Thanks to all the masses who reviewed the last chapter. Your several permutations of the general `` What the F*** ! ? ! Update now ! '' Were most apprize. I feel kind of bad for jumping a gimmick like that on you after 40 chapters. kind of deceitful. Good to jazz the legal age of people appreciated it.



"Harry ?"Padma said quietly, standing at the end of the hospital bed. Harry seemed to be sleeping, his chest rising and falling weakly. His eyes were red, like he'd been crying. Perhaps the pain was worse than he let on. She felt bad for needing to wake him."Harry wake up."She reached out and tapped his leg. He jerked fitfully, but his eyes flickered open. He didn't speak though, didn't acknowledge her. He just stared off into blank space. What had Dumbledore said to him ?

"Harry I ‘ ve been talking to the healers. They ‘ ve run some more tests."She licked her lips."Look, it looks like a few month was actually optimistic. There ‘ s damage deep down, portion of damage. You need to let them help you now or ... or you ‘ ll die. In a few weeks."

Harry said zero, he didn't even seem to have heard her.

"You won ‘ t be able to contend Voldemort."Padma tried a different shroud."I ‘ m not saying you ‘ ll have hebdomad like you ‘ ve been going all year. You ‘ ll have week in this hospital bed, not able to move, eventually you won ‘ t even be able to talk. You won ‘ t be able to toss off Voldemort. You won ‘ t be able to be the elect one."

Harry flinched, pain running across his exhaust face.

"You see Harry, you ‘ ve got to let them help you."Padma stepped up to put her hand on Harry's."Please ?"

"You do what you have to do."Harry pulled his hand away. He still hadn't looked at her.

"You ‘ ll let them help you ?"Padma tried not to be put off."You ‘ ll take off the vicious eye and let them work on you ?"

"Yes, why not."Harry rolled over so he was facing away from her. His respiration stuttered, he sounded like he was holding back tears. Padma backed away, she had got what she came for. The therapist would fix Harry's body. What had happened to his mind ? That might take away a little longer.

What had Dumbledore said to him ...
*


The boy who was once called Harry faded in his mind as the healers entered his room. Bustling around and speaking comforting, empty-bellied words. They cleaned him up, washing his arms and chest. They asked him to remove the bracer. He did, letting it fall to the floor with a loud clatter. The therapist shied away from the mark on his arm. Fearful. Why should he care.

They did something that was supposed to numb him. He couldn't tell the difference. Everything was dulled already. He watched, unable and unwilling to care, as they cut his hide open. His blood seeped out, quickly staunched by a therapist. He wished they wouldn't bother.

A cold gel was swabbed onto his ruined hand. Ruined for what ? For the sake of what ? All useless. He wished they wouldn't bother.
*


genus Draco slapped the sore skin of his arm to try and detain awake. It had been burnt in the battle, but it was fine now. Just enough residuary rubor and pain to aid him stay alert. He swung his weary eyes around the waiting room, all of the vulture were here. well-nigh of them had finally succumbed to sleep, Draco didn't blame them. It was unvoiced to imagine that the insanely midnight assault on the creature ship had been just last night. They had been worn out, worn down. genus Draco pinched his arm again. He wondered if there was anywhere he could discover some tea. The tea shop was closed but surely the healers had a staff room or something. Maybe he could ask one.

Or maybe he could just fall asleep.

Dragon shook his head. Some of them had to be awake when the healer finally stopped working on Harry. He shuddered, they had already been at it for hours. How many ... improver .... had Harry made ? He glanced around the way again. Everyone seemed to be asleep. Even Ginny, who seemed to have nodded off in the act of pinching herself. They had all been there all Night, no one had collected them. He supposed it was only a topic of time before a teacher or an order appendage came to wrangle them up and drag them back to Hogwarts, where they would no doubt stay. Chained to posts like blackguard so they couldn't run off again.

Draco got wearily to his fundament, maybe he could walk some of his weariness off. He stepped carefully around the prone marauders and stepped up to the door to the ward. Harry's bed was obscured by drape but the phantasma of the healers were still moving against the surface. As he watched one of them detached and stepped towards the threshold. Dragon stepped away to let him out, Bob Hope and apprehensiveness revolt in his stomach.

"Is there any word ?"Dragon asked.

"Yes, there is."The healer looked around the way."Is his family here ?"

"Yes."genus Draco said definitely, looking over the piranha."Wait a import ... HEY !"The vulture jerked to lifetime, hands flying to scepter before they realized where they were. Draco turned back to the therapist."They ‘ re up. What is the news ?"

"Well we ... we removed various items from the body of your friend."The miserable healer swallowed nervously."We found a drop-gem embedded in his sternum. There was also something in the wall of his venter. We think it may stimulate been designed to nullify poison but it seems to bear had the opposite event. It was the author of his illness. We also found-"

"What about his eye ?"Draco broke in."Have you fixed his eye ?"

"His ... his eye."The healer paused."His eye had been removed too long ago, there is a cracking good deal of scarring. Unfortunately we were ineffectual to restore it. We are currently looking into whether the installation he has is high calibre enough to leave there."

"Installation ..."Draco stared at the man coldly."You ‘ re talking about his eye."

"Yes, I know."The therapist shook his principal and turned back towards the room access."We ‘ ll try to keep back you informed."He pushed back through the door and hurried back towards the curtained bed.

Draco looked back over the predator. Through their sand-filled, drooping eyes he could see their sorrow. Harry had fought so hard and got nil in return but accusation of murder and a permanent wave disfigurement. And a dark Deutschmark, they could not bury that.

"Harry might say it was Worth it."Padma said softly."For driving Voldemort to ground."

"Of course he ‘ d say that. Doesn ‘ t make it true."Ron pulled his knees up to his chest."I mean you heard him in there. He ‘ d think end was worth it."

"Is he wrong ?"Draco muttered darkly. Perhaps they didn't hear him. Perhaps it was just as well. They were all startled as another door was pushed heart-to-heart, revealing Professor McGonagall. She didn't need to say anything, they knew why she was there. They were going back. And they might never leave.
*


"Are you sure ?"Natalie asked ? Her voice admirably detached of shaking."You could get a bracer like Harry ‘ s. Or perhaps there are less trespassing way of removal."

"There are not, it was not made to be removed."Snape tightened the strap around his arm."And I would prefer to not be dependent on an point of illegal jewelry. Just please do it, it is already beginning to burn."

Thankfully she did not argue, but instead bent down and touched her wand to the skin on Snape's arm. The slicing pain was distant, dulled by potions. There were feeding bottle by his arm, some empty, some waiting to grow the hide back after the bull's eye was gone. He was in his flat at Hogwarts, the only place he could have gained those potions without questions was from his own supplies. The searing began and Snape looked away, watching his own arm butchered was not what disturbed him, not after everything he'd seen. But it reminded him of what Harry was going through. Of the dark master as well. What would he do next ? What would his side by side movement be ...

"He may go into hiding."Natalie answered his unrequited inquiry, still purport on his arm."Like he did fifteen class ago."

"He will not."Snape shook his head."He was forced to cover then, he had no power. Now he does, it is lessened certainly, but he still has some."

"Bellatrix, Rookwood and Forneus."She traced easily around the edge of the skull."That is who he has left. What would he do with them ?"

"It will be beast, I am certain of that."Snape felt the cutting stop and watched as Natalie picked the piddling flap of skin up and calmly incinerated it. It was done, he was complimentary. Strange that he should feel so piddling. Perhaps because he knew he was not truly devoid until Voldemort was abruptly. Perhaps because he knew that, without the ability to spy, he was next to useless.

"Don ‘ t think that."Natalie's eyes flickered up to his as she daubed his arm with a potion soaked bandage.

"But I am."Snape shook his head."Perhaps not useless but ... if I had not acted on instinct we would now know exactly what Voldemort was planning. We would be able-bodied to forestall him instead of stumbling around in the darkness."

"You had to."Was all she said.

"Perhaps."Snape let his head pearl back, perhaps.

"You know them better than anyone."Natalie continued."You can lick out what he will do next."

"I have been trying."Snape replied tetchily."But I can not think of anything he would care to do that he has the manpower to reach. Unless he has some plan I am incognizant of. Which he almost certainly has. I always got the sentience that he had something brewing."

"The ministry ? The section of mysteries ? The vaticination ?"

"He covets that no uncertainty. But I can see no way he could obtain it with three death eaters."

"Four."Natalie corrected."Barty Crouch is still out there somewhere."

"And if he is not suddenly then he is doing Merlin knows what."Snape shook his head."It could be anything."

"Severus,"Natalie took his face in her hands and tilted it up to run across her eyes."Not so low now. We won today. It may not feel like it, but we won a victory. triumph have been few and far between this past times class, we need to cherish them, not worry about what will hap next."Snape was once again amazed by the way she could go bad through to him, whatever his mood. He smiled,

"I believe I have some wine."
*


The boy who carried the name Harry felt himself enter the familiar ambition. He felt floorboards under his dorsum, scratchy through the thin hospital robe. He knew where he would be when he opened his eyes. And finally, he even knew why.

He pushed himself off the flooring, leaning his tire framing against the wall. The wall painted with bears and snitches over a pale blue sky full of fluffy clouds. Harry felt like spitting but he couldn't draft the energy. He ignored the crib in the heart of the elbow room, it's burnished mobile spinning idly in the dream-wind. He shoved the door open and descended the stairs. The revulsion he always felt was still there, but he could barely get himself to manage. He knew what this situation was now.

No one-year-old remembers their house. No one-year-old could remember every pic, or the pattern on the wallpaper. This spot was a lie, a parasitic computer storage that had been burnt into his mind. The creeping malady in his pelt was his judgment's way of telling him that it wasn't rattling, that it didn't belong.

He stepped up to the figurehead threshold and stepped outside. There were street signal in the storage. No one-year-old would recollect street signs, they couldn't even read them. He should have known, should ingest realized somehow.

He couldn't feel the orchard nearby. God knows what that represented. Some metaphor for rubber his creative thinker was projecting out maybe. Who knew. The river ? Some other part of his judgment ... it didn't subject. Harry let himself hang to the ground on the gage, it was all pointless. It wasn't worth fighting this anymore, it was burnt onto the back of his scull. He could never escape.

His heart flickered exposed in the hospital ward. He could feel the painful new increase in his hand. It was pink, new skin, and minor than the other. Harry dropped it back onto the blankets. early parts of his body hurt too, slight scars and wound. They had fixed him up. He wished they hadn't bothered.

The dream was still swirling in his mind, biting at him. It was too unvoiced. He saw his affair piled neatly against the rampart, even his dress. Suddenly he knew he had to leave. This home ... he just had to leave. He quietly pushed out of bed, ignoring the creak in every musculus and drew his bag over. He dressed quickly and disillusioned himself before slipping out the door.

The marauder were sleeping there, lying across benches or curled up on the trading floor. He didn't wake them. He didn't want to talk to anyone right now. Couldn't talk, he had no idea how he would even part. He hurried away and down the stairs. He didn't stop until he was out of the building and a few streets away. A lowly street, not busy. Breathing hard he shoved his verge out into the street. He found that he could barely hold back his arm up for the few endorsement it took for the knight bus to blur out of nowhere and squawk to a check in nominal head of him.

"Ere are you Harry ceramist ?"The pimpled conductor squinted at him, his voice full of amazement.

"No."The word was hollow in his chest.

"right hand, right, incognito."The man tapped his nose."I never believed any of that poppycock about ya. hero that ‘ s what I say."

"Right."Hero ... that cut to the core like a tongue."Take me to Godrics Hollow."He had no idea where the idea had come from, but as soon as he said it he knew he needed to go. It was as strong a demand to go to it as there had been to result in the dream.

"Godrics holler ?"The pimply guy swallowed."Right, I see."

The bus moved off and the nameless boy sagged down in a chair. Why was he doing this ? Did he even have a reason ? He didn't seem to have rationality's anymore. He remembered being full phase of the moon of fire and indigence, burning passion for the combat. But now he just felt core out, like he'd been scooped out. He didn't want anything anymore. Except perhaps to die. Why was he going to Godrics Hollow ? Why not. It wasn't like he had anywhere else to go.

The bus screeched to a halt and he got out without speaking. The bus disappeared with a whoosh, a purple fuzz in the air. Harry looked up and down the street, it looked like any former Village. It was empty this time of day, like a specter town. Suited his mood perfectly. He looked forward, an derelict house, burnt and with the top trading floor blown off.

But he knew what had stood there. He had seen it in his pipe dream. This was where it had happened. It just hadn't happened to him.

He stepped forward his hand stretched out, then shied away. This house was just more Lie. The impression in his head, grief, red, fear. They weren't his, they weren't his loss. but strangers had died here, two strangers. citizenry who had cypher to do with him. The grief was another trick, just another level of lie.

He spun away and stalked down the street, not looking back. He had never lived there, it meant nothing to him. Or should mean zero. His fundament brought him to the lame and he lent tiredly on the war commemoration. He should never have come here, it was not what he needed. He raked his hand through his hair.

Not his hand.

Not his hair.

He spun and punched the stone, hissing out rage through his teeth. The lie poisoned everything. Even his real store were tainted. He didn't even look like this for Christ's sake ! His whole consistence was a masquerade party !

The Harlan F. Stone shifted under his finger. He looked up just as the commemoration seemed to meld, morphing into, a statue underneath. Harry stumbled back. No ... no no no. Under the memorial there were two figures, a man and a adult female. The cleaning woman cradled something in her hands. The man ... the man looked just like him.

No he doesn't. I don't even look like me. The boy trembled with rage as he looked on the glad Potter family. The testament in gemstone to the spirit he had never really had. His fingerbreadth went to his wand.

"Reducto !"The scepter flickered out, even through the rage the magic spell flew dependable. It struck the head of the father statue, shattering it into matchwood. Some of them cut the boy's figure. He didn't care.

"Reducto ! !"Lilly Potter's caput snapped off and crunched onto the tarmac. Rolling to a stay in a storm drain.

"Reducto ! !"The final stage shot was the potent, striking out in a blinding bolt of light, obliterating the bundled infant. Blowing the little boy-who-lived to smithereens. Flames flickered across the statue before they died out. Flickered across the deflower stumps of header and died to nothing.

The nameless boy stepped back, breathing like he'd run a marathon. His dress wet with effort. He dropped his baton back into his sack and turned his rachis on the statue, his breath still coming in furious bursts. He couldn't think, couldn't breathing place. He walked off down the street, not trusting himself to count on the statue again. It made it all too real.

His eye found a graveyard. Both eyes, real and magical. He shuddered, he'd got used to the shining overlay over his vision, the x-ray panorama of the human race. Now it was just a constant reminder. A reminder of what he'd sacrificed for the lie. He pushed the burying ground gate open and let the eye roam, in a mo it had angled in on the potter grave. He walked hesitantly to it, his wand safely away in his air hole. He pushed a piece of ivy off the endocarp and take the inscription.
The lastly opposition that shall be destroyed is decease


Well that was bullock block. Being dead meant you had at least one early enemy left, namely the one that killed you. His eye whirled in it's socket, looking straight down. The two coffin, face to side in the reason, stared back at him. But ... there was a shadow. Like a vacant area. He drew his wand and muttered a disclosure piece. Faint whiffs of illusion drew out of the primer coat to meet him. He waved his verge again, cutting the misty waifs away. He worked ... he didn't experience how retentive. Probably minutes, maybe hours. At some stage the gray sky gave way to rain and the memorial park Mary Jane turned slick. Harry ignored it, concentrating on the turn. It was respectable. It was a puzzle, breaking the magic trick. It stopped him from thinking.

Finally he was done. nada different showed on the surface, but down underground ... Harry stood and stepped back, his meat hammer in his chest. There was a third base coffin on top of the other two, arranged like a pyramid. Inside ... inside was a pocket-sized dead body, a child. It's lilliputian blazonry crossed over it's chest.

The nameless boy fell to his knee joint. There it was, the final proof. The final incontrovertible curb. That poor wasted body in there was Harry Potter. He could even see a tiny moolah on the bone of his scull, above his eye, in the contour of a lightning bolt. The real mark had cut all the way to the bone, his was barely more than makeup. That was all he was in fact ... makeup for a puppet. A god-damn doll.

He raised his baton to the stone, but said cypher. The ira in him was gone. He had seen the organic structure of the real potter, lying together. It was hard to feel anger, but he wished he did. The anger at least filled him up, filled the vacuum with flame. But now the fire was gone and he felt even vacuous for it. He found himself resting the detail of his wand against the rough, wet stone.

It wasn't even his scepter. He stared at it, thoughts skittering over the benumb center of his mind. It was a verge gained from killing, killing and fighting in a war he was never supposed to be section of. This sceptre was his killing wand. He had done frightful matter for the sake of this war ... to others ... to himself. He found himself pressing down harder on the forest. He had pickled his soul in blood and what had it got him ? He added his former arm and pushed harder. He had fought, and he'd been broken. The sceptre splintered with a loudly crack, the springy wood bending almost double before it twisted into medallion. A niggling red bagatelle was visible through the break. It had had a Phoenix feather sum, he never knew.

"fountainhead that makes thinks easier."

The voice had come from behind him. He turned slowly but his wizardly eye had already whizzed around to chance the trespasser. The nigrify robe told him everything he needed to sleep with. Harry knew he should feel panic, or dread, fear perhaps, at least surprise. But he was damned if he felt anything.

