"You gave a Deathly Hallow to the most dangerous man of our time?"

Shrill doesn't even begin to describe the tone of her voice. It echoes through the catacombs and even Echidna flinches if I catch that right out of the corner of my eye.

"Harper," I sigh, trying my best to sound diplomatic, "the situation was about to escalate – that was the only way to properly negotiate, and certainly the oh-so-brilliant Albus Dumbledore will –"

"And what if not? If Dumbledore doesn't win a duel only resulting from your madness? Then our world will bow to a No-Maj hating megalomaniac demagogue! Who now, thanks to you, holds not one, but two Deathly Hallows!"

"What are you even talking about?" Elliott asks, clearly worried, however we just don't have the time for that right now.

"Things may have gotten a little out of hand, but –"

"That's your idea of 'getting a little out of hand'? How could you!"

"Harper –"

"No! We're on the threshold of hell!"

"Not quite – your family and you, for instance, certainly not, as per the oath."

Her eyes narrow even more.

"Still you were concerned something might happen to me!" she hisses. "You asked Myrtle whether I was breathing when you returned to Hogwarts for a reason! And what about your boggart! I was bitten to death by Rottweilers! When did you think you'd mention any of this to me?"

"Not at all, since there's not much to –"

"Not much? I strongly advise you to put your cards on the table immediately, otherwise –"

"Harper, it's all under control! I just –"

"Under control?" She laughs out loud, it's almost scary. "I'm the last person in the whole wide universe you could ever claim that to!"

"I made the best out of the situation –"

"A situation you only got into because you wanted a bloody Horcrux! And then you were certain you'd need it to protect us against that madman! Because you had no idea how to deal with all that horrible information and your disgust from Little Hangleton! Because you didn't want to listen to me and you'll never let anyone help you! How can you be so stubborn, condescending and delusional! Tom Riddle! What did you –"

"Fine! Yeah, you're right! It got messy! But damn it, Harper, my mother was completely insane! You saw that deranged uncle of mine with your own eyes! His blood, and that of the equally crazy Marvolo, is also inmyveins! Who would've thought I'd have to be ashamed of the prestigious pure-blood dynasty of my ancestors? Compared to that, Riddle is a saint, even without a spark of magic in him –"

"My parents are No-Majs, too!" she yells back at me. "That's no damn shame –"

"But the incestuous conditions of the last three hundred years on the other side of my family are! I've been feeling sick ever since I found out about it, and I'm close to throwing up as well whenever I'm haunted by the memory of those dirty means my so-called mother resorted to only just to –"

"You haven't even watched her last two memories!"

"Why would I?" I snap. "Why would I want to see the reason I became the way I am in such detail? Since Little Hangleton, I've been confirmed in what I always knew deep down inside! I've always suspected that this darkness was a part of me, and with that absurd legitimation … I may have actually gone a little astray. But let me tell you one thing. Our pathetic friend of Rottweilers was only able to put pressure on me because of you –"

"Oh, so now that is my fault?" She inches ever nearer, tapping my chest with every following word. "You! Made! Mistakes! And now I'm supposed to listen to you saying that it was me who –"

"Of course you!" I exclaim. My lungs are barely keeping up at this point. "All this insanity starts with you, you're right, I want to protect you! If it weren't for you, in every one of my thoughts, in all the consequences of my actions, I would have nothing to lose – the gates of hell we're standing on be my witnesses! If I didn't love you, if I hadn't been feeling so unbelievably miserable for four lunar phases, I would long since be …"

I pause. Highly irritated by myself, almost unable to catch my breath and perplexed by my own words while she puts her hands on her hips, no longer able to suppress an embarrassed smile.

"Immortal," I add.

She also takes a deep breath, closing her eyes in what seem to be her last bit of patience, then she shakes her head and looks back at me again. "Was that so hard?"

"What?"

"Saying it …"

I was never able to do that before.
Not even in Little Hangleton, where I felt it with all my soul … Did it really take hell and its agony to get it into my head and out of my mouth?

"Yes?" I wanly reply.

Her touched smirk is like a ray of sunshine in all this chaos.

"Alright … I love you, too, Tom." She takes my cold hands into hers. "And now that you've obviously learned to name your feelings, even while angry, we can finally agree that what you have done is unacceptable – but we'll solve it together. Let's save your soul and all your brilliant magic and also solve all the rest, yes? Please. You can't leave me alone with the mess of your decisions, I … I don't want to lose you. I could only ever allow you to die through my hands, for all the trouble you've gotten us into! Alright?"

