Luck Is Not Chance, It's Toil

by Chromaticism

The side effects of felix felicis consumption are rarely dwelt on, and Harry finds that they alter his path considerably. AU with Independent!Harry. Harry/Blaise pairing. No bashing.

19. 19 - Luck Is Not Chance, It's Toil

They sat across from each other nude and cross-legged on Harry's bed, hidden behind the curtains and shrouded in every privacy ward they knew. It was time for one of the Ministry-hosted seminars, but they'd elected to skip to prepare for the coming battle at Nuremgard.

Their copies of Liu Bei's memoirs were placed to their sides. The first step to even begin to attempt dual casting, let alone formation magic, was to increase their magical affinity. They needed to be able to pull at each other's magic from a distance as if always in a state of communion. It would be akin to pooling their power into each other's spells. It would be draining, but with Voldemort having decades on him, Harry was willing to try anything to bridge any gap. Even with little over half a day until this looming confrontation.

"So, we just need to recreate the feeling of communion?" Blaise asked.

Harry nodded. "Over a distance. Don't know about you, but I don't think spending every fight holding hands will turn out well."

"Well, we have a bit of a head start with the Sacrosanct of Oaths we swore," Blaise said. "Let's try first with holding hands. It'll be easier that way."

They took each other's hand and willed a spell to the fore. Upon feeling the other's magic, they latched onto the other. With the connection complete, the familiar overbearing intimate sensation met them. It was as if they were under each other's skin.

"Ignore the sensation," Harry ordered. "You cast and I'll try and feed the spell."

Blaise had to visibly master himself. "Protego."

A familiar shield, decently strong and fast to appear, emerged from Blaise's wand. Harry could feel the surge of magical power fed into the spell, and how he could feed his own intent into it. The problem was it felt like trying to fill a river with a straw, as if there was a giant blockage rendering him unable to truly interact with the burgeoning spell. With this much difficulty in direct communion, Harry couldn't imagine how they'd ever manage to do this without this most direct connection.

"Nothing?" Blaise asked. "My spell wasn't any stronger."

"Nothing."

They tried many different permutations. Harry casting. Blaise casting. Casting at the same time. Simple spells. Powerful spells. They both felt the same issue. With each attempt, Harry had a growing feeling as to why their affinity was not strong enough.

"Well… thanks, Dumbledore," Blaise said drily. "Very useful."

Harry wasn't yet as dismissive. His time with Dumbledore had taught him to think of magic in a less deterministic manner, to think of it as something far more malleable. Almost sentient. Dual casting was the type of skill that rewarded those who shared blood and oath, those who'd struggled together, and despite their shared experiences in their time together, it must not have been enough. They needed something to effectively supercharge their connection. A stronger oath.

"The answer is obvious, isn't it? Our existing oath is too generic, too non-specific," Harry said. "It's not for us. This is the type of skill for sworn brothers, whether through blood or oath. We'll need to bind ourselves with an oath just for us."

He had just the idea for what would be a good starting point. Paging through the copy of Liu Bei's memoirs, he found the famous Oath of the Peach Garden.

They read it together.

When saying the names Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, although the surnames are different, yet we have come together as brothers. From this day forward, we shall join forces for a common purpose: to save the troubled and to aid the endangered. We shall avenge the nation above and pacify the citizenry below. We seek not to be born on the same day, in the same month and in the same year. We merely hope to die on the same day, in the same month and in the same year. May the Gods of Heaven and Earth attest to what is in our hearts. If we should ever do anything to betray our friendship, may heaven and the people of the earth both strike us dead.

"This is a serious oath," Blaise said after giving Harry a long, searching look. "I'd even say it's entirely inappropriate for us. Can't say I have any intention to pacify citizenry or to die."

Harry swallowed down his initial disappointment and summoned a piece of parchment and quill. He began to write a new one. The words flowed easily given that he'd been obsessively reading the book late last night as Blaise had slept.

When saying the names Harry James Potter and Blaise Manuel Salvatore Zabini, although the surnames are different, yet we have come together as brothers, bound in existing intention and fortified by mutual affection. From this day forward, we recommit ourselves to our common purpose: to save the troubled, to aid the endangered, and to achieve the defeat of Voldemort and renewal of the Wizarding World. We seek not to be born on the same day, in the same month and in the same year. We merely hope to remain together on this day and all others to come, ever bound by our shared duty, and ever defiant of death and those who would bring it upon us. Fortune will smile upon us in this endeavour. If we should ever do anything to betray our partnership, may heaven and the people of the earth both strike us dead.

Now that Harry read it back, the last line was almost akin to a wedding vow. Multiple lines shared that same intensity, but was that not the commitment such an oath of sworn brothers required? He was nervous, but he handed it to Blaise all the same.

There was no way to make out Blaise's expression due to his braids veiling his face from Harry. Harry waited on tenterhooks, heart racing, in the long silence as Blaise read the revised oath what seemed like a dozen times.

When Blaise finally looked up, he was frantically blinking his eyes. They were glassy and red.

"I'd make a comment on your skill with a quill, but you… you really feel this way?"

Harry's mind raced over the last two months. It'd been a whirlwind. Blaise unrepentantly rude but dedicated to Harry from the very beginning. A first of what would be many gorgeous smiles for him in a hidden hollow under wand-light. Harry seeking him out time after time, unknowingly crushing and seeing such potential. Their first kiss. Blaise dangling helplessly from Greyback's claws, unknowing of imminent rescue and accepting his coming death with a final act of sarcastic defiance. Harry ambushing him on the hillside for a kiss after exams. The feeling of completion in his embrace after a dramatic rescue by his mother. Harry's first-time bottoming for him, and their stilled tongues and heavy silence after that intimate moment. A brotherly embrace as Harry recovered from Dementor exposure.

Harry knew that he wanted to have no regrets. He looked into Blaise's soft, teary eyes and saw his future. It was a difficult one, and it always would be for as long as Voldemort remained, yet it was a bright one all the same.

"Yes, but I'm being more than a little selfish," Harry admitted in a tight voice. "I want you with me, Blaise. Always."

Blaise broke the communion they'd held all along by throwing himself onto Harry. Wanting to preserve his dignity, as he'd done for him, Harry held him in a tight embrace as he cried into his shoulder. With every violent sob, Blaise's body shook and trembled against his, long-repressed emotions finally bursting through the confines of his tight control. Harry was not surprised in the slightest. They were far too alike in that regard, both choosing to stew until things inevitably exploded. It was with a wish of mutual catharsis in mind that he too yielded to the feel of tears welling in his own eyes.

The silence became punctuated only by Blaise's heavy, rapid breathing as he slowly calmed himself.

"I'm really sorry," Blaise said in a rough voice. "I just lost myself there."

Harry pulled away. Blaise kept his head hung low, avoiding eye contact. It was like a knife to the gut to see him so ashamed and meek, so unlike himself.

"Never apologize," Harry said. "When it's just us, never ever hide from me. Never ever be ashamed."

After retrieving his wand, Harry conjured a handkerchief and passed it to a motionless Blaise. It shocked him out of his stupor, and he began to slowly tidy himself up. There was still a lingering sadness to him when he finished. His eyes were still bruised and red, and his lips had a slight tremble as Harry took him in, but the clench of his jaw managed to resummon some of his usual haughtiness. With all Harry had come to learn about Blaise, he could only wonder how much of it was truly real. How much of it was now little more than a flimsy armour?

"You okay?"

Blaise took a moment longer to master himself, and he looked far more like himself when he finally gave Harry his full attention.

"Always," he whispered immediately before shaking his head. "I will be."

Harry watched as Blaise reconstituted himself, first straightening until his posture was perfect before relaxing his tense muscles. Imperious once more, yet his eyes were still unbearably sad.

"Thank you."

They shared the gentlest kiss Harry could possibly imagine. Blaise struggled to let him go, hands trailing against him, but Harry forced the issue.

"I understand," Harry said. "Believe me, I really do."

"You always did. Long before me, even," Blaise said quietly, and he took the oath in hand and gave it to Harry. "That's why I'm ready."

Harry took his wand once more. He drew a deep cut along his palm with a soft hiss. Blaise did the same, frowning silently as this burgeoning promise was also dug into his skin.

They clasped hands, re-entered communion, and began to recite the oath.

Compared to their previous oath, which Harry had already thought was incredibly intimate with magic itself reflecting their bonds, this one provoked nothing. They finished, both baffled.

"Did it not work?" Blaise asked with a tilt of his head.

Then it struck. As if the very earth were exerting its will on them both, everything that comprised them both, flesh, bone, and magic were weighed before an unknowable force. The pressure mounted and mounted until neither of them could breathe or move. There was nothing to be done, no counterspell to be cast, no ritual to end. Neither he nor Blaise could do anything as they slowly asphyxiated and were compressed into an ephemeral nothingness.

Harry awoke in a garden, surrounded by peach trees with a brilliant sunset overhead. The sight calmed him a little, having a good suspicion of just where they were, and just who somehow summoned them. Blaise stirred next to him, clothed in a brilliant golden robe with an ornate headdress on his head. Taking himself in, Harry found himself in the same attire.

"Harry, are you alright?" Blaise murmured.

Harry offered him a warm smile. "I'm fine."

"Arise," a calm voice said.

And their bodies did just that. An elderly man with a thin moustache and long, white beard that evoked Dumbledore stood before them in a circle of trees. He was wizened with great age, yet he stood unbowed and tall, smiling gently at them both. The crude, wooden staff in his hands radiated power, and a slender sword sheathed at the hip of his luxurious crimson robes radiated something quite alien.

His very presence willed them into silence and stillness, so Harry couldn't even move a limb or utter a word as he took the opportunity to study them. Together, he and Blaise stared at him dumbfounded.

Liu Bei.

"Well met. It has been a long while since I last set eyes on other magic-users. Your bond, for all its youth, is certainly stronger than the last pair to have visited me. Be welcome."

With those words, they regained control of their limbs and voices.

"Thank you, Liu Bei," Harry said.

Blaise quickly copied his greeting.

Liu Bei nodded. "You are in my domain."

It was both warning and welcome. He turned on his heel and they followed. He led them further into the copse of trees until they reached a clearing where a small pagoda waited, a low table with a tea set under its majestic canopy. As they took their seats across from the old wizard, songbirds tweeted, and the wind gently caressed them with the honeyed aroma of the grass and the ripe peaches in the trees.

"My own slice of heaven," Liu Bei murmured as they searched their surroundings.

He then offered them each a cup of a golden tea with both hands. It was delicious, woody with a honeyed edge.

"Thank you," they said together.

Liu Bei refilled their cups before smiling gently at them. "You must wonder what brings you here."