"You would be Rookwood."His voice sounded dead in his ears.

"Yes I am August Rookwood."The man sketched a sarcastic bow, his wand in his hand."Thank Merlin I still have a watch on the minor deception detector. You ‘ ve come a farseeing way just to slip now. A long long way ..."

"Felt like further."The empty boy dropped the cadaver of his wand onto the Potter grave. Perhaps some fool thaumaturgist would witness it and hold up some story about it. He turned back to the decease eater and asked,"Are you going to kill me ?"He was surprised that his phonation did not go eager.

"Eventually Mr Potter, no doubt."Rookwood held out his wand."But first you ‘ re going to stop up something for me."

"What ?"

"The night overlord ‘ s undying favor."Rookwood tilted his mind up arrogantly."I will be raised above the others, above even that son of a bitch Crouch."Rookwood paused, obviously expecting the weary figure before him to say something. `` Well ? Nothing to add ? No witticisms ? ``

"No."The boy who had been Harry stepped forward."Do whatever you like to me. I don ‘ t concern anymore."

"Is this some variety of put-on ?"Rookwood raised his sceptre threateningly."You are alone here I know that ... well, to be sure. Stubefy !"

He closed his heart before the magical spell hit. The darkness was welcome.
*


A crashing noise woke him. Flashing igniter burned through his eyelid as he groaned. The interference went on and on, associate ... very familiar. His memories twinged, his actual ones.

"I ‘ m in the underground."His eyes flickered open just as the tube train flashed out of sight, leaving the tunnel in darkness. He felt the cords binding his hands together, his fingers danced along them trying to rule a knot. There was none. They were tight though, biting into his skin, witching no dubiousness. He didn't have to feel to hump that his legs were similarly bound. He didn't trouble to try to stand.

"You are indeed Mr Potter."Rookwood stood over him, his wand outstretched."The London Underground."

The nameless boy twisted and looked around him, one of the wall was been broken through and a dark, earthy tunnel stretched away. Now that the gearing was gone he could hear something in the swarthiness all around, a scratching slinking sound.

"We ‘ re not alone."Harry breathed.

"Oh, so you noticed."Rookwood held up his wand and lit it, smiling. The darkness rolled back, but not far. A greyness wall stopped the light, a writhing mass of cloth and rot.

"What ... what are they ?"He looked on the dark hooded figures. As he watched one of them turned its cover head towards him. It let out a death rattle.

"Those are Dementors."Rookwood smiled."Had you forgotten that they too served the wickedness noble ? Slipped your mind ?"

"Dementors ..."The boy looked into the swirling mickle. Wasn't he supposed to be feeling some sort of iciness, despair ? Wasn't that what Dementors were supposed to do when you were close to them ? He shook his head, they couldn't touch him, a person could only find so much desperation and he was already at his limit. And as for making him live over his bad computer storage ? Ha ! His darkest moment was still fresh in his mind.

"The dementors like it down here."Rookwood continued."They ‘ ve been breeding down here like tent flap. There are 100 of them."

"Dementors don ‘ t dig."Harry glanced back at the tunnel."What else do you have down there ? I thought I killed everyone you had."

"You did."Rookwood sneered."But that doesn ‘ t issue. In fact, none of that matters. Now be quiet."Rookwood flicked his scepter, making a silencing magic spell. A second moving picture levitated him off the floor. Rookwood reached into his pocket and pulled out a long silvery distance of fabric, easily recognisable. An invisibleness cloak. He just give ear there in the air as the cloak was thrown over him. He really couldn't have done anything else. Rookwood turned and walked up the tunnel, his blacken shoes slipping on the wet dirt.

The one who used to be Harry was dragged along afterwards, floating in the air. He couldn't move ... speak ... he was a ghost. Right now his situation fit him like a baseball mitt. He hung weakly as Rookwood moved further towards the scratching, digging sound. The dementors followed after, filling the tunnel with frigidity. Up ahead there was a turn. As Rookwood walked calmly around the crook trope came into thought. One shadow cloaked figure standing tall, the residual ragged and torn and scrabbling at the dirt mindlessly. No, it wasn't just their apparel that were ragged. It was their flesh.

Inferi, or zombies. Who could secern the difference ? The frame in front of them turned as Rookwood approached. iniquity recollective hair spun out as Bellatrix stepped towards Rookwood.

"You are recently Augustus."The female death eater was not as pretty as she had been. It seemed like a sword toed kick with the force of a falling teenager behind it did more impairment than expected. The forget side of her face was crushed in, a raft of scar and bulging cutis. When she spoke she slurred, only the right field position of her mouth moving. Her eye was a raw socket, nothing left.

She had lost her eye. How grand. How very touching. Under the cloak the invisible prisoner felt his vacuum filled with a tiny spark of satisfaction.

"Hello Bella."Rookwood stopped, his bridge player flickering to his wand."Shouldn ‘ t you be in your own tunnel ? That was the program was it not ? Forneus in one, myself-"

"I know the plan."Bellatrix snapped."Do you Augustus ? It seems to me that you are the one who doesn't know the plan. I came here to see why you were recently. Why were you late ?"

"I was delayed momentarily, nothing to business you."Rookwood waved his manus away."You should go to your own tunnel. Without mortal there the wrangling them the dementors may be getting restless."

"I want the the true of this."Bellatrix held out an accusing finger.

"You will not get it."Rookwood dropped his laconic conduct and snapped at her."Get to your own burrow. We take down the ministry tonight, there can be no fault because one of us is trying to carve up themselves out from the crowd."

"There is no bunch anymore."Bellatrix sneered through her ruined face."There are three of us. There will be Thomas More than enough glory to go around."Bellatrix turned and dissaperated into thin air.

"prevarication bitch."Rookwood grated."We all want to be the dark lord ‘ s right paw. Stop digging you freaks !"He directed the last one to the animal burrowing in the shite. They stopped moving and stood, their vacant eyes rotting in their skulls. Rookwood raised his wand and the dirt began flying away faster. In a short present moment the dirt became a brick wall, old and faded. The wall of the ministry.

"Are you ready Mr potter ?"Rookwood grinned up at the invisible prisoner hanging above him."Here we go."He turned to the wall and raised his sceptre. There was a shattering blast and the paries caved in. Behind it a man at a desk jumped to his understructure his hand tangling in his robes. A William Green flash of light-colored struck him in the drumhead, he dropped onto the desk, scattering papers.

"Go."Rookwood pointed. The dememtors flew past him, the inferi lumbering along between them. There were a few moments of silence, then the screams started.
*


"Dumbledore !"Dwight Lyman Moody yelled as he thumped down the corridor at Hogwarts, moving his old bones as fast as they could."Dumbledore get your senile arse down here !"

"Helen Newington Wills ?"Albus appeared around the corner, his face a masque of worry."You were on guard duty. What are you doing here ?"

"Didn ‘ t you listen to me ?"Moody threw his hand back the way he'd seminal fluid."The ministry ‘ s falling ! Enough dementors to paint the sky opprobrious !"

"Why didn ‘ t you send a patronus ?"

"Didn ‘ t you hear what I just said ! Every inch of that post is to the full of the mortal sucking demons ! No patronus could cut through that !"

"My god, we must help them !"

"Oh really ? You think so ?"Helen Wills saw his spit fly.

"We must go now."Dumbledore pushed past him, dashing to the door."We can deal back the ministry, all of us can."

"But there could be a ambuscade !"Helen Newington Wills tried to continue up, his breathing space catching in his chest."You can ‘ t go in there blind you can ‘ t just ... we don ‘ t even know where Voldemort is !"Dumbledore was speeding away."We need a program ! Do you have a architectural plan you old bast-"But Dumbledore was gone, already around the corner. Helen Newington Wills doubled over, he was old, too old. But god he wasn't done yet, he wasn't ... done. What the hell was Dumbledore thought ? He could get them all killed ! The total order. The entire bloody order in one fell swoop, and what the hell could he do to contain it ? He felt so old ...

But not yet done.

He straightened and staggered down the hall. Faster. Faster. He found the threshold he wanted and threw it open.

"Severus !"Dwight Lyman Moody shouted towards the startled prof."The club needs your helper !"

"The order of magnitude ?"Snape stood, his hands plane on the board. Zhao was beside him in a here and now."I am not a penis of the parliamentary procedure any-"

"The ministry is compromised !"Moody saw his Christian Bible cut Snape."Dementors in More routine than ever before."

"And you want all the supporter you can get ?"Snape sneered."The orderliness had done me no party favour lately."

"Severus,"Natalie Zhao spoke calmly, despite the position."Look at him, something else is going on."

"smarting girl."Moody shook his head."Dumbledore is heading for the ministry, by now he ‘ s trailing half the rules of order. He ‘ s going in without any eyes, without anything. It is a trap, or could be. Even if it ‘ s not he ‘ s still going to lose half the order. He ‘ s ... he ‘ s reckless. He ‘ s stuck in the old war. He ‘ s everything you said he was. But if we let this find ..."

"I know."Snape's center flickered with panic."We need to help them. We need to help the order."

"That ‘ s why I ‘ m here Snape."Moody was gritting his tooth. Every consequence was wasted."But I don ‘ t know what ... there are only three of us."

"Four."Snape muttered under his intimation."There are four of us. Natalie, would you get Michelson. meet us at the ministry back entrance."

"Even four can ‘ t cover this."Moody growled as the terrible dashed from the room."You know that."

"I know. I know well ..."Snape pulled a gown off the back of a chair."We need an army."

"Do you know where to come up one ?"

"I do."Snape closed his eyes,"I do."
*


Rookwood stepped over a body. It's eyes were still open, it's mouth moving vacantly. The dementor's kiss, it left them living, but they were bodies nonetheless. Rookwood paid them no mind.

"Welcome Mr thrower, to the Department of Mysteries."Rookwood pulled the cloak off his floating prisoner. Harry ceramist. His captive was just hanging there dumbly. Well ... he couldn't really do any different. Rookwood let Harry down to the level and canceled the silencing spell."wellspring Mr potter ? You have anything to say ?"

"What are you doing with me ?"ceramicist's phonation was a little sawhorse from the recollective silence."You ‘ re trying to earn points with your Almighty, isn ‘ t capturing me adequate ?"

"More than enough Harry. Sir Thomas More than enough."Rookwood tweaked his wand and the bonds on Harry's legs snapped off. Another mouse click and Harry stumbled forward."But I am after the ice on the cake. If I am to surpass Crouch in terms of merit to the lord ... I must try the icing."

"That ‘ s the stunned thing I ‘ ve ever heard."Harry said dully.

"wellspring I didn ‘ t ask you."Rookwood hurried forward through the ministry, he had to slow down down a minute later though as Harry shuffled along behind him."Hurry up !"

"My feet are asleep. Your rophy were too tight."

"Just move."Rookwood walked back and grabbed Harry by the front of his shirt. The dementors were still swirling by the ceiling, looking for victims. There were still a few left. Not enough to problem over though. He stepped into out into the store office, pulling his funnily compliant charge past the tank of brains. He stopped by the doorway to the death bedroom, there was the audio of spells from within, someone holding out perhaps. He pushed the door open in time to see a wizard scrambling away from an inferi trip and surrender. The corpse-warrior grabbed the blubbering unspeakable in it's steadfast grip and threw him away with inhuman strength. Screaming as he flew across the room, his wow was cut off as he fell through the archway in the core. The drape ruffled for a present moment, then went still again.

Rookwood hid a frisson, he was never entirely comfortable with the execution vena portae. Harry watched from his side with tone down oculus. What was wrong with the boy ? Never mind. Rookwood picked his way around the edge of the room, giving the inferi a wide nascency, and pushed open up the room access at the former side.

"Well Potter here we are."Rookwood gestured impressively at the banks of ledge in strawman of them, each one with rows upon dustup of tiny spheres."This is the lobby of prophecy."

"These are prognostication ?"Harry sniffed disbelievingly as Rookwood dragged him along the note of shelves."They look like snow-globes."

"They are records of prognostication, and they are the intellect we are here."Rookwood glanced down at the boy he was dragging along."Did you know there was a prophecy made about you ?"

Harry didn't solution, but he sniffed again, his sassing twisting into a sneer.

"I assume that was a yes."Rookwood glanced up at the figure on the shelf, yes this was it."The prophecy concerned you and the dark overlord, you know that too ?"

Once again the boy stayed unsounded. Rookwood poked him in the back to set him walking up to where the prophecy was held.

"The dark lord is very eager to get his paw on the prophecy. That prophecy."Rookwood pointed at the especial orb."And I will be the one to grant it to him. My icing, you could say."

"What do you require me for ?"potter was staring at the orb with barely contained hatred. What was going on ? ... Never mind, it wasn't important.

"Shall I tell you something about the prophecies of the department of mysteries ? They are keyed, protected. Only certain the great unwashed can lift them from where they lie. Namely the people they have been made about. So the entirely people who can take this prophecy are the dark lord, and you. ``

ceramist stared at the orb for a second longer, the Good Book sinking into him. Then he threw his point back and laughed, laughed so hard his oculus ran with tears. It was a response Rookwood had not expected. Laughter, but not in jocularity, not in joy. This was a bitter gag, total of darkness. What was going on ?

'' So that 's it is it ? '' Harry choked out, his dead optic still glistening."What a bitter put-on"

"What ?"Rookwood shook his head.

"And if someone else grabs one ?"Harry reached out his handwriting."What happens then ?"

"If they are very lucky they might escape with only John Major injuries."Rookwood answered confusedly."But in all likelihood ? They would die. Screaming."

"Really ?"The ceramicist boy's paw hovered over the whirl glass."To hell with it."His fingers closed around the orb.
*


Minerva screamed as she threw her patronus against the grew wall before her, knowing it was too late. The dementors scattered but a lifeless body fell from their clutches. An auror. Subjected to the kiss.

Minerva shuddered, she only hoped it had been quick. She spun as cold hands grabbed her from behind, crushing her with inhuman strength. The intimation fled from her lungs and she felt ribs crack. In desperation she transformed and dashed away on four feet, spinning and changing back to plant life a human dynamo in the chest of the inferi that had held her. As soon as it was gone another took it's place.

They were overrun, there were too many !

"help me ! Oh god help me !"A public figure ran from out of the folly, his dark-green bowler hat still clutched in his handwriting."Please !"

"Get out of here you fool !"McGonagall shoved Fudge away. She could not deal with him. Her eyes searched through the scrambling Mass for the headland of the order."Dumbledore ! Dumbledore we must pull back !"

She could not see him, she could not see anything. desperation was her only when admonition and she spun, a shining ignitor throwing a dementor away that had been practically on her back. She didn't even know where they were anymore, near the courts possibly. Down in the oceanic abyss, no escape.

She heard a scream from her left and sent a patronus wildly into the surging crowds. The thigh-slapper cut off sharply. Whether she had had any effect she did not have sex, she had to transubstantiate again to trip the light fantastic toe out of the way of a swooping dementor and snapped back to send another shining light to hold them back again. But her body was tired, her baton arm tired.

putrefaction anatomy filled her nostril and she tried to contribute her wand around. Too slowly. The perfectly fist crunched into the side of her head and she fell. She brought her wand up and blew the dead figure to shards, blood already dripping into her eyes. They needed help, and there was no one to leave it.

No one.
*


The orb came rid in Potter's hand, it's faint radiance shining through his fingertips. Rookwood felt his heart bound, but the Potter boy was staring at the prophecy like it was a live snake.

"Good, estimable. Now give it to me !"Rookwood demanded, but the boy didn't move.

"Not possible."Harry shook his top dog."Saw the dead body ..."The dead body ? He wasn't making any sense.

"Just leave me the bloody orb !"Rookwood made to snap up it but Potter slipped away.

"It ‘ s not ... It ‘ s not ... Can ‘ t."Suddenly the white brightness level faltered. A tinny whine filled the air, like grinding train. Harry held up his hand, slowly uncurling his fingers. In the middle of the Patrick White a tiny spike heel of iniquity was growing, like ink in milk. The blackness grew until it covered the whole inside of the orb, it was no longer shining glass but a down orb of obsidian. The whimper grew in the air, biting into his ears. Suddenly there was a effervesce crackle and potter yelped in pain, spilling the prophecy onto the floor. Rookwood cried out, it would break dance for sure ! But when the orb struck the primer coat it squelched, spreading out like mud. Smoke rose from the blackened glass.

Rookwood angle forwards and held his hand out over it. The heat was unbearable this close and he had to shy back. The vaticination had melted. Melted into a steaming puddle on the floor.

The ceramist boy ... he did this !

"What did you do ?"Rookwood snarled. Potter backed away, his hands held up.

"Not me, Dumbledore. He must have switched them."

"Dumbledore could not have touched the prophecy !"

"He could if it was already played out."Potter glanced at the muck on the base."A trap, or else his delusion on me interpose somehow."

"You speak madness."Rookwood reached out to grab the boy but just as he did so the primer coat shook, throwing them both off their animal foot."What the hell is that ?"

