By dinner the next day, a strange, fragile air had descended over the castle, as if no one was quite sure whether they were allowed to celebrate. What had happened was a complete secret, so obviously the whole school knew. Apparently a Gryffindor fourth year scheduled for an early disciplinary meeting had found Umbridge and, with the unique sort of callousness found only in children, took a series of pictures of her. It wasn't long until pretty much everyone had seem Umbridge, face purple and bloated, hanging from a rafter over her overturned desk. Curiously, no one had actually brought up the subject to Violet. Perhaps they were concerned for her emotional state after her supposedly "traumatic" experience.

She was actually feeling rather pleased with herself. Even if she and Dumbledore had their disagreements, it was repugnant to imagine such a great wizard being displaced from his rightful position by the likes of Umbridge, and from the stories of the other students, that had been perhaps the least of her offenses. She had reminded Violet vaguely of a goblin with her petty cruelty and arrogant condescension.

So yes, it had been satisfying to arrange a suitably ironic death for her. She—well, the Minister, really, and Voldemort beyond him, but it was Umbridge who had made the fatal mistake of delivering their will—had tried to control Violet for their political ends. It was only fitting that, in the end, she had served her interests instead.

To make a good mood better, classes had been let out for the day. Violet had spent the last few hours lounging in the Great Hall with her feet on the Gryffindor table and a notebook held loosely in one hand, alternating between sketching out the initial stages of a new spell and watching the grim-faced Aurors and slightly shell-shocked Law Enforcement Patrol members move about. She suspected they had found the note by now, and that had surely gone off like an explosive shell among the front-line defenders of magical Britain. After all, it wasn't every day a high-ranking member of government confessed to being blackmailed by Lord Voldemort himself in her suicide note.

It would probably still get hushed up. As long as Fudge was Minister and the Death Eaters had his unwitting ear, it would take Voldemort strolling down Diagon Alley in bloodstained robes for the truth to be accepted. But if nothing else, those Aurors would not forget what they had seen, and perhaps, when the time came, there would be a few more people prepared than not.

And so she dashed a final black stroke across the page and snapped the notebook shut. It was a lovely cold day out, and it would be shame to waste it indoors.

~#~

The air was cool and humid. Lit torches burned with eternal fire, and Lucius Malfoy admired the men and women who today would answer to his command with a sense of deep, unquenchable pride. A serpent the size of a cavern loomed overhead.

The Dark Lord hissed to the snake, the sound eerie enough to make some of the greener Death Eaters shuffle uncomfortably. Even with its eyes closed, the basilisk radiated menace.

Finally, the Dark Lord turned to assess his followers. "You understand the plan, yes?"

A soft murmur of assent followed and he nodded briskly. "Very good. I will not be able to assist you of course, but I believe the monster of Slytherin will suffice. It knows what to do. If all goes well, Britain will be ours by sunset."

Then he vanished with a muffled snap, leaving them circled in the legendary Chamber of Secrets, far beneath Hogwarts or its wards against Apparition.

~#~

"I don't know how you're not freezing in that," Parvati complained. She had swaddled herself in woolen garments, but still looked a bit pink from the high altitude chill. Most students had switched from the lighter summer robes to heavy, warm garments by now, but Violet had never even bothered buying them.

It was technically her first Hogsmeade visit, as she had been absent for the year's first, though she had visited the town several years ago while pursuing Sirius. It was also Halloween; why someone had thought it was a good idea to encourage the students to stuff themselves at sweet shops before a feast, she couldn't say, but she supposed it wasn't really her problem.

They made for a somewhat ragtag group. Parvati was there, Lavender feeling ill and having stayed in the castle. Violet had been helping Ron Weasley with a Combustion Curse when Parvati showed up to drag her off, and he had sort of aimlessly followed even though she had never seen him say so much as a word to Parvati before.

"We can go back, if you want," Violet said and rolled her eyes. "I told you there wasn't much worth seeing."

