Galbatorix was a very different person to the one he saw last. This one wore unremarkable clothing and an expression of nerves. He was in no place Harry recognized, hidden in a forest with the outskirts of a town peeking through the trees.
He had a companion. Durza was gone, and in his place was a human dragon Rider and his dragon, a beautiful lavender creature. They both looked a lot more on edge than Galbatorix, and seemed to be getting cold feet.
Galbatorix sensed this and whispered to them. "We are doing the Order a favor. You know what they are like. He is one of them. I swear it, you can smell it on his breath."
The dragonless Rider clearly knew exactly which buttons to press. With a handful of words, he'd gotten them back on board.
Galbatorix perked up then, sensing something, and straightened up. "Now or never." He seemed to be reassuring himself as much as the others. He looked on edge, angry and fearful at once.
The other Rider hesitated for only a moment. "We'll go."
The dream shifted. Harry watched the lavender dragon fly Galbatorix and the human Rider low in the night. The dragon dropped them off and hid behind a hill.
Galbatorix crept towards the town with his accomplice. They waited in an alleyway for a man to pass by. One Harry recognized from the Rider council on Vroengard. Morello, he remembered.
The brutality of the murder shocked him. Galbatorix strode up and glared at him, which Harry recognized as the sign of a mental battle. About five seconds later, the other Rider came out from the opposite alley and struck at Morello's neck with his sword.
A flash of lavender jarred to a stop inches from his neck. The Rider's wards had stopped the lethal blow, but it had served its purpose. Morello flinched. Galbatorix's lips curled as the old Rider went rigid. Galbatorix spoke a word.
Morello's severed skull hit the ground with a wet thump, rolling to Galbatorix's foot. His body crumpled straight to the dirt.
In the distance, Harry heard Morello's pale green dragon shriek in mournful agony.
Galbatorix's accomplice sprinted away to aid his dragon in fighting Morello's. Galbatorix lingered for a moment. He pried open Morello's jaw and sniffed his mouth. Harry caught a whiff of that sour smell. Galbatorix looted a pale green sword off Morello's body and hurried after the dragon and Rider.
The dream shifted again. Harry couldn't make heads or tails of the whirlwind of claws scales, swords, and spells. Dark shapes struggled in the night, flashes of colored flame illuminating discordant images of scales, blood, and the shadows of sharp teeth. After hardly a minute, the frenzied struggles and roars settled.
As the chaos of the fight settled, Harry saw it in Galbatorix's eyes. He was going to betray the Rider.
"Malthinae," Galbatorix panted, gripping the hilt of Morello's pale green sword.
The Rider froze, looking away from him. Galbatorix wrapped his arms around him and put the green blade to his throat, staring at his dragon.
"Disgorge it."
The flat demand fell into stillness, the lavender dragon still wounded and reeling from the vicious fight.
Galbatorix began drawing the sword tighter against the Rider's neck. Blood beaded against the blade. "I will cut you open if I must," he said just as flatly. "Now."
The lavender dragon made a strange vomiting motion, bucking its head and throat back again and again. Something glinted deep in its open mouth, emerging from its throat. The dragon laid its head on the grass and let the thing slip off its tongue and onto the ground. A gemstone, like the ones that had been in the council chamber on Vroengard.
Harry knew it was coming, but it made it no less abrupt or horrifying when Galbatorix decapitated the Rider with a jerk of his sword.
The lavender dragon shrieked in outrage, hosing Galbatorix with pale purple fire. The inferno covered his entire body, the brightness put spots in Harry's vision. Within the blaze, the cocooned figure advanced on the dragon.
Harry wanted to shout a warning, to stop the dragon, but he was paralyzed.
The flames ceased. Harry's eyes adjusted to the darkness again. A lime green sword's tip stuck out the top of the dragon's head.
Galbatorix bent to pick up the gemstone, stiffening the moment his fingers came in contact. He released it again and relaxed, an avaricious gleam in his eyes. Galbatorix pulled on gloves and stuffed the gem into his pack.
The dream shifted once more.
The field was empty now, villagers venturing out to see what had happened. Galbatorix was gone, along with the gem, Morello's and the other Rider's swords, and one last thing.
Morello's pale green dragon had been carved open, a massive hole cut into its chest. Viscera was spilled all over the hill where it had died.
Harry suspected Galbatorix had made good on his threat to the other Rider, if on a different dragon.