"He ‘ s come."The potter boy was staring through the ceiling like a madman, his face again an empty mask of repulsion."He ‘ s come."
*


Suddenly the dementors went still, floating off their enemies to hover by the cap. The silence broken only be the groaning of the wounded. Minerva 's eyes found the entrance to the lift, it 's operate gap in a grating clank. Stepping out into the corridor, black gown floating behind him and a helping hand curled in a undulation to the creatures swirling above, was the dark Godhead himself. Minerva felt her heart jump to her throat. She glanced around, the fiat was in tatters. Only Dumbledore stood tall, the repose of them were covered in origin and shaking from the effort of the battle. There was no force here to bar a dark lord, no force at all.

Voldermort's optic found a quivering gawk on the base and he smiled. Ignoring Dumbledore the dark Maker crooked a finger, pulling the figure to his feet. The fleeceable plug hat was gone, but the picket chassis remained.

"Ah, Cornelius."Voldemort chuckled."Remember back when you used to ask round me up to your billet for tea ? Back when you were just a section brain and I, just a innocent boy. Oh how far we ‘ ve come."

"Please ..."Fudge whimpered."Please don ‘ t hurt me."

"Hurt you Cornelius ? But why would I need to ?"Voldemort gestured to the ceiling."Even as I speak the residuum of your ministry has already been overrun. The ministry you so love is a nest of soul sucking shade. Why would I need to anguish you ? I already have everything I wanted from you."

"Tom,"Dumbledore's articulation spoke out soft in the duskiness."You can not possibly think I will let this stand ?"

"No old man, I do not."Voldemort flicked his sceptre towards the master. Fudge dropped to the floor and scampered away down the corridor."I think you will do as you have always done. rack bravely in the look of the tide, and be swept under."

"Tom I shall-"

"No !"Voldemort cut the Headmaster off with a sharp word."I have grown tired of you."Voldemort raised his hand and the Dementors fell like hunting mortarboard. Minerva was forced to fight for her life sentence against the grey hoard, spinning around her like a vortex of death. And in flash bulb of light beyond that vortex she could see Dumbledore rushing towards his foe, his baton out like a sword.

Minerva tried to cut her way forward. Tried to get to them, to help. But the press was too capital. An inferi had her arm in it's vice like handle and she blew it off with flames. Another took it's spot too quickly. Far too quickly. There was a gout of purple light that cut through the air, momentarily beating back the dementors. Through the gap she could see the dueling wizards in the center of all this, Dumbledore raising the very stones of the level in a wall against the dark lord, but it was blasted to shreds just as quickly. Dumbledore was driven to his knees.

Minerva dashed towards him but the Charles Grey masses closed between them. She cast another patronus before her but it was absorbed almost immediately. She felt an arm clutch hers and spun to burn off it off before she recognized the face.

"Remus !"She moved back to back with the werewolf, spinning her patronus into a traffic circle around them."We need to get to them !"

"It is too late for that !"He shouted back.

"Then what do you offer !"

"We die."lupine delivered that shoemaker's last in a monotonic growl."We are finished."

"We are not !"Minerva tried to throw off another patronus but the despair was sinking in and it faltered as white mist, easily brushed aside by the wraiths. Suddenly there was a fit of tearing randomness, breaking the flagstone and making the chamber shake with it's military unit. As it died there a flash of red luminosity and a high cruel laugh.

"That is the ripe you could do ?"The vocalization of Voldemort was evident."I win old man."

The dementors parted for a here and now, like swarm in wind. The shadow nobleman stood over the sprawled form of the headmaster, his thrill on Dumbeldore's neck. Minerva felt desperation that had nothing to do with the dementors. She let her wand deal drop to her side. They had lost. It was all over.

"Expecto Patronum !"A chorus of secure voice cried the spell and the room was filled with a bulwark of Light Within. Minerva watched as a charging white lion crashed into the massed forms before her, a snarling wolf running at it's heels.

"You ! two-timer !"Voldemort had his baton drawn and had spun to face the lift. Minerva turned to search but saw just one material body standing there, his blazon crossed in chesty casualness.

"Step away from the Headmaster."Snape had his wand drawn and flicked it down towards the night lord."I have not seen eye to eye with him of late but it would be a shame if he died."

"I will drink down you !"Voldemort surged forward and Snape's sceptre stabbed forward. There was a flash of luminosity and Snape was thrown backwards. He stumbled and pushed himself up, driving a savage blast of freeze out flatus at the dark lord.

Minerva dashed forward to help him but once again found a hand gripping her arm.

"Minerva !"A header appeared out of nowhere as a cloak was thrown back. Natalie Zhao ? What in merlin's name ?"Minerva the students can ‘ t hold back them back forever and sooner or later Voldemort ‘ s going to marvel where those other patronus came from."

"The students ?"

"The marauders."Natalie snapped."Now come on !"

"But Snape-"

"Is holding him back !"The unspeakable grabbed a prone public figure on the floor."Now tell your multitude to decrease back before everyone else is abruptly !"
*


The boy who had been Harry didn't know where he was. There had been a mad flair away from Rookwood, screaming and dashing through the discombobulation of conflict, then there had been some stair, then a corridor ... The strait of fight were everywhere, coming out of the rampart. He had just kept running., ineffective to do anything else. His heart raced beyond what any man exertion should have forced it to. His mind was lacuna, a utterly system of weights. Today had been a lifetime.

The shattering noise of a while exploded from the left and he dashed away like a rat. He had to get out.

"Come on dance with me you mangled kick !"Michelson came into survey down a hanker hallway, throwing bolts of lightning at Bellatrix and laughing like a madman.

He had to get out. He dashed into a stairway and almost tripped over a dead body on the floor. garden pink hair, auror ‘ s robe. Oh no ...

He crouched down on the floor, his fingers going to Tonk's neck on instinct. He did not really anticipate to find anything, her tegument was pale and ...

She had a pulse.

The nameless boy had to harbour her body as a shining laser of something cut through the wall above them. The duel was raging just on the other side of the wall. She wouldn't have a pulsation for long if he left her here.

So long ... His brain was grey goop, he just wanted to shut down. He had no wand and his brawniness were water. They would never reach safety anyway, this post was a warzone. But on the other hand ... Tonks.

Putting a tired shoulder under her arm, he lifted her up.



revaluation and you will produce fairy annex that will let you fly.


Due to former dedication my poster may get a little further apart for a while. Sorry everybody.



Snape let himself down tiredly on the sharpness of the outpouring of magical brethren. Every bone ached and his arm was tied up to his body in a sling. There was no prison term for healing yet though, no time at all.

"Stay back. !"Natalie was shouting calmly ( a tough combination to master ), raising her deal to the crew of ministry subsister."Just stay there and the therapist will get to you ! And you get out of here !"The last was directed to a casual seer reporter furiously scratching away at a notebook computer.

The former position of the Radclyffe Hall, back behind the fireplaces, a line of seam were set up for triage. From where he sat Snape could see Elizabeth Heathland lying sedated, her hand clutched by her unvarying familiar genus Vanessa. She would be alright though, a lilliputian coldness and quiet for weeks to do and likely not ever wanting to encounter a dementor again but she would live. Oh to have just one of them back in his house, or any of the piranha. They had fought like tigers, like round hotdog with wands.

One of the doors slammed open and Markus stepped out angrily. His robe were mostly burnt off and he had blood running down the incline of his chest but he seemed unaware of these piffling details.

"She got away."The monolithic whiz reached the sharpness of the fountain and plunged his read/write head under the surface. A here and now later he lifted it up and pushed his wet pilus out of his eyes."Bellatrix."

"The marauders told me you had gone after her."

"She reached one of their bloody tunnels."Markus grated."Fought her all the way down it but when she got beyond the wards she disapparated."

"Then she is out of the fight at least."Snape nodded, he would take any triumph he could get."Forneus is in custody and Rookwood is numbered among the dead."

"So I'm the just one who missed his mark."Markus shook atomizer of water out of his hair."Sorry mate."

"Bella has more lives than a cat, do not remember any more of it."

"You say that but ... I 'm not used to failing, never done it before. '' Marcus shed his ruined gown and dumped it carelessly on the trading floor before glancing around at the mix-up. `` What ‘ s happening here ? Did we get everybody out ?"

"We have taken back most of the ministry. I believe all of the marauder deserve Os"

'' They deserve bloody medals ! ``

'' Yes but I can not give them decoration. You however can give them Os. '' Snape smiled a fain grinning and saw it returned large-minded. He gestured towards the face lifting with his good arm."Voldemort holds the section of closed book. Or to put it another way he is trapped there. He has placed a ward on the lift and on all staircases."

"I can break through."Michelson nodded arrogantly. `` Give me five min. ``

"I doubt that you could do it in five or five hundred."Snape shook his headway."I know that ward. There is only one way to get through it, and that is with a gloomy home run on your arm."

"well then you can-"Albert Abraham Michelson cut off as Snape pulled up his sleeve to disclose the newly cut skin."Oh."

"Yes, and it ‘ s worse than that."Snape bowed his head."He has hostages down there, order members and unspeakables who survived."

"How many ?"

"Ten, we think."Snape glanced up to meet Markus'eyes."Including lupine ... and Dumbledore."

"female parent of god."Michelson slammed his fist into his ribbon."So it ‘ s a stalemate ?"

"For now, until he makes his move. He can not wait forever."Snape felt a little shudder run through him. Whatever the nighttime lord's motility would be it would be the death of at least some of those hostages. Probably all.

'' What the ... '' Suddenly Albert Michelson was on his feet, an face of impact on his expression. `` Falco columbarius 's ... Harry ? ``

A moment later Snape saw what he had seen. Out of a passage Harry was stumbling, a prone body weighing him down and his face a grayish mask. He did n't look up, did n't acknowledge anything, just stepped directly to the nigh bed and lay his burden down bedside a appall healer. Snape rushed forward and saw marauders stand in every corner of the room, running towards the unexpected great deal of their leader.

'' Harry. '' Draco came to a occlusive just in nominal head Harry. `` Harry what are you doing he- ''

'' Tonks is hurt. '' Harry broke in. `` You should try to look after her, she 's your cousin. ``

'' Harry are you alright ? '' Hermione reached out to pertain him but he flinched away. `` What is it Harry ? ``

'' I 'm fine. '' Harry was almost curling up under their stares, hugging his weapon system close to his chest.

'' Are you hurt ? '' Padma asked. `` The healers could loo- ''

'' I said I 'm fine. Just ... go away. ``

'' How did you get out of the hospital ? ``

'' Where 's your wand ? ``

'' Shut up. ``

'' How did you get to the ministry ? ``

'' I SAID SHUT UP ! '' Harry yelled angrily. As the piranha shied back there was a flack of heating from behind them. Snape spun around in time to see the fount of magical brethren go red hot and commence melting, dissolving into the water with a hiss. But the gold was not disappearing, it was staying there in the weewee, mixing with the water. Harry forgotten, Snape stepped forward as the surviving decree phallus, ministry worker and piranha surrounded the consortium of gold.

It was like a mirror, shining with sensationalistic light up to the ceiling. As they watched it faded to silver, then to gray, then finally to pure lily-white. The Patrick Victor Martindale White resolved into shape, colours bloomed out of the pure light. As the material body coalesced Snape heard a shriek from someone on the other side of the consortium and almost felt like following suit.

In the pool, rippling on the surface of the liquid state, was an icon of lord Voldemort. He was standing in what was clearly the department of mysteries. The wand in his handwriting was hanker and picket, it was not the one Snape was used to seeing him use. It was unmistakably Dumbledore 's wand. Behind the iniquity lord, lined up and chained together, were ten whiz. Though the movie was faded and the colours ran together Snape could easily tell apart the two on the end. Cornelius Fudge and Albus Dumbledore.

The Voldemort prototype turned towards them and spoke, his voice sounding deep and echoic like it was coming from the bottom of a well.

'' honorable thaumaturge of the ministry, '' The darkness lord greeted amicably. `` Members of the order of the phoenix and the good children. What you are seeing is the interior of the section of closed book, where all the greatest enigma are hidden. All the abstruse conjuring trick of the ministry is within these bulwark, all controlled by me. ``

'' He 's lying. '' Natalie assured the panicking wizards around her. `` There 's nothing down there he could use. ``

'' And calculate at my friends here, '' Voldemort gestured out over his captive. `` They all fought. They all failed, such is the terms of defying lord Voldemort. '' He took a bundle of wands out of his pocket and hovered it into the air. With a gout of flame they burnt into ash. `` Such is the Leontyne Price ... And reckon who we have here ... '' Voldemort crooked a digit and Fudge was dragged forward, his bonds separating from the others. He came to a plosive speech sound by the iniquity lord 's fundament and looked up with anguish eyes.

'' Are you going to ... to kill me ? '' Fudge stuttered out.

'' Yes. '' Voldemort answered simply.

'' But but ... I. ``

'' I am going to kill you you miserable lower-ranking man, whatever you say. ``

'' Then ... then. '' Fudge seemed to breath a petty easier. `` Do you remember when I used to tempt you up for tea ? Back when I was ... I was a department hear and you were ... you were younger. ``

'' Yes ? ``

'' wellspring I spat in your tea. '' Fudge shuddered out through gritted teeth. `` Every time. Even back then you were a creepy little freak. ``

'' You ... '' Voldemort seemed to raise in threat, his eyes blazing. `` Why do you tell me this ? Surely you know it is unpointed ! ``

'' My ... my dear boy. '' Fudge stuttered, his center still to the story. `` rebelliousness ... is never p ... p ... pointless. ``

'' Avada Kedavra ! ``

super acid light filled the consortium of water and for a import none of them could see anything. Snape felt his inwardness beating rapidly in his bureau. The lighting cleared in time for them too see the dark noble savagely kicking the curate 's body to the side and stabbing his baton towards Dumbledore. The headmaster was thrown forward roughly.

Snape swallowed worriedly. The dark lord was showing them this to demonstrate his top executive but Fudge had openly defied him. Voldemort would be enraged.

'' fountainhead old man ! '' Voldemort stabbed his wand down at Dumbledore, a bolt of lightning of electricity charring a golf hole in the headmaster 's robe. `` Do you not consume something to say ? Some finish Son before I take your life. ``

Dumbledore just stayed silent. It was only from the weak rise and dusk of his chest that Snape could severalise he was still alive.

'' Speak Albus ! ... Crucio ! '' Voldemort held the headmaster in the stroke of the torture curse for a few instant before releasing him. `` You will utter ! There has been too much between us, you have been my enemy for too long for me to let you end it this way. You will receipt that I have won, you will say it ! You will know this victory in some way before I kill you with your own sceptre ! ``

Dumbledore did n't even look at the dark Jehovah. In a rage Voldemort slashed his scepter through the air, dragging Dumbledore to his feet.

'' You will speak ! '' The snake in the grass like face was set with vicious anger. `` You will speak before you die ! ``

'' I ... '' Dumbledore wet his lips and tried again. `` I am set up to die. ``

'' What ? ``

'' I am ready ... '' Dumbledore closed his eyes. `` I am make to die for everything I have done. Those are my cobbler's last words, the only ones you will get. shoot down me. ``

'' You ... Cruci ... '' Voldemort raised his wand to take form the curse but let it die on his lips. Snape could almost see him dragging his emotions back under control. `` But of course, how could I traverse a endure asking. Avada Kedavra ! ``

It was as if time froze. The pool exploded with green lightness again and Snape's pharynx closed, every muscle tensing. The other watchers around the consortium held their script to their faces, or excite there head ... they would not conceive it. The Green River igniter faded and the eubstance of Albus Dumbledore dropped to the reason. It crumpled like a paper diaper, his beard trailing onto the flooring like a rag.

So fell Albus Dumbledore. Snape felt a humble helping hand worm into his. Natalie 's hand. He did n't know whether she was offering comfort or asking for it. Perhaps both.

'' Here dies Albus Dumbledore. '' Voldemort laughed. `` A mark to the end, and in the end a disappointment. So there you are, two hostages drained. I have eight left and all will die if you do not hold me what I want. I want Harry ceramicist. Bring him to me in one half-hour or I will kill another, perhaps the werewolf. I am for certain no one will miss him. But if any of you wish to see these wizards alive, then you know what you must do. impart. Me. Harry. Potter ! ``

The pocket billiards went bleak and Snape stepped back. All around him people seemed to be going mad, crying and shouting to one another in confusion. His optic were only trying to happen one figure. Harry Potter. He swept the gang. Nothing.

Snape turned to the entree in time to see the doors snap shut.
*


The nameless boy crashed out of the phone box and dashed away, his feet slipping on the wet pavement. Rain splattered against his expression as he ran out into the streets. He did n't even have sex why he was running, just that he had to get away. All of them would attend to him, would look at him and expect to see Harry Potter. gestate to see their savior, when all there was was a fraud. He dashed past the mass in the street, some of them turning to reckon at his odd clothing and panicked expression, but he was running too fast and they were left behind.

He heedlessly ran into the road and heard the shrieking of breaks. He prayed that one of the railroad car would hit him. His ft would not hold on moving and the phone of horns was left behind. His magic eye painted the Earth in shimmering curtains of shadower, distorted by the raindrops settling on it 's surface. He pushed past a man in a wooing and heard the man yell. He could n't end running play. Had to get away. But what he was running from could not be escaped. He was running from realism. The rainwater ran like a river. Roaring like the river.

Finally, with his heart and soul beating like a jack-hammer, he collapsed on the cold, wet pavement. He lay there, his feet still twitching, and breathed. He had collapsed in an alleyway, dark and dirty. delay ...