"Harper," I groan, infinitely tired, "Edwin has no idea whether what he's researched during a sleepless night or two –"

"Do you have a better plan? You're already coughing up blood, Tom …"

"How do you know?"

"Saw it. Astronomy tower."

"So face it, Riddle," Rouvenia hums as she comes back towards us – closely followed by Leonora. "You have to stop."

"I can't believe you're here," I mumble in exasperation as the two of them come to a halt next to Harper. "That you think any of this could work, based on nothing but a piece of parchment –"

"Stop being so dramatic about it," Rouvenia talks over me, spreading her arms already – just like the other two. "Let's just start."

Harper, Leonora and Rouvenia form a circle around me by taking each of their hands, right in the pentagram in front of Salazar Slytherin's statue, where they should've never been standing.

It doesn't get any more bizarre than that.
This does not go according to plan.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I protest. "I have to agree – as Edwin put it."

Harper gives me an incredulous glance. "Then do just that. And, if possible, before the black moon's phase closes."

A few minutes ago, I was literally forced to hope that my battered body would survive one last ritual, even if – soberly looking at my circumstances – I have to admit that it'd be a damn close call.

Now, however, after reading Edwin's lines, I can hardly suppress it any longer. That miserable, deceptive virtue.
Hope …

That somehow everything will work out. Even if I'm not immortal because the other option is probably death.

"Say it," Harper urges while holding on to Leonora and Rouvenia's hands tightly. "Agree …"

"Tom, come on!" Elliott calls out impatiently as well, still behind us with Nagini and Hagrid.

"Fine," I grumble, "let's try it …"

"You know what has to happen now?"

"Harper, you kept repeating it, I might look unhealthy, but I'm not dim-witted."

I'm promptly scolded by her look.

"Are those supposed to be your last words? That I'm bothering you with my concern?"

"He's not going to die, Harper," Rouvenia confidently claims. "It'll be fine."

"How do you feel?" Elliott asks, clearly worried as well. "You look pretty dead … Shouldn't we wait a bit longer until you're a tad better to begin with?"

"We can't," Harper decides. "We don't know what the consequences will be if we ignore the phase of the moon."

"That's true," Nagini confirms. She's sitting behind us, on Echidna, next to Hagrid, who is still excited about the last living basilisk in Europe.

"Why can't I help, too?" Elliott asks, he's the only one standing in front of us still.

"Ell," Leonora sighs with a smile, "I told you! The letter mentions a triad of witches that are supposed to represent the Greek Moira and their part in fate. You simply can't help. Just sit down next to Hagrid."

He gulps. "Tom?"

I look over to him.

"I hate you very much for the last few weeks, but … you're my best friend. Don't die, yes?"

"My plan was the opposite of that, Ell, I …" I realise sarcasm is completely inappropriate now. I manage to nod. "I'll try."

"I'll be with Hagrid then."

We all begin to concentrate, though I do it rather phlegmatically … One last time I have to force my body to let go of the remaining spark of my soul – just to hope that my whole system can be taken by surprise by the abrupt exchange of light and shadow.

But the plan doesn't get any better. I'll just have to find out …

Holding the diary open in my left hand, I take a deep breath while Harper gives me one last smile – her eyes glittering.

"Tom …" Rouvenia clears her throat and now, contrary to her previous statement, she also looks at me with suspicious wrinkles on her forehead. "Listen, you're like an insolent, highly gifted brother that I never wanted. So … do what you promised to Elliott. Don't die. Alright?"

If I weren't in so much pain, I'd probably laugh, but I'm afraid I'd break a rib in my current state … Still I smirk and grumble, "I'm trying. But you're also insolent …"

"Insolence is good, isn't it?" She shrugs. "Slytherin is daring …"

"Go ahead then, Tom," Leonora whispers and nods at me. "It'll work. Don't worry."

"Harper," I hear myself say, looking straight at her. "I know I should've offered that ring to you …"

She curls her lips and rolls her eyes. "It really wasn't that pretty … Just get started!"

I nod.

One last breath. Then I start to mumble, "Animus magis magisque discinditur …"

I see Harper's hands squeezing Rounvenia and Leonora's even tighter. But I guess we all have to go through this now.

