.
Ella folded her arms and stared at Snape in the sudden quiet of the flat. She could hear everything. The rhythmic ticking of the clock over by the sofa. The water in the kettle, hovering just on the edge of boiling. The sudden silence from Harry beside her, as if his breath had permanently caught in his throat. As if he'd stopped breathing already. His lungs still. Exactly as Snape wanted.
"This is mad," she said plainly. "You can't be serious."
"I'm very serious."
The look Snape gave her from across the table said as much. Still, she couldn't quite believe he would suggest something so… so completely and utterly mad.
"It isn't going to work," she said, trying a different track. "The horcrux wouldn't be—"
"It will," Snape said, his voice calm and quiet. "The horcrux survives so long as its vessel is alive. If Potter isn't breathing—"
"How can you guarantee it?" Ella cut in. "How can you be sure it won't actually kill him?"
The look Snape gave her would have easily sent a pack of third years running. But they didn't have nearly so much on the line. Ella didn't flinch.
"Do you doubt my abilities, Miss Foster?"
"No." She didn't bother to correct him. Her hands clenched into fists below the table.
"Then allow me to explain how this will work." Snape turned to Harry. "The potion will slow down your heart to the extent that it will appear to have stopped." He paused, contemplating them. "It will stop, if we are being precise. But the mechanics are beyond your comprehension. In short, your lungs will freeze, and your blood will cease to flow. You will be alive, but frozen. Suspended in a potion of my own making. And when the vitals of your body cease to function, the mechanisms that sustain the horcrux will be no more. Without feeding off your life, it cannot survive."
"And you're sure," Harry said, after a weighty silence, "that it won't just be frozen too? That when you bring me back, it won't come back with me?"
"Quite. It would be a matter of… outwaiting it."
"Meaning?" Harry said.
"Meaning, Potter, it will be a test of resolve. Your will to survive, versus that of the horcrux. Who will be the first to run out of air."
"And how do we know that won't be Harry?" Ella said shortly.
"Because Potter will have the benefit of the potion. The horcrux, however, will not."
"So it will die?" Harry said slowly. "Just like that?"
Snape looked profoundly unconcerned. "I imagine it may scream first."
"That isn't funny," Ella said, glaring at him.
"Perhaps not. But unless you'd prefer to have Potter sacrifice himself while praying Dumbledore Almighty brings him back to life…" Snape shrugged.
Harry glanced at Ella, his expression uncertain.
"Think," Snape pressed. "Yes, this has never been done before. Yes, there are no guarantees. This is not how you imagined the situation to be rectified. But in your books, Miss Foster, Potter did not have my assistance." He turned to Harry, his eyes actually glinting with something akin to excitement. "This is a controlled environment, Potter. We are not sending you off to your death and relying on luck and love"— he smirked slightly —"to bring you back. No, we set the circumstances. There are no variables. Little risk—"
"He's right," Harry said. "Ella, I have to do this."
She looked at him then. At her brave, brave Harry who was more than willing to sacrifice his life for anyone who asked. At Harry, who held a horcrux somewhere in his heart. A horcrux that would have to be destroyed, and soon. Or it would take him too. It would take everything. And she said it. The words she should have spoken sooner. Would have spoken sooner, had she not been so deep in the clutches of her own personal trauma.
"I know."
Who was she, if she wasn't daring or brave? If they weren't daring or brave together?
"You've got to do it." There would be no forest. No Dumbledore at King's Cross. Not this time. It was the best chance they'd have.
"Excellent." Snape withdrew a small vial from his robes and slid it carefully across the table. They stared at it in the sudden quiet. It was liquid and smoke. Black and purple swirling together in the small confines of the glass.
"Now?" Harry choked.
Snape very nearly rolled his eyes. "Yes, Potter, now. Or should we wait for Voldemort to come back to life and stroll into your sitting room?"
"But, but I haven't even… I need to…"
"What's that, Potter? I didn't quite catch that. Do you need to owl your entire entourage and tell them all about the risk you're taking? Are you going to sit around and make plans that never come to fruition, or are you going to get this done?"
"I'll get it done."
Snape's eyes glinted. "Good." He gestured grandly down at the vial that still adorned their table. "Well then. To your good health, Potter."
The next hour was something of a blur. It seemed to flit by, like a montage in an action film, as Ella followed along in a daze. The preparations. The final touches to the potion. The hero steadily moving along, preparing for battle.