"We're not dead, are we?" Harry asked. "Aren't you dead?"

"I am very dead in all the ways that matter, child. Zhang Jiao and his followers were as clever as they were mad. Upon his final defeat those many years ago, he wove a terrible alchemy that doomed many of us who'd opposed him to fade from all existence with every moment spent on the earthly plain. He denied us all any hope of an afterlife."

The sky darkened with that proclamation, a mirror of the elderly man's deep anguish.

"This is a form of stasis, a liberation from time," Blaise said.

"Astute. Ever studious Guan Yu would approve," Liu Bei said. "Spending the rest of my days, outside the limits of causality, within a living book dedicated to my dearest of friends and allies was the easiest choice."

He turned back to Harry. "But no, you are not dead. Merely ferried away from your reality for an instant."

The gentle-mannered man smiled once more at them, yet it didn't truly meet his eyes. "I ask this of all my guests. Tell me, do they remember me? Does history speak of me fondly?"

Blaise was deadly silent. Whether it was from a negative answer brewing behind his inscrutable expression or an honest lack of knowledge, Harry had no idea. His vague recollections of primary school history involved only the Tudors, Celts, Rome and Egypt.

The silence grew far too forbidding, so Harry said the first thing to come to mind. "Our headmaster knows of your legend, and the Muggles, non-magical people, do. I don't know whether people are fond."

"Part of your first statement was a well-intentioned lie, if not a guess," Liu Bei said immediately, but his smile did not waver. "You remind me of Zhang Fei. Exceedingly reckless, yet your intentions sing true."

"You mentioned others coming here," Blaise said.

Liu Bei nodded. "Indeed, but that is not for you to know. What I will tell you is that many of my subjects knew of my final gambit, yet none have managed to find any salvation for me. My fate is undeniable. Annihilation in the form of heavenly tribulation awaits me the day I step off these pages."

He laughed softly, shaking his head. "They did not call Zhang Jiao the Great Teacher for nothing, as much as I curse his name with my every breath."

And so began a story of classical Magical China. Harry already knew parts of it from his skimming, such as the conflict of philosophy between the Yellow Turbans, who opposed the ritualistic flooding of the Yellow River, and the wizard lords, Liu Bei amongst them, who sought to preserve this monstruous tradition. Harry disagreed vehemently with the massacre of millions to produce the powerful magical artefacts favoured as foci by the elite Chinese wizards. Liu Bei's period of benevolent rule in his partition of China following victory had only been made possible by the arrival of wands from Europe. It hadn't stopped everything from descending into war again, however. Not all had accepted a new world without wizards masquerading as demigods powered by untold human sacrifice.

Even with his blood-drenched hands, Liu Bei was a captivating speaker and undeniably charismatic. Betrayal. Hope. Loss. Atonement. Harry couldn't help but feel for him, even if he was responsible for an amount of death that Voldemort could scarcely imagine.

"There is one matter that must be addressed before I send you on your way, bound tighter than many men could truly comprehend," Liu Bei said quietly. He regarded them both gravely. "Your oath is incomplete."

"How so?" Blaise asked.

Harry's heart sank, knowing exactly where this was going.

"You are to die for each other, if need be," Liu Bei said. "That is the very nature of the oath my brothers and I immortalized millennia ago. All but very few seek to ward off death and many would kill for another, yet few would die for another."

Harry opened his mouth to interject, but the very weight of Liu Bei's presence suffused the air and rendered him speechless once more. A gentle presence probed his mind, searching through his memories. It latched on specific ones. Blaise dangling from Greyback's hand. Their descent through the stairwell together.

Whilst it hadn't been the nasty experience of Snape, Harry deeply resented having his mind violated. Once it ended, Liu Bei nodded at him. Pleased.

"Forgive me, child," Liu Bei said, "but I can leave nothing to chance."

Blaise vanished in a woosh of wind, leaving Harry and Liu Bei alone before they too vanished in a powerful gust. They reappeared in the Chamber of Secrets, the basilisk freshly slain and Harry on death's door, Fawkes and Ginny crying over him.

"You are valorous, self-sacrificing," Liu Bei said. "You are a true champion of the weak."

The graveyard where Voldemort's resurrection took place. Wormtail taking his blood quickly transitioned into Voldemort's face in a rictus of ecstasy as he placed a dagger-like nail on Harry's forehead.

"Your foe has made a grave error, yet the truth is undeniable. You have in turn been revealed to be weak. Defeated," Liu Bei said. There was a light in his dark eyes now. "Yet like few others who have come before me, you understand suffering tempers. Adversity is something to be overcome. This never-ending struggle is part of how we grow."

The memory flickered and the graveyard was now brilliant in the colourful bloom of priori incantatem, Harry and Voldemort locked in the magnetism of their brother wands. His parents were smiling down at him.

"You would accept death, cruel torture even, encouraged by mere fragments and echoes of your kin."

His darkest moments at the Dursleys were contrasted with his possession at Voldemort's hands in the Ministry, where he'd only fought it off due to his deep love for his friends and the profound, recent loss of Sirius.

"Your capacity for kinship remains undiminished in spite of your experiences."

They remained in the Ministry, but now in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. There was a slight smile on Vittoria's guise as Dawlish. She swirled her wand in a lengthy spell chain to render all who'd oppose them unconscious. Harry in turn was weaving powerful, protective enchantments, stunning and disarming any opponents that Vittoria did not herself dispatch.

"Like a tattered, blunt sword under an expert blacksmith's care, you've emerged reforged."

There was a long silence as Liu Bei beheld him, weighing him as he'd done from the book in the dorm.

"But are you ready for what may come?"

A million imagined realities assaulted him. Gore. Depravity.

In all of them, Blaise suffered. Malfoy was successful with his Obliviation, having rendered Blaise into an insensate husk incapable of even independent breath. Greyback disembowelled Blaise with a vicious slash of his claws, sending entrails spilling to the floor of Borgin and Burkes. A dementor delivered its final kiss to him. Voldemort, a sneer on his face, tortured him into near insanity before discarding him with a Killing Curse. Bellatrix slowly slitted his throat with a serrated knife, a mad grin on her face that deepened as blood pooled around her bony fingers. It went on and on. Harry barely retained his own faculties at the sheer capacity for human cruelty Liu Bei demonstrated to him.

It eventually ended, and they were now before the Veil of Death. Sirius was in midfall. As he watched, the image flickered into Blaise and then back before Sirius vanished from sight. For one final time, Sirius disappeared from Harry's life. The manipulation was cruel, but Harry was beginning to understand. Liu Bei watched him, waiting for the moment his realization grew complete.

"There is no greater sin than to forsake your kin, those who are sworn to you through blood and bond. Your godfather gave up everything for you. I must then ask you this, Harry Potter, would you do what is necessary for your brother? Your lover? I know you would kill, but would you die if it was demanded of you?"

Harry's voice was firm.

"I would."

Liu Bei's sword appeared in Harry's hands, and he knew what he had to do. What he must do.

It was easier than he thought to do this unspeakable act. In fact, he felt very little when the blade sunk into his chest. Harry would think he were dissociating, but there was an ironclad awareness that his intent had led him to this act of suicide. Still, there was no pain as the hilt collided with his sternum. Blood stained his robes, and his breath began to grow increasingly shallow. His vision began to blur. He was fading away.

There was feral triumph in Liu Bei's eyes as Harry slowly died, chest split around his blade. Just as he was about to fade completely, his scar burned with a vengeance.

"Well done," the old wizard said. "Be ever proud of your formidable heart."

The sword was ripped out of his chest, and with it came a violent scream from Harry's forehead, from his scar. Resting on top of Liu Bei's aloft sword, a very familiar black apparition clung desperately to it. Under the weight of Liu Bei's aura, the malaise it threatened to infect the air with was amateurish and ineffectual.

Harry felt lighter than he'd ever felt, as if he'd long carried a spiritual wound that had festered unattended.

"You are free, child," Liu Bei murmured to Harry. There was a fierce smile on his thin lips, an earnest respect in his kind eyes, yet Harry couldn't say anything. Even with this newfound freedom, the silent realization that it'd always been his fate to die left him speechless.

"Thank you," he eventually said. "Really."

It took a while for Blaise to reappear, but when he did, his hands were shaking. Harry could barely hear the frantic stream of Italian he was mumbling to himself over his own racing thoughts.

"What. Was. That?" Blaise asked in a ghostly whisper.

Whatever else he had to say, it was stolen by the sight of Liu Bei's sword.

"Magic continues to surprise me," Liu Bei remarked as they all stared at the ghostly apparition circling the tip of his blade. "Immortality through division of the very essence. So crude, yet so very simple. Surely, five fragments would be more auspicious than seven. Or this clearly unintended eight."

The sun suddenly retreated behind the clouds, and the clearing grew deathly silent. Birds fled to parts unknown. Peaches rotted in place, and the wind grew heavy and buffeting, its honey scent now sickly sweet with decay.

Blaise nudged him out of his observing of the rapidly evolving scenery to return to their host. There was a terrible intensity to him that scared Harry in a way that none ever had. He felt like an ant before a looming giant, awaiting an inevitable, careless trampling. The feeling only faded when Liu Bei finally barked out a harsh laugh.

"To think a single murder is the catalyst. It is for the best this knowledge never reached us. Foul workings are still afoot, even millennia after my time."

With a wave of his staff, the Horcrux ghost faded into the wind. The air became light once more, honeyed and pleasant again. As normalcy returned, Liu Bei too softened. He appeared human, gentle and friendly again.

"You are truly free of this burden, friend."

Blaise stared at Harry aghast as his gaze finally ascended to his forehead. "You were a Horcrux."

Harry ran a finger along it, only finding smooth skin where his scar used to be. He still didn't know quite how to feel. Horror and relief were two very opposing feelings.

"A conversation we'll have with Dumbledore," Harry said quietly.

Liu Bei's eyes lit up at the name, and the need for answers once more crept down Harry's spine like the icy grip of a dementor's aura.

"You had me kill Bellatrix with a knife before myself," Blaise said. His tone was painfully flat.

"And you did it. You hesitated, but you did it," Liu Bei said sharply, rounding on him with a harsh glare. "Do you regret it? Do you take it back?"

Blaise was very silent in response to that. His gaze fell to his hands before finding Harry's eyes.

"No. Never."

Liu Bei nodded, pleased once more. "Be proud. Many would have faltered in that test of character."

"And what would've happened if we'd failed?" Harry asked.

"Neither of you were ever in danger," Liu Bei said. "Your memories were confirmation enough for what I sought, but if you'd failed, you would have left here with my blessing being somewhat lighter, more hesitant. Less potent."

"And still with Voldemort's soul in your forehead," Blaise said pointedly.