Tarnag was absolutely crammed to capacity. Every room of every house, every inn, and every barn was full to bursting with families evacuated from Tronjheim. The Varden had pitched all their tents around the city walls and doubled up as much as possible to make room for displaced dwarves.
Arya coasted in towards Undin's manor and landed Brom's broomstick in the courtyard. She passed off the folded up forms of Harry's and Brom's expanded tents to a swarm of dwarves who immediately set about pitching them and carting out the produce Arya had carted in wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow.
Keeping Tarnag fed was a near constant job of her and Brom switching off, flying up to the runway entrance in the side of Farthen Dur, filling every expanded container Harry had made with food from the farm silos, and flying straight back to feed half the dwarven nation and the Varden.
Brom hailed her once she touched down. Arya stepped gingerly through the crowd of dwarves, ducked under a low skywalk, and handed the Rider his broom back. He had received the very last dose of Wiggenweld for whatever curse Durza had inflicted on him before they knew of Harry's injury.
"That's enough for tonight, according to Ursa," he said. He slung the broom over his back. "King Hrothgar intends to send a party to Orthiad to judge if it is suitable for inhabitation, or if the Urgals ransacked it on their way to Tronjheim."
"That's across the entire Beors," Arya noted.
"Aye, well, it's the only other gigantic empty dwarven city they've got laying about," Brom grunted. "They think maybe the spell Harry put on the tunnels will make the trip faster."
Arya shrugged helplessly. It was an open question still whether Hrothgar would keep his crown, and whether this would help or hinder the larger cause. The loss of Tronjheim was a major blow to their industrial capabilities, but it might spur them to fight. Or it might spur them to hunker down and kick the Varden out.
Everything was up in the air. King Hrothgar had been arguing heatedly with Undin, Grimstborith of Dûrgrimst Ragni Hefthyn, and Gannel of Dûrgrimst Quan, as well as a delegation from Dûrgrimst Az Swelden rak Anhuin. It was a mess, and Arya knew that if Undin's faith in Hrothgar was shaken, that bode very poorly for the rest of the clans. The politics of dwarves were complex and often circular.
They could be infuriating in the vehemence of their bickering over the most inconsequential thing, but when it came down to it, King Hrothgar had broadly been able to unite the dwarven race under the notion that they ought to oppose King Galbatorix, and eventually, when the opportunity came, depose him as well.
Undin's hemming and hawing proved worrisome. Az Swelden rak Anhuin were seen as extremists and easily ignored. If a moderate questioned dwarves' place in the war, the momentum of their whole race threatened to shift.
Under any other circumstance, this notion would be alarming enough for Arya to be obligated to stay behind and try to influence the outcome in Alagaesia's favor in her role as ambassador. Presently, her influence was better spent on the two human boys whose contributions to the war were likely to surpass the entire dwarven race's.
Fate has a sense of humor, Arya thought as Eragon approached. The boy was infatuated with her. Then again, so was Harry, but the wizard was much better about hiding it and keeping it from influencing their existing relationship. She appreciated that from him. It was refreshing to work with a young human man who did not try to seduce her.
Eragon had his hand in his pocket. Arya made her excuses to avoid being drawn into speaking with him. She glanced back and saw him hold an iron ring up to Brom questioningly. There were three hairs wrapped around it. Arya recognized it immediately.
Az Swelden rak Anhuin, she guessed. Nobody else had the vitriol to make a gesture like that. It still boded ill to see just how deep and hot the hatred ran.
She ducked under a short doorway and into a guest room of Undin's manor. It smelled like burnt meat. The herbalist sat at the bedside of the room's only occupant.
"How is he?"
"It is an utter miracle," Angela pronounced, "that this man is alive. I am telling you, elf, his survival is a stroke of ludicrous fortune."
"His prognosis?" Arya pressed, irritated. She knew the shape Harry had been in; she had been the one to recover him from the valley around Farthen Dur. If Angela thought he looked terrible now, she had no idea what it had been like to disentangle the wizard's body from a burnt tree. His flesh had been peeling, sloughing and stained black with fumes and fuel. He stank of death and kerosene, his clothes had been incinerated, and likely the only thing keeping him alive was the bubble surrounding his head that had kept it from being burned directly. Even now the bubble remained, barely visible even to her sight, feeding Harry fresh air.