And then, before the montage had any right to be over, the sitting room was empty and clear, and full of Snape's conjurations, and Harry was sitting on the bare floor, lifting the vial to his lips.
"If this doesn't work…" His eyes locked on Ella. "El, if this doesn't—"
"Shut it, Harry," she said, with all the confidence she could muster. She kept her eyes on him and him only. Refusing to look at the awkward emptiness of the room. At the orbs and spheres surrounding them. At Snape, crouched nearby beside his case of ampoules and vials. "If it doesn't work, we'll think of something else."
Harry nodded, and in her chest, she felt her heart clench in the tightness. Until she was sure the potion Hannah had given her had surely stopped working.
Was it really wise to do this? To not even so much as mention it to Daniyel or Hermione or Sirius, or any of the others before they launched themselves off the cliff. Why had they allowed Snape to push them into such a corner?
But Harry was tipping the potion into his mouth. And the montage was over, over. Over. And it was far too late for anything else.
Harry lowered the empty vial and shuddered slightly, as if the contents were terribly cold (and likely they were). He glanced at Ella then, looking suddenly small on the empty floor. Above him, a monitoring orb pulsed with a glowing green light.
It all looked wrong. Everything. The bare room, unfamiliar without the usual trappings of their life to clutter it. The floating spheres everywhere, as if their flat had been annexed by St. Mungo's and turned into some mad lab. Harry in the midst of it all, risking everything to face an enemy who should have been dead twice over.
She felt sick. Horrified.
"I love—" Harry began, still staring at her, and then his eyes widened and went terrifyingly blank, as if whatever it was within them that made Harry Harry was suddenly gone. The green dulled before her eyes. And then he was falling, his head smacking against the bare floor with a dull thud before she could so much as draw a breath.
"Harry!" she gasped, leaning toward him. But Snape pushed past her, brushing her aside.
"Calm down," he said, his tone dispassionate. "This is expected."
She sank back down to her knees, biting back an angry retort as Snape raised his wand and began muttering incantations in indecipherable Latin. How would Snape like it, if he had a husband, and someone came along and did everything possible to make him look… to make him seem… She swallowed.
Snape leaned over, touching his wand to Harry's forearm, until drops of blood gathered there, pooling together in a dark and angry red. She watched in silence as Snape drew them away. The drops of blood stretched, forming a line, a thread, which Snape bound to one of the small spheres — a clear bubble encasing a cache of icy-white liquid — floating nearby. The red thread paled gradually, the contents of the sphere tinting to pink in equal measure.
"The icing agent?" she asked quietly.
Snape nodded. "His blood will be fully saturated in moments."
She returned her gaze to Harry and said nothing, watching his skin pale by degrees. Potions was, after all, adjacent to magical science, and she had enough of an understanding of what exactly Snape was doing to follow along. The icing agent would filter into Harry's blood, overtaking it, protecting his organs and cells and his very life as it interacted with the initial potion Snape had brewed, which would serve as a primer. The spells only aided the process. Already, Harry's heart was slowing to a stop. The monitoring orb above him was pulsing slower, the green dimming before her eyes. She glanced past it, her eyes momentarily alighting on the smaller silver orb in the far corner. That one seemed to pulse faster in turn. She shivered.
"Congelasco," Snape breathed, and the monitoring orb pulsed once more and shuddered to a sudden stop, the remaining green tinges petering out into a perfect, unbroken black. The temperature in the room seemed to drop, until Ella's hands were shaking. She wasn't sure, really, that it was from the cold.
Unwittingly, she reached out, brushing a hand across Harry's cheek. It was pure ice. It was freezing in a way that was hard to describe, so cold it burned the tips of her fingers in the second before Snape grabbed her elbow and pushed her hand away.
"Don't."
"Sorry," she managed. Her hand was tingling, a prickling sensation dancing across her fingertips, and she rubbed her icy fingers against her palm. Harry lay perfectly still before them. His chest, too, had frozen. The orb above him was black and silent.
"He's not breathing."
"No," Snape agreed.
She would get no comfort from him. It wasn't a surprise. Still, his attitude was infuriating. It was almost as if Snape got a kick out of seeing how scathing he could be. She glanced away from him, focusing on the white sphere, which was now a roiling red. The icing agent had mingled with Harry's blood, allowing the coldness to penetrate every fiber of his being. Protecting him. She only hoped his heart had beat long enough to carry it everywhere, in the moments before Snape had willed it to a stop. Surely it had. Snape was monitoring it, after all. And Snape was bitter and scathing and infuriating, but he was also brilliant and calculating and unlikely to make a mistake. Had it been anyone else lying there, she would have been reassuring the other party. But it wasn't anyone else — it was Harry.