He turned to lie on his spinal column as his conjuring trick eye swivelled around, taking in every detail. He had been here before ... This was the alley where it all started, where Hagrid had caught him so many years ago. There was the drainpipe he had climbed ... the roof he had hid ... He had come a good circle, entirely.

Heedless of the drive rainfall he opened his mouth and laughed. Laughed in pure bitter. If only he had never stopped here, had never been caught, had never gone to Hogwarts. Then he would never have known, would never feature known any of this. He would have been capable to prevent on being Harry Potter. He felt tear running down his cheeks and mingling with the rain, freezing him to the bone.

But there was warmheartedness. A petty point of heating system at his chest. He dug his paw into his shirt and slowly drew it out.

His pendent. Pythea's pendent. Worn so long he had almost forgotten it was there. But now it was glowing like a wiz, so bright beneath the Gy sky. He knelt and held it cupped in both helping hand, staring at it in wonder as a silver mist swirled out from the peak. It pooled in his handwriting, swirling and sifting. Slowly the sparkling liquid rose, shaped and colored and separated until two orbs hung in the air by his paw. One of burnished Au, the other pure white.

'' Harry ... ''

The egg white orb shifted, moved and expanded. It shaped into a pattern, every curve glowing with light, every flowing note of her staring white dress and her porcelain skin.

'' Thea ... '' He breathed.

'' Harry I wish I could have come sooner. '' Theia stepped forward and encased his hands in hers.

'' Another illusion- ''

'' No. '' Pythea shook her head. `` This is no illusion. This is really me talking, from Greece. I thought you might call for my aid. ``

'' Your ... help ? ``

'' You 're lost. Lost in the woods. '' Thea smiled faintly. The golden orb was still circling her, pulsing faintly. `` And I am the prophesier. I thought you might involve a template out. That was why I gave you this all those eld ago, to serve you find your way. In your darkest 60 minutes. You need to find your way again Harry, or else were all doomed. ``

'' Thea, '' The boy ducked his head, his centre squeezing shut. `` I 'm not who you think I am. I 'm not the one you were trying to help, not the chosen one. I 'm not- ''

'' I know who you are. '' Pythea said simply.

'' You ... you do ? But then why ? ``

'' Harry did you think I was helping you all these years because you were the chosen one ? '' Thea laughed lightly, her crystal interpreter filling the nullity between the construction with joy. `` I was n't helping you because you were Harry Potter I was helping you because you were you. ``

'' Do n't address me that. Do n't bid me Harry. ``

'' It 's your name if you want it to be. Or chose another name. '' Pythea smiled. `` When I first met you you were calling yourself Jack. ``

'' Stop. '' Too terrible. computer memory of pleasant times,

'' I will not stop. I will never stop trying to help you. I knew the minute I met you that you were n't the take one. I mean please Harry, I 'm the fancy woman of vaticination. Did you honestly think for a moment that I would overlook a thing like that ? I saw who you were. I also saw that, in a world without promise, you were the only polishing chance. ``

'' You ... you saw something about me ? My future tense ? ``

'' I saw naught about your future tense. I saw everything about you. '' Pythea knelt to match him eye to eye. `` I saw you a brave and rightful soul who would fight for this world even if the integral world was against him. I saw someone who could get struck down a thousand times and would still plunk himself up. I saw that the dark lord would prove and I hoped ... I did n't know but I hoped that you would never heave before him. With the world in jeopardy and the futurity uncertain I took the honest fortune the existence had. I took a hazard on you. In a time of everlasting despair, I trusted you. ``

'' But, I ca n't fight back anymore. '' The boy dropped his eye. `` I just ... I just feel empty. You do n't know what it 's like to have someone walk up to you and snatch your intact life history, everything you believe, right out from under you. ``

'' I do. '' Pythea replied simply.

"Really ?"Harry swallowed."Wh ... what did you do ?"

"I gave him a necklace."Pythea smiled. `` But I do n't await you to accept what you have to do from me, which is why I brought him. '' Pythea gestured up to the golden sphere. `` You've carried this necklace close to your heart for almost four years now. I think it's clip you saw what's inside. Do n't die Harry, please do n't die. I 'll see you soon. '' She faded into null, leaving just the gold orb left. As soon as she was gone it began stretching and shaping.

'' Um what do I do ? '' An uncertain vox came from the growing swarm of mist. `` I just speak into it ? ``

The shape resolved into a figure. His yearn robes were buttoned tightly and long sleeve, rolled up now to depict his arms. Those robes were familiar. Tonks had worn them last yr, auror trainee robes. The boldness remained misty for a second more than then coalesced, becoming a firm model in golden twinkle, right down to the last tousled hair.

The boy who had been Harry 's mouth fell open in shock. He was looking up into his own face. No ... no there were remainder. The jaw was more show, sharper, the middle closer together. He did n't have a cicatrix on his neck, nor a dark brand on his arm. He looked older too, at to the lowest degree two years if he was an aurors apprentice. God ... was it possible ? Was this ... Harry Potter ?

'' I do n't quite empathise this. '' The ghostly gilded figure said. `` Your friend, Pythea, she says that you 're in a different world or ... or dimension or something. A different meter too. I do n't tranquilize understand it, need Hermione for that sort of thing. ``

'' So do I ... '' A murmured whisper. Disbelief.

'' Your friend says I wo n't remember recording this, wo n't remember any of it. '' The figure was just staring into space as it spoke. Apparently this one was a true recording. `` But if ... if I understand what she 's explained to me then your world is very different from mine. For one thing ... I 'm not in it. I died. ``

The gold Harry glanced to the floor, shaking his head.

'' I wish I knew why but ... your friend wo n't secernate me. Something about lessening the interference as much as possible. There are early matter I wish I could tell you, things you really should live about- '' The recording skewed like static for a moment then continued. `` But apparently I 'm not allowed to say them either. All she 's told me is that you, you were told you were me. Until very recently you thought you were me ... or will. The time thing is really confusing me. I 'm recording this in my futurity, to be given to you in your past tense, to meet in your pose. Apparently Pythea thinks that maybe I can say something to you .... maybe explain ... I do n't know. I do n't know what I 'm saying. I ca n't imagine what you 're going through. It 's like ... It 's like you 're an orphan all over again. Except this clock time it 's worse because you know you had a retiring it 's just been taken. I know you must find like crawling into a muddle and death, I 've felt like that. When my godfather died I ... but that 's not the same really. I do n't recognise what I 'm saying. ``

The ghostly name began pacing up and down.

'' I do n't eff what I 'm supposititious to say to you. '' The Harry stopped pacing and diffuse his hands. `` Except that, that it gets better. I 've been through things as bad as you, and I 'm probably the only someone you 'll ever run across that can say that. Your friend says that, since I 'm dead in your worldly concern, the job of fighting Voldemort falls to you. I ca n't say it'going to be gentle, but you know that. In fact I ca n't think of anything that I could say to persuade you to lease the job. Except that you have to. The existence depends on it. And I know that the public has n't done you any favor. Maybe right now you feel like you 'd rather let the world be destroyed for everything it 's done to you. I do n't know what I can say to convince you that 's not true except for two things. One, it gets better. It really, really does. Eventually. And two ... ''

The shadower figures licked it 's lips.

'' Do you know how many regularisation are broken by this kind of inter-dimensional transit ? Certain countries still have the death penalisation for messing around in parallel of latitude human beings. Just getting here, the effort it must induce taken. The risks your Friend has taken just to get this message to you .... I guess what I 'm saying is that even if the intact rest of the public is Hell right now you 've got one person who 's willing to take chances everything for you. Risk her life. So if nothing else ... fight for her. ``

The figure faded. It 's eyes lasted the longest, staring out into the rain, then they too were gone and the skittle alley was dark again. The boy on the ground stood, slowly and with tending, but he stood.

'' Wow ... '' He said softly. `` What a dork. ``

He chuckled to himself, the laughter construction. His hands went to his breadbasket as he threw his straits back and laughed, the rain trickling down his typeface. That was Harry ceramist was it ? Git. I mean who talks like that ? screw propeller him. Screw the too dramatic, hesitant love child. If that childish gimboid can pull through the world I sure as hellhole can.

He pushed his rain soaked hair out of his eyes. It was like the emptiness was, somehow ramify. It was still there, the gaping vacuum, it was just that all the authoritative persona of him, the things that made him who he was, were outside it. He settled the little plate necklace back around his neck. Just a cuticle now, it's magic gone. But not wearing it was unthinkable. It was part of him, the very him, and he needed it back. Especially since he intended to peck the biggest fight of his life.

He needed a plan though .... and if he was going to survive a scrap with the swell disconsolate ace in the Earth it would postulate to be a bloody expert program. Or a bloody insane one. Let's see, he had no advantages. Voldemort held all the add-in. Voldemort could pour down him without thinking. And Voldemort had hostages. On the other hired hand Voldemort was alone, he had no demise eater, no dark wight, no servants.

Whatever plan he came up with it would follow down to just the two of them. A fair combat. Which he would lose.

So make it an unfair fight.

His lip curled into a smiling. There it was, there was the estimation. A Harry ceramicist plan.

Smiling, he walked out of the bowling alley. He picked up his pace and he reached the street, how much of his half hour was gone ? He had lost all track of meter. He broke into a run. He knew he should go faster but he would facilitate no one if he was to tired to press. It seemed an age until the headphone box came into view, sticking up out of the street. Harry got in, then pressed the code on the receiver.

"Welcome to the ministry of deception. Please res publica your name and business."The headphone said flatly.

"Harry Potter."Said Harry smiling."I ‘ m here to save the world."

The machine apparently took him a little too literally as ...
Harry thrower
christ


... Clattered into the grasshopper. Harry didn't bother to pick it up. If he didn't know who he was now no badge was gon na recite him. He dissilusioned himself before the doors slid open again and stepped out into the ministry antechamber. There was a level of organized chaos and another liberal degree of disorganised chaos. Harry ignored it and his magic eye picked out the marauder. The were all clustered in one shoes. Harry wandered over to them and quietly said,

"Don ‘ t movement. Don ‘ t give them and sign you ‘ re hearing me. Just come over here behind that chimney where we can ‘ t be seen."

The vulture's stiffened, but to their credit none of them gave the plot away. Harry followed them as they slowly rose and nonchalantly wandered behind the monumental fireplace. Once they were all behind Harry dropped his delusion and smiled at his friends.

"Hi guys. I ‘ m back."

"Harry are you ..."Hermione began, then paused."Are you ... feeling better ?"

"I ‘ m sorry for yelling at you, at all of you. And yes I ‘ m ... I ‘ m better."The empty place in his chest begged to dissent but he ignored it."I ‘ m feeling .... I ‘ m better."

"Harry what did Dumbledore say to-"Padma began but Harry cut her off.

"There ‘ s no fourth dimension, how very much clock time we got until the get-go hostage goes ?"

"Five minutes."Draco pointed at the clock.

"Good that ... that might be enough."

"You ‘ re going to fight him aren ‘ t you ?"Neville asked in a small interpreter."You ‘ re going down to fight him."

"Yes."Harry nodded, and there was a sudden intake of breath from the marauders."But I have a plan ! Seriously guys, it ‘ s ok. I have a plan."

"Do you recall how badly some of your other program have gone ?"Padma asked dryly.

"Oh please, you know I blank those from my memory."Harry grinned."Anyway I need three affair. things I need your help with."

"You got it Harry."Ginny went into unplayful mode."Whatever you need."

"well firstly I ‘ ll need a wand."Harry bit his lip."And I can ‘ t warrantee you ‘ ll get it back."

A forest of hands were stretched out towards him. Every single wand. Harry picked one at random and tried a simple charm. It was stuttery and faint. No unspoilt. He picked another and almost set his fuzz on attack. The third the spell came out right but the wand felt weird. The quarter ... Harry did first one spell then another ... then another ... they all came out perfect. His middle came up to foregather Malfoy's greyish ones.

"Keep it."The Slytherin boy nodded."I can afford a new one."

"Thank you."Harry pocketed the baton."The back thing I need is healing. Just a speedy refresher. I ‘ m to tired and know up to contend like this."

"Here."Ginny drew a bottle out of her gown."I swiped it from the triage gist. I thought you might take it if you came back."

Harry took the nursing bottle with a grin and tipped it back into his mouth. The warm chocolaty liquid seemed to drain into every aching muscle and bone, making him feel like he was well rested and healthy rather than at the edge of weariness.

"And thirdly we need to make something."Harry handed the bottle back."It ‘ ll be tricky but if I handle the spell and soul else does the transfig we should be capable to get by it. Oh ! And I ‘ ve thought of a fourth thing. I ‘ ll need a distraction."
*


"Here ! Look !"Snape was shocked out of his thoughts by the yell. His eyes found the source in the young Weasley tike, crouched down by the natural spring. Ginny was furiously jabbing at the pond, waving him over. `` It 's going shed light on again. I can see something ! '' Snape dashed over, staring down into the inky darkness. He could see nothing.

'' Where ? '' Snape asked hurriedly.

'' There, there by the recession. ``

'' I see nothing. ``

'' tone. ``

'' girl Weasley there is nothing there. ``

'' There was ! ``

'' There is not now- '' Snape 's eyes flickered up to meet those of his scholar. A spark of memory twitched behind those eyes. He pushed ... No ! Snape spun and dashed to the lift, but the grate was already slamming shut. Snape came crashing up against the ward. The sorcerous barrier sparking against his peel like stable. He could n't get through. Before his eyes the dissilusionment fell and Harry ceramist was standing there, looking back at him. Snape felt citizenry crowding all around, murmuring, speaking, crying. All pressed up to one side of the barrier, and on the other ... just Harry.

'' Harry, please. '' Snape held his helping hand out to the wall of the Montgomery Ward. `` Do n't do this. ``

'' Eight people. '' The kid shrugged. `` octonary people or me. Choice is pretty obvious. ``

'' goosey boy. You do n't have to do this. ``

'' I know I do n't. '' Harry nodded, a syncope grin on his aspect. `` I 'm doing it anyway. Wish me hazard. ``

The lift started down. Snape held Harry 's eyes all the way till he was out of sight. Right at the end, just before he disappeared, Snape could have sworn he saw a wink.
*


The lift grating slid open and Harry stepped warily out into the corridor. The wreckage of battle was everywhere, with child gouges gone from the walls and door blown off their hinges. This was n't the section of mysteries yet though. Just the courtrooms. Harry 's eye whirled wildly as he picked his way around the wreckage. The doorway to the department came into view, a blank rectangle at the end of a farseeing corridor. Harry could see nothing beyond the threshold, not even with his magic eye. Some sort of shelter must gallop around the section of mysteries. For the sake of his plan he hoped it did n't extend inside the department too. Harry raised his baton to his cervix and spoke the sonerous charm.

'' Tom conundrum ! '' Harry 's amplified voice shook the bricks in the walls. `` I 'm here. '' There was a import 's wait, then.

'' Welcome Mr ceramist. '' A similarly booming voice sounded down the hallway. `` I was not sure as shooting you would arrive. ``

'' Why would I stay away Tommy boy. We 're like old supporter. '' Harry was poised to run at any moment if this went unseasonable. `` You 've got eight people in there. Those people deserve to get out, so lets make a deal, gentleman 's understanding between friends. I go in. All of them go out. ``

"Those are the terms I gave."Voldemort sounded amused.

Harry waited in silence for a moment ... then the threshold at the end of the corridor swung open air. Grinning quietly to himself, Harry walked in. The scene was just as it had been reflected in the pool, the logical argument of captives, the wreckage, and Voldemort standing in the mall. The body of Fudge and Dumbledore were lying where they fell. The elbow room was the rotary room, the spinning room. Rookwood had taken him through it earlier. But it was n't spinning now, some of the doors had been knocked off their hinge and he could see into the way beyond.

'' Seen everything you need to Mr potter ? '' Voldemort asked icily. `` Taken in all the information ? ``

'' Yep, '' Harry replied chirpily. `` So ... the prisoners. ``

'' Of course. '' Voldemort gestured mildly. The chains on the prisoner crashed to the ground.

'' Go on guy wire. '' Harry stood out of the way so they could get to the threshold. `` Get out of here. '' Slowly, the prisoners began to scuffle towards the door.

"They ‘ ll be able to get out ?"Harry asked."Past the ward ?"

"In only stops the great unwashed from entering, not from leaving."

'' Ok, fine. Wait ! '' Harry held up a hand, then pointed to Lupin and a muscular looking auror. `` Fudge and Dumbledore, pack them up with you. ``

Lupin set to cradle the physical structure of his teacher and lifted him up. As he passed Harry on the way out their centre met. Lupin leant down to Harry 's ear and whispered,

'' I hope he kills you. '' Harry had to laugh. Some things did n't change.

As the last man trouped out Harry pushed the door shut and locked it. The labored dash sliding into lieu sounded like a hammer.

'' well Mr ceramist. '' Voldemort smiled like a snake. `` It is down to just you and me. The kings in our little Bromus secalinus game. The pawn are gone, the rooks are taken. Now it is just down to you and me. ``

"Have you never even played chess game ?"Harry quirked an eyebrow."If all you have is the two power that 's a standstill Hydra face. You ca n't checkmate with one king."

"I was being metaphorical."