"Well, my prognosis is that he's lucky to be alive," Angela said. Arya glared at her. The herbalist raised her hands. "I've fed him his Wiggenweld potions and they have been helpful, but nothing like the miraculous recovery you described of the ones brewed with dragon blood. His burns are poulticed and wrapped. Since his organs were relatively undamaged under his armor, the greatest concern is an infection. If he gets lucky, he'll be– well, not fine, but he won't be disabled. I'd be surprised if he regained much feeling on the skin of his back, and he'll have scarring, but then again, you say he has his own healing magic. Maybe once he'll wake up, he'll fix himself the rest of the way."
Angela tried for a cheerful look. Arya's mood was not buoyed.
"You're lucky," Angela reassured her. "You're speaking to the only human healer who knows enough about infections to ward them off."
"You're human?" Arya wondered.
Angela smiled mysteriously, rubbing the tips of her rounded ears. "That's what they say."
Arya sat next to Harry and grasped his bandaged hand. Against her better judgement, she was beginning to catch feelings for him as well.
This dream felt different. Usually, his visions kept him frozen in place, a spectator to some event. This time, Harry had his body with him, and he was not in Alagaesia.
Pine needles poked his face, loamy earth pressed against his nose. Harry opened his eyes and pushed himself to his knees. The feel of forest scruff beneath his palms, the breeze on his skin, it was as vivid as being awake.
He saw dozens of cloaked feet around him. Harry stood. In the spot where he died, the Cloak was gone.
All the Death Eaters were unmasked, their expressions frozen in time.
Across the circle, Voldemort's face was frozen impassively, his mouth still open from forming the final 'a' in avada kedavra. Harry walked up to him, padding up straight towards his empty, spidery outstretched hand..
His red eyes did not move as Harry circled. He picked out the mossy green sheen on his pale skin, the veins showing through on his bald skull. He examined Voldemort's slitted nostrils and pointed teeth.
As a statue, he was not so scary.
Harry let out a shaky breath. He turned away.
Hagrid was bound up by the edge of the circle. Harry hurried over and grasped the ropes binding him to a massive tree. The ropes felt like stone. When Harry touched Hagrid, he too, was petrified.
Harry spotted Narcissa's forcibly impassive expression, Lucius's gaunt, haggard features, Bellatrix's euphoric madness–
He forced himself to look away and hurried away up the forest trails.
The trees swayed in a gentle breeze. It was dark but not night, the minutes before dawn where the sky was grey. Harry strode out of the forest.
Voldemort had called for a halt to the fighting to give Harry a chance to surrender himself. The grounds were pitted with damage and massive beastly bodies. A couple of giants had been killed, along with two dozen acromantulas.
Harry slipped in through the secret passage under the wall of the main courtyard by a U shaped stump.
The courtyard was abandoned. Harry hurried across the open space, skirting around the cracked fountain. In the east, the cloudy sky glowed, like the sun was waiting, pausing at the very instant before bursting over the horizon.
Someone had blasted open the main doors. One was flat on the ground, the other had a huge crack through it and hung askew on its hinges. Harry stepped over the fallen door and into the torchlight.
Fire flickered in the sconces on the walls, an eerie breeze floating through the damaged halls. Harry walked past groups huddled up and fixing their wounds in the ceasefire Voldemort had called. He spotted Parvati Patil in the middle of wrapping an ugly slash on her sister's forearm, frozen in place. Lavender was laying on her back, her midsection bandaged, grey skin and veins creeping out from behind the wrappings.
"Hello?" he called, crouching and joining their little circle. "Wake up."
His voice echoed again and again down the corridor.
Harry tapped Parvati on the shoulder. It was like tapping stone, and Parvati did not respond.
He stood and moved on.
Several people were unattended, black sheets draped over them. Harry looked away. It didn't matter, he insisted to himself. It did not matter, because he would not let it get this bad. He would kill Voldemort far earlier, travel back in time and leverage his future knowledge to see him gone before he killed a single person.
It was not fleeing, it was not failure if he fully intended to go back, right? He would go back.
…Eventually.
Harry breathed out.
He wandered the halls for what felt like hours, searching. Hermione and Ron had run off on a hunch.
Eventually, he found them huddled in Myrtle's bathroom on the second floor, a smoking, vaguely-cup shaped mush pile with a fang sticking out of it next to Hermione. The tunnel to the Chamber of Secrets was open, Ron and Hermione just a few feet from the dark tunnel.