"So now what?" she said, because if she said nothing, the silence would eat her alive.
"We wait," Snape said calmly.
It had been a useless question. She already knew that answer. Her eyes darted to the silver orb again. The waiting would eat her alive too.
The flat was silent. Just her breath in her ears. The occasional rustle of cloth. The rhythmic ticking of the clock. Harry's absence loomed around her, like a black and silent void.
The silver orb pulsed. Fifty. Sixty. She counted under her breath. One hundred times a minute.
One hundred and ten.
"Your hand," Snape said abruptly, when the silence had stretched to breaking. "Show me."
She uncurled her fingers towards him.
"Foolish," Snape muttered, examining the skin. He reached into the case beside him, shuffling through several vials before drawing out a small jar of thick orange paste. He handed it to her. "I explained to you that he was not to be touched."
"I know. I'm sorry."
She opened the paste and applied a light coating to her hand. The tingling abruptly faded.
"The heat of your body alone can disrupt the process."
"I understand."
She bit back any retorts, refocusing her attention on Harry. She shouldn't have applied the paste. Now she didn't even have the pain in her fingers to distract her. Her eyes darted to the silver orb again.
"How long?" she asked.
Snape sighed, then looked at her hard. "Thirty minutes."
"Really?" she said, in spite of herself, already wondering how she would bear thirty more minutes of this torture.
"No," Snape said, his expression incredulous. "I haven't the slightest. As long as it takes."
"How long can he stay frozen?" she asked instead, biting the frustration off her tongue.
Snape shrugged. "Indefinitely."
She almost wished he'd said "thirty minutes" again. Indefinitely... They could be here all night, trying to wait out "indefinitely." They could be here all week. In a brief moment of insanity, she imagined Robards seeking her out, demanding to know why Harry hadn't shown up to work. And what on earth would she say?
"Oh yes, he's temporarily dead-adjacent. But he'll be in soon. No worries!"
She shook her head, forcing the ridiculous thought away. Stupid. Stupid…
Her eyes darted to the silver orb again. "Is it beating faster?"
"Thirty percent faster than when we began," Snape said without any elaboration. Was it a positive sign? A bad sign? Uncertainty hung over her. Still, she felt the tightness in her chest recede slightly. He was absolutely on top of it, the god damn frustrating man. He infuriated her. But he had everything under control.
She could breathe.
The minutes stretched, each longer and heavier than the last. Every noise around her seemed to be trapped in an endless loop. Her ragged breathing. Snowy padding somewhere though the background. The rhythmic clock, ticking steadily out of time. All of it contrasting painfully against the quiet stillness of Harry's face.
And then suddenly, abruptly, something changed.
"The horcrux," she gasped, her eyes drawn to the silver orb. "Look, look!"
But Snape was already on his feet, wand drawn. She followed suit, both of them staring at the tiny orb, which had swelled abruptly, doubling in size within seconds as its color swirled to a sudden, angry scarlet.
And then Harry's silent black orb began to shake.
"What's happening?" Ella cried, whirling around. "Why is it—"
"I don't know," Snape hissed, his eyes calculating.
It shuddered, the tremors growing in intensity. And then, as Ella gaped in horror, Harry's frozen body, too, began to tremble. Slightly at first, and then harder. Until he was lifted off the floor, his limbs jerking violently.
"Stop it!" she cried, tearing her eyes away to look at Snape. "Something's wrong!"
Snape's face was pale as he stood there, his eyes darting between Harry and the orb that had been silver but was now huge and angry and red. He hesitated, his wand halfway raised.
"Severus!" Ella cried.
"The horcrux is dying," Snape snapped, his wand hovering on the verge of action. His eyes glued to the red orb, which had begun shuddering too.
And yet, Harry was shuddering harder. As if he were a puppet, with the strings jerked round by a tornado in an exorcism gone wrong. His shaking form overtook her vision. Until she could barely see. Barely breathe. There was a horrible crack, and his arm twisted and hung limp, as if the bones had simply snapped under the pressure, and the bloody thread connecting the icing agent abruptly tore away. It trailed through the air, breaking apart into drops of icy red that spattered across the floor.