Harry jolted at the realization that Blaise hadn't said Dark Lord.

Liu Bei nodded. "Indeed. It was no trouble to rid you of it. It was desperately weak; whoever this Voldemort is, his fragment was heavily suppressed by your capacity for compassion."

At Harry's dubious expression, Liu Bei chuckled. "Murder is easy. Believe me. I have done much of it in my life. Mercy, however, is more challenging. Forgiveness even more so."

Harry nodded. It was something Dumbledore would have said, though with perhaps a fair bit more tact. He was still digesting the fact that within what had to be little under an hour in this other realm, he'd been freed of this unimaginable weight. To think that he could move freely on without a connection to Voldemort. It was both intoxicating and disturbing.

"You're terrifying," Harry said bluntly.

"I come from a different era where wizards were beings to be worshipped and venerated," Liu Bei explained. "It was necessary to be cruel to be kind, more often than not. If there is a lesson to be taken from your time with me, please let this one linger."

Harry desperately wished to be able to visit again, but instinct told him that it wouldn't be possible. This degree of wisdom and freely given help were hard to find.

"Would we be able to… see you again?" Harry asked.

A sad smile crossed Liu Bei's face.

"No. I'm afraid this is a one-way trip for you, friend."

Blaise frowned. "Don't you get lonely?"

"Perhaps after a few more millennia I will have earned the right to company. My penance has only just begun."

It was a fate worse than death to Harry. An eternity of loneliness only broken by occasional guests seeking power.

"Besides, what need would you have of me?" Liu Bei asked. He played at being pleasantly baffled, but there was a heaviness to his tone that betrayed him. "You are both very kind, but everything you need is within you and stood beside you."

Harry wrapped an arm around Blaise, bringing him into a half-hug. Blaise in turn gripped his shoulder tightly, smiling down at him.

They were escorted down the steps of the pagoda, back to the small clearing where they'd appeared. The finality was overwhelming, but Harry could only smile at their benefactor.

Liu Bei offered them a salute, fist in palm and a deep bow. They returned it to a crow of laughter from the elderly wizard.

"I laugh every time, but I must say I much prefer this to the kowtowing of my time. Equals under magic, even if separated by a gulf of experience. It's as I'd once dreamed."

"Respect and decency should care little for experience, presentation or power," Blaise said quietly, eyes distant. "A lesson I've learned only recently myself."

"Well said. There is nothing like enforced solitude to humble oneself," Liu Bei said with his eyes closed. "You, my friends, understand this more than few others who've come before."

"Is there anything we can do for you?" Harry asked.

"I would ask you to safeguard my memoirs, and when the time comes, pass them on to others you think would be worthy."

With that, he bowed one more time to them. There was a brilliant smile on his face as they too bowed back to him.

"Farewell, Harry Potter and Blaise Zabini," Liu Bei said. "Mark history with your names."

As he turned onto his heel and strolled away, Harry's vision turned to black. There was a whispering in his mind before oblivion took him once more.

"Go as sworn brothers."

They reappeared on the bed as if they'd never left with the feel of each other's magic tightly ensconced in each other's hearts. Their previous oath had bound them into having a strong awareness of the other's magic, but now Blaise felt like a part of him now. It was easy to tease between the well of power within him that he knew to be his own, protective and radiant, with the more subtle and tricky one of Blaise. He knew with a surety that to cast a spell in his presence would be to cast one together. As Liu Bei had said, they were bound tighter than few could imagine.

"Go ahead," Blaise whispered. His eyes were alight with excitement.

Harry retrieved his wand.

"Protego."

He could feel the surge of Blaise's magic as their combined efforts were poured into the spell. The silvery shield that blossomed from his wand-tip felt impregnable compared to his usual powerful efforts. There was a brilliant smile on Blaise's face as he took in the Shield Charm.

"Odd sensation," Blaise murmured, "but I like the results. Let me try."

A sudden demand for Harry's very being surged. He yielded and Blaise's own shield appeared, now equally as strong with Harry's weight behind his efforts.

As Blaise looked up from his spell-work, smiling wide, Harry threw himself at him.

Their ensuing kiss was initially clumsy but grew rapidly desperate. Like for Harry, it must have sunk in for Blaise just what they'd committed themselves to, what they'd promised of both themselves and the world. They ended up with Blaise on his back, legs on Harry's shoulders, and their erections grinding together.

Blaise groaned low at one long stroke of Harry's hips. "Do you want to return the favour?"

"What favour?"

A shuffle from Blaise resulted in Harry's cock sliding against his taint and then nestling between his cheeks.

"Does that spell it out for you? I'll need some prep though."

Harry immediately conjured some lube, as Blaise had done days ago, and pushed Blaise's legs back to his shoulders. He took the stretch with a languid smirk before reaching for his wand. A wince crossed his face at the no doubt icy sensation of the Cleansing Charm doing its work inside him before placing his wand back to the side.

Inspecting the attractive curve of Blaise's arse, Harry was a little torn. As much as he liked Blaise rimming him, he didn't quite have the stomach to do the same. At least not yet.

"Do what you're comfortable with, Harry," Blaise said in answer to his initial hesitation.

Taking some lube, Harry slipped a finger into Blaise's tight hole. And then another. Unlike for Harry, it didn't seem to do much for Blaise, but he moaned all the same when Harry found his prostate. Eventually, he was lining up his cock with the winking entrance and sinking in. The tight grip of him around his glans was amazing, and it was all he could do to not start thrusting madly.

"Easy," Blaise murmured, noticing Harry's obvious struggle. "I haven't done this in a long time."

Once his passage had relaxed around him, Harry sunk in with one long, continuous thrust until they were joined at the hip.

Harry rocked steadily into him, taken entirely by the openness of Blaise's face, and closed the distance until he was within range to kiss him. It left Blaise near folded in half, but he took the new position without complaint, lacing his arms around Harry's back. Between them, Blaise's half-hard cock bobbed and grinded against Harry's abdomen as they groaned and breathed together.

They continued to rock together. Harry could feel his orgasm building, the pressure in his lower belly growing more and more intense. He broke the kiss to bury his face in the crook of Blaise's neck, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

"I'm not going to last long," Harry whispered.

Blaise's own breathing became increasingly laboured as his grip around Harry's back tightened. "Come for me, Harry," he whispered hotly in his ear. "Let me feel it."

The words were like a command, and his orgasm came crashing over him like a wave. He let out a muffled cry as he came, his hips jerking erratically as he filled Blaise with his release. As the waves of pleasure subsided, Harry collapsed on top of Blaise.

After pulling out and vanishing the mess, Harry slid down the bed and worked Blaise's cock over with his mouth. It didn't take long for him to come down Harry's throat. Blaise's legs flexed and shook against Harry's shoulders as he swallowed everything down without complaint.

"How was it for you?" Harry asked.

Blaise gave him a slow smile with hooded eyes after he re-emerged into view.

"It was good. I liked it," Blaise said. "It was definitely better than any other times I'd tried, but I wasn't lying to you when I said I'd much prefer to top. If you ever want to do it again, I don't mind though."

It wasn't quite what Harry would have wanted, but he didn't really mind. Both were great.

"Something for special occasions," Harry said.

Blaise grinned. "You spoil me."

"I have to. You're my princess, after all," Harry joked.

Blaise's face went through a series of contortions before he settled on a wrinkling of his nose and general air of defeat. "Fine. For some reason, you wanted a brother princess, and now you've gotten yourself one."

Harry laughed hard. "A little too Pureblood for me, but I guess it can be our little secret," he murmured.

"You bet."

Harry finally removed Blaise's long legs from his shoulders, leaning back to admire the sight of him. Muscles lax in a boneless relaxation against the bed, braids fanned out on the pillows and along his chest, and a soft, lazy smile that broadened as he caught Harry's eyes. Relaxed. Content. All for Harry.

"I lo – really like seeing you like this," Harry blabbed, barely covering his slip.

Blaise lifted an eyebrow. If he'd picked up on Harry's near miss, he didn't give anything else away. "Well fucked?"

Harry nodded with affected seriousness. "Yes, you do make a good pillow princess."

He laughed again at Blaise's ensuing snort. "But I mean more," he gestured broadly at Blaise, "everything. Happy. Free. Not hiding."

A large part of Harry basked in the knowledge that no one else would see Blaise like this.

"It's always easy with you, Harry," Blaise said with a timid smile. He took in Harry as if he were imprinting every inch of him to memory. For once, it wasn't in a sexual manner. Just clear admiration. It was a mutual thing, as Harry was doing the absolute same. "Even if it required falling off a staircase, I have to say I'm very lucky."

Harry felt that familiar tug of his heart, intensifying with every second he spent stuck in Blaise's smile and intent gaze. Unbidden, his hands found Blaise's and laced their fingers together.

Like that evening days ago, the tension between them was palpable.

"After the battle," Harry said softly.

"After the battle," Blaise repeated, just as soft.

Harry reached over Blaise's head for the old, yellow sock buried beneath his pillows, unravelling it around the vial hidden within. He'd only taken a small portion to retrieve Slughorn's memory, so it was immediately obvious by its appearance of molten gold what it was.

Blaise gave him a puzzled expression.

"I never did tell you how I ended up bumping into you," Harry said.

With Blaise now in the loop regarding Horcruxes, Harry explained the significance of the memory he'd retrieved from Slughorn.

"To get the memory, I used Felix Felicis, and apparently there's a rare side effect of it," Harry explained.

Blaise caught on immediately. "The yo-yo refractory period? I'd always thought it was theoretical."

"Apparently not," Harry said.

He watched carefully for a reaction, but Blaise merely shrugged.

"Changes nothing for me if that's what you're worried about. I'm here for as long as you want me. Perhaps even longer."

"A little clingy, princess? I can't say I really mind," Harry said.

Blaise gave a long-suffering sigh, already visibly fed up with this pet name. He likely knew full well this was merely the beginning. "You have no idea. You really are stuck with me, Harry."

With that statement, Harry vanished the vial. Blaise made a choked noise of disbelief, grasping at Harry's wand as if to somehow reconjure the potion into being.

"You're crazy," Blaise murmured, looking up at him with wide eyes. "That could have been useful."

Harry smiled at him unrepentantly. "I plan on making my own luck for once."

"Still crazy," Blaise said after a long pause. A reluctant grin crossed his face. "You're lucky I'm crazy enough to find your mindless determination attractive."

Harry grinned back at him and reached for his underwear. "Time to be mindlessly determined with Dumbledore."

After dressing, Blaise applied a glamour to Harry's forehead, restoring the appearance of his scar, and they made their way to the headmaster's office.

"Milky way," Harry said to the gargoyle.