"No, I want to see the Shack," Parvati said, whining slightly. "We've never been able to go on Halloween before. If we're ever going to see a spirit, it's now."

Violet, of course, knew that there were no such things at the Shrieking Shack. But even if she had her issues with Lupin, she could keep a secret.

"Cool. Want a Blood Pop, then? It'll warm you right up."

Parvati made a disgusted face and Ron let out a short rasp of laughter. "Merlin," he said, "you must be the first person I've met who actually likes those things. I tried one once. Tasted like someone had socked me in the mouth."

Violet shrugged and licked her lollipop with great dignity. "Philistines."

They were not the only ones to have the idea to come here. There had to be at least a dozen students waiting around for something interesting to happen—far too many for any self-respecting spook to actually manifest in front of. Violet finished her Blood Pops.

"Just a few more minutes," Parvati said, teeth clattering together. "I thought I heard something." She was leaning against Ron for warmth, who looked simultaneously pleased, bewildered, and terrified by the turn of events. Violet sighed and started to wander around the building, trying to decide whether it was worth attempting an on-the-fly summoning ritual to bring something suitably nasty from the Wyld to pass off as a spirit.

"Hey," called out a light, cheerful voice. "Long time, no see. How you doing?"

Violet looked up. "Oh, hello, Tracey. Daphne around?"

"Nah. She's got 'better things to do than stand around a dilapidated hut in the cold.'" Tracey leaned forward and whispered, "I think she's just scared of ghosts."

"I don't know," Violet said. "I've got better things to do too, and I'm still standing here. Maybe she's the smart one."

"Ah, it's Halloween. It's tradition to try to find something to scare you silly," Tracey said. "Got any plans for the evening?"

It was a fair question. Plenty unconventional sorts of magic were more effective that night than any other, but Violet had no such need this year. She shook her head. "No. Besides, performing that kind of ritual near Hogwarts would probably be a bad idea. It's hard to know how the different forces would interact."

Tracey looked at her oddly. "I mean parties or something. In Slytherin, a bunch of us go out in the Forbidden Forest after midnight, and the first person to get spooked senseless gets mocked for the rest of the year. It's fun. Nutty stuff always seems to happen on Halloween."

"Mm. You might be right, actually. I drew some tarot this morning—can't trust them too much, of course, but at least it's not too dangerous—and I got the Tower."

Tracey snorted. "You know I don't take Divination. Might as well say you drew the moldy drapes. What's it mean?"

Violet gave her a wry look. "Given the state of things? Not much it can be but war."

Tracey froze, looking strangely waxy for a moment. "Hey, Violet?" she said. "I think you might be right. Don't forget what I said a while back."

Violet watched curiously as she set off at a near run, almost colliding with a group of Slytherins coming up toward the Shack. She shrugged and set off to find Parvati and Ron.

"Ready to go?" she asked. The other students had given up by now except for the approaching Slytherins, who really would be cutting it close to dinner if they were only showing up now.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Great."

The three of them started back toward the town, Ron and Parvati walking close enough together for their hands to occasionally brush while maintaining enough distance for plausible deniability for exactly no one other than themselves. Violet rolled her eyes. Really, people made courting so unnecessarily complicated. If two people wanted to fuck, it really was better to just—

Violet suddenly stepped sharply to the side, slamming into Ron and Parvati and sending them both sprawling. A vivid red curse sailed over them with a haunting keening.

"The hell are you…" Violet trailed off as two of the Slytherins, who, now that she thought about it, really hadn't fit their school robes well at all, threw back their hoods. Two others began to circle around them, and under their hoods, Violet could make out black cloths tied around their faces.

Wild black hair, check. Vivid purple eyes, check. Attractive in a bad-idea sort of way, check. Yep, that was indeed Bellatrix Lestrange. The day had officially taken a turn for the surreal.

Parvati screamed.

"Afternoon," Violet said evenly as she dropped her wand into her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you. Sirius sends his love."