"Fuck!" Ella gasped, darting forward. "Stop it now! You're going to kill him!"
"DON'T!" Snape yelled.
But she was already running. With no concept of what to do. Of how to make it better. Her mind filled only with Harry.
She couldn't lose him too.
She threw her arms around him on pure instinct, pushing him back down against the floor, Snape's yell behind her unintelligible. And then the entire world was made up of flailing limbs and dark edges, and a scorching icy pain that flared in her arms and chest and face, and blazed and blazed like Fiendfyre.
You.
I love you.
The words echoed around him, unspoken. Mockingly loud. The only thing in a world that seemed to be made up of Ella's fading face and darkness. Mostly darkness now.
He turned, and all he saw was black. All there was was black. It wasn't, he realized, that it was dark, exactly. It was simply black, in the way that black was all that existed. It was the darkness, actually, that didn't quite exist. Not in the way he'd first thought. His hands were right there in front of him, pale and pinkish and unblemished. Not lit up in any discernible way. But not dark.
He whirled, his eyes searching through the blackness, and the rustling of cloth filled his ears. It was a relief to realize he was still wearing robes.
He took a step. And then another. The ground was flat. No hills or valleys. Simply there. Walking, not walking… it seemed to make no difference. He kept walking, though, because it seemed preferable to standing still.
Ella had told him, late one evening as they'd huddled beneath the blankets together, that when the Harry-who-was-not-him — the Other Harry — had "died," he had found himself at King's Cross. That Dumbledore had been waiting there. The horcrux had been there too — a vile and broken thing, easily left behind.
He wasn't at King's Cross.
The blackness stretched for miles around, seemingly reluctant to form into anything. And there was no one. No Dumbledore. No horcrux.
The empty silence left him uneasy. Had they made a mistake?
And then, from within the blackness around him, a shadow formed.
He walked on, watching the shape grow larger. It was a man, he thought. Black robes, black hair. Comparable height. The stranger was facing away, turned to the blackness.
Harry paused, feet between them. The stranger was still. Facing decidedly away from him. And around them, silence stretched. Just black and empty quiet.
"Who are you?" Harry said, and his voice sounded dry and strange in the void. And still, the stranger stood frozen.
It wasn't Dumbledore; he was sure of that. Besides, whatever wisdom his old headmaster could offer had already been talked out into dust. But he couldn't imagine who else would be waiting for him.
And why, why did the stranger who refused to turn around feel so terribly familiar?
Without making a conscious decision to do so, he stepped forward, reaching out a hand, and touched the shoulder of the man before him.
And then his hand, which had previously been nothing, sensed nothing, felt a sudden, terrible, agonizing, icy cold.
The stranger whirled, and Harry stumbled back, gasping. The cold swept through him. It wasn't Dumbeldore. It wasn't even really Voldmort.
It was Tom Riddle.
"Harry Potter," he said, and he smirked, his dark eyes glinting with red. "We meet at last."
Harry said nothing, furious with himself. He plunged his hands into the pockets of his robes, searching for a wand that wasn't there. He supposed there were no wands in Limbo.
Riddle laughed, seemingly amused by Harry's predicament. "Hasty, aren't you? Are you planning to commit an atrocity, Harry? Don't tell me that you expect to kill me."
"I do," Harry said, finding his voice again. He stepped back, his eyes still locked on Riddle, who looked identical to the horcrux he had met 16 years ago. It wasn't what he had expected. But he had destroyed that horcrux, and he would destroy this one too. He felt a cold resolve at the thought. "That's why we're here."
"Oh," Riddle said, his tone still holding on to that faint amusement that Harry found infuriating. "Is that why? And here I thought, after 27 years of sharing a body, you finally wanted to have a chat. Well, don't let me hold you up." He offered Harry a mocking bow. "Do go on, Harry. Murder me."
Harry lowered his empty hand, hesitating. Was he supposed to murder Riddle? Was killing him in this Limbo In-Between how Harry would be rid of him? Was that why Riddle had shown up here in this form, and not as the mutated, scaly fetus he had expected?
Was it because he wasn't truly dead?
"Why do you look like that?" he said slowly, stalling for time to sort out his thoughts. "Voldemort was 55 when he… made you."
"Why do you look like that?" Riddle mocked him, and his eyes gleamed. "Because you do not understand the fundamentals of where you are, Harry Potter. I look like this because this is how you expect horcruxes to look." He smirked, seemingly amused. "Such an impressionable young man. Is it easier for you? To imagine the greatest wizard that ever lived as a teenager? Does it make you feel powerful, Harry?"