It revolved in place, revealing the staircase and they took the steps at a steady pace. Emerging in the office, they found Dumbledore writing at his desk.

"Good morning, Professor," they said.

As Dumbledore answered, Harry removed the glamour. The mere suggestion of a spell caught Dumbledore's attention, and his sharp eyes immediately went to Harry's forehead. It provoked a heartwarming reaction that dispelled a lot of Harry's unease, a long, disbelieving stare that melted into a peel of joyous laugh.

"How?"

"Liu Bei," Blaise said simply.

Dumbledore stared at them again, dumbfounded. A wry smile eventually crossed his face as he beckoned them to sit down.

"As I find to be a recurring theme as of recent, I find your decisiveness both admirable and concerning. Not even half a day after I gave you that book!" Dumbledore said. "It always seems to work out, funnily enough."

Harry could only muster a weak smile. Blaise was stony-faced.

"Answers… please," Harry said. "How long have you known?"

Dumbledore's smile didn't fade. "This summer, I will teach you the beginnings of Occlumency. Mr Zabini, I expect you to read the book I gave you very thoroughly. What I suspect we will talk about this morning will be highly delicate."

Once he had their agreement, he began.

"I shall start from the very beginning. Theorists are quite divided on the mechanism of action of the Killing Curse. Some would say that the Killing Curse is the Banishing Charm in its most terrible and perfect form, a violent expulsion of the soul from a body. Others are more nihilistic and claim that the soul is barely anchored to this plane and the Killing Curse is uniquely posed to disturb this weak connection. There are innumerable theories, going back many centuries, but what really matters is that all agree that it is a form of soul magic. And for soul magic to function, a connection must be forged between souls."

"Like communion," Harry stated.

Dumbledore nodded. "You've both experienced communion, a voluntary and friendly joining of magic and soul. It is the most benign form of soul magic. The Killing Curse is a corruption of this. It is a momentary connection that is immediately shattered with violent ejection of an unwilling participant."

"Are you saying we could do something similar if we entered communion incorrectly?" Blaise muttered in horror.

Dumbledore shook his head. "No. Our souls reflect our true nature. These intentions would cause the very act of initiating communion to fail, and that is what makes the Killing Course unique. It is a forceful connection."

"The Killing Curse is a violation of the soul then?" Harry said.

"Some would agree, but it is a tool no different than others. I'm sure we could hypothesise ever more grotesque means of murder," Dumbledore said. "It is the nature of the spell that makes it Forbidden and valuable for the creation of Horcruxes. It's far easier to manipulate one's own soul following a murder for the necessary ritual when the soul is prepared."

"Have you ever used it?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore nodded. He didn't give them opportunity to explore that, instead giving Harry an intent gaze.

"Allow me to continue. Voldemort's soul was incredibly unstable. Seven fragments had splintered it to an unthought degree, so when he attempted to murder you, he involuntarily split his soul once more. In a more just world, Voldemort's fragment would have immediately dissolved into nothingness. Instead, this tiny fragment was lodged into the only living soul in the building."

"Me," Harry said.

"Exactly," Dumbledore said. "I've suspected as much since your ability as a Parselmouth came to light. My suspicions were only confirmed when you witnessed Nagini's attack on Arthur Weasley via indirect possession."

Blaise asked the question Harry had been dreading, the question that had been in his mind ever since that chilling realization with Liu Bei.

"And what was your plan?"

Dumbledore's smile finally faded, and his voice grew hoarse.

"You cannot begin to imagine my difficulty, Mr Zabini. How could I live with this knowledge? I've watched you, Harry. You were a quiet, loyal boy. Not brilliant, but exceptional in your own way. You struggled, you persevered, but above all, you were living and enjoying yourself. Many have asked why I didn't take a greater interest in your life, in your fate, but how could I do that having this most cynical of knowledge? I wanted you to live. Desperately. Training you like a soldier seemed like surrender. Then the events of the graveyard came to pass, and I allowed myself a flicker of hope.

Voldemort made an enormous error that night in the graveyard. Harry's mother's sacrifice afforded him a blood protection. The very act of touch rendered poor Quirinus, possessed by Voldemort at the time, into ash. By taking Harry's blood, he bound his fate to Harry's in a way that he didn't intend."

Harry swallowed, having an idea of where this was going. "Would his spells have backfired on me? Would allowing him to kill me have spared me somehow?"

"Exactly. It was my belief that if he were the one to kill you, it would only destroy the Horcrux. This is merely theoretical, but I do believe this was the case. No longer, naturally."

There was a long silence as they all digested the words. Harry wasn't angry, just a little hollow. Just a little weary. Nothing about his path was ever easy.

"I think I understand," Blaise said. "I still think you could've fought harder."

Dumbledore smiled indulgently at Blaise whose frown became rather fixed.

"Mr Zabini, with his forthright and perhaps rude tongue, planted the seed. His anger was most terrible whilst we awaited your rescue, Harry. Mr Weasley and Ms Granger, as loyal as they are, didn't dare to voice anything until he did. It gave me hope of another way."

"The memoirs," Harry said. "Liu Bei remembered you."

Dumbledore laughed bitterly. "A window into a dark past. I was young, brilliant. A generational talent. But above all, I was desperately lonely. I had many friends, but there were none who were my peers."

Dumbledore's eyes were focused on something only he could see. "Then I met him. An equal."

"Who?" Harry asked.

"Grindelwald," Blaise muttered. "It's the only reason you can be so familiar with my mother. She hates him like she hates nobody else. It certainly fits with your history."

The handsome apparition popped into Harry's mind. "The Horcrux ghost. Was that Grindelwald?"

Dumbledore nodded at them grimly. "Clever. Both of you. I was not too dissimilar from him when we'd first met. A ravenous thirst for knowledge. A need to be recognised. But above all else, a deep-seated desire to rule. We thought ourselves better than all others, and wouldn't it be just fitting for us to lead wizardkind into a new era of dominance over Muggles and all beings? It would be for the greater good, after all."

Harry stared in disgust. "You're joking."

Blaise, on the other hand, was looking at Dumbledore with more warmth than he'd ever given him.

"He was your lover, wasn't he? Your experiences with him were what started you down this path of redemption and forgiveness. I finally understand."

Harry's tongue was only stilled by Dumbledore's confirmation. He'd always conceived of Grindelwald as Dumbledore's very own Voldemort. Something close to a fate-determined nemesis. Hearing this truth disturbed the slowly reconfigured viewpoint he was building of Dumbledore.

"Grindelwald was obsessed with the stories of ancient wizards. As I imagine you've discovered, they were capable of feats that would be considered unthinkable in the modern era. One day, he came to me with those two copies of Liu Bei's memoirs I gifted to you both. I imagine he stole them."

"And you swore this oath with him?" Harry asked.

The headmaster seemed to become a shadow of himself, appearing frailer and more tormented than Harry had ever seen him.

"It was one of the darkest days of my life. Liu Bei saw right through us. He bombarded me with visions of the inner workings of Gellert's mind, his rapacious need for power. Where I heard Liu Bei's tale and felt horror at the bloodshed and the rivers gorged with drowned bodies, Gellert – Grindelwald, he'd only felt greed. There'd always been a worry in my mind regarding his intentions, but when you love, even such madness seemed surmountable."

"And Liu Bei still let you leave with his blessing?" Blaise asked gently.

"He is a prisoner of the magic he wrought," Dumbledore said. "The magic of the oath and our own relationship were strong enough that he could not deny us. With marked disappointment, he bid us farewell with a phylactery symbolising our blood pact. Whilst it remained intact neither of us could harm the other."

"But it was breakable," Harry said.

Dumbledore finally smiled again. "Indeed, it was. Unlike your bond, which I fear is permanent in all ways, ours had something of an escape clause."

"I don't think either of us have dreams of megalomania," Blaise said curtly.

Dumbledore laughed. "You're both far too solitary deep down for such a thing. It is but one more reason I took this chance, and I can scarcely believe the outcome."

His mirth faded and he gave Blaise a cool look. "Very few would speak so rudely to me, Mr Zabini. Perhaps you were sorted into the wrong House."

At that, Blaise frowned in contrition. "With every passing day I feel the same. I'm sorry for the… rudeness, but I think you understand, just as I finally understand you. Harry means a lot to me."

Dumbledore gave him a knowing nod.

"And that is the only reason I have not reprimanded you until now. It is in fact the ultimate reason I took this chance, even if I hadn't expected you both to follow through so quickly."

The swell of emotion within Harry had him on the verge of saying something potentially embarrassing. He contented himself with that promise they'd made before coming. Instead, he cleared his throat.

"Would you be open to continuing?"

Dumbledore grew morose. "I confronted him immediately after Liu Bei expelled us from that other world. Our row was quite explosive and my dear sister, Ariana, heard. He'd always been dismissive of her. She'd been tormented by Muggles as a young child to the point of being rendered near a Squib. Her magic would explode out of her in moments of distress. It'd killed our mother."

It took Dumbledore a moment or two to gather himself, once more lost to painful memory.

"The confrontation?" Harry asked in a gentle tone.

"Yes, she tried to interrupt, and Grindelwald attempted to curse her. Before I could hope to de-escalate, my brother, my brave brother, Aberforth arrived. A three-way duel soon began with my sister in the middle trying to get us to stop. It is difficult to know who was responsible, but she died that night."

"I'm sorry, Professor," Harry murmured.

Blaise echoed him, visibly straining to say something additional, but Dumbledore's heavy gaze forced him into silence.

"As I'm sure you're aware, you can pull on each other's magic, and Grindelwald took great pleasure in masking his own spells under our combined weight. It will forever be a mystery who landed the fateful spell, who was responsible for what is one of my deepest shames. Aberforth forever blamed me for being foolish enough to bring Grindelwald into our home, into our lives."

"Aberforth?" Blaise spluttered as the tale ended. "Hog's Head Aberforth, the bartender, is your brother?"

Harry recalled the grey-haired bartender, surly and mean. And a little filthy. "How do you know his name?"

"Everyone in Slytherin knows he's the person to get Firewhisky from," Blaise explained. "He'll get you a cask of it, though it comes with a sizeable mark-up."

"Oh, he's doing that again?" Dumbledore asked with good humour. "He does that whenever he's particularly angry with me. He was good friends with Proudfoot. Rest his soul."

Blaise held his head in his hands. "This school…"

Harry and Dumbledore shared a chuckle as Blaise griped about Hogwarts, their shared sanctuary.

"That is my story complete. I will tell you my wish for you both. Learn from my mistakes."

"We'll do our best. Thank you," Blaise said, earnest and warm.

His eyes searched Dumbledore's body language, finding the resigned yet determined figure that Harry had too found. The man who'd been there all along. Weighed with burdens and horrible memories that Harry could barely imagine.