Harry rolled his eyes and picked a clear outer space of flooring. He pointed his scepter down.

'' Calx. '' A chalk channel appeared on the floor. Harry drew his scepter around in a rough rectangle then stepped back and measured his handwork by eye. `` Tommy boy afford me your opinion. Does that look like xiv foundation to you ? ``

'' What in Merlin 's gens are you doing ? ``

'' Well we have to have a duel. '' Harry shrugged. `` might as well do it by the book. ``

'' A rule wizard 's duel ? '' Voldemort seemed almost ready to chuckle. `` My my Mr Potter I can not tell you how refreshing it is to oppose against you and not Dumbledore. It is ... so gratifying to be surprised. ``

'' I am irregular. '' Harry shrugged and stepped up to the middle of the rectangle. He put his wand into his pocket and held his hand away from it to show he was n't touching it. `` But I believe that the next dance step is to bow to one another. Like gentlemens. ``

'' This will be interesting. '' Voldemort smiled and stepped up to the dueling platform, similarly holstering his wand. `` I hope your protagonist are enjoying this. ``

'' What are you ... '' Harry paused. `` Are they watching ? ``

'' Of form. ``

'' Hmm ... '' Harry grinned up at the roof. `` Hope you like this guys. It 's going to be one hell of a appearance. ``

'' Shall we get started ? '' Voldemort stepped up to the center of the rectangle and bowed. Harry bowed in turn, then stuck out his hand.

'' We part as supporter. '' Harry smiled. Voldemort chuckled wryly and encircled Harry 's hired hand in his own. Harry pulled forward and hugged the offend dark lord. He released him quickly and laughed. `` Tom Riddle it 's been a pleasure, and an honor. ``

'' Surprising to the end. '' Voldemort murmured.

'' I believe it 's seven paces ? '' Harry turned and heard Voldemort do the same. `` One ... ''

'' Two ... ''

'' Three ... ''

'' Stupefy ! '' Harry whirled and jabbed his wand. The spell flared across the elbow room. Just before it hit the dark lord seemed to flicker and melt into mist. The spell passed right through his vertebral column and exploded in discharge against the wall. Voldemort turned and rematerialized, a mocking leer on his grimace,

'' Jumping the counting Mr Potter ? That was your masterful plan ? ``

'' Worth a pellet. ``

'' No, Mr Potter. It was not. ``

'' Call me Harry. ``

'' I will not. '' Voldemort raised his wand. `` Goodbye Mr Potter. I wish you all the secure in the following world. Avada Kedavra ! ``

Harry closed his eyes and smiled as a flash of light filled the room.



Review or the evil Gallus gallus with the DEAD oculus that only I can see will wipe out me.


A lot of people seem unhappy about my frequent cliffhangers. Well it got you to review did n't it ?





The Light snapped off and Harry opened his eyes. Voldemort was staring down at the matter in his hand.

'' Hmm ... '' Harry frowned in mock confusion. `` Your wand appears to suffer turned into a crybaby. ``

The chicken managed to liberate itself and dropped to the storey. It took a look at the two virtuoso on either side of it and wisely decided to be elsewhere. Squawking and flapping it scampered through an open door.

"Was it, meant to turn into a wimp ?"Harry tapped his chin thoughtfully."Is this some domestic fowl variant of the killing curse I was not previously cognizant of ? Is that a chicken of death ? Or perhaps ..."Harry's hand dipped into his pouch."Were you looking for ... this wand."

Voldemort's eyes went wide.

"I mean for god ‘ s sake mate. Never let a cutpurse hug you."Harry chuckled."I mean that ‘ s just stupid."

The dark noble's hand twitched to his pocket.

"Oh face !"Harry drew something else from his gown."And here ‘ s your former wand. How did that get in there ? Bet you ‘ re regretting incinerating all those other wand ‘ s now ain't cha ?"

"Potter you ..."Voldemort boiled with choler."You ... you ... you ..."

"Me. Me. Me."Harry grinned like a Panthera tigris."The lesson of the story Tommy boy is this : Don ‘ t you EVER mess with a vulture because we can lay to rest you. And we never lose."

"Potter I will-"

"Shut up."Harry stabbed his wand forward, keeping the other two condom in his left hand."Shut your ugly murdering face. Happy, civil, ‘ lets all be B.F.F.s ‘ fourth dimension is officially over. Now is the time for the other thing. The bloody hate filled conflict that culminates with the killing of you."

"You think you can win ?"Voldemort hissed out through clenched teeth."Even without a baton I am still the dark God Almighty. I am still more than a catch for you."

"Evens the playing field a bit though doesn ‘ t it."Harry cracked his neck opening first to one side, then another."So come on Snake River face. Hit me. Hit me with your full shot."

The dark Divine hissed, his finger clenching into claws. Then a moment later he exploded into smoke, whisking away through an unresolved door. What the ? Harry 's conjuring trick eye focused through the wall, onto the floor in the next way. On the floor next to a prone trunk was-

verge !

Harry 's invertebrate foot moved of their own accord and skidded across the floor to the door. His own wand lashed out.

'' Difindo ! '' The scepter on the story snapped just as the cloud coalesced around it and but Harry was already moving again. His eye fashioning walls and doors meaningless. Another dead body, another wand ! He felt the sess behind him, catching up.

He rolled as it passed overhead and snarled, `` Tempesto ! '' The cloud convulsed as wind lashed through it but it stayed together, swirling and reforming like ink. Harry dashed along the floor and snapped the wand up from beside the pile of robe that was all that was left of the dupe of an inferi. He skidded to a stop, his eye dancing madly to find oneself any remaining wand ... nothing in the prophecy room ...

The cloud circled, reeking of malevolence. Harry could almost palpate Voldemort doing the same check that he was, using saturnine magic to find any remaining weapon. The cloud contracted then shoot away like a calamari. Harry was off and after it in a second, a 2d more and his eye had found it's target. The end chamber, a wand rolled into a crack in the floor. Harry pelted through the corridor, the black smoke ahead of him. Too far ! Too quick !

Harry threw another crack ahead of him, kicking up shards of dust but the moment it reached the cloud it was squashed like a frog. The current of air going flat in mid air. The smoke disappeared under a door and Harry crashed through it a bit later. The sceptre ! Right there ! Voldemort reappeared with a thunderbolt and jabbed his hand forward. The wand leapt from the floor and spun towards the nighttime lord. Harry aimed desperately,

"Ferio !"

There was a chap from the air and sliver clattered on the floor. The night Creator's hired man snapped back like he'd been stung.

"That ‘ s the terminal of them snake-face."Harry panted. Keeping his wand trained on the dark Almighty he stepped down the steps till he was adjacent to the fluttering arch. He picked the three wands he'd acquired out of his pocket and chucked them through the humeral veil. The coloured cloth fluttered for a consequence, then went still."All wand ‘ s out of child's play, except for my one. And the only way you ‘ re getting that is to pry it from my moth-eaten dead hands."

"What an excellent prompting Mr Potter."

Harry had just a moments warning before the orb of iniquity flew from the darkness God Almighty's hand. Harry spun behind the arch and ducked down.

"Accio !"The bench behind Voldemort shot forward towards his head. The dark lord spun and shattered it with a hissed curse."Jupitall !"The ball-lightning hissed from Harry's sceptre and forced the darkness noble to sidestep to the side. The orb exploded against the wall, filling the room with sparks. Voldemort spun and cried,

"Garta !"

Harry felt the flagstones beneath his substructure disappear and he plummeted into darkness. He jabbed his wand straight up.

"Hammus Missus !"Chain shot up and slammed into the ceiling far above."Rapellet !"The string felt like it jerked his arm out of its socket as it pulled him up into the light. As he shot from the footing like a bullet a Lucille Ball of iniquity flew towards him.

Someone not expecting it would have been hit. mortal without a magic eye.

Harry kicked off the edge of the archway and swung out of the way. He let go of the chain and aimed at the glowering figure below him.

"Avada Kedavra !"The green light left him stunned but he landed like a cat on the side of the maltreat sports stadium. The killing expletive blew a hole in the paries but Voldemort was dashing away, disappearing through a threshold."ejaculate back you slimy coward !"Harry was laughing with bloodlust and raced after him, his eye tracking him through the labyrinth of student residence. Harry dashed back through the entrance hall and pellet into a yearn elbow room of desks. Voldemort's fleeing dark was just seeable at the other end.

"Avada Kedavra !"The nightmare curse sped through the wreckage but Voldemort spun and summoned a desk into it's path. The explosion filled the air with emerald spark. Three dash of lightning thundered through the plosion and Harry threw himself to the face. One of them grazed past his leg and he bit back a cry of infliction. A freeze out charm numbed the burnt flesh as Harry furiously dashed after the dark lord. As he skidded to a stoppage in the vestibule of vaticination the dark lord disappeared. Harry furiously glanced one way then the other, but neither eye could piece up a shadow. A wisp of radius curled around one of the ledge, only to evaporate a import later. Harry cursed, the eye wasn't so good for immaterial things. He slowly turned, letting his eyes sweep through the interruption between the ledge. Voldemort was in here somewhere. Harry closed the door and whispered a cruel trap on anyone who tried to get through it. Voldemort wouldn't be able-bodied to interrupt it, some things required a wand.

Harry walked slowly out into the prophecy hall. The glass spheres had not escaped the carnage of the engagement, many were left in glittering shards on the marble floor. The small cinch of glass cracked under his boots. Was that smoke ? Harry 's spunk hammered in his bureau. Was that a-

FIREBALL ! Harry spun and yelled,

'' Ferio ! '' The hex blasted into a spinning orb of flames, exploding it in the air and throwing Harry backwards into a shelf. The wood buckled and Harry fell through backwards in a great deal of burning splinters. There was an minacious creaking sound and Harry had to sputter to get out of the way of the collapsing shelf. Orbs of shining roll of tobacco bounced off his shoulders and shattered on the trading floor, their whiteness smoke spilling out and going inky-black disastrous like swirls of midnight.

Harry 's eye swirled and he just caught a glance of the dark robed figure before he dissolved again. Harry picked himself up and held himself at readiness. This was like a bloody gunplay, it was all about who was quicker to the draw. Unfortunately Voldemort did n't actually accept to draw ... The air moved, Harry moved faster.

'' Symplegades ! '' Voldemort appeared out of nowhere but Harry had already cast his spell. The shelves crashed together as if drawn by attractor. The dark lord 's shadowy form was trapped between them. Before Harry could upchuck another spell the shelves exploded outwards, Voldemort stepping out wreathed in flaming. He raised his paw, about to become hummer again. Harry stabbed his scepter out again.

'' Tartrate ! '' It was a wild stab in the dark. The charm was used to make liquid into jelly. Voldemort stumbled, his form blurring a moment but not turning to smoke. `` Avada Kedavra ! ``

The shadow lord threw his hand forward and a slab of the marble floor was thrown into the air to get the curse. Voldemort hissed and the flack behind him bound up into a tower of flaming, curling and splitting into a glowing red snaked school principal. The serpent roared and bit forward, it 's dentition dripping with melt down venom.

'' Excalabus ! '' Harry slashed through the burning at the stake specter but his polishing sword slipped through it like piss, leaving not a scratch. The Hydra struck forward like a viper and Harry dropped to the floor, his eyebrow charring off his aspect. `` Ardor-Algidus ! '' Harry yelled the flame freezing charm and leapt up into the red region monster. He stabbed his scepter at the shadow beyond the perdition and yelled the killing whammy again. The redness flashed to green and Harry could see the shadow lord 's shocked expression as he had to hedge a spell from within his own creation.

Harry did n't present him an column inch, he threw himself forward, shot another curse at his off residual enemy and found a cloud of dark knife flying in his side. He dropped to the floor and heard them clatter behind him. He threw himself to the face but the knife jerked to pursue him. He grabbed a plank of shelf from the floor and reel it in front of him, hearing the heavy thunk of the blades impacting the wood. Harry spun to present the darkness Godhead and banished the knives towards him. Voldemort waved his hand distastefully and the knives melted into smoke.

The nighttime lord was panting, breath hissing in and out through his lipless mouth.

'' You can not win. '' He hissed, angriness and arrogance battling for prominence in his vocalization. `` You must realize that YOU CAN NOT WIN ! ``

'' Shut. Up. Wanker. '' Harry gasped through heavy breaths.

'' You are just extending your suffering ! ``

'' Is n't that what life is all about ? '' Harry drew himself up, grinning. `` And besides- Ferio ! '' The spell caught the darkness lord by surprise, smacking into his shoulder joint with a bone splintering crevice. Voldemort roared and Harry felt the story under his feet buckle and rumble. He flipped backwards as the ground where he had been standing became a swirling quicksand pit, ready to draw him down into it 's depths. Harry danced backwards as stone upon Isidor Feinstein Stone became suckle end. His feet hit a ledge and he clambered up like a spider. The ledge lurched as it began to drop into the Lucy Stone. Harry spun, holding on with one hand and leapt to another towering shelf just before the one he had been standing on was obliterated in a cloud of glowering lightning.

It was n't safe up here. Harry clambered to the top and dashed along the slanting Wood. Being up here made him too much of a target. Harry 's eye spun to find oneself the dark Creator and he almost fell off in shock as he found Voldemort hovering up from the land with execution in his middle. The bastard could fly !

'' Tempesto ! '' Harry 's tornado sprung out of nowhere, drawing sand from the floor and filling the air with yellow-white metric grain. Harry called another twister, and another. The dark Jehovah disappeared in the dust storm. Disappeared to rule eye that is. `` Avada Kedavra ! '' Harry shot through the murkiness at the tail in the air and dashed away along the top of his ledge, he leapt across to the adjacent one just before a lightning bolt flashed through the air behind him. The dark lord could not see him in all this but he could see where his trance were coming from. Only a fool attacked and stayed in the Sami blank space ... unless ...

'' Acerbus cuspis ! '' Harry called the pain spears, flashing out in their irksome fan. He twisted them in the air like a snake to shine the dark Godhead from both face. He was rewarded with a ululation of pain as one of the shining bolts struck home. Harry cast again but the dark Maker summoned a silver carapace. `` Motus ! '' Harry did n't even receive to think. He just struck out and made the fearsome orb vibrate with unbearable noise. He twisted to find the sonorousness but Voldemort was slyer than A. A. Michelson and cancelled the orb. Harry turned to run but the dark lord was immediate and lightning caught his arm, burning like blaze. Harry lost his footing and dropped off the side of meat of the teetering shelf.

Harry spun his twister and blew himself up into the air again, shooting like a rag-doll through the sirocco until his finger's breadth caught the sharpness of a shelf and he held on for dear life. He pulled himself up and tried to place upright, his eye spinning to find the wickedness Divine. There he was, but what-

'' Ulkaa Avaskanda ! '' The shrill cold voice of the shadow Maker shouted out of the storm, then. `` Finite Syrtis ! ``

The sand vanished like mist but Harry had larger problems. He leapt into the air as rock music the size of gondola obliterated the shelf behind him. His feet hit another shelf but it was already shattering and falling. Harry 's wand whipped out and a hook shot impacted into the roof. Harry swung out over the expanse of nothingness. A bowlder came hurtling out of nowhere but Harry still had his storm.

The winding pulled him out of the route of the meteor with a whisk of his wand and he let go of the chain, catapulting himself onto a standing shelf. He leapt again and saw two boulders hurtling towards him. His wand flashed out again and one rock veered into the path of the other, shattering them both to fragments. Harry felt the wood beneath him shift again and this prison term let it carry him down a moment before leaping off and dropping to another collapsing ledge, his eye found unbendable terms and he jumped again as the last shelf collapsed into splinters.

Harry dropped to the top of a plenty of wreckage. A pile three times as tall as he was and full of humbled woodwind, shattered meth and the smouldering remains of spent boulder. Harry waited while the last of the crashing and clattering stopped, then folded his arms.

Voldemort was hovering in the air floor with Harry. The dark lord slowly floated down to the floor ( which Harry idly noted was back to being marble ) and settled back down onto his feet. Harry watched with a stooping brow. Voldemort 's tooth clenched in rage as he stared up at Harry standing on his pedestal of ruin.

'' What are you ? '' Voldemort sneered through his tooth. `` You should not be active ! No human should be active ! ``

'' What makes you think I 'm human snake nerve ? '' Harry smiled evilly. `` Are n't you the one who 's always saying we 're better than bare person ? ``

'' DO NOT MOCK ME ! ``

'' But you make it so soft ! '' Harry put his custody on his hips. `` Anyway, it 's hard not to mock you when I 'm winning ! ``

'' YOU ARE NOT WINNING ! ``

'' I 'm not loosing. '' Harry grinned. The sinister lord 's fists clenched but he said nix. Harry smiled. `` Of trend, you could surrender. ``

'' Surrender ? '' Voldemort spat the Scripture. `` Surrender to you ! ? ``

'' Hey Paraguay tea, you 're the one that wants to live forever. '' Harry cracked his knuckles. `` You wo n't subsist forever if you surrender but I can guarantee you 'll last farseeing than if you keep fighting. Not a lot retentive but still ... ''

'' I ask again Mr Potter ! '' Voldemort raised an accusing finger. `` What are you ? ``

'' Me ? I 'm the runner of the roofs at Night. '' Harry laughed. `` The submarine of the stock war. The only survivor of the violent stream of years and the Hogwarts triwizard virtuoso. ``

'' But- ''

'' I 'm the mirror-blade, '' Harry spread his weapons system wide. `` ophidian 's curse and wolf-slayer. I 'm the sea rover of the Spirit of Njordr."