They were frozen in the midst of a kiss. Harry smiled fondly and gazed at the pair of interlocking statues.
Harry sat on one of the sinks and watched for a while.
To see this happening even now, in the midst of battle, it felt like another victory against Voldemort. There was probably some philosophical revelation in the situation, some realization he could be making, huddled sitting on a sink in the second floor girl's bathroom while time was frozen, but Harry was too glad to see Ron and Hermione's faces again.
Harry's heart actually ached. This must have been the source of the saying; Harry felt an actual tugging in his chest to speak with them again. It had been over a year now since he'd spoken to them. Over a year since he'd listened to them bicker with each other, over a year since he'd heard Hermione correct one of them or quote some book or do something astonishingly vicious and illegal because it was the right thing to do. It had been over a year since he'd had Ron to back him up unconditionally, offer some family anecdote, chat with him about Quidditch, or commiserate with him as they whinged about some annoyance in their lives.
Harry's heart actually physically seemed magnetized towards the pair of statues, to be here in this moment, speaking, laughing, crying with them.
"You could be."
Harry startled. A voice he hadn't heard in almost as long.
"Back again, Harry?" Dumbledore smiled mischievously. He stood in the doorway wearing a white robe and a pointy hat, the only other moving person in the castle.
"Is this a dream, or am I really dead again?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore rubbed his chin. The gesture reminded him of Brom. "A good question," he mused. "I think my answer will be the same as last time. I think not, Harry. I think you have not died yet, not even the last time I saw you, after Voldemort's killing curse.
"The muggles used to call someone dead when they stopped breathing. Then they discovered better medicine and they moved the goalposts. They learned how to resuscitate someone who has stopped breathing. Muggle doctors now diagnose brain death as true death. They have gotten closer and closer to finding the part of a person that is the core of their being."
Dumbledore sat next to him on the next sink over. "Thus Harry, I reiterate what I said before; death will be your choice. If we define death as the moment when someone can no longer be made alive again, then no, you are not dead."
"Semantics," Harry muttered.
Dumbledore beamed. "I do love semantics. They're wonderful tools for reinterpreting the world in a helpful way."
Harry sighed and leaned back, resting his head against the foggy, tarnished mirror over the sink. The faucet dug into the small of his back and his pants were getting damp.
"What do you mean? Why am I here?" Harry murmured. He yawned.
"It's comforting to have someone around who has all the answers, isn't it?" Dumbledore mused. "It's reassuring to know that if you fail, all is not lost. Harry, you don't need me to give you all the answers anymore. You are a brilliant and resourceful wizard who has proven most adept at solving the problems presented to him."
Harry turned to him. Dumbledore looked very goofy, sitting in a sink next to him, his knobbly old knees kicking as his feet dangled above the ground. "For old time's sake?"
"That was only a year ago," Dumbledore reminded him gently. "You've made great strides, Harry. We'll split the difference, and I'll give you the easy question. Why are you back here?"
The answer was apparent as soon as Harry put his mind to it. "I nearly died."
Dumbledore nodded with a 'there you go' gesture. "And now, I think you know what I meant."
"I could go back right now," Harry supposed.
Dumbledore nodded again. "You would pass away after doing Alagaesia a great service in slaying Durza, succumbing to your burns in Tarnag in the aftermath of the invasion you thwarted. And you could slip right back into this moment."
"I don't think Durza's really dead," Harry answered immediately. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that Durza had done something to survive.
"The thing about tyranny is that it never lasts," Dumbledore confided. Harry frowned and tried to come up with how that was connected to the conversation.
"Suppose you had died in a car accident after your third year," Dumbledore went on. Harry was even more lost. "Suppose on the way to King's Cross station for your fourth year, your uncle Vernon crashed and you died. What do you suppose would have happened?"
Harry furrowed his brows. "I wouldn't have made it to Hogwarts."
Dumbledore gestured for him to go on, glancing over his glasses.
"I wouldn't have been there for the triwizard tournament," Harry realized. "Even if my name came out of the goblet, it wouldn't have mattered. I'd be dead, so Voldemort couldn't have had my blood to resurrect himself. Except, he'd just use someone else's, wouldn't he?"