"You're just a man," Blaise whispered.

With his tone, you'd think it was a miraculous revelation, and it must have been for him.

"He always was," Harry added.

"Indeed, I am just a man, Blaise," Dumbledore repeated. "I hope you're never left in a similar position as myself. Faced only with terrible options. I so deeply hope."

They remained with Dumbledore for the rest of the morning and early afternoon. Chatting about anything and everything that came to mind. They detailed their trials under Liu Bei's venerable presence. Blaise's trial involved two parts. The first had involved showing his burgeoning transformation from passivity to proactivity in a series of memories before culminating in the killing of Bellatrix. Like Harry, he'd then had to commit a ritualistic suicide. Dumbledore listened intently, fascinated yet disturbed at the comparative ease with which they'd did it. He and Grindelwald had spent hours individually building the nerve and motivation.

They moved onto lighter subjects. Dumbledore answered the long-anticipated reason for Croaker's Alzheimer's comment. It'd been something Ron had been asking Harry to investigate. Apparently, a young Rita Skeeter's very first column in the Daily Prophet had alleged just that, which Croaker had never let rest.

Harry watched, amused beyond belief, as Blaise increasingly thawed for Dumbledore. He'd always suspected they'd get along. Dumbledore had a great sense of humour and a wealth of knowledge that he was happy to share, and Blaise was the type who enjoyed talking to a fellow joker and learning things.

As was usual for Harry's private lessons, they were interrupted by the arrival of Moody and Kingsley. After some curt greetings, a veritable armada of Patronuses left Dumbledore's wand and flew into the walls.

It was time.

Ron and Hermione were quick to come. McGonagall arrived with them, forbidding and in her usual set of robes.

Not long after, a woman emerged from the floo, clad in a tall witch's hat and in blue form-fitting robes covered in a long gauzy shawl. There was an overbearing similarity to Vittoria in her long, black hair and bronze skin tone. An equally tanned man with shaggy, blonde hair and a neat beard quickly emerged after her. Whilst the woman's attire was clearly combat-ready, he was clad in a brilliant white tunic with a long, purple mantle draped on top and formal trousers. A sash emblazoned in a staff entwined by twin serpents laid over his tunic, partially hiding a belt with potions of every colour and cloves of garlic attached.

"Lady Zabini will be here shortly. I am Isabela Martinelli," the black-haired woman said. "Stregona Benemerita of the Italian Ministry's magianieri. Officially, I am here only to observe after long negotiation with my superiors, but if I were to somehow place myself in danger, I will defend myself."

"What would be the chances of that?" Moody asked rhetorically.

"Stregona Benemerita," Hermione repeated with flawless pronunciation. "The Latin makes me think witch of good merit?"

Isabela favoured Hermione with a nod. "Worthy witch. Millenia later, and we in Italy still cling strongly to the meritocratic origins of Magical Rome. It is customary for a few of the magianieri, the equivalent of your Auror, to be bestowed with the title."

The golden-haired man interjected. "My ever-humble cousin undersells herself. There are only three living amongst the magianieri to still claim the title of Benemeritus."

At their questioning gazes, he offered them all a shallow bow.

"Aurelio Giansanti," the man said. "Journeyman of the Order of Caduceus based in Athens and Senior Executor of the Dark Force Defence League. I hope to be useful given I'm told vampires will be our opponents."

There were a chorus of greetings for them both. Moody marched over first to Isabela.

"Been a while since I've met an Italian counterpart. Ever since that ban on Hit Wizard activity over there a few years back, you've all been very hush."

Isabela smiled sadly. "At times, it feels like we too are on the brink of civil war. We can chance no foreign wands-for-hire until cooler heads prevail."

Harry gave Blaise a significant look. He merely muttered 'no Dark Lords' under his breath.

"No doubt," Moody said.

He then turned to Aurelio.

"A healer and a fighter," Moody said, giving the man a robust handshake. "More than happy to have you on board."

"Given Lockhart was in it, I'd always assumed the Dark Force Defence League was a bit… naff," Ron said.

Aurelio chuckled, even as Hermione reprimanded Ron with an eye roll. "Gilderoy Lockhart, yes? Honorary membership can be bought. It keeps the membership dues low, so I'm told."

Taking in the stately man, Harry assumed he had to be at least capable to receive immediate respect from Moody. Catching Harry's notice, he turned and gave him a friendly nod before falling into deep conversation with Moody and Kingsley.

"Blaise," Isabela breathed, advancing on them both. "How many years has it been? You've grown so much."

"Too many," Blaise said with a soft smile.

They embraced before Isabela turned to Harry. She gave him a very familiar smile.

"Harry Potter. An honour."

She was introduced to Hermione and Ron before sweeping Blaise away into a corner for a private conversation in Italian.

Vittoria appeared from the fireplace with a faint whoosh of flame. She'd abandoned her elegant robes for a similar get-up to Isabela, though her burgundy robes were reinforced with a leather breastplate and vambraces that sung of protective enchantments. There was no warmth to her today, only a chilling intensity. With a soft greeting to them all, she immediately advanced on her son.

"I'm not one for baseless superstition, Blaise, but at least secure your hair," Vittoria said, eyeing her son's free-flowing hair with more than a little distaste. "You're tempting fate here."

She fished a golden clasp out of her pocket and placed it in Blaise's outstretched hand. It too had a rich, permanent-seeming magical presence to it, as if the metal had been infused with protective magics during its very shaping. Blaise rearranged his braids into a low ponytail before securing them with the clasp.

"For the students," Vittoria said. "Please come."

Vittoria quickly passed them a set of wand holsters she'd brought for them. They were enchanted so that a tap on the seam would summon their wands to their hands. They were also summon-resistant.

They all thanked her, finally provoking her into a charming smile. "Thank me by returning alive and intact."

Soon Dumbledore's office was incredibly packed. Robards and a small group of Aurors from the Ministry, looming to the side. Cheng Li, a ruggedly handsome man with his hair in a ponytail, arrived with a smiling Hestia. Flitwick practically bounced with excitement beside a nervous looking Slughorn. A despondent Remus stood with Sturgis in a corner.

Scrimgeour emerged last of all. He'd undergone a radical transformation. Leonine and proud once more, but there was still a hint of weariness. The wizard accompanying him was an enormous surprise.

"Percy! What are you doing here?" Ron spat. "You – you're going to fight?"

Percy was dressed for battle, yet as snooty and self-important as ever. He also had a camera with him.

"Ronald," Percy said sharply. "I won't embarrass you by asking if mum knows, but yes."

"Too late for that!"

Not interesting in letting them get going, McGonagall interrupted them with a snap of her fingers.

"Enough," Minerva said. "You can settle this family feud in private later."

"Many thanks, Professor," Scrimgeour said. He took them all in, fighting a smile as he did so. "A brilliant occasion. It makes me yearn for my days in the field, but this is my last gasp, I'm afraid. The measures we've taken in the Ministry lately have made me incredibly unpopular, and Thicknesse is on the move. I need proof of success. Weasley here is masterful with a wand, and I'm sure he'll find opportunities to take photos."

Dumbledore frowned, but he acquiesced with a gentle dip of his head. "Very well. We'll ensure Mr Weasley gets his evidence."

Percy offered a curt nod of appreciation.

Dumbledore called them all to order with a long trill from Fawkes and they settled in for final arrangements.

Nuremgard Castle was a dark and foreboding structure. It loomed over the surrounding landscape like a menacing giant, casting a long and ominous shadow over the nearby Muggle skiing village. The windows visible from the snowy path they were trekking on were small and narrow, with heavy iron bars that made it impossible to see inside. Every now and then, the castle would widen into vault-like floors, which narrowed with increasing height. It made the castle look oddly like a triangle.

At the top of the castle, there stood a tall tower with a final vault, its pointy spire reaching up into the sky like a twisted finger. This was where Grindelwald was being held captive, in the furthest reaches of the castle, far away from the prying eyes of the outside world.

"Creepy, isn't it?" Ron whispered.

"Concentrate," Blaise said.

They advanced onto the drawbridge. Dumbledore raised his wand and the massive portcullis answered, rising upwards. They advanced inside into the bailey proper, stepping over the craggy stones at a steady pace. The battlements and towers were searched with illuminated wands. There was no sign of a guard, which was concerning. The castle seemed abandoned.

"This isn't right," Moody muttered.

They approached the keep. The air felt thick and heavy, and a sense of unease settled over the group as they drew closer.

"Harry," Dumbledore said in a chilling voice. "Wards now."

With Blaise's power at his disposal, it was trivial to raise all manner of protections around their party. There was a faint murmuring from those unfamiliar with his abilities, but they advanced into the keep. The ground floor was an expansive hall, cloaked in an impenetrable darkness. Someone dared to light their wand and all hell broke loose.

Spell fire flew everywhere, and Kingsley lifted the floor to divide the room into two. Ron and Hermione vanished from sight.

"We've been betrayed!" Moody yelled from the other side of the wall. "They were meant to be here hours later."

A massive corona of light ascended to the ceiling, illuminating their foes. They were massively outnumbered, but something about the vacant expressions and sluggish movement of their opponents caused Harry to falter.

Aurelio and Isabela immediately advanced upon a group of alert sallow-skinned wizards in black, billowing robes.

"Vampires!" Aurelio roared.

That shout and the ripple of a spell failing against his protection shocked Harry into action. The tingle of Blaise's Disillusionment shrouded them both, and they began to stalk across the battlefield, stunning and disarming all opponents they could see. Harry infused Kingsley's quick protego duro with protective enchantments, rendering it near indestructible for now.

Robards took on a vacant-looking Shunpike and another bewitched woman. McGonagall was quickly surrounded by three opponents, but with a few waves of her wand, the odds had been restacked in her favour. One was quickly restrained by a knight of rough, unyielding rock and thrown to the floor with a nasty thump. The others quickly followed.

Other opponents on their side of the wall took to bombarding the wall with Blasting Curses. It was a baffling decision, but Harry was quickly realising their opponents were victims themselves. Under Kingsley and Harry's spellwork, it only resulted in the wall chipping and cracking. Flitwick bewitched the fragments of debris into pellets that harassed their opponents, circling them and impacting their wand arms. More than a few wands dropped to the floor.

Their side of the room was soon littered with bodies and Kingsley dropped the divider to find the same on the other.

"I was expecting… more," Ron said after rejoining them. "That was far too easy."

"These were merely fodder. Bewitched humans, thralls and newborns," Aurelio said dismissively. "The Ivanovs await above, and I imagine the followers of this British Dark Lord do so too."

Dumbledore advanced towards the stairwell to the next floor. "Join me please, Harry. I believe Voldemort and his followers will have left some surprises for us."