"You-"

"And, to my suffering, I am Dumbledore 's little changeling child."

"What-"

"But that does n't matter because I 'm also a marauder ! Invincible cutthroat love child and badass extraordinaire ! I. Am. Harry. potter ! The choosing one ! '' Harry trained his wand on the night nobleman, his face set in unshakable firmness. `` That is why you should cede. Right now. Or I swear on this hatful of prophecy that I will sunburn you from this earth. ``

Voldemort took an involuntary step backwards, faltering before Harry 's stare.

'' Last chance. '' Harry snarled. Voldemort straightened up, his eyes burning red.

'' Never. '' The night Almighty hands clenched to fist. `` I will never deliver to a one-half blood boy like you. ``

'' Whatever, '' Harry grinned. `` In that case ... suck it bitch ! Depulso ! '' Harry jammed his scepter straight down and the pile of wreckage exploded out in all directions, the woodwind instrument becoming deadly matchwood and the rock 'n' roll singing out in razor sharp shard. The dark lord threw up a silver medal carapace but Harry was already on the ground. With a flick of his wand the cuticle screeched and Voldemort threw it away from him as if it was red hot. Harry rolled to the position to dodge a spray of fateful eyeball and threw his sceptre up. `` Avada Kedavra ! ``

The shadow Godhead fled through a door and Harry rushed to keep abreast, casting expiry curses before him. Harry vaulted a desk and skidded through a threshold only to find his organic structure rising into the air. A lightning dash grazed his shoulder and Harry was spun around like a top. planet were floating in this room ! There must be some spell screwing with gravity !

Harry shot a hook at Saturn and pulled himself out of the way just before another lightning bolt flashed through the air. Harry jabbed his baton at the sun and yelled,

'' Confringo ! '' The ball of plasm exploded but Harry cast another flame-freezing charm and pushed off Saturn directly into the inferno. From behind the cover of flaming Harry shot a killing curse at the wickedness master but had to turn in the air to block up his head being taken off by a dark blade flickering through the air. He had used the flame-cover trick one too many fourth dimension. fountainhead lets try another.

'' Esurio Esurio ! '' Harry aimed at the spinning red planet next to Voldemort. It grew a gaping mouth and snapped angrily at the wickedness lord, who blew it into fragments but Harry had already trained his wand back on the dark Maker. `` Avada Kedavra ! ``

Voldemort swung a chunk of planet into the path of the spell and fled, pushing open a door Harry had n't even seen. He pushed off the wall and floated weightlessly after him. As soon as he reached the door he dropped to the floor again and raced through, skidding to a stop when he saw where he was.

In total contrast to the rest of the department this room was a sort of zoo. Cages full moon of puppet filled the room up to the ceiling and were stacked in a pile in the middle. Some looked formula, some ... not so lots. Harry shuddered as his eye flickered over a mutated blob of flesh with what he sincerely hoped was not a human arm coming out of it. His witching eye swirled in it 's socket, trying to get a fix on Voldemort but all the life and drift in the way made it tricky.

Harry tried to trace out the elbow room. Long, not so all-embracing ... The door at the early end was closed. That meant that Voldemort was either at the wall behind one of the cages at the side of meat or crouched down behind one of the ones in the middle. Harry grinned,

'' Alohomora ! '' He pointed his wand at the flock of batting cage in the center and all their bars sprung clear. Creatures scattered in every direction. Something that looked like a mutation Hugo Wolf made a starved leap at the Cage to the left wing and was thrown back by a spell. There ! Harry 's wand was trained there in a bit. `` Confringo ! '' The hex blasted the John Milton Cage Jr. out of the way, revealing Voldemort 's gray hide. `` Avada K- '' Harry had to break off the curse to parry behind a desk as more orbs of swarthiness rained through the air. Harry heard a door dig opened and leapt up from where he was crouched. He dashed to the doorway and swung through, his scepter out.

The death chamber ! backrest here ! Harry saw Voldemort just reaching the door at the other side of the indistinctly lit elbow room and aimed his wand.

'' Colloportus ! '' The room access squelched and glowed red. Harry spun and locked the former doorway too. In a moment he had his wand trained back on the dark Almighty. Voldemort was just staring at him from the other side of the vast room, his sass contoured into a sneer. He clearly knew he could erupt the poxy lockup go, but doing so would give Harry the here and now he needed to vote down him. Harry tried to prevent his breath even as he spoke, `` Got you. No more running. ``

'' Then you have signed your own Death warrant. '' Voldemort slowly stepped down the side of the chamber.

'' I doubt that. '' Harry mirrored the darkness overlord and slowly walked down the steps. `` I rarely gestural affair. ``

'' I will spew you through the caul myself. ``

'' What ... ever. '' Harry shrugged. `` I 've had sufficiency of your self important threats. Time for the face-off. Let 's end this. ``

'' naught would please me More Mr Potter ! '' Voldemort reached the bottom of the elbow room. Harry was just a tone behind him. They stared at each other from opposite face of the pedestal that held the arch of the veil. Voldemort 's lip curled up in a leer. `` If I had my wand you would have died long ago. ``

'' That would be why I nicked it. '' Harry chuckled. `` And anyway ... Lumos ! '' Harry jammed his wand towards Voldemort and the ray cut through the dimness like a spotlight. Voldemort threw his helping hand up to protect his eye."Avada Kedavra ! ``

The nighttime Maker dropped to the level, letting the spell pass over his head and jabbed his arm up at the ceiling. The shadower above them became alert, a writhing cauldron of darkness. Harry dodged wildly as a tentacle of night shot down and tried to roll itself around him. Harry felt another grab his leg.

'' Excalabus ! '' The tentacle was sheered off but Harry had been thrown to the floor and had to twine as deadbolt of thunder slammed into the flag where he had been lying. A ball of inkiness caught the English of his leg, simply obliterating flesh and skin. Harry screamed and pulled himself to his infantry, jumping out of the way of another tentacle. He had to get rid of that thing ! He could n't fight it and the dark Jehovah at the like time ! But how to belt down something like that ... How else ? Harry jabbed his wand at the ceiling. `` Avada Kedavra ! '' The putting surface spell impacted the dark creature and it wailed in pain, it 's tentacles going limp.

Harry spun back to face Voldemort just in time for an black orb to take a lump out of his shoulder. He was bleeding too a great deal. Had to end this ! The iniquity lord raised his hand for another dash of lightning. Harry tore two flagstone from the ground and hurled them in the path of the trance, one after the other. The first was blown to matchwood but the second, hidden by the cloud of dust, shot through like a marble discus and crashed with a hideous crunch into Voldemort 's ribcage.

The shadow lord was thrown back, his arm coming up to cradle his injured chest. Harry pressed his advantage and Voldemort was driven back by enchantment after tour. The dark lord was pushed onto to the steps and stumbled back, lying prone against the stone. He seemed exhausted.

'' Avada Ke- ''

"Fulgar Fletch !"The wickedness master 's hired man swung up ! It had been a prank ! Harry saw a swarm of bootleg blades erupt out of zilch and sail towards him. He had no protection ! He could not dodge ! There was just one chance ...

'' Protego ! '' Harry called out desperately and was driven back as the knife clattered against his weak shield. Harry let it go and stepped forward, only to cause his articulatio genus buckle and drop him on the trading floor. What the ? Harry tried to stand but his legs would n't travel. Was this some sort of curse ? Harry looked down and saw the reason.

There was a knife embedded to the hilt in his abdomen. Two more in his leg. Draining rake down his thigh and pooling on the floor.

'' Bloody shield .... '' Harry 's arms dropped down, suddenly too weak. His wand rolled away on the darkness rock. He had n't felt the tongue go in, epinephrine perhaps, but he felt it now. pain in the ass and flame raging out from the fix in his abdomen. `` Bloody ... cuticle .... And I was doing so well ... ''

'' Yes Mr Potter you were. '' The dark lord picked himself up from the steps and dusted his robe off. Now that he had won the friendly, almost fatherly, spirit was back. `` I applaud you. ``

'' I could let beaten you ya know. '' Harry coughed weakly and saw droplets of blood spraying from his mouth. `` The very first spell I threw. Back when I jumped the count. Back when you had the cook wand. If you 'd have just tried to screen like any rule wizard ... I could bear won on the first spell. That was ... that was the plan. ``

'' It was a good plan. '' Voldemort must accept seen no reason to be raging now that he had won. `` Against a normal sensation it would have no doubt worked. ``

'' Damn it. '' Harry raised his hired man to spread his fingers around the knife vane in his stomach, but he could n't stop the blood. His life was draining out onto the floor. The ones in his leg would maim him. The one in his abdomen meant he was dead.

'' Do you have any final words my beloved enemy ? '' Voldemort asked calmly. `` I did not try any satisfactory I from Dumbledore. Anything ? ``

'' Ca n't think of anything ... '' Dark dots swam before Harry 's heart. He had failed. `` Are my friend still watching ? ``

'' Oh yes. '' Voldemort nodded. `` I would not take the wizarding public miss this event. ``

'' Then my conclusion lyric are ... keep fight. '' Harry raised his middle to take on Voldemort 's. `` dungeon fighting him. ``

'' Not very original. '' The wickedness noble shrugged. `` But better than Dumbledore 's. ``

'' And ... '' Blood was pooling beneath Harry 's leg. `` And tell Theia I tried. ``

'' An admirable sentiment. ``

'' That 's ... '' darkness was closing in on Harry. `` That 's all I got. ``

'' Very well. '' Voldemort raised his hand. `` I shall miss you. My ... interesting opposition. '' Voldemort opened his mouth to utter the finish quarrel Harry would ever hear.

'' Wait. '' Harry whispered, he had no strength to speak normally. `` I 've thought of some good finale intelligence. ``

'' Really ? '' Voldemort asked, amused. `` And ? ``

'' The one with the power to vanquish the dark lord will be born as the seventh month dies. '' Harry 's whisper words rang out in the quiet way. `` Born to those who ... those who ... ''

'' have thrice defied him. '' Voldemort prompted, his eyes suddenly desperate. `` Yes ? Yes ? ``

'' Thrice defied him. '' Harry licked his lips, his voice was barely coming out now. `` And the dark Almighty will mark ... will mark him ... ''

'' Yes ? What then ? '' Voldemort leant closing curtain in to listen.

'' crisscross him as his equal ... '' Harry 's lips were barely moving, his Logos just flutter in the air. `` But the dark ... the shadow ... ''

'' Yes ... '' Voldemort put his hands on Harry 's shoulder joint, steadying him. `` Please finish it ! ``

'' The night Maker, shall never ... '' Harry 's eyes were closed. `` Shall never learn. ``

'' What ? '' Voldemort 's center narrowed to slits.

'' The dark lord ... shall never learn. ``

'' What did you say ? ``

'' I said you never bloody learn ! '' Harry 's eyes flicked open. `` Do you ? ``

Powered by the last gasp of dying craze Harry pulled the knife from his flesh and drove it into Voldemort 's neck. Harry fell backwards as roue fountained from his stomach and his middle clouded black. As he slipped away and his heart stopped beating all he could see was the rustling of the veil.




drop. Hanging. Again. I know. Sorry. Review anyway.


Sorry this took a spell to post. I did n't think to intentionally will you hanging at a cliffhanger but starting time I posted it then realised I had to change something so that sent it to the back of the waiting line, then it got rejected ... anyways it 's up now.

Reviews seem to be mingle as to whether people think Harry 's really dead or not and whether the series is over or not. It 's prissy to have created such differing views. : )




The offset affair Harry sensed was the smell of Malus pumila blossoms. It was a smelling he knew very well. His middle flickered open and looked up onto the comrade dappled leaves of the woodlet in his dreaming. It was exactly as it had always been, green and wide of life.

Harry was lying on the story. How had he got there ? He lifted his blazon up and realized that his blood soaked and fight scared garments were gone, replaced by a dim-witted white robe. That was n't all that was missing either. Harry 's fingers went up to his eye, poking it lightly.

'' Ow ! '' Flesh, not glass. Harry shook his drumhead, realizing what must get happened. Eye 's did not grow back, orchards did not spring out of nil. `` I 'm dead. I died. ``

Harry breathed out, a long suspiration of gloominess. He had done his best, his very, very best. He had tried to survive. He had tried to not result the world of the living, had tried not to leave his friends.

There are people that will ache if you die, even if you take Voldemort with you

'' I tried Thea. '' Harry felt a lump in his throat. `` Oh god I tried. But he was better than me. He was ... he was better. I mean I knew he was, really. I just hoped I could skew the odds enough to let me win. Let me hot. I guess I was wrong. ``

Harry looked up at the tree, bearing blossoms and fruit all at once in an inconceivable, but beautiful, tableau vivant. He was glad he had ended up here, not back at Godrics Hollow.

'' I did take him with me though. '' Harry spoke the bitter words. `` I got him good. ``

The wind rustled lightly through the trees. He thought he could almost, just almost, take heed nipper laughing. Harry sat down and set his vertebral column against a tree and closed his heart. If this was the afterlife then he knew one affair for sure. Before he met any pearly ostiary or had his hell weighed against a plume or whatever he was sitting right here and having a relief. The legions of netherworld could not move him from that spot.

The wind whistled through the Tree and for a moment Harry though he could hear voices.

"Stop her ! Don ‘ t let her get to the dead body !"

"She ‘ s got a portkey !"

The vocalisation faded. Harry shrugged, that form of affair probably happened all the time when you were dead.

Harry 's hired hand wormed it 's way along the ground and found an apple. It was squeamish and surd, fallen recently. He brought it up to his back talk and bit into it, letting the juices run down his face. It tasted a footling bitterness, just a little.

Harry heard the weed in strawman of him disturbed by step. Someone was there. He opened his center slowly, and arched his brow when he saw who it was.

'' Did n't expect to see you here. '' Harry commented dryly. `` Though I suppose I should have. ``

'' May I sit down ? '' Dumbledore asked, his voice bearing a heartsease it had not held in life.

'' Why not ? '' Harry shrugged. `` I mean were all dead here are n't we. Maybe Elvis and Merlin will get together us adjacent. ``

'' I doubt that Harry, Elvis is n't dead. '' Dumbledore frowned suddenly. `` I apologize, you asked me not to shout out you- ''

'' You can send for me Harry. '' Harry smiled. `` Do n't care about it. ``

'' But I do worry. '' Dumbledore shook his head. `` I can never apologize to you enough for what I did to you. No words could ever serve. I ... I am only glad that I got this one last chance to tell you how gloomy I am. My offence was inexcusable. ``

'' Apparently it was n't seeing as you 're here and not in a big fiery piazza with draw of pitchforks. '' Harry chuckled and rested his arms behind his head.

'' You seem, '' Dumbledore was picking his words carefully. `` You seem at public security with what I did. More than the last time I saw you at to the lowest degree. ``

'' Mate, I can never forgive you, so do n't ask me to. '' Harry sighed and shook his head. `` I do n't think I can ever forgive you but at the Same fourth dimension ... I get why you did it. You were in a bad property, everything was riding on your shoulders. I mean look at me, today I cast an inexcusable curse ten ... maybe xx sentence. And before that, over the trend of this year I 've killed ... masses. Several people. We all do what we think we have to do. You did what ... what you thought you had to do, at the time. I ca n't forgive you for it. You playing with my head. Making me your Frankenstein 's ogre. Your changeling nestling. You ... took me and changed me. Changed who I am, put remembering in my straits. You said you put your retention of James Potter in my mind. I can feel them in there now ... How much of it is me ? Is any of this me ? Or am I just a hapless written matter of Harry ... Or worse a poor people copy of James Potter. Am I ? Answer me truthfully. Please. ``

'' I ... '' Dumbledore dropped his middle to the flooring. `` I do not know how practically of your master personality survived. Integrating memories is never fully successful, not from one person to another, but there is no way to tell how lots mixing there has been. There is a chance that the memories settled harmlessly into your subconscious, but then again ... ''

'' There 's a fortune they did n't. ``

'' Yes. ``

"Why did n't you recount me this in the beginning ?"Harry sighed,"I mean before I went and cut out my eye and everything."

"I ... There were many reasons."Dumbledore looked away into the distance."You see it was very prosperous to ... to not remember what I had done. To not think of it. I mean there you were, looking like Harry, acting like James. It was easy to pass into the trap of thinking you were ... that you were ..."

"Real ?"

"That you were not the bread and butter cogent evidence of my sins."Dumbledore shook his head."At least that was the understanding at first. I simple did not want to acknowledge what I had done. Then, later on, after you had defeated the basilisk, after you had come back from the torrent of ages, I began to opine perhaps I would not get to. You had proved yourself a Italian sandwich so I though ... perhaps no one would ever sustain to know. Perhaps I could let you fill Harry 's place and never recount you. I thought I could let you take the burden. I am not proud of that. I should have known the prophecy could not be so easily avoided."

"Is it potential I still can remove his place ?"Harry pointed at his wrist."I mean, the dark Creator did Gospel According to Mark me."

"Harry he did not mark you as his equal he marked you as his servant."Dumbledore shook his head."And besides, I can look on my fingers the people who have thrice defied Voldemort. I would take known if one of them had been with child."