Harry said nothing, scowling. He stepped to the side. Riddle matched him, until they were equidistant, edging around each other in a perfect circle.
"It shouldn't," Riddle spoke, drowning out Harry's silence. "How old are you now, Harry? Twenty-eight, isn't it?" His eyes were gleaming. "So much older and still so weak. So unremarkable. You pale in comparison to that teenager you're so afraid of."
"I destroyed that teenage horcrux," Harry shot back. "When I was twelve. And you, at Shadow Hogwarts. What makes you think I won't destroy you now."
He wanted to close his eyes. To focus on his magic. Did magic exist in Limbo?
He didn't dare take his eyes off Voldemort.
Riddle laughed softly. "Did you? Or did you get help from a magic hat and a magic bird and a magic ritual? Look around, Harry." He gestured at the empty blackness, his robes swirling dramatically into shadow. His hands were pale white, glowing slightly against the blackness of his robes. The skin nearly translucent. "It's just you and I. And I am the last piece of Tom Riddle that Voldemort cast away. When he was at his strongest."
Harry closed his eyes. He could sense Riddle there, still feet away from him. Circling.
He reached deeper, searching within himself.
The magic was there.
It existed. An innate part of him. Simmering just beneath the surface, like a cauldron ready to boil over.
He snapped his eyes open, resolve coursing through him. "Which makes you the weakest bit of his soul."
Riddle looked furious. "You are wrong, Harry Potter," he hissed. "It is strength, not weakness, that I have gained. Do not forget that I have shared your soul since my creation. I have grown stronger every moment that you have breathed. It is you who's become weak. You always have been."
But as he spoke, his hand seemed to grow paler. The outline of his fingers less defined. Blurry around the edges. And Harry realized, with sudden understanding, that Riddle was fading. Losing strength. They were in Limbo after all. And Voldemort's hold on his life was slipping away.
"You're wrong," Harry said, his voice steady. He continued to edge around Riddle, holding on to the magic within him. He couldn't quite say why, but he didn't want to use it. Not unless he had to. Not if Riddle would fade away on his own.
"You don't understand what true strength is," he continued. Pushing for time. Riddle's right arm was nearly transparent now. "You might have shared my soul, but you missed everything that matters."
"You think so?" Riddle hissed, his eyes malignant. "I see what you see, Harry. Everything. I feel what you feel. When you lose. When you fail. When you fuck your wife."
"Shut up!" Harry spat, anger blazing through him. The magic welled up, until his fingers tingled with the force of it.
"You thought this would be easy?" Riddle laughed softly, the sound echoing in the black. "You thought you could be rid of me and you didn't even have to die? I don't have to die either, do you know that, Harry? What's anchoring you to life? A traitor's potion?" He scoffed. "Do you think that's more powerful than a soul? The bond holding me here is stronger than you can possibly imagine. It's thanks to you, really, that I fully understand just how strong it is."
"You're full of shit," Harry snapped, still edging around Riddle. The distance between them a perfect circle. The magic burning through him, threatening to lash out. "You're all talk. Bitter, angry. Vile." He bared his teeth, offering Riddle a humorless smile. "You've got no way out. You know you won't survive this."
"I can't be killed, Harry. Don't you understand?" Riddle's tone was mocking. "I'm immortal. My soul is spread across worlds. No, you're the one who's going to die."
"I'm dead already, aren't I?" Harry pressed. "That's why we're here. That's why your arm"— he smirked —"is all transparent."
Riddle glanced down at his fading arm and made no comment.
"You've lost." Harry tried a laugh on for size. It felt strangely liberating. "You keep talking, but you're already fading. I'll be rid of you." The words filled him with a profound sense of relief. "It's over."
Riddle shrugged. "It was a clever plan, Harry. Clever. I bow to your ingenuity." And he inclined his head in Harry's direction, offering him a mocking travesty of a bow. "You and the traitor and your Mudblood wife. So clever.Theoretically? Of course." His eyes seemed to glint. "You can cut off my link to you. My lifeline. But there's two things you didn't take into account."
Harry said nothing, refusing the provocation. They circled each other still, the distance between them immovable. As if the circle of the Union lay between them, a chasm they could not cross. Riddle's other arm was beginning to fade. He was a bitter, dying ghost, with transparent arms and no fingers. Just a little more now. Just a little more, and he would be gone.