Harry made to follow, and Blaise didn't leave his side.

"Where you go, I go," Blaise said simply.

No one questioned them as they made their way through the crowd to the narrow stairway. The ward that awaited them was interesting. It was tied to Voldemort's very soul, perhaps even the Dark Mark, but there were few with greater experience than Harry. Summoning the sensation of Liu Bei extracting the Horcrux from his forehead, the magical impression that had once been an unintended passenger, he dismissed the protective enchantment with ease.

"Brilliant work," Dumbledore said as they were all buffeted by a rush of wind. "I shall lead."

The next floor had once been a stately library. Now, it was little more than an abandoned charnel house. Dozens of bodies formed a lake of blood and limbs along the desks and ceiling-high bookcases.

"I believe we've found the Austrians staffing the prison," Moody said. "So many of them."

"In recent years, the lower floors of the castle have been repurposed into a library," Dumbledore said. "I imagine many here were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Harry heard Ron violently retch, and Harry was mere moments from joining him. It was the sight of Blaise and Hermione, both stony-faced, that forced him to swallow it down.

"Poor souls," Slughorn murmured.

Harry watched as Aurelio inspected a shrivelled, old man with tell-tale puncture wounds on his throat. He'd been exsanguinated to death.

Percy walked by, visibly conflicted as to whether it would be appropriate to take a picture of the sheer horror.

"Take it, lad," Moody said. "Let the world know."

There were some protests from others in the group, but the sound of the shutter sounded regardless.

"Lestrange's work," Robards said quietly. "She always liked a more personal touch."

Harry immediately ran towards him. An older woman, eyes wet with tears, and her throat crudely slit to the point of near decapitation.

"We'll get her," Blaise whispered to him, squeezing his hand before making to move on.

It was easier than Harry thought to follow, but that promise and the witch he knew to lie waiting on the floors above awoke an angry greed in his heart.

It was a solemn group that approached the next stairwell. Harry dismissed an identical ward with a numbness in his heart.

"Wait!" McGonagall called. She sounded as if on the verge of tears.

Harry ran over without thinking about it.

He was as imposing as ever in death. Just as harsh and mean as ever, but it was never easy to see one so familiar as a corpse. There were two bodies in black, tattered robes next to him with the massive bloody gouges of sectumsempra on them.

Severus Snape.

Harry didn't know what to feel, but what he did know was that he'd never wanted this outcome for Snape. McGonagall let out a choked sob as others came forward to inspect the body.

"He went down fighting," Kingsley said. "He took Mulciber and Nott with him."

Dumbledore knelt down before Snape, searching through his robes. He muttered something before closing Snape's eyes one last time. There was a terrible fury on his face as he rose to his feet.

"We dally no longer. Forward."

McGonagall gave a tight nod, blinking back the tears in her eyes.

As they ascended to the third floor, the sounds of fighting grew louder and louder. They emerged to find Death Eaters and vampires in combat with a small formation of wizards and witches in the familiar black and blue-trimmed robes of the ICW. They were being pushed back, but their leader, a tall, greying witch at the front with a staff of black metal held the line with powerful lightning transfiguration.

A massive wall of spectral light separated them from being able to help, raised with magic Harry could not even begin to guess as to its means of unravelling, but Dumbledore stepped forward and inspected it with a fire in his eyes.

"Honorata!" Moody called to the witch. "You made it. You're early too."

A greying witch with a staff finished her spell, creating a massive pillar of lightning that surged into a lunging opponent. He fell to the floor, charred and very dead. She briefly turned, revealing a ravaged face. She had a massive scar from forehead to chin as if someone had attempted to claw her face off. One of her eyes had been left a clear blind white.

"Alastor," she said with a soft voice, even as another arc of lightning thundered from her staff. "You're more intact and less punctual than I last saw you. The Austrians raised the alarm before they were wiped out."

"Our contact was betrayed. Poor sod," Moody said.

Their reunion was interrupted by Dumbledore bringing down the barrier. A heavily accented voice soon called out to them.

"Worthy opponents. At last. The youngest of our coven have had enough fun."

A black-haired man in armour of a red metal materialised in place of the barrier, accompanied by a large crowd of other equally armoured men and women. Their waxy pallor was such that they made Sanguini look healthily tanned. Some of them immediately peeled off to help their fellow coven members, but the vast majority slowly advanced on them.

Aurelio strode forward, cloves of garlic levitating in a shield in front of them all. With a wave of his wand, they were aerosolised and dispersed through the room.

"Pah! Garlic," another woman said. With a wave of her wand, a Bubblehead Charm wrapped around her head.

"Ensure you disrupt this charm," Aurelio instructed them all. "The garlic will distract them."

A massive plume of flame emerged from Dumbledore's wand, cutting the vampires off as they advanced. He quickly turned to the door on the other side of the room leading to the next floor, idly sweeping all in his way off their feet with a wave of his wand. McGonagall quickly transfigured some of the flames into a series of spears, which swirled and arced through the air as they searched for targets. The vampires were unfathomably quick and skilled, repelling and extinguishing them with careful spellwork.

"Lord Pavel Ivanov," Vittoria called, stepping forward. "Face me if you dare."

The lead vampire stepped forward.

"My honour dictates I must, Lady Zabini," Lord Ivanov said. "It has certainly been a long time."

Harry had no time to take in their duel as Blaise was moving to join the mayhem. He advanced upon one of the vampires, a flurry of spells leaving him and rendering his opponent a prisoner of their own armour. An enchanted stake quickly followed from Aurelio, parting through the metal breastplate as if it weren't there. Harry maintained a careful distance to raise more protections as needed, but a shock of wild black hair caught his eye and he was off.

"Harry!" Hermione called before she was drawn back into her own duel with a sneering female vampire.

"Hawwy, precious little Hawwy," Bellatrix called as she finished an ICW wizard with a careless wave of her wand. "Looking for me? Want to avenge precious Sirius? Loathsome Severus?"

He answered her with a silent sectumsempra. The access to Blaise's magic was weaker with the distance, but the sheer force of his spell was enough to nearly throw Bellatrix off her feet.

"You're not as helpless as last time. It'll make the hope leaving your eyes all the sweeter," she said with a bark of laughter.

Adrenaline raced through his body. It rendered her words little more than a faint droning. They exchanged spells, Dark curses rippled and dissipated against his constant rotation of wards, whilst every manner of spell escaped Harry. The problem was that whilst Harry was powerful, Bellatrix was still extremely skilled. She lulled him into a false sense of security before unleashing a pointcast Cruciatus Curse. An unblockable spell.

The sudden ignition of his nerves shocked him out of his rhythm. And then it intensified.

He fell to the floor without fanfare, biting his lips until the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. Bellatrix smiled down at him as she fed more and more intent into the spell, but he didn't give the madness in her eyes the benefit of voicing the screams that threatened to tear his vocal cords.

"I truly enjoyed killing traitorous Severus, just like my dog of a cousin. None shall be allowed to thwart my Lord's plans. Not even you. I wonder how long you can withstand this."

He remained defiant, hopeful even as his eyes blurred over and his vision grew spotty in his delirium. An anguished yell finally escaped him. It may have been the delusions of his fracturing psyche, but Harry swore he could see a furious Blaise with murder on his mind approaching her from behind.

"Avada Kedavra," Blaise said coldly.

The bolt of green barely missed her, colliding with the floor, as she danced away.

The torture thankfully ended, and Harry clambered to his unsteady feet. His immediate attempt at casting his wards failed. His hands were too shaky, his intent was too lost in the sea of lingering pain. His body felt so very raw. The feel of Blaise's magic was soothing with his close proximity, like a balm to the fictitious injuries he carried within. As Harry began to pull himself together, Blaise shielded him with his very body as he met Bellatrix's renewed onslaught.

"Cissy's son and Thorfinn have told us all about you, Blaise," Bellatrix crooned. "Such a pretty face. Just like your beastly whore of a mother. I'll enjoy ruining it with a knife after I deliver your little boyfriend to the Dark Lord."

The stones shattered by Harry's feet as Blaise barely blocked a bombarda. It snapped him out of his stupor, forcing himself to ignore the never-ending ache of every part of his body, and put even more effort into mastering himself.

"Was that meant to be intimidating? Make me lose my temper?" Blaise asked, incredulous. "Let me show you how it's done."

Bellatrix cackled at him, even as she threw her own Killing Curse at him. Blaise blocked it with a conjured mirror, which shattered into fragments.

"Go on, boy."

Blaise's grimace grew terrifying before he calmed himself. Cool and dispassionate once more.

"You make the Habsburgs look well-formed, you inbred bitch. When I'm finished with you, Draco's next. Maybe his parents too. I'll ensure you all get an unmarked grave in a Muggle landfill."

Bellatrix snarled. "You dare!"

Blaise's footwork and reflex-enhanced blocks were rewarded with a reprieve as Harry's wards finally came into being. Harry was locked in now, deadly aware, and he stifled Bellatrix's ineffectual attempt at another Cruciatus Curse with sheer will, fizzling the spell in its tracks. Her time had come and passed.

"Sectumsempra!" Harry roared.

Bellatrix was very capable, but she was just not enough for their combined efforts. Still, she managed to block it, but that wasn't really what mattered. The speed of Blaise's follow-up caught her unawares, and she was forced to the ground under his Sisyphean Curse. Recalling Thicknesse's story of her capacity for wandless summoning, Harry summoned her wand to him and snapped it.

Harry looked down at her mad, violent face. Murder was promised in every harsh line of her Azkaban-ravaged face.

"I'm going to reapply the spell," Blaise murmured.

Blaise momentarily released the spell, and when he recast it, Harry added his own magic to it. She finally began to scream under the sheer force of their combined might.

"Some people are too dangerous to live," Blaise said. "Do you want me to do it? Just a little more and her lungs will collapse."

This was something Harry had promised himself for a long time. "I'll do it."

Bellatrix cackled, looking at something behind them. A violent streak of purple flame collided with them, Dolohov's signature spell that had wounded Hermione so gravely last year, but it simply rippled off Harry's wards.

"You didn't mean it in the Ministry, filthy half-blood," Bellatrix said harshly. Her voice broke into a choked, gurgling wheeze as her ribs audibly creaked. "You couldn't possibly kill me."

Blaise sneered at her. "Even if he can't, I will. Might even borrow one of your knives to do it. It won't be quick."

Whether it was Blaise's tone, or she'd finally taken in Harry's own seriousness, the chilling realization finally hit Bellatrix. Her eyes searched the room for salvation, but this was the end. There was no Rodolphus and Rabastan to intervene. They were both tied up in their duels with Hermione and Ron. Even now, Sturgis was triumphant over a very still Thorfinn Rowle and fast approaching Dolohov who was beating back Hestia. Voldemort, tied up in his own schemes, would also not be here to rescue her this time.