Harry sighed. As he did the nothingness seemed to murmur, carrying to him distant articulation. He strained his ears to hear,

'' supporter him ! For pigeon hawk 's sake help him ! '' Was that ... Hermione ?

'' Shut up and let me by. '' Snape 's voice cut across her.

'' His heart 's not outwit ! ``

'' Of grade It 's not beating he does n't have any blood left you hysterical cretin. Each of you, ease up me your hands. It's a good thing Harry acquired so many hanger-on, one of you has to be his stemma eccentric. ``

The representative faded into the breeze. Harry's hilltop furrowed.

"Did you hear that ?"He asked Dumbledore.

"No, but then I ‘ m a little to a greater extent bushed than you are."Dumbledore smiled.

"So I ‘ m ... I ‘ m not dead ?"Harry felt hope rise in his heart.

"You are beat, technically. Your heart is not beating."Dumbledore's eyes twinkled."But I believe that, with time and a generous donation of good red blood, you may be pulled back into the mankind of the living."

"So ... Is this actually you then ?"Harry scratched his head."Is this actually the afterlife or just another dream ?"

"This is the afterlife."Dumbledore nodded."And I am, more or less, who I appear to be."

"How ?"

"The fact that you are near death coupled with the fact that you died simple meters from the veil."Dumbledore shrugged."I am just glad I got a last prospect to speak to you."

"Well I assume we ‘ ll sports meeting again ... eventually."Harry cracked a smile."When I ‘ m old and grey-headed and die in a bed surrounded by beautiful women."

The old wizard and the young laughed. A intellection struck Harry and the gleefulness dimmed.

"So, while I have you here, can I ask you something ?"

"Of course of instruction Harry, anything."

"What is my name ?"

"I ... I do not know."Dumbledore hung his head."I am sorry Harry. I erased the store from my own mind so I would never call you it. Never slip up ... But I can tell you the orphanage where I found you. It is called the Malyn orphanage, or was nine year ago, January twentieth. It stands about ten miles south of Belfast. If criminal record exist then, well then you might be able to obtain them there."

"Malyn orphanhood. January twentieth ..."Harry whispered. Then,"So I ‘ m Irish whiskey ?"

"Yes Harry. You ‘ re Irish."Dumbledore cracked a whimsical smile.

"Interesting."Harry, who had lived his life with a Greater London accent thick enough to float bricks on, chuckled."So, do you call back there might even be records of my parents ?"

"I do not think so."Dumbledore looked away, not meeting Harry's eyes. He seemed to be picking his Holy Writ carefully."I do not retrieve that you will detect criminal record of them there."

"What aren ‘ t you telling me ?"Harry felt the void grow."Were they star ? Were they Death feeder ?"

"No Harry cipher like that."Dumbledore shook his top dog."In fact I believe we can safely assume both your parents were muggles. Let me explain, when I took you from the orphanhood they told me a piffling about you. About how you had come to be there. Apparently you were not given to them in the normal manner, you were ... found. Found by an elderly duo walking along the Lagan river. The river was bursting it ‘ s banks a little after a tempest and they saw a little bundle washed up in the mud. When they unwrapped you they thought you were dead, I was told that you were dark all over from the cold and damp, but so weak you weren ‘ t even shivering. You had been in the piddle for a long time."

Crashing stone. Raging T. H. White water. Harry's mind shied away from the flashes of holy terror in his creative thinker and he felt his breathing place quicken. The raging torrent in his creative thinker banishing all though was literal, a memory so scaring even Dumbledore had been unable to erase. His only real computer memory was a phobia. Another acrimonious jest. He licked his rim, had to say something, anything to take his creative thinker off it.

"How old was I ?"

"About six months old, reach or take."Dumbledore answered."The twain gave you to the sureness and of course an investigation was made. Unfortunately nothing was ever found. And, inevitably, you ended up in the deal of the child services. The story after that is, well, rather as you might hazard it."

"It could have been an accident."Harry spoke, not daring to hope."You make it sound like my parents tried to vote out me but it didn't have to happen that way. Maybe I was swept away from my family. You said there were floods."

"I ... I do not cerebrate that was the fount Harry."A tear rolled down Dumbledore's cheek."You see, I have something the muggle authorisation did not. I have my map. That was the reason Lupin knew. I needed him to find it and show me how to use it, or it could bear revealed the truth."

"The map- Or course !"Harry smiled, his eye lighting up."It should show my material name ! That ‘ s why you kept it hidden and everything ! What does it say ?"

"Harry the map does not show your name."Dumbledore brushed the snap away."Do you know how the map works ?"

"No."

"It works by making use of an ancient case of magic, the magic of names."Dumbledore's voice took on a lecturing timber, but Harry could still hear the ball in his throat."There is an old necromancer superstition. An old married woman tale, if you will, that a wizard's epithet is tied to their fortune. That the name first given to a sensation somehow sets his path. There was once a great fad for concealing one ‘ s true figure so that opposition could not pull in power over you. Foolishness really, in those days someone ‘ s true figure was gentle enough to divine. That is what the map does in any vitrine. It works by the magic of names."

"Yeah,"Harry motioned the tardy schoolmaster to continue."And ?"

"And for you it displays aught Harry."Dumbledore closed his middle sadly."On the map your figure is white. Just a set of step and an evacuate scroll."

"Oh ..."Harry let the silence grow between them. He couldn't really think of anything to satisfy it.

"Do you see what that means Harry ? It means-"

"I know what it means."Harry said quietly."It means my parents never named me before they threw me away."

"Harry ..."

"I was six months old. Six months they had me and didn ‘ t even manage enough to ..."Harry slammed his clenched fist into the undercoat."I guess I ‘ m sound off without them."

"Is his spirit beating ? I can barely-"

"Is that a pulse ... it was there I swear it was there."

Harry let the voices on the jazz die away. He sighed, looking up into the appeasement dappled sunlight.

"Harry are you alright ?"Dumbledore asked."I realize that this is a groovy trade to contain in on top of-"

"I ‘ m alright."Harry swallowed painfully."I mean I ‘ m not alright, really. But I ‘ ll be alright. I can already tell. I ‘ ll be aright. I mean after all the early thunderbolt this doesn ‘ t really tip the scurf that much does it. Like a molehill beside a smoking volcano."

"I ‘ m just sorry that I was once again the bearer of bad news."Dumbledore squinted at Harry, his middle narrowing."You are fading. Not long before you can no longer touch this blank space. Is there anyone else here you would like to speak to ?"

"I ... I don ‘ t know."Harry scratched his heading."Most of my champion are still alive."

"A blessing."

"So I can send for anyone then ?"Harry asked slyly."Anyone dead and they have to come ?"

"Yes, anyone dead."

"Tom Marvolo Riddle."Harry said the dread name loudly into the woodwind, only faint replication came back."He ‘ s not dead then."Harry's custody clenched into fists.

"No,"Dumbledore shook his head."I believe you have Bella to thank for that again. She snuck in when the Barbara Ward came down and spirited his physical structure away right-hand under your ally'nozzle using an hand brake portkey. Rather careless of them. Alastor is probably beating himself up right now."

"I though I got him."Harry gritted his teeth."I thought I got-"

"He will be severely weakened."Dumbledore stepped forward and laid a hand on Harry's berm."Perhaps as badly as he was fifteen geezerhood ago. This is a victory Harry, it will be years, possibly decennary before he can move up again. And if we can catch up with him while he is light and stop him off, so much the better."

"I guess."Harry tried to see the dependable side. It wasn't easy."Well let ‘ s try ... Barty Crouch Jr."Again the forest remained empty but for the two of them. Harry grimaced, he hadn't really hoped that the unworthy motherfucker was short. But it would have got been a welcome surprise.

"Is there not anyone you actually bid to verbalise to Harry ?"Dumbledore asked, fading a little as he did so."No one in this world ? Perhaps the real Harry ceramicist ?"

"I ‘ ve already met him. Twice actually now that I think about it."

"How could you possibly ..."

"well once was long time ago when I traveled through meter and met him before he died."Harry checked that off on his fingers."And the 2d sentence me sent a substance here from another dimension."At Dumbledore's shocked verbal expression Harry grinned."I lead a very eldritch life."

"But interesting."

"Oh yes, very interesting."Harry smiled."All in all I think I ‘ ll let him and his parents rest in peace. After what I did to their statue I don ‘ t think I could confront them. Anyways, goodbye old man. I'll see you again in a long yearn while."

"I hope so Harry."

"This is weird."Harry chuckled and looked around."Why does it sense like we 're having this altogether conversation two rule book early ?"

"Simple Harry,"Dumbledore smiled."Until now you have been walking individual else 's course. From this power point on, you 'll make to make your own."

"Good."Harry nodded."I 'm ready."

"I know you are Harry."Dumbledore continued to pass off."I know you are. Oh wait, may I ask you something before I go ?"

"Shoot."

"What became of my sceptre ?"

"Your scepter ..."Harry thought back."Oh ... I threw it through the caul along with Voldemort ‘ s. Sorry did you need to be buried with it or something ?"

"No no Harry."Dumbledore smiled broadly, a mysterious spark in his attenuation eye."Just curious."And with that the old whiz faded into goose egg, and was gone. Harry chuckled.

"You had to have the last word didn ‘ t you. Git."

The air seemed to convert grain. Harry breathed out softly, he was alert again. He could feel his heartbeat in his chest. Weak, but there. Harry glanced around at the woodlet. It was exactly the same as before but it felt unlike. He was dreaming now, just a regular dream. Harry let his oculus close slowly. He would heat up in near time, but until then ? He was fine here. For now.
*


Snape reached his apartments in Hogwarts and barely got the door shut before falling into a chair. There was a bed in the next elbow room, but it suddenly seemed very far away. Truth be told he could feature fallen asleep in the middle of the expectant residence, on the floor. He would take in been the laughing stock of every student though. Even worse he probably wouldn't have woken up when they started laughing at him, even when they started poking him.

Snape raised his wand shakily and levitated the forgotten bottle of wine-coloured off his table. It had been left open, no matter. He poured himself a glass.

He had stood in the waiting room in St Mungos for farsighted than he could call up while incompetent healers told him they had no information. When they had finally told him that Harry was out of the Wood all his unquiet Energy had leeched out and it had taken all of his genial strength to stop himself sagging to the story right there. He had managed to cod to the highest degree of them. He had not fooled Natalie.

She had apparated him back to Hogwarts and made him swear to sleep as soon as he got to his room. Who was she to purchase order him around like that ? Why could she ? Snape's mouth curled into a grin. Because she was interesting enough to get away with it and was the solitary one who could pull it off. Which just added to the interestingness of course of study. Snape smiled as the wine curled down the back of his pharynx. He was very prosperous in many respects. Luckier than he deserved.

"Severus are you in there ?"There was a knock on the doorway. Not Natalie. Snape flicked his sceptre and the door creaked open. Minerva stood on the other incline, looking as tired as he felt.

"Minerva."Snape tried to sit a little less like he was falling asleep."It is good to see you safe, in all the muddiness in the ministry I lost track. semen in. Would you wish some vino ?"

"No thank you."Minerva stepped inside. Now that she was closer he could see that the edges of her oculus held tattletale signs of weeping. She had tried to shroud it, but to the trained eye it was quite obvious."I heard you were back in the rook and came down to see you."

"Anything in detail bothering you ?"Snape asked, perhaps more caustically than was necessity."I am rather tired you see."

"Yes, there is something."Minerva pulled a hard backed electric chair over and sat down stiffly."When you went off to St Mungos I called the remaining monastic order together, there was much to discuss."

"I can ideate that there would be."Snape yawned theatrically. He did not throw to misrepresent it."I can not imagine how that would worry me however, I am no longer a member."

"That is partially what we were discussing."Minerva cocked her head to one side."Voldemort is weakened but not dead. The Order's task is far from done and we could more than use your expertise. Your primary cause for leaving was Albus. I will not presume to ask the details of that dissension, it was between the two of you. But do you not think that now he is ... gone, that you might be persuaded to arrive back to us ?"

"That would look on who replaced him."Snape said levelly."For model if it were yourself leading the ordination, I would have no objection."

"I will not be leading the order."McGonagall shook her caput."I will have quite enough to do here at Hogwarts. The job of headmistress is enough for me. It has been hard enough to persuade parents to send their children to Hogwarts this yr. I imagine next year may be a fiddling sluttish but I am sure I will still have my paw full. And besides, I will ask to feel a new transfiguration teacher."

"Shacklebolt then."Snape waved a manus vaguely."He has always been very capable."

"Kingsley Shacklebolt may very well be the only if thing currently keeping the ministry from falling apart."Minerva smiled faintly."He was the most senior auror to survive this debacle so I believe he will be ever more occupy than I myself will be."

"There are other candidates."Snape was fully awake now. He could feel where this was going."Alastor Moody."

"Too paranoid."

"Arthur Weasley."

"Has no combat or strategic experience."

"Natalie. Natalie Zhao. She is-"

"Very new to the order."

"Remus Lupin then, he has been with the monastic order since-"

"Remus has grown unpredictable recently. Especially where Harry is concerned."Minerva fixed Snape with a stage stare."I believe we can agree that whoever should head the ordering should be someone Harry trust. soul like you."

"No."

"soul who knows how the night Jehovah thinks."

"No."

"Severus listen to me."Minerva leant penny-pinching to him."Do you not think we discussed all these matter in amongst ourselves in the order ?"

"If I had been there I would hold had a few things to say !"

"Severus please."Minerva's heart dropped to the base."This past class Albus ... well you yourself saw. I do not verbalize ill of the dead but he had become ... tired. He was not the Dumbledore we all knew. He was not acting at his best."

Snape stayed silent. Not at his best was a horrid understatement if ever he heard one but there was no motivation to say so.

"In any case he was faltering. We all saw it, everyone in the guild. But no one did anything about it. Except you."Minerva shook her mind."Perhaps we were all, how did you put it ? ‘ Trapped in the past.'Except you."

"I ... I can not lead the order."Snape tried to nominate his voice not vocalize like that of a rat at bay."I was a death eater, I fell into gloomy thaumaturgy. A long time ago yes but some marks do not hail out."

"Yours has."

"That is not what I meant !"Snape took a inscrutable draft of wine-coloured."I am ... tainted. Undeserving."

"Albus always said he did not merit the prominence he was given."

"Do not compare me to-"Snape bit back the end of that tempestuous sentence. There was no to film out his anger on the messenger."I merely meant that I do not remember it is good to pay me this kind of power."

"Albus also said that those who seek power are those least become to exert it."Minerva held his eyes."The corollary of that is that those who are suited to wield great power are those who reject it."

"Do not quote at me."

"Severus, there is no one else who can do the job as well as you. No one else."

"No one else."Snape felt like chuckling."That is what it always comes down to doesn ‘ t it ? We all do what we must."

"I always have."Minerva stood."So you will take the task ?"

"Do I have a selection ?"

"You do, but I already live how you will choose."

"You knew before you stepped through that door."Snape sneered."I am trapped like a rabbit."

"Only by your own traps Severus."Minerva smiled and turned to the door.

"You know that I will do things differently than Dumbledore."Snape said suddenly."There will be changes."

"I know, I look forward to them."McGonagall nodded, and left the room.

Snape rubbed his forehead. He should begin planning, there was much to do. No, he should not. Right now he had a promise to keep. Shedding his gown tiredly, he walked towards his bed.
*


'' Harry ... Harry open your centre. ``

Harry woke from cryptical dreaming, the sparkling eloquent part in his ears.

'' I 'm awake, '' Harry murmured, his eyes closed. `` But I 'm still in my plantation. I can smell the heyday. ``

'' You are still asleep, in St Mungos. '' weewee rippling over shining Stone. `` I wanted to verbalise to you but you 're on a great deal of medication. It was simpler for me to just come to you. ``

'' And where are you ? '' Harry 's sass twitched up into a smile.

'' Sitting beside your bed. ``

Harry chuckled, and opened his eyes.

'' Hello Thea. ``

'' Hello Harry. '' The Loretta Young seer was sitting Cross legged under a Tree in front of him, looking like the human prototype of repose. Instead of her common white robe she was wearing a simple brown dress, she seemed almost portion of the forest. She looked ... different, somehow different. It was not her face, she was still the same beautiful girl he had always known, or her eyes, mismatched as they were. Her silver haircloth was caught up into a farseeing tail down her dorsum, tied with blueing ribbon. She looked exactly the same but there was something missing. Gone was the mother wit of ancientness, the feeling that the little somebody in battlefront of him had outlasted conglomerate. She seemed ... young, the same age as him give or take a class. Harry supposed she always had been. It did not demand much to approximate the reason for the change.

'' You 're not the seer anymore. '' Harry guessed, guiltily.