Riddle examined his arm, seemingly unbothered by his predicament. "Because you see, Harry," he continued, as if he were a condescending professor speaking to a petulant child, "I am just one piece of a whole. Destroying me will do nothing. My soul, Voldemort's soul, will survive."
Harry laughed at that, unable to help himself. "Considering you 'see everything I see,' you're awfully unobservant, aren't you? We destroyed the locket, and we'll destroy you. We'll destroy every piece of Voldemort's soul. Until there's nothing left."
Riddle looked up at Harry then, and his eyes gleamed scarlet. "Will you?"
Before Harry could so much as breathe, Riddle had broken through the invisible circle. He was inches away, his face twisted in fury. Riddle's features melting into something snakelike. His eyes gleaming.
"What makes you think," Riddle snarled, and his voice seemed bigger than his body. Loud enough to fill the entire black void that housed them, "that you're getting out of here alive?"
Harry could feel the heavy weight of Riddle's power bearing down on him. Holding him in place. Suffocating him. "Expulso!" he gasped, and the magic that had been burning through him burst free, throwing Riddle back, away from him.
Harry panted, stumbling. He had seconds to breathe before the force of Riddle's power washed over him again, overwhelming in its intensity. It was like trying to withstand a tornado. A hurricane. He could feel pieces of himself threatening to rip away. He fought back, trying to carve out his footing.
"You think it's so easy?" Riddle was snarling, and his voice rang in Harry's ears. Echoing. "You think you can kill me just like that, Harry Potter? You think you can stand here and wait until my time runs out?" He was laughing, like a madman, and the sound sliced through Harry. Knifelike. "You think I will let you return?"
The black around them was swirling with an angry haze. Harry focused the entirety of his being on pushing Riddle back. On calming the gale. It was a battle of wills. Of magic at its truest form.
He closed his eyes and visualized it, and water burst into being, crashing into Riddle in waves. Threatening to overpower him. But before it could, Riddle had pushed it back, transforming it into icy shards that shot at Harry.
"Protego!" Harry gasped, and the ice crashed into his shield. Pushed against it. Cracks ran across the translucent bubble around him. Criss-crossing. The edges began to shatter.
"Your magic is weak, Harry," Riddle hissed. He was advancing again, his eyes gleaming red. And the shards were slicing through the shield. Cutting into Harry's arms. His face. He tasted blood.
He strained, focusing everything he had into the shield. Adjusting its solidity, until the bubble had lost its perfect shape, the edges melting to a formless, viscous mass. He released it, and the icy shards collapsed, crashing to the dark black void that made up the floor. He stumbled, falling to his knees amidst the icy remains, breathing hard.
He felt weak. Empty. The black void seemed blacker.
Riddle laughed. "Is that all you got? And to think, I'm the one who doesn't have a proper soul. I guess the forces don't care what I've done, do they, Harry Potter?"
"Is that… what you're worried about?" Harry gasped, struggling to his feet. "Humans care what you've done." He raised a shaking hand, reaching for his magic. "You think we'll just bow down… and let you take whatever you want? We'll defeat you. Again and again. As many times as it takes. Incendio!" He threw everything into the fire. Everything he was. And the flames burst forth. Exploding through the darkness. The light of them burning at his eyes.
Riddle yelled in fury, trying to fend them off. He collapsed, the flames coalescing around him.
And Harry was falling too, as if everything he was was burning away. Leaching out of him with every ember. Like the flames were fueled by his very soul.
"You've lost, Harry Potter," Riddle hissed from where he lay, the fire still dancing around him. An orange blur against the blackness. "Your soul is fading. It's a shame you were too weak to make a safeguard."
"I'd rather die than break my soul apart like you." The words were heavy on his tongue. He strained to raise his head. The fire was dwindling; the black overtaking everything. A heavy cold was stealing through him. He turned, refusing for Riddle to be the last thing he saw before it all faded away.
"Ella…" he whispered.
Her name was warm. He closed his eyes, letting her face swim across his vision.
"I'm sorry."
At least he would take the horcrux with him.
There was a sound, growing steadily louder. A horn, he thought. Was a train coming?
Was it King's Cross after all?
He wasn't cold anymore.
He lay still, listening to the swelling horn. Until the sound was everything. Until the sound overwhelmed all his senses, and everything began to burn.