"Animus magis magisque discinditur … Animus magis magisque discinditur …"

I'm literally waiting for the stabbing pain to force me to my knees, like it did all the times before, but it doesn't happen.

I just feel incredibly dizzy, my vision gets blurry and I can hardly breathe.

"Animus magis magisque discinditur …" My whole body is throbbing, but I'm still standing – or so I think.

Until, due to the puzzled looks of the three Moira around me, I also look down at myself and realise that I'm not standing at all.

I'm floating, a bit above the ground, as if my soul wanted to finally rise from my body, from the ashes of all darkness.

"Animus magis magisque discinditur," I repeat the words that are so deeply etched into my consciousness by now. "Animus magis magisque discinditur …"

I continue despite the burning pain, even when I hear Rouvenia whisper that my eyes have never been so blood-red, even when I feel like my body is tearing apart as well …

"Animus magis magisque discinditur …"

And then I am hallucinating.
It can only be that.

I see and hear things, in my profound paranoia, thatcannotbe real.

And despite knowing this, my gaze rises to the nebulous parallel world that seems to be revealing itself to me in the Chamber of Secrets.

Between heaven and hell.
Death and life.

But how could it be real that the pale Merope is hovering above me right now? Looking at me, smiling with concern?

How could the tears that well up in her green eyes and drip onto my face at the sight of me be real?

Those who banish myths forbid the inexplicable.
I could swear she is here.

As she was present in one way or another for 16 years to hinder her world – her family – from finding me.

"His eyes – they're completely white," I hear Leonora whisper in awe before a wave of bitter coldness – or scorching heat? – shakes me to my core, so that my last breath is forced to escape my body – with the remaining light of my soul, which was intended for this Horcrux and now appears shimmering in front of me.

No reflex of throwing up like the other times, I notice in a mixture of sobriety and madness, but now – now I could carry on.

I could just keep saying the incantation and try to end the ritual.

So close and yet so far …

All the agony for nothing? All the suffering without a Horcrux? So close to death, but apparently too alive to die?

Golden light shimmers before my eyes, I watch it with the last bit of strength, while thick, black smoke is already spreading around me and spinning fast.

"Discinditur magisque magis animus!" I suddenly hear Harper's voice, so clear, so distinct, bright and determined that I can still hear her as soprano when Rouvenia and Leonora join in. "Discinditur magisque magis animus! Discinditur magisque magis animus!"

They look right up while the shadows, as prophesied by the runes, start to whirl around us in all their fury. My fifth piece of soul light in front of me seems to magically attract every other part of the diary. Shining brightly, the light condenses, drop by drop, until finally a small sun hovers past me, untouched and untainted, as if I'd never tried to destroy this most innocent part of myself.

"It's working!" I hear Elliott rejoice, far, far away from me. "Is it not?"

"Discinditur magisque magis animus!"

And yet there is no room for anything as bright as long as the darkness is still within me. I let it in. I welcomed it, and it won't just let go.

"Discinditur magisque magis animus!"

For a moment there, I'm convinced that I suffocate – then it's like an imperative in my innermost core. I breathe out again, although there's no air left in my lungs.

As with the first ritual, my whole body tenses, my chest seems to implode due to the pressure – and yet it's not blood that finally escapes my mouth.
Only black fog.

"Discinditur magisque magis animus! Discinditur magisque magis animus!"

Eons seem to be compressed into seconds while every torch in the Chamber of Secrets goes out – all while the eternal candles flare up.

"Discinditur magisque magis animus! Discinditur magisque magis animus!"

As if a veil was being lifted, while more and more darkness is letting go of me, flowing into the icy catacombs, pure emptiness rushes through every vein in my body.

"Breathe!"

I can barely keep my eyes open.

"Breathe! You have tobreathe!"

I don't know who's shouting it, Nagini, maybe Echidna, likely it's not even Parseltongue, or my dead mother – but I listen.

I breathe.

"Discinditur magisque magis animus! Discinditur magisque magis animus!"

I breathe as the diary in my hand seems to become a magnet for all the darkness, and I breathe as my light finds its way back to me along the flames of the eternal candles.

I breathe, until the emptiness is filled with light again, and the diary literally slips out of my hand because no muscle in my body knows tension anymore. I breathe as if I wanted to undo the dementor's kiss that I voluntarily brought about.

"Discinditur magisque magis animus! Discinditur magisque magis animus!"

And suddenly – with all parts of my soul in my body – I hit the ground while my surroundings fade to black.