Bellatrix stared at her for a moment before throwing her head back and laughing, a deep and uncontrolled sound that sounded almost manic. "Oh, aren't you precious," she said, wiping a tear from her eye. She turned to her unmasked partner. "Did you hear that, Barty? She recognizes me."

Ron was scrambling back up the path, dragging a half-frozen Parvati with him. One of the masked figures said, clearly trying to hide his nervousness, "Should we stop them?"

Bellatrix turned to look at the retreating students. "Let's see… That's one of Prewett's blood traitor spawn, isn't it? Who's the girl?"

"She's pureblood."

She fiddled with her hair, nodding her head back and forth. "Yeah, stop 'em. Don't hurt the girl too badly."

The two with masks started to pursue Ron and Parvati. Violet began to draw up power. The dirt under her feet frosted over, and trees creaked and groaned at the sudden cold. Wind blew.

"Ooh, did you feel that?" Bellatrix asked, looking around in wonder. "Was that you?"

"Enough," the other Death Eater—Barty—said. "We have a job to do. Potter, if you come quietly we won't hurt you. Our master just wants to have a word with you."

Ignoring him, Violet started pacing to the side to keep all four enemies in front of her. "Y'know," she said, "I can't imagine Voldemort would sign off on this. I mean, he'd have to know it would be pretty much impossible to hide. So either you're doing this on your own initiative, or…" She grinned. "Or we've finally started to play."

Then she simultaneously unleashed a bitter vortex of Winter magic upon the two going after Ron and Parvati and a Killing Curse at Bellatrix.

Barty swore, and Bellatrix laughed in delighted surprise as she conjured a slab of lead to absorb the curse. Then the fragments were launched back at Violet, and she in turn transfigured them into so many paper thin blades that whirled and spun almost invisibly in the growing blizzard. One sliced into Barty's arm, and he barely managed to avoid impalement by a following icicle.

"Crucio," Bellatrix sang. "Crucio!"

Violet danced away. "That the best you can do? Crucio!"

Bellatrix laughed.

There was a time when Violet would have considered flight. Bellatrix Lestrange was legendary, and her partner had some obvious skill as well. But Violet had learned from a harsher school, and as they exchanged curses and invective, she found herself steadily growing more confident.

An explosion detonated to her side, the sound muffled by swirling snow. Each figure was no more than an indistinct blur, darker than the white. After letting fly a volley of curses, Violet spun her wand around herself, feeling the cool sensation of Disillusionment Charm settle over herself. Silently, she crept through the snow.

One of the masked men who had been pursuing Ron and Parvati stumbled through the blizzard ahead of her, shielding his eyes against the cold. His nose was broken, black blood frozen to his heavily cut and bruised face.

His left side was riddled with razor shards of ice. He called out, voice thick with pain and fear, as he stared blindly into the storm.

"Lady Lestrange? I need help. Please."

His plaintive words were stolen by the wind. He staggered, almost falling, and shivered instinctively as Violet approached from behind.

"Who's there?"

Her knife made a soft hiss as it cleared her boot. He turned around as her Disillusionment dropped, and with a flash of steel, the snow was painted red. He crumpled soundlessly, great spurts of arterial blood bursting from his neck.

Barty's voice carried to her, dark with anger. "Where did she go? Damn it. Finite Incantatem. Finite Incantatem! Can't someone dispel this fucking blizzard?"

Stepping away from the dying man, Violet pointed her wand in the general directions of Barty's voice and whispered, "Avada Kedavra."

Vicious streaks of light answered her, and after a few more near-blind exchanges of spells, Violet decided that they were far too experienced to fall victim to such a ploy. With barely a thought, she opened a channel through the storm. It was time to end this.

Bellatrix was grinning widely, uncaring of the ice coating her eyelashes and hair. "What is this magic?" she asked. Without breaking cadence, she yanked a dagger-like piece of ice from her forearm and inspected it at arm's length. "It's not even melting in my hand. Fascinating."