"You don't have the nerve!" she whispered, ruddy faced with the exertion required to simply breathe.

Blaise chuckled. "How would you know? I might have done this before."

His laughter only intensified when Bellatrix tried to spit at him, only managing to choke and splutter on her own saliva.

Harry could only picture Sirius and every other victim as he pointed his wand at the hated witch. There were no words to be had, no pithy last comments. It was not unlike putting down an incredibly dangerous animal. As soon as he felt Blaise release his curse, taunting her with the momentary freedom, he granted her the closest thing she'd get to absolution in this life.

"Avada Kedavra."

Bellatrix fell back to the floor, perfectly still. Rodolphus let out a yell of despair and he forced Hermione back with a Killing Curse, which she barely blocked with a conjuration. Before he could attempt any further revenge, Rookwood summoned him by the collar and Disapparated away with him. Rabastan, staring daggers at them both, did the same as Ron was distracted by Hermione's near miss.

Ron and Hermione jogged over to them.

"She's dead," Hermione muttered after a long search of Bellatrix's blank eyes. "You killed her?"

Harry nodded.

"Good," Hermione said immediately. "I spent this morning reading historical newspapers with articles of Death Eater crimes to build up my nerve. She's nearly as bad as Voldemort."

It was a relief to see Ron give him a weak smile. "You're not the only one. Just don't tell my mum."

"Who'd you kill?" Blaise asked.

Ron frowned a little. "Jugson."

Harry cleared his throat. It wasn't the time for this. "We need to go and help."

They returned to the fray to find the ICW wizards and witches near annihilated. Only Honorata stood tall, visibly tired and fighting alongside Moody, Isabela and Aurelio against a group of vampires. Flitwick and Slughorn paired off against a fading Parkinson and Travers. Harry watched as a dark expression crossed Blaise's face as he caught sight of Malfoy bound to the side beside Percy. He was duelling Selwyn and winning quite handily by the sight of his opponent's crustacean claw for a wand arm. Ron rushed off without a word to join him. Hermione quickly followed.

"Harry. Blaise," Dumbledore called from the door he'd studied throughout the ongoing battle. "Come now."

They ran to join him. Blaise petrified a vampire that peeled away after them. Harry gifted every person they passed with at least one protective enchantment.

As they reached the door, Dumbledore stroked his finger down the seam of the locked door. It finally yielded. The door yawned open, revealing a spindly staircase that led to the final floor where Voldemort and Grindelwald waited.

A massive slam caught Harry's attention. He turned to find Vittoria bleeding heavily from a nasty slash to her left shoulder, having barely avoided a morning star from colliding with her face by banishing it back towards its caster. The vampire lord, unblemished, merely caught it in hand and continued his relentless pursuit of her. Harry didn't know how to help her; their duel was moving so fast, and the vampire was shrouded in a cloud of conjured weapons that made landing a spell without causing collateral damage difficult. Blaise was equally conflicted, dragging his feet as they neared her.

"Go!" Vittoria screamed as the vampire lord bore down on her with a contemptuous sneer. A scythe of blackest night barely missed her throat, only avoided by her excellent footwork. "Go and do not die! Promise me this!"

Blaise yelled something in Italian, which provoked a fierce smile on Vittoria's face, and she began a swift counterassault with her customary prowess at chaining spells together.

They ascended the narrow stairs together at a frantic pace and reached the highest floor of the castle. It'd been spared the destruction and abandonment of the rest of the castle, but it wouldn't remain this way for long.

Voldemort awaited them at the end of the vault-like room. An old, battered man floated before him. His eyes were glassy and mouth slack, but Harry knew the man to be the worst Dark Lord Europe had ever seen. Grindelwald.

"Tom, what have you done?" Dumbledore murmured. "You've shattered his mind."

"What you should have done years ago," Voldemort hissed. A cruel sneer crossed his face. "To think, the great Albus Dumbledore is little more than a lovesick coward. I shall spare you further anguish."

With a wave of his wand, Grindelwald was thrown into the wall with a sickening crunch. A smear of blood followed him as he slid down the wall, dead.

"This is what your interruption has brought, Dumbledore," Voldemort said. "This is what your scheming with Severus has cost you."

Dumbledore was deathly silent, blue eyes like shards of chilling ice.

"You should not have done that, Tom," Dumbledore said. He turned to them and gave them a gentle nod. "Please be careful. I shan't be holding back."

Harry reraised every ward he knew around them as Dumbledore turned to face Voldemort.

Without wand movement or any alteration of his body language, a fiery whip emerged from Dumbledore's wand, lashing and snapping violently at the air. Voldemort barely warded it off with a conjured shield of glimmering silver.

Like in the Ministry, it was an exchange between magical giants. The problem for Voldemort, however, was that an unshackled Dumbledore was simply better. Without concern for how Voldemort would deal with Harry's Horcrux and faith in Harry's ability to defend himself, there was nothing to hold him back. After all, he could irreparably maim Voldemort until the Horcruxes were destroyed.

Dumbledore's assault combined wandless Transfiguration of any nearby debris created by their clash of magic into all manner of animals and constructs with spells of brilliant light and fire. Dogs bounded across the room, destroyed, and crumbled by Voldemort's violent waves of force before being made anew by a careless wave of Dumbledore's hand. Stone in mimicry of medieval knights charged on crumbling horses only to be frozen solid and blasted in nothingness. They were merely a distraction for Dumbledore's dextrous assailment with his fire whip. When Harry saw an opening, Voldemort forced entirely on the defensive by the headmaster's multipronged assault, he took it.

"Sectumsempra!" Harry roared.

Harry felt Blaise give himself wholeheartedly to the spell before he released it. Alarm filled Voldemort's eyes, and he broke off his counter-offensive to Disapparate. The cleave of their joint spell left an enormous, deep gouge in the wall.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Harry and Blaise leapt out of the way as a green streak of light barely missed them. A quick mutter of firmus had them on their feet immediately. Dumbledore once more encircled Voldemort with a fleet of stone birds and his whip.

He felt Blaise beginning to cast silently, and not even thinking, Harry offered everything as Blaise had done for him.

An oily, black splatter of fluid shot out of Blaise's wand. Harry recognised it as a Dark spell, the Corrosion Curse. Most of it landed on the stone, where it immediately set to eroding it until there was little more than a gaping hole in the floor, revealing hints of the ongoing battle below. Some of it landed on the hem of Voldemort's robes and began to rapidly eat at the fabric. He was forced to cut off the bottom with a wandless Severing Charm as he held off Dumbledore with a conjuration of vaporous serpents.

"We take turns, yeah?" Blaise suggested.

Harry felt Blaise murmur to himself and then his senses were sharpened twice-fold. Compared to his own attempts at the Supersensory Charm, where the sheer sensory overload gave him an enormous migraine, this was manageable. Filtered through Blaise and their bond, it was quite addictive to have such self-awareness of his limbs and senses. With Dumbledore occupying all of his attention, they continued to harass him.

Blaise used a suite of Dark magic. Spells Harry had never seen him use during their duels. Entrail-Expelling Curses. Withering Curses. Others he didn't recognise. All manner of enhancements were fed into Dumbledore's creations. Hardening Charms. Feather-Light Charms. One creative usage of his customary Sisyphean Curse turned a stone dog's lunge into a stone-shattering slam that Voldemort had to dodge with another Disapparition.

Harry was comparatively simple. Sectumsempra was a favourite of his, and he left massive gouges in the masonry with every near miss or parry from Voldemort. A Blasting Curse at Voldemort's summoned Runespoor created a massive hole in the side of the building, exposing them all to the evening chill.

Eventually, Voldemort grew tired of their ceaseless interfering.

"Crucio!"

Blaise erupted into a strangled scream, falling to the ground and writhing.

"Who's this, Harry? A friend?" Voldemort spat. "Your very own Grindelwald?"

He avoided Harry's ensuing Stupefy and a golden spear of light from Dumbledore by taking to the air. Blaise's screaming grew uninhibited as the spell continued, a soul-wrenching sound. Voldemort sneered down at them from his aerial position, bobbing and weaving around Dumbledore's volley of spells, and visibly putting more and more power into the Cruciatus Curse.

"Avada Kedavra!" Harry screamed, meaning it once more with every fibre of his body.

There was abject fear in Voldemort's eyes as he turned on his heel mid-air to Disapparate once more, barely avoiding the curl of flame as Dumbledore's whip sought to entangle him. Unfortunately for him, Harry had predicted it, and he immediately reapplied the Anti-Apparition Jinx just before he reappeared. It wasn't a good, or even complete ward, but it didn't have to be. There was only grim satisfaction as he noticed Voldemort's right hand appeared to be missing a finger.

Beside him, Blaise got back to his feet with a hoarse cough. Harry had no time to comfort him, trusting that he could rally himself.

"Splinching like a common fool, Tom," Harry said with a laugh. "Feeling a little under pressure?"

"Ugly fucker, isn't he?" Blaise said with a rasp. "Think he wouldn't be amiss in a Muggle circus. I'd certainly want to flee from death if I chose to be as hideous as him."

Voldemort's ensuing harsh snarl broadcast his intentions incredibly well, so Harry smothered his second Cruciatus Curse directed at Blaise with a sharp enforcement of their combined will. It didn't fully work, the spell being too powerful, but the spell was weakened enough to merely provoke a short yelp from Blaise before immediately fading. Dumbledore had cut Voldemort off with an almost chastising brandish of his whip.

"Well done, you two. A marvellous distraction," Dumbledore said as he stood in front of them once more. A massive phoenix of stone, twice as tall as a man and wreathed in violent flame, flapped its wings by his side. "I'd ask you to stand back and allow me to do what I should have done so many years ago. Do not interfere again."

With a wave of his wand, it advanced upon Voldemort with a thunderous squawk that rumbled through Harry's very bones. It spewed flame at Voldemort from its craggy beak, bathing him in flames of a brilliant gold. Harry watched spellbound as Voldemort interleaved constant Flame-Freezing Charms with a stream of Killing Curses. Each attempt at destroying the phoenix only achieved blasting a massive hole in its body. Each time, Dumbledore restored it with a wave of his wand, and its fiery stream continued. A wreath of stone rubble had escorted it. The rubble was transfigured into a dozen zweihanders of golden steel, and then they were multiplied three-fold.

"You are still a child, Tom," Dumbledore said gravely. "Since that day at Wool's so long ago you have scarcely grown at all. No matter."