Dumbledore smiled. "I imagine he would be very angry to have been robbed of the chance to kill you himself and put an end to any notion of his prophesied downfall. His sense of grandeur would no doubt lead him to pursue the next greatest enemies of his. I doubt he could have gotten my own blood, but then again, Tom Riddle can be very resourceful if he needs to be. But that's just it, Harry." Dumbledore stood, wagging his finger.
"If he took my blood, I would have killed him. If I had died and you had died, perhaps Ms. Granger or Mr. Weasley or Mr. Longbottom would have stepped up. That's just it, Harry. Tyranny inspires rebellion. Evil inspires the pure of heart to fight for good. If you die and Durza is reborn, Alagaesia will not roll over and let him rule the world. Someone will rise up to fight him. Someone always does. Heroes are made, not born."
Harry stood up as well. He cast a glance of farewell to Ron and Hermione and followed Dumbledore out of the bathroom.
"All this to say I could leave?" Harry asked.
The headmaster made a little bow of agreement. "You have a sense of justice too strong for your own good," he said. "You know of two worlds now, Harry. If only one world exists, that is a notion one may entertain reasonably. But if there are two, does it not seem likely that there are many, many more? What then, Harry? Will you fight evil in every world there is?"
"Maybe not," he said levelly, "but I'll certainly fight it wherever it's in front of me." It seemed out of character for Dumbledore to suggest not fighting evil.
Dumbledore stopped in the middle of the hallway. Harry nearly ran into him, lost deep in thought. "You can choose what is in front of you," he said meaningfully, and Harry looked up.
It was Ginny, rooted in the moment. She was consoling Dennis Creevey, who was weeping into her arms. She looked as fierce as Harry had ever seen her, and as kind as he knew her to be.
Dumbledore led him on.
Harry craned his neck and walked backwards to gaze at Ginny until they turned a corner. They stepped back out into the courtyard. Dumbledore sat at the bench by the broken fountain and gazed east into the light just below the horizon, the strip of radiant clouds at the edge of the world.
"You may live a very long time, Harry," he said without looking away from the sky. "I should not think it will be very pleasant if you allow your guilt to compel you into hurling yourself headfirst into every cause you encounter. Nor do I think doing so will always be a service to the communities you encounter."
Harry sat with him.
Together, they watched the frozen dawn forever suspended an instant before breaking.
He thought about it. For a moment, Harry allowed himself to really entertain the idea that he could go back. All his grand plans of going back in time and rescuing Sirius and Cedric and Fred and Dumbledore, helping Eragon defeat Galbatorix, maybe even saving his parents, he did not have to do that.
If he wanted to, right now, he could slip back into this moment and watch the day break over Hogwarts once more. He could be here when every statue woke up again. Ron would be there, Hermione would be there, Mrs. Weasley, Hagrid, Professor McGonagall, people who really knew him. The people he'd grown up with.
But…
"I can always come back?" Harry checked.
"Of course," Dumbledore smiled. He raised a hand to point at the horizon. "The world is waiting for you, Harry. Take all the time you need. I only suggest that you take care to take only the time you need, rather than the time everyone else needs from you."
Harry's mind went back to the castle and to Ginny, consoling Dennis Creevey. He could go back and speak to her, kiss her, beg for her to be his girlfriend once more, and apologize for not taking her with on the horcrux hunt.
…Or he could wake up. Arya would be somewhere nearby, Harry knew. They'd travel together to Ellesmera with Eragon and Saphira. He and Ginny had officially broken up, he needn't feel guilty about anything. If Arya would have him, Harry rather liked the idea of being in love with her, too.
And Durza's survival was his fault. If he had not sent Fred down into the tunnels to scout, Fred would have still been alive – dead? – and Durza would not have access to his magic.
"Durza is my mess to clean up," Harry said aloud.
"Maybe," Dumbledore hemmed.
"What do you mean?"
Dumbledore's eyes went unfocused. "I think it would be fair to say Voldemort is, ahem, my mess."
Harry blinked. "How do you mean, sir?"
"You remember the moment I met him at the orphanage, Harry." Dumbledore scratched his beard regretfully. "I met him with suspicion and hostility. I never trusted him as a student, nor as an adult. I wonder what might've happened if I had done it all differently. If I had met Tom Riddle with kindness and understanding, rather than suspicion.
"If I'm not mistaken, you were the one to clean up my mess." He turned to smile at Harry. "Sometimes I think Tom Riddle might have turned out to be a lot like you if I had been wiser back then."