"Debate magical theory later," Barty snarled. His left arm dangled limply, the sleeve of his ill-fitting Slytherin robes stained red. His wand whirled, and a Bone-Breaking Curse followed one of Entrail Expulsion, even as fallen branches twisted into legs and pointed arms and began to skitter toward Violet.

She twisted aside, shattered the transfigured creatures with a throbbing pressure wave, before sending him sprawling to avoid another of her Killing Curses. He scrambled to his feet and caught the corner of a Bludgeoning Hex for it. Together, he and Bellatrix demonstrated both impressive creativity and power, but Winter hung over them in a gray pallor, and neither were quite so quick as they had been before.

Barty twisted, vanishing with a crack and reappearing to cast a Cruciatus at her back. As she ripped moisture from the air to form a frozen shield, she wove an anti-Apparition jinx.

"I hope you weren't trying to escape," she said through a pearly grin.

He snarled and redoubled his efforts to break her guard, but he was separated from Bellatrix now. With a click of her fingers, Violet allowed the storm to collapse back over them, cutting him off from his partner.

He shivered violently but kept his wand outstretched, lips pulled back in a snarl. "Think you're smart, do you? The Dark Lord wants you alive, but no one can see us now, and if I should slip—Avada Kedavra!"

At a gesture of her wand, the body of the man she killed earlier flew through the air to block the curse. She banished it at Barty and, while he was distracted, moved her wand through an intricate pattern and focused her mind into something sharp and alien.

"I do hope you appreciate this one," Violet said softly. "I learned it from one of your friends, and it took me ever so long to get it right. Omni Vorans."

An inky black crawled from the tip of her wand, splitting into the shadowy forms of swarming insects. Silently, they flew forward, dark against the fresh snow. Barty threw fire, light, and darker curses into the swarm, but none so much as slowed it. He screamed, raw and furious.

"Protego Lues!"

It was not a spell Violet recognized, but her curse didn't disappoint. The swarm collected on the surface of the shield, melting into a solid black stain. Then it began to seep through.

It took him a long time to stop screaming, and when he did, there was nothing left but bleached white bones.

Violet let out a slow breath and shook her head, chuckling to herself. Some acrid liquid had splashed her, but the burns were minor and already healing. She was barely injured, and an enemy of no small skill was dead. You just had to take time to savor moments like these.

She dispelled the storm and slowly turned on her heels. The snow crunched underfoot. There was no sign of Bellatrix, and a quick spell revealed that she was indeed gone, or at least far enough not to be detected. Pity. She had promised Sirius, after all.

The area was ravaged. Trees, not yet having lost their leaves, had buckled under the sudden storm, and the aftereffects of various esoteric magics lingered: dark clouds of smoke that flickered with lightning, scorched craters that glowed with baleful red light, and the broken remnants of transfigured forces. It smelled like magic and blood.

Someone screamed. Parvati. Damn.

Violet sprinted back toward the Shrieking Shack. Her storm appeared to have covered more ground than she had realized. Even this far away, the ground was coated in snow. As she rounded the building, she sighed at the sight.

"Stay back!" the last masked man yelled over the screaming winds, and judging by the way his voice cracked, Violet was starting to wonder whether he might actually be a student. Though he hadn't been as badly injured as the other maybe-student, the mottled purple-black dead flesh inflicted by Winter's touch was visible. He pressed his wand tighter into Parvati's neck, eyes darting around wildly. "I'll kill her!"

Ron was lying in the snow—thinner here, barely a quarter inch—and blood oozed from his head, redder than even his hair.

"Come on, man," Violet said. "Let her go. You're not even a proper Death Eater, are you?"

"No! Where's Am—the rest? How'd you get away?"

"Get away?" Violet laughed. "I wasn't the one to 'get away,' as you put it. As for the others, they're dead except for Bellatrix. As you will be if you don't let her go."