'' No, I 'm not. '' Pythea smiled. `` I was sacked. ``

'' I 'm sorry. '' Harry hung his head. `` It was because you were helping me, was n't it ? ``

'' Yes, they finally caught on. '' Pythea reached forward and tilted Harry 's chin up. `` Do n't feel guilty, not even for a moment. I was suffering there, almost a prisoner. I 'm happy to be gone. ``

'' You do n't induce to severalise me that just to- ''

'' It is the verity. ``

'' But it was your home. '' Harry sighed. `` I 'm going to feel guilty whatever you say, you ca n't check me. ``

'' Stubborn. ``

'' brat. ``

'' I am not. '' Pythea smiled warmly. `` Do you have any melodic theme what you will do now ? After you are released from hospital I mean. ``

'' I ... I have somewhere I want to go. ``

'' The orphanage ? ``

'' Hey, you reading my mind again ? '' Harry smiled mysteriously. `` Do n't I get any secret ? ``

'' I can not say thinker anymore Harry. '' Theia shook her head. `` That came with being the prophet remember. I just know you. ``

'' But you 're still a oracle, right ? '' Harry hesitated to ask.

'' Oh yes, there are some matter they can not conduct away. '' Pythea nodded. `` I am still a illusionist, and a very powerful one. ``

'' Can you ... can you tell me my future ? '' Harry asked suddenly.

'' No. I ca n't. '' Pythea smiled and stood. `` Do you want to go to the orphans' asylum now ? ``

'' Now ? '' Harry scratched his fountainhead. `` Are n't I in infirmary ? ``

'' A little walk will not inconvenience a mighty champion like you too much. '' Pythea crooked an brow mockingly.

'' A short-change walk ? We have to get to Hibernia ya know. ``

'' Then it is favorable that another thing they can not carry away is my International apparition permission. '' Pythea held out her script. `` Just tell me where Harry. And we can go. ``

Harry reached out and took her hand.
*


'' Ow. '' Harry 's hand went to his venter as botheration flared there through the infirmary sheets. `` That really hurts. ``

'' I told you it would. '' Pythea was sitting exactly where she said she was, at the English of his bed. `` The knife was made with dark magic so the wound ca n't be magically healed. You 'll stimulate to let it crumple together the old fashioned way. Is it too much ? Do you wish to waitress till tomorrow ? ``

'' No no. It just surprised me is all. '' Harry slowly lowered his groundwork to the floor and gingerly stood. He had to hunch just a little to block the skin of his stomach stretching painfully, but he could take the air. No he could n't. His leg was mangled too. Maybe he could hop ... `` Do you make my dress somewhere ? Oh waiting my bag 's right here. Can you plough so I can- ''

Pythea cut him off with a wave of her bridge player. His hospital gown changed into a mere bloodless t-shirt and trouser. Muggle decent to be getting on with. With another wave a carved wooden cane appeared in his hand. Obviously she did not think he was as healthy as said he was. tinker's dam her for being right.

'' Thank you. '' Harry smiled and picked up his bag from beside the bed. `` Shall we go then ? ``

Pythea stepped up to him and wrapped her subdivision around his tender middle. This close Harry could smell her haircloth, like green weed and the sea. He was breathing faster, probably because of all the potions they had him on.

'' Are you ready ? '' She asked.

'' Yes. '' Harry shut his centre and waited. And waited ... He opened them again and cocked his head to one face. `` Is there a job ? ``

'' You still have n't told me where we 're going. '' Pythea clicked her tongue irritably. `` Not being able to read people view is going to carry some getting used to. ``

'' I 'm dingy. I really am. '' Harry apologized again, earning him a tier stare from the little vaticinator, and told her their destination.

For the first metre in his life Harry enjoyed an apparition. The walls of the void pressed him into Pythea, forcing them close-fitting together. He could feel her intimation on his impudence. He was almost disappointed when they dropped onto a small road in the countryside.

Harry stepped back and glanced around. There was no mistaking the orphanage, it was the only edifice there. At the center of it was a stately-home eccentric of thing. He could n't put a date to it, old was the best he could do. That was clearly the center of the complex but at some stage the proprietor had felt a need to expand. The two blocks to either side of the main building took after the put-some-rectangular-concrete-blocks-in-a-vaguely-building-shape mode of architecture. Around the entirely lieu there was a high paries with barbed wire looped at the top.

Harry tried not to believe that made it seem like a prison. All schools had that these days.

With a deliberate hired hand on his stomach Harry walked up to the main reception. Pythea stopped there and sat down quietly on a bench.

'' You 're not coming in ? '' Harry asked.

'' You go on ahead. '' Thea looked out over the countryside. `` You should probably do this yourself. ``

'' I can still do it myself with you there. ``

'' Go inside Harry. ``

Harry grinned and turned towards the door. He took a thick breath, then winced at what that did to his stomach. He tried to quiet the raging butterflies inside but could n't. The only affair that gave him the will to agitate give the room access was marauder rules. Follow through. No fear.

As he stepped into the dull entryway hall a repository looked up from her desk, eying him quizzically.

'' Is there a record section ? '' Harry asked uncertainly.

'' Up the stairs first door on the left field. '' The repository looked back down at her papers.

Up the stairs. Of course. Harry labored up the pace, having to rest More than once before he reached the top. Out the window he could see the playground, full of tiddler running about wildly. From inside the rampart the piazza looked a lot nicer. All around the edge of the wall there were a series of children 's paintings. Long running murals and vortex of colouration. It was almost pleasant, it looked like a normal school.

Harry managed to give the first floor and took a few tired breaths. She wanted to let me to this by myself. Probably just did n't want to take me up the damn steps. Harry then realized that hunching over and breathing heavily in a building full of children could possibly be misinterpreted. He stood and walked forward towards the number 1 door, his walking spliff clattering against the floor. He knocked, politely.

'' Come in. ``

Harry pushed the door assailable to see an elderly ma'am sitting in front of a computer, looking at him questioningly over her glasses.

"Hi, I used to live on here. At the orphanage I mean."Harry stepped inside.

"Oh,"The woman smiled."Please have a seat."Harry gratefully sat, hung his reefer over the rear of the chair and worked out how to continue.

"I was wondering if I could get any records you have of me ?"

"Do you have any recognition ?"

"Eh ?"

"recommendation ? number one wood license, no you ‘ re too immature for that. Your acceptance certificate perhaps."

"Do I need one ?"Harry's hand moved to his air pocket and mercifully found that Draco 's wand was still there.

"We can ‘ t make phonograph recording out to just anyone dear."

"Confundus."Harry whispered, then."Can you make an exception ?"

"Of ... of course of study deary."The woman shook her head like she was trying to free gossamer then turned to her computer."What figure is it ?"

"I don ‘ t have my gens. Long report, but it happened on January twentieth, nine twelvemonth ago."Harry wondered whether he would involve another Confundus to blow past the ‘ no gens'matter, but the woman seemed to choose it in her stride.

"Everything ‘ s on information processing system now. It ‘ s very high tech."The char pursed her lips as she clacked away at her keyboard."When I started here we had rooms and rooms of Indian file boxful. Would have taken ages to come up a record like yours."

When would she sustain started here ? Harry wondered. Was it possible she might have been there back when he was ?

"Here we are."The charwoman squinted at the record for a moment then let out a throaty chortle."Oh yes, I remember."

"You ... you do ?"Harry felt his breathing time quicken."You retrieve me ?"

"How could I forget ?"She turned to him with a motherly smile."Everyone here has a constant monitor of your arrest with us."

"Wh ... what ?"

"See the rampart over there ?"She gestured out the window."See the barbed wire ? You may believe it ‘ s to keep folks out, but it was originally put up to keep on you in. You kept clambering over the wall."

"Really."Harry didn't dare feel. Didn't daring Leslie Townes Hope. A experience connection to his stolen past like this had been too much to ask."I must throw caused you all a lot of trouble."

"Oh you were a scallywag you were."The old woman smiled fondly."I still remember what you said to me the day the wire went up."

"What ?"Harry swallowed."What did I say ?"

"well I said to you ‘ You know that wire ‘ s been put up just to keep you in.'And you turned to me, cheeky as a monkey, and told me ‘ That ‘ s full Miss, ‘ cos the wall wasn ‘ t much of a challenge anymore.'”

Harry's heart broke and he fell into his helping hand. He felt teardrop blooming in his eyes. He hadn't known what to expect when he'd come here, but he had never expected this. He had never expected test copy. Proof that he wasn't some Frankenstein monster, proof that he wasn't a bad copy of Jesse James Potter. He was, and had always been, him. Arrogant, cocky, unrespectful of authority and filled with itchy feet. He. Was. Him.

"Dear are you alright ?"The old woman sounded concerned."Do you want a tissue ?"

"And you tell me ..."Harry swallowed and tried again."Can you secern me my name ?"

"Oh, I ‘ m afraid you came to us without a name."She looked back at her computer CRT screen."We gave you the last name Malyn, after the orphanage. Which is a traditional here. And for the first-class honours degree public figure we had to make that up. So we called you Jack."

jackstones ...

Jack Match.

Jack Baltzegaurd.

Jack Shakey.

diddly-shit Caiman.

All those people, all those citizenry he'd disguised himself as ... Jack.

His constant assumed name. The public figure that had always come to his backtalk when he knew he couldn't say ‘ Harry ’. It had been a retentivity, a memory of the first-class honours degree real name he had. Not given to him by his parents indisputable, and apparently not magically binding. But a public figure. He still felt more like Harry, it was still the figure that came first to his backtalk but ... it was like that hollow core inside him was filling. Filling with parts of a aliveness he had though he had no memory of. It felt so good.

"I suppose you ‘ ll need to go down and see it."The old cleaning woman was handing him a printed copy in a leaflet. Harry assumed it was his file. She nodded towards the backbone of the orphanage.

"See it ?"

"It was always your favorite place."The old womanhood smiled."It was where we usually found you when you managed to sneak off."

Suddenly Harry knew, and with the cognition came the unbearable need to see if it was straight. Harry stood suddenly.

"Yes, I do want to see it. Thank you."Harry smiled thorough teary eyes."Thank you. thank you so much."

"My pleasure Jack."

Harry turned and hobbled from the room, it was only his aching wound and walking spliff that stopped him from running. He reached the can of the stairs and pushed out the threshold. Pythea was already standing, like she'd known he was coming.

"We need to go that ... that way."Harry was breathing so hard all he could do was point vaguely.

"Lead the way."

Harry set off, taking them round to the back of the buildings. He could see it now, down the side a little. He stumbled down and stopped just before he reached it, just before he went beneath the shade of the Malus pumila tree. The little round of drinks grove of orchard apple tree trees.

"My god."Pythea had her hand to her back talk in shock."It ‘ s real."

"It was a memory."Harry breathed, reaching out a helping hand to touch a branch."It was a memory. I kept having this dream where I was stuck in Godrics hollow. But that place felt all weird, but if I could violate out and accomplish the orchard I felt safe. Felt real."

"I though it was a creation of your head, I never thought ..."

"Neither did I."Harry stepped beneath the branches and walked into the center of the plantation. He set his back against the tree and slid down, resting on the ground. Pythea sat down next to him, resting her shoulder joint against his.

"It ‘ s very peaceful here."Was all she said.

Harry didn't combine himself to talk. Couldn't speak. There were no words. They sat there for the foresightful time, the last summer breeze filling running past them and rustling the leaf above their point. Eventually, after who knew how long, Harry spoke.

"Theia ?"

"Hm ?"She murmured. Had she almost fallen asleep. Harry looked over into her beautiful mismatched eyes.

"Why did you commit me ? Right at the showtime ?"

"I told you, because you are beneficial and-"

"But right at the beginning you couldn ‘ t have known all that."Harry pointed out."binding then I was a stranger."

"You were never a stranger."Thea smiled sadly."Do you know how they choose the next prophet Harry ? They go around to all the magic households in Greece, looking for baby with the inner eye. If they find one with enough power, with power enough to be Pythea, they take them back to the temple."

"Take them from their parents ?"Harry asked, shocked.

"The parents have a choice of course, but who would dare say no."Pythea huddled up against Harry's slope."I was three, but I remember it well, another curse my giving gives me. My name wasn ‘ t Pythea then, but I was told that I could never use my old name, never speak it ever again. One day in art family I signed one of my painting with the old name, just a little mistake. The craze they had at me that day ... they burnt my scene, in front of my heart. I never used the old name again. After I finished my breeding I was allowed to go back and chit-chat my parents. I went back to my old house. They were very ... polite. They acted exactly the way I would expect someone to act towards The Pythea. When I tried to act like their girl, they looked at me like I had done something haywire. Even to them I was supposed to be The Pythea ... even to them."

"Thea I never knew."Harry put an arm around her ( What the the pits do I do ? She's not crying, do I offer her a tissue anyway ? Oh god what do I say ? )"It must have been heart-wrenching. I can ‘ t imagine-"

"You can imagine. Not that you have to."Pythea smiled up at him."That ‘ s why we were never stranger. Because we ‘ re the Same, both orphaned. Both with our true identicalness taken from us. Both shoved into cast and name calling we never wanted."

"Both forced to take on them."Harry nodded."Yeah, we were never unknown. We're the Saami, we ‘ re like ... rootless. We have no roots. No past."

"Did you find out your public figure ?"Pythea asked suddenly.

"I found out a name."Harry shrugged."But I think I ‘ ll keep going with Harry, I ‘ ve carried it longer than the other now anyway."

"They took away who we are."She murmured.

"They took away our names."Harry corrected, brushing his deal against Pythea's nerve."They can ‘ t need away who we are. The names don ‘ t matter so much, you can hollo me Harry or Jack or Bob it doesn't topic. I know who I am."

"I wish I had your certainty."

"You do give birth it."Harry smiled."Because I know who you are. It ‘ s got nothing to do with your public figure. You ‘ re just you. Any you ‘ re perfect."

"Harry ..."Pythea lifted up, little glistening tears in the corners of her center, and kissed him lightly on the impertinence."Thank you."

Harry didn't really sleep with what to do, former than to blush. A moment later Pythea seemed to realize something.

"Harry, did you just beat me at being profound ?"

"Had to find eventually."Harry grinned cheekily.

"I ‘ ll get you next time."

"You ‘ re on."

Pythea smiled, lighting up her side. Harry bit his lip and asked.

"So, you ‘ re going to be staying in UK then ? For now ?"

"I think so. Are you ?"

"Yeah, probably."Harry rested his hands behind his head."Go back to Hogwarts maybe. I don ‘ t know if I missed the O.W.L.S."

"They begin next workweek if I remember correctly."

"A week, think that ‘ s sufficiency time ?"Harry scratched his head.

"Since it ‘ s all the revision you would do anyway, I ‘ d say, yes. And after that ?"

"Dunno ... Stay in the land probably. I could do with a gracious peaceful holiday."

"Harry you wouldn ‘ t know what to do with a peaceful holiday."

"I ‘ d know exactly what to do."Harry winked."As soon as I got there it would get a lot less passive, but a lot More fun."

Crystal laughter filled the orchard, and lit up the folio with light.
*


Bellatrix Lestrange bowed over her master's bed and cried, heedless of her tears staining the sheet. She had done all she could, used every aspect of her art, but her Maker still barely breathed. His pelt was abruptly Edward Douglas White Jr. and only the night magic she had woven in his chest kept him alive. He was so weakly, not even conscious. It was terrible to see him like this, frightful to see him brought so low. Better if he had truly died, then he could own risen up again in glory. Instead he was trapped in this prison of flesh. Better dead than to lie on this peg down cot in a diminutive room, not even fit for a blot out place. But she had to do what she could. She was the last, the finally loyal death eater.

"I am all he has."Bellatrix whimpered.

"That is not the case."

Bella whirled, her wand snaking out. When she saw who it was she barely relaxed.

"You !"She gaiter with venom."Barty Crouch, you dare slink back after abandoning our lord !"

"I did not desert him."The placid boy stepped from the darkness, carrying a parcel under his arm."I was doing our Almighty good work."

"For a full yr ?"

"It did take recollective than anticipated ... but it has been done. And in the nick of prison term too."The pale wizard strode over to the dark master's sickbed and knelt beside it."I am your servant, master, and I have done your command. Do not care lord, I can shit you strong again. Stronger than ever. With this ... we can rise again, the decease eaters can rise again. The earth will tremble overlord, tremble in fear."

Barty Crouch reached into his packet and pulled something out. Bellatrix felt her jaw drop.

"We can be potent than ever master."Barty's side in the apparition was terrifying."Stronger than ever."





Ye God that was hard to write right. Or ... redress write. Write write ... some combination of those Word anyway. It 's been a roller coaster I think you 'll agree, and the unmarried most massive bend of the entire fic was finally revealed. Hope you liked it. masses who were waiting to the end of this book to review ... your prison term has come.

I 've already started writing the next account book and It ai n't going well. I did n't do my usual thing of writing myself into a nook. Instead I plotted the book out in advance and wrote to it. Unfortunately I got a few chapters in and realized that it sucked. The secret plan made logical sense and all, no plot-holes, there was zilch tripping me up, no author block, I just realized that the plot of land I had mapped out was a bit [ word I ca n't add without mature evaluation ] really. I had to go back and retread the affair. confident upshot : The narration is a lot stronger now I think. blackball upshot : I have to project away a significant part of what I 've already written. Ah well, such is life.

Anyway *clears throat* the next story is on it 's way. Our Harry has finally found out who he really is and begins walking his own path. Too bad that path is as deadly as the hold out. A new enemy advance, an old one lingers and a deep assassin is out for Harry 's blood. With Harry still injured from his confrontation in the department of mysteries he ca n't face up these challenges head on. He may even experience to lead off using his brain ...

Mysteries abound in the next book of the serial publication Harry Potter, The rock and The Scorpion !