand as she thrust it out.

'Fulminis,' he whispered with her.

A searing flash tore at Harry's eyes and the two crackling beams of white magic bounced off each other, leaping across the spike-studded corpses in small arcs of pale lightning and setting the grass alight.

Smoke streamed back past Harry, swirling up into the sky.

'Mine!' Bella skipped up the slope, hurling pink and purple spells at the two remaining members, driving them back along the top of the burial mound toward the river. Charlie limped after her, one watchful eye on Bella as she twirled through the grass in her dark dress.

'Peryn's fury take you.' Tsarina Bugrov flicked her wrist, conjuring a long lash of white lightning. 'Today is not the day Russkaya falls.'

'Stop shielding and play!' Bella cried and a ripple of magic buffeted past them, driving the fires further through the grass.

Harry conjured a long thick spear of copper, transfiguring it into a serpent and sending it lunging forward.

The Tsarina's whip of lightning clung to it and burst, but she banished it back into the grass and swept the flames into it, forcing them white-hot beneath the tip of her wand. Pale green curses lanced from the tip of her wand as she forced her arm faster with a snarl.

Harry batted them all aside into the grass, scattering great chunks of mud and tatters of green across the barrow.

He took a step forward.

The Tsarina swore and stepped back, thrusting her wand out. Six streaks of white lightning slashed at him like the claws of a dragon.

'Fulminis.' Harry's torrent of crackling magic tore through them, flashing across the sky into the clouds.

She drew a circle of sparking white lightning in the air with the tip of her wand.

'Enough.' He thrust his magic into the air, wrapping it around her and slamming her to her knees in the mud.

She struggled against his grip as the circle of lightning faded, baring her teeth and a flare of sparks shot from her left palm, showering over Harry and bouncing off his mask.

He held out one hand, summoning her wand from her grasp. 'Enough. Or I'll snap this.'

Tsarina Bugrov spat into the grass at his feet.

Beyond her, the last Oaksworn swung from a noose of his own intestines, thrashing and kicking and gurgling.

'Bella,' Harry said. 'The game is over.'

'Awwww,' Bella moaned. 'You beat everyone too fast!'

A pink flash obliterated the wizard's head and his corpse flopped into the mud.

'Charlie.'

Charlie stumbled over the barrow, his face pale and haggard and drawn. 'What do you need, Mithras?'

Harry handed him the Tsarina's wand. 'You and Bella take her back to Nurmengard. Grindelwald will want his oath. You know where to find me afterward.'

'The seaside!' Bella giggled. 'We can make more sandcastles!'

A soft pang tore through Harry. One day, I would've quite liked to make sandcastles with you, baby bird. I never did get to go to the seaside myself.

'Go,' he murmured. 'I'll tidy up here.'

'Wait.' Tsarina Bugrov strained at his magic. 'Wait. Let me bury them properly. They deserve it. They fought bravely for Russkaya in the wilds and against her enemies.'

'There's nowhere to run.' Harry released his hold on her and watched her stagger to her feet. 'If you try, I'll take a leg.'

'I know that, Mithras.' The Tsarina glanced at her wand and dipped one hand inside her scarred leather jacket, producing a small green acorn marked with a pointed spinning wheel. 'But it will take a long time for me to do it by hand…'

Harry studied the acorn. 'An oak tree?'

'They were sworn to the oak,' she said, her tone stiff and bitter. 'Where they fall, the oak will grow, so that they might yet offer shade and protection to the lands they loved.'

'They died for something important,' Harry promised, wrapping the air around the bodies and sweeping them across into a short line; he summoned the three from the river, placing them alongside the rest. 'In time, you'll see.'

Tsarina Bugrov glowered at him and placed an acorn in the mouth of each of them, resting it on the chest of the last three with a small grimace. 'From the earth, our mother, to the sky, our father. One day we shall meet and laugh again.'

No you won't. Harry buried them one by one. They're gone. The last enemy always wins.

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