She layered her words with Winter's power, and they came out honeyed enough to separate a miser from his gold. It was no Imperius, but it might just be the push needed to resolve this without killing him. She normally wouldn't bother, but if he really was a student, it would probably be better if she at least tried to get him to surrender.

"Amyus? Dead?" There was something dangerous in his eyes.

Alas, wrathful ears may be deaf to even a silvered tongue.

Well, she had tried. He was a dead man walking anyway unless she lifted the curse. It would normally take a few hours to finish him, but maybe with a little encouragement…

Frost settled around her curled fingers, and a sympathetic flash of blue washed over the boy. He screamed and the wand fell from his fingers as the necrotic, frozen rot began to spread, crawling over his face and down his neck. Parvati tried to pull way, wailing herself, but he clung to her with a dead man's strength as flesh peeled from his skull and his nose sloughed away.

A flurry of snow swirled around them, and Violet stood with her left hand outstretched and eyes narrowed in concentration. Finally, his strength failed as his muscles went taut and snapped, and Parvati broke away, falling into the snow and dragging herself away with terrified haste.

"What did you do? Oh, Merlin." She turned over and retched violently. Then she caught a glimpse of his decaying face and gagged again. "You killed him."

"You're welcome," Violet said. "What happened to Ron?"

"He—he was trying to help me. We were running. He got cursed." Her eyes flicked back to the corpse. "It was him. He's dead."

"Mm." Violet pressed a finger against an artery in Ron's neck. She listened closely. Although there was a certain level of dark magic present from the duel, there were none of the unmistakable taint in him.

"He'll be all right," she said, standing back up. "Just got knocked around pretty well."

She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. Upon on a hill as they were, she could just make out the castle over the forest. To all appearances it appeared normal, but a strange sense of foreboding seemed to hang over it. And, at the edge of her inhumanly keen hearing, she thought she could hear the distant echos of shouting.

"They didn't wait years to come after me for no reason," she said, still fixated on the castle. "Go back to Hogsmeade with Ron. Find someone who can Side-Along Apparate you away."

"You're not coming?"

"Nah." Violet flicked the blood off her knife and returned it to her boot. "I suspect the Dark Lord has a few more plans for me to interfere with today."

~#~

Bartholomew Antonin Tiberius the Third was a good Hit Wizard.

He didn't complain about the paperwork after having to duel a suspect to get them into custody. He showed up on time every day and put in overtime when it was needed. He took his job seriously.

And, most of the time, it was just that—a job. He didn't share the fervent infatuation with the Ministry of many of his coworkers or even the righteous pleasure they took in capturing criminals. He didn't worship his purple robes. The way he saw it, there were always going to be people who caused problems for normal folk, and people like him had to do something about that. It wasn't really worth getting angry over. Hell, half the people he arrested weren't doing anything more serious than trafficking chimera livers or flying carpets. The Hit Wizards might be trained to take on the most dangerous of criminals when necessary, but these days he spent more time at his desk with a cup of tea than ducking dark magic.

But something about seeing children put into danger stoked a burning anger within him that just couldn't be ignored. And the bloody letters scrawled onto the walls of Hogwarts made him very angry indeed.

The Chamber of Secrets has opened again. One is taken and will soon be lost.

"Do you believe this shit?" asked his partner, Maria Hemsworth, a slight woman with closely cropped hair and a similarly grim expression. "Or you reckon it's just some psycho?"

"Psycho part goes without saying. The question is whether there really is a monster too."

Maria grunted. "Why haven't they called the students back from Hogsmeade yet? It's not safe."

"Might be safer than here," Bartholomew replied. "If there really is a monster running around, it's probably better if they're out there."

Professor McGonagall—currently acting headmistress—was speaking to Scrimgeour in heated whispers. A swarm of purple and red robes had descended over the Great Hall less than an hour after the threatening message was discovered. No one wanted a repeat of the Weasley girl, and after the Umbridge affair just a week ago, everyone was feeling just a little bit on edge.