Harry shivered at the reminder. He and Riddle were so eerily similar, it would not have taken much to send his life down a darker path.
"I wouldn't say he's your mess, sir," Harry said. "You just said a few words."
"'Said a few words' does the power of words a great disservice," Dumbledore said, smiling wanly. "You are too kind, Harry. Voldemort was not the first mess I failed to adequately clean up."
Harry knew he was referring to Grindelwald. He didn't know the whole story, but he knew enough about Dumbledore to be confident that at his core, he was a good man. "Everybody makes mistakes."
Dumbledore's wan smile brightened. "Indeed they do, Harry. Indeed they do."
The headmaster's meaningful gaze lingered on Harry for a minute.
Harry realized and blushed. "It's not the same. I got the dwarves' millenia old ancestral home burned down–"
"If we are having a competition Harry, you will lose," Dumbledore said mildly. "Six million innocent jews were murdered because of my childish ambition. Many, many more died fighting in the war. They called it World War two. I felt crippling guilt for many years because of it. I spent my life atoning for it all. In the end, all you can do is move forward.
"Take it from someone who knows; the guilt you feel helps no one. You may remember what I said about my mistakes? A clever man rarely makes mistakes, but the ones he does are ugly. Atone, make reparations, learn from your mistakes, then release your guilt and find bliss."
He reached over and patted Harry on the back. "You are a wonderful young man, Harry. I have faith that you will make a positive change in the world – in any world – you are in."
Harry gazed at the horizon.
"What do you recommend?" he asked finally.
Dumbledore shrugged. "This is your party, Harry. There isn't a wrong choice here. I would recommend you be confident you're choosing for the right reason. Can you be happy in Alagaesia, Harry? Will you be happy here if you leave Alagaesia with unfinished business?"
Harry watched the trees ripple at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Could he be happy in Alagaesia?
He remembered teaching Eragon magic in the castle, being on the road with him and Brom, meeting Jeod and exploring Teirm. He had fond memories of camping out with Arya on the way to Ellesmera, working on the plane by the Crags of Tel'naer, even his brief time at the Varden living in Tronjheim.
The more he thought about it, the more Harry realized he could be happy in Alagaesia.
He set his face.
"I know that expression," Dumbledore said knowingly, eyes twinkling behind his half-moon glasses.
"I'll see you later, I guess," Harry bade him farewell.
"Not too soon," Dumbledore's beard twitched.
Harry stood. "Walk towards the light?" he guessed.
"Oh no," Dumbledore said quickly. "Certainly not any time soon. I'd go back to where you started."
They both turned to the Forbidden Forest.
"Be well, Harry." Dumbledore sat back down at the fountain and watched Harry walk away, a fond smile beneath his beard.
Arya was sitting at Harry's bedside scratching out revisions to her edition of Domina Abr Wyrda when he stirred.
She put her pages away and sat up. "Harry?"
Harry squeezed his eyes together, tears leaking out of the corners.
"Can you hear me?"
He nodded imperceptibly.
Arya leaned over him and grabbed a glass of water and held it to his lips. "Drink."
Harry cracked his eyes open, staring at the glass. A tiny device appeared in it, a tube. Plastic, Arya guessed. He puckered his lips around the tube and sucked the whole glass down.
"Arya?" Harry's voice was rough. Arya steadfastly ignored the flutter in her chest at hearing her name in his voice.
"Yes," she said. She fetched Harry's glasses and placed them on his face. He opened his eyes, blinking gunk out of them. Arya wiped it off.
"Angela was worried you would not make it. At first all seemed fine, then you stopped breathing–"
Harry's expression turned guilty for a flash.
"And now this," Arya finished. "Welcome back."
Harry cleared his throat, smiling weakly. "I'm not going anywhere."
AN: A touching moment I hesitate to ruin with a lengthy author's note, but I had to point out that the plane someone suggested blasting out of the air had a couple of very important innocent people in it, and it was invisible at the time and thus could not be accurately targeted to be disabled.
As disappointing as it is to see the twins escape justice, more heroes need more villains, and I'm not about to dispose of two that didn't die yet in canon. For everyone who accused me of giving the twins plot armor, I should point out that Harry survived getting blasted by burning jet fuel and falling out of the sky. The twins just hitched a ride.
Thanks to Scarze for beta'ing this chapter