Dumbledore banished his floating armoury of blades towards Voldemort with unfathomable speed. One moment they were halfway across the vault, the next they were spinning and zooming towards Voldemort. He managed to vanish almost all of them, but he was just outmatched. The phoenix still spraying billowing flame at him did little to help focus his efforts. Dumbledore's capacity for multitasking was obscene.

Not a single drop of blood appeared as Voldemort's arm was severed at the shoulder by a forgotten zweihander. Not even a flinch or grimace escaped Voldemort as he was dismembered. With a bored wave of his wand arm, his arm merely ascended back into place, rotating back into the exposed joint with a sickening crackle.

"You could only manage to forge yourself a simulacrum of a body. Even when you succeed, you're mediocre."

"What need do I have of pain? Of hunger? Of thirst? Of human limits?"

"Without pain, how would you learn you've made a grave mistake in coming here?" Dumbledore countered. "Even the simplest child understands it's a bad idea to place their hand in the fire."

The phoenix surged forward, and with Dumbledore's whip and remaining blades distracting him, Voldemort could do nothing as the claws gouged his face, tearing so deep that bone was revealed in a long severing from temple to cheek. A thunderous gong sounded as the phoenix collided with a shield of shimmering silver on its second attack, and a final Killing Curse finally crumbled the phoenix into scattered stone.

Footsteps sounded behind Harry and Blaise. Their comrades, wounded and battered but successful on the preceding floor, ran towards them with awe and horror on their faces as Dumbledore continued his assault.

"Woah," Ron muttered as Dumbledore transfigured every piece of loose debris in sight with a mere wave of his hand.

There was the loud shutter of a camera as Voldemort was maimed once more; a dog of stone, revived from the phoenix's proverbial ashes, bit deep into the flesh of his thigh before it was destroyed. Harry turned to find Percy, bloodied and grim, with his camera in hand.

"The Minister asks for evidence, and I shall deliver," was all he said. "Lord Voldemort, a man of little scruples and apparent skill. I think that will be a fitting working title of the article."

With the sight of this new humiliated Voldemort, there was a chorus of jeers and laughter from the audience. His robes were near rags at this point, revealing his narrow, pale shins and the hints of a skeletal frame covered in cuts and bites. It humanised him in a way that little else ever would, and that gave them all considerable confidence. All men died in the end, after all. Even horribly warped ones like Voldemort.

Dumbledore, in comparison, was resplendent and terrible in his power.

"As I've told you, there are things far worse than death, Tom," Dumbledore said. "I will give you one last chance. Repent. Feel remorse. I promise I will make it quick once you do."

Voldemort's brutalised face contorted into sheer rage.

"Enough!"

There was a violent surge of power around Voldemort.

"Protego horribilis," Harry cried.

The golden, honeycomb shield burst into being, wrapping tightly around himself and Blaise before he extended it outwards with sheer force of will. They all were merely buffeted by the sheer force of Voldemort's powerful banishment, but those who'd attempted their own protections, inadvertently disrupting Harry's ward were not so lucky. Their own efforts merely blunted the room-wide banishment, so they were sent flying into the wall with a slam.

Fawkes flickered into being atop the wounded Cheng Li, vanishing with him in a wall of fire before quickly returning for Honorata and Remus.

Dumbledore resumed his attack, but Voldemort had rallied. The sheer humiliation he'd experienced seemed to have given him a second wind.

"What a coalition, Dumbledore," Voldemort said in a sibilant whisper. "This can only mean only one thing."

Dumbledore blocked another Killing Curse with a Summoned chunk of rubble. "And that would be?"

"Scorched earth," Voldemort said. There was an unhinged madness in his ruined face as he beheld them all. "I have always endeavoured to minimise the spilling of magical blood, but I can see our opinions have finally diverged, Dumbledore."

Voldemort slashed his wand downwards.

"Pestis incendium!"

Fiendfyre.

Dumbledore immediately released Harry's Anti-Apparition Jinx, but as they attempted to turn on their heels, the air became unbearably solid once more. Voldemort sneered at them both through the steam overtaking the room as he flew unaided into the air and out of sight through the hole in the wall. A final Killing Curse emerged out of the growing haze, which Harry blocked with a conjured bowl.

"Run!" Moody roared.

There was no time for Harry or Dumbledore to counter the reapplied jinx. An avalanche of fiery serpents approached them, ravenous and uncaring for all but their singular purpose.

A violent harshness overtook Dumbledore's face, as he too brought his wand down in a long slash. With a shriek of fire, an enormous phoenix of hellfire took form in the air. It collided with the horde of fiery serpents with a loud whoosh. Dozens of car-sized snakes were halted, clashing with Dumbledore's phoenix in a deafening roar and scattering of embers. A few stragglers slithered round it and locked onto Harry and Blaise.

"You must run!" Dumbledore ordered them.

Blaise attempted to Disillusion them, but Harry knew it was in vain. Fiendfyre was by nature drawn to humanity, its flesh and its creations. There was no fleeing on foot under mere Disillusionment.

"Go!" Harry shouted at a white-faced Ron and Hermione, frozen and watching as Dumbledore barely held off the onslaught of fire. "Now!"

They hesitated before making for the stairs with the others.

"Blaise!" Vittoria called from within the crowd. "Remember the charm in my letter. The fireplace with Isabela!"

Harry had all but surrendered, but Blaise's face lit up in realization. He hugged him tight and swished his wand in three violent arcs. The infernal serpent bore down, unimaginably hot to the point Harry felt his hair and clothing begin to kindle. Blaise completed his silent spell with a swift jab. There was a moment of weightlessness, and then they were yanked with unyielding force into the serpent's searing fangs.

An alien wrath overtook Harry as they became one with the ravenous flame. There was an unbearable need for destruction, a desire so essential it felt like Harry was going insane. With every moment, it felt as if a little part of himself was dying, replaced instead by this most desperate wish to eradicate all of creation. The familiar heat of Blaise's magic beside him awoke the sane vestiges of his mind. Like in the oath they'd sworn, he offered his magic to that presence. Without hesitation, it was accepted, and they were latched together once more by their promise forged in blood. With it came Harry's complete awareness, now knowing and understanding that Blaise's spell had spared them from becoming ash.

The serpent they were a passenger on leapt out of the massive hole in Nuremgard's upper floor and began a frantic descent along the side of the castle, rendering the stones white-hot with its presence, before springing into the air as it made its way towards the chalets of a Muggle skiing resort at the base of a neighbouring peak of the Austrian Alps. Trees erupted into flame and the ground blackened with its every slither.

Disembodied but together, they made their way through the fire toward the other end of the serpent. The Fiendfyre creation showed little awareness or care for them, continuing its single-minded approach towards its chosen target. As they reached the apex of its tail, they surged out together, corporeal and intact.

They landed together in a pile of limbs on a snowy bank.

"You saved my life," Harry said quietly.

Blaise shook his head at him. "Our lives. And a thousand times, if need be."

Harry took him with trembling hands into a violent kiss.

"We make our luck, don't we?" he said after parting.

"Yep," Blaise said with a brief smile before rushing to his feet. "I'd kiss you some more, but we have company."

The serpent of fire had turned around and was swiftly approaching their small island of untouched snowy grass.

Blaise took him by the arm and Side-Alonged him further away. They landed on top of a shallow ridge, a few dozen yards away.

"Come on, we'll lure it back towards the castle. Maybe Dumbledore can extinguish it."

Harry had a better idea.

"FINITE!" he yelled, and Blaise caught on immediately, offering everything as he'd done reliably before.

The serpent exploded into a cloud of non-magical embers, which they easily took care of with conjured water.

"Or we can do that," Blaise said with a stupefied expression.

They spied other serpents navigating the nearby hills and got to work.

They returned to the keep to raucous cheers as they made their rounds. McGonagall snatched Harry by the hand and pulled him into a tight hug, murmuring her praises. Vittoria and Aurelio smiled up at them as they tended to a drunk-sounding Isabela, who'd taken a nasty blow to the head from one of the more senior members of the Ivanov coven. Vittoria had barely fought off the vampire lord with Moody and Honorata's help. Robards, with grave seriousness, offered them both immediate spots in the Auror corps upon leaving Hogwarts to unmitigated horror from Blaise.

No one had died amongst the British cohort, but there were many injuries. An intensely silent Honorata was the sole survivor of her group. Moody was an equally silent companion beside her. Slughorn had nearly lost an arm to Travers, ambushed as he'd wiped the floor with Parkinson, but he was sat upright against a wall, waving with a cheeky smile with the once damaged arm as they walked past. Remus, with a massive potion-soaked bandage around his midsection was surrounded by a crowd of people from the Order. He caught Harry's eye and gave him a very weak smile.

A beaming Kingsley and ecstatic Flitwick were their honour guard as they made their way back up to the highest level where they'd barely defied death. They remained at the door leading to the spindly staircase, kindly giving them some privacy with Ron, Hermione and Dumbledore.

They crested the stairs one last time, and upon sighting them, Hermione pulled them both into one of her classic bone-breakers. Ron was also pulled in for the ride without complaint.

"You're both crazy," Ron said immediately after being released. "But that spell was pretty awesome. We all thought you were dead until Blaise's mother saw you swimming in the snake. How'd you do it?"

"It was Blaise's spell," Harry said.

Dumbledore joined them from his vigil before Grindelwald's body. "The Flame Melding Charm. An obscure spell from India. Well done."

Blaise visibly luxuriated in the praise. It took Harry snickering at him for him to remember himself and mutter a surly thanks. Dumbledore's eyes twinkled rather madly. Harry was increasingly certain it was some form of wandless Charm that he called on whenever he felt like looking ridiculous.

They made their way to the vast hole in the side of the wall, surveying the terrain below.

"Nothing will grow on these meadows and cliffsides for many years," Hermione said sadly.

Everywhere the Fiendfyre had travelled, the earth was blighted into a blackened wasteland. Fires still raged in a neighbouring forest one of the serpents had reached before they had extinguished it.

The aftermath of the Fiendfyre finally imprinted on Harry how close they'd come to dying. He embraced Blaise fiercely. Blaise met it, leaning down to press his lips against Harry's head.

"Love you," Blaise murmured.

"Love you too," Harry said just as soft.

It was with a little embarrassment that he remembered their audience. Hermione and Dumbledore looked delighted for them. Ron even had a little smile.

"As much as this has been a victory, I fear this is merely the beginning, Harry," Dumbledore said gravely.

Harry thought of Snape, unknowingly sacrificing everything for this success. He thought of Voldemort, unimaginably unhinged and now aware of the secrets of ancient wizards from Grindelwald's memories. But most importantly, he thought of his friends, Ron, Hermione and Blaise, stood before him. Worn, yet triumphant.

"We'll be ready."