"Right," Scrimgeour said curtly after McGonagall took her leave with a brief nod. "There's no way the perpetrator got away before we showed up, so we're going to have to find wherever they've holed up. The students not in Hogsmeade are in their dormitories, so there should be minimal risk from that quarter, but several are unaccounted for, so they may have a hostage. I want you to split up into teams of three and search every damn square inch of the castle. We will find whoever is responsible for this. Now—"

"What's that?" asked a Hit Witch with spiky, squarish white hair and a face that could have been cast of iron. Scrimgeour shot her a dirty look for the interruption before stilling himself, head cocked in concentration. Bartholomew listened too. There was a rustling; silken, parchment against stone. A rumbling waterfall.

"It's coming from the entrance!" someone shouted, and as one, the forces of the Ministry turned to face the source of the sound. A forest of wands were produced with practiced efficiency. Bartholomew craned his neck to see over the crowded bodies ahead of him. His height—or lack thereof—had always been a bit of a sore spot for him.

Whatever it was, it was getting closer. It sure as hell didn't sound like parchment anymore. It was a dull scraping, grinding sound that sent an odd chill down Bartholomew's spine. And then people started dying.

He saw only a flash of scales as those ahead of him crumpled to the ground. Something enormous was sliding over the ground with incongruous speed and agility, upturning tables and scattering chairs in all directions. He turned to shout a warning to Maria, but only the empty void of death returned his gaze. There wasn't a mark on her, but he knew they'd never share a laugh over a particularly bumbling crook again.

"Basilisk!" Scrimgeour roared.

Distantly, the part of Bartholomew's mind that was made up of cold calculation and thoughtless training assessed the situation. It had been a trap from the start. A solid fourth of the Ministry's fighting men and women were assembled in a confined space, facing a foe they were totally unprepared for. It was already a tragedy. Soon, it would be a massacre.

But who would do this?

Deep down, he already knew.

"Confringo!" someone screamed, and glass shattered, raining down over the massed witches and wizards. Spells were flying in all directions as their casters aimed by ear alone, but if any were hitting their actual target, they weren't doing much.

This wasn't working. Judging by the shouted curses, there weren't so many casters left as a few moments ago. There had to be something he could do.

Think, you bloody fool. Basilisks killed with their gaze, but he remembered reading once that their reflection only paralyzed. That wouldn't be much help on its own. Paralysis only meant it would be the teeth that got him in the end. But it gave him an idea.

Gorgons, that was it. They also petrified people if you looked at them, but there was a special kind of metal you could see there reflections in and be safe. Even the muggles had stories about it. Brass? No, bronze. Bronze.

For some stupid, silly reason, the only spell that came to mind was to conjure a dinner plate. So a bronze dinner plate it was. But damn, if it wasn't the shiniest plate he'd ever seen.

"Over here, you overgrown lizard!"

He looked in the plate. Slanted yellow eyes looked back, glowing with sinister intellect. He forced himself to wait as the basilisk approached. The faint scorch mark on its scales were ample evidence that no magic he was capable of would penetrate its armor.

Its mouth unhinged into a gaping yawn, large enough to swallow a trio of fully grown men. He stuck his wand over his shoulder and growled, with fervor, "Reducto." He flinched as hot blood, venom, and shattered teeth rained upon him.

Then the full mass of the serpent came down, and Bartholomew Antonin Tiberius the Third died with a smile on his face.

~#~

It had almost ended in disaster.

With most of the on-duty members of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement responding to Hogwarts, there hadn't been a chance of stopping the wedge of Death Eaters from forcing their way into the Atrium and then deeper into the Ministry. It had taken nearly ten minutes for the first members of the Order to catch wind of it, and from then ten more before they managed to organize enough to make a difference. Once Remus had arrived, chaos and terror had already made themselves home in the halls of government. Along with a motley group of Order members, law enforcement, and particularly courageous Ministry workers, he had fought his way to the holding cells. But where he expected a massacre, he found a battleground.

"Depulso!" he snarled, slamming a glassy-eyed Department of Magical Transportation employee into the wall. The Death Eaters had clearly been planning for this day. There were more Imperiused civilians than Aurors and Death Eaters combined.

Somehow, the imprisoned Order members had managed to get their hands on some wands and ambushed the Death Eaters coming to kill them. Now it was a vicious melee where you had to worry almost as much about getting cursed by an ally as an enemy. It brought back all the worst kinds of memories.

He watched Tonks pirouette and snare two Imperiused Ministry personnel in conjured ropes. It was funny. Normally she was almost comically clumsy, but when you put a wand in her hand it was like poetry. He made his way over to her, and together they fought their way back up to the atrium. It was filled with smoke and smelled like blood.

One shout rose over the general cacophony. It was a voice he couldn't mistake.

"I'll kill you, you blasted son of a bitch!" Sirius.

"Crucio!" Rabastan Lestrange.

Remus's heart jumped in his throat at the sound of Sirius's desperate scream. He turned, and Tonks grabbed his shoulder. "Go!" she shouted before flicking a curse at the Death Eater they had been dueling.

Remus didn't wait to be told twice. He sprinted through the pillars of the Atrium. Sirius's screams had stopped now, but he could now hear the sound of grunts and thudding impacts.

Then there was another scream, worse than the first. It wasn't Sirius.

As he rounded the corner, he gagged. Sirius was staring at his hand, wreathed in golden flame, in abject horror. A blackened husk that was once a person lay smoking before him.

~#~

Beneath the raging battle, Lord Voldemort stalked through the Department of Mysteries with casual unconcern. Three cooling bodies dressed in Unspeakables' robes lay behind him. Their security team had put up an impressive fight, but none could hope to stand before his power. Now alarm spells winked off, sending their silent messages to no one at all.

Victory. Even now, his Death Eaters were launching strikes across the country. Soon the Ministry would be his, Hogwarts too, and Violet Potter would kneel before him in genuflection. On this anniversary of his fall, he would rise brighter than ever before.

The prophecy was before him. It was such a small thing. It seemed almost irrelevant now. What could Fate tell him that his own triumph could not?

Still, he had come this far. He reached for the globe of glass.

His breath fogged in front of him.

"NO!"

He snatched his hand away, but not before the tips of his fingers brushed the glass. A terrible rush of wind rattled the shelves, the prophecies jumping in their stands. A familiar cold—oh, it was familiar, so very familiar—rushed for him, and Voldemort had only just enough time to pull a shield of stygian black around himself before the storm arrived.

He could not see the unnatural cold that raged around him, could see only the rattling of his opaque shield. It wavered, and he could feel the arctic fury bite at his skin even through it. Not again. It could not end like this again.

Surely it must end soon. How could this much power be contained in such a tiny piece of glass? It was the pendant all over again. It was madness. It was impossible. It was about to kill him.

Cracks shot through his shield, brilliant white shining through void. He roared in pure defiant rage. After so long—decadesof research and study, delving deeper into magic than any man before—and now this trick, the work of a girl who had not even graduated Hogwarts, threatened to cast him once more into the darkness? No. Not again. If Fate wished to twist events against him, Fate itself would bend a knee.

He lashed out. It was beyond conscious thought, beyond even instinct. Every fiber of his being rebelled against the force that sought to sap his life, and the magic he had always known rose to his will. Blossoming flame enveloped him and spilled outward, melting glass and steel alike and heating the floor to an even ruby red. When it finally faded, the storm was gone too, and Voldemort stood alone in a vast circle of steam and molten liquid.

He breathed out, savoring the searing pain in lungs scorched by cold that proved his continued defiance of nothingness. "I will not underestimate you again."

Gathering his power like a familiar cloak, he ripped a hole in the Department of Mystery's formidable wards and Disapparated.

AN: Thanks again for reading and giving feedback!

PurpleElement: Yeah, I can't deny a slight sadistic enjoyment in writing Umbridge's fate myself.