Thanks to all the people who reviewed the death chapter. Your assorted substitution of the universal `` What the F*** ! ? ! Update now ! '' Were most appreciated. I feel kind of bad for jumping a tress like that on you after 40 chapters. form of deceitful. Good to know the bulk of people appreciated it.



"Harry ?"Padma said quietly, standing at the end of the infirmary 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 regretful than he let on. She felt bad for needing to arouse him."Harry wake up."She reached out and tapped his leg. He jerked fitfully, but his eye flickered open. He didn't speak though, didn't acknowledge her. He just stared off into 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 months was actually optimistic. There ‘ s damage deep down, lots of impairment. You need to let them aid you now or ... or you ‘ ll die. In a few weeks."

Harry said goose egg, he didn't even seem to experience heard her.

"You won ‘ t be able to fight Voldemort."Padma tried a dissimilar stable gear."I ‘ m not saying you ‘ ll have workweek like you ‘ ve been going all class. You ‘ ll have weeks in this hospital bed, not able to move, eventually you won ‘ t even be able-bodied to speak. You won ‘ t be capable to kill Voldemort. You won ‘ t be able to be the chosen one."

Harry flinched, pain running across his tired face.

"You see Harry, you ‘ ve got to let them help you."Padma stepped up to put her manus 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 evil eye and let them work on you ?"

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

What had Dumbledore said to him ...
*


The boy who was once called Harry faded in his mind as the healer entered his way. Bustling around and speaking comforting, void countersign. They cleaned him up, washing his arms and chest. They asked him to slay the pick-me-up. He did, letting it accrue to the floor with a brassy clatter. The healer 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 deviation. Everything was dulled already. He watched, ineffectual and unwilling to care, as they cut his skin unresolved. His blood seeped out, quickly staunched by a healer. He wished they wouldn't bother.

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


genus Draco slapped the sore hide of his arm to try and stay awake. It had been burnt in the fight, but it was fine now. Just enough residuum redness and pain to help him stay alert. He swung his fatigue eyes around the wait room, all of the marauders were here. Most of them had finally succumbed to sleep, Dragon didn't blame them. It was difficult to imagine that the deadly midnight violation on the creature ship had been just last Nox. They had been worn out, jade down. Draco pinched his arm again. He wondered if there was anywhere he could find some tea. The tea shop class was closed but surely the therapist had a staff elbow room or something. Maybe he could ask one.

Or maybe he could just settle asleep.

Draco shook his school principal. Some of them had to be awake when the therapist 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 room 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 dark, no one had collected them. He supposed it was only a matter of clip before a teacher or an order appendage came to brawl them up and drag them back to Hogwarts, where they would no uncertainty rest. Chained to Post like wiener so they couldn't run off again.

Draco got wearily to his understructure, maybe he could take the air some of his tiredness off. He stepped carefully around the prone piranha and stepped up to the room access to the ward. Harry's bed was obscured by pall but the phantom of the healers were still moving against the open. As he watched one of them detached and stepped towards the room access. Draco stepped away to let him out, Bob Hope and dread rising in his stomach.

"Is there any news show ?"Draco asked.

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

"Yes."Draco said definitely, looking over the marauders."waiting a mo ... HEY !"The piranha jerked to living, hands flying to wand before they realized where they were. Draco turned back to the therapist."They ‘ re up. What is the newsworthiness ?"

"fountainhead we ... we removed several items from the body of your friend."The poor therapist swallowed nervously."We found a drop-gem embedded in his sternum. There was also something in the wall of his stomach. We think it may consume been designed to neutralise poison but it seems to have had the reverse effect. It was the generator of his illness. We also found-"

"What about his eye ?"genus 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 great passel of scarring. Unfortunately we were unable to regenerate it. We are currently looking into whether the installation he has is high quality enough to provide there."

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

"Yes, I know."The healer shook his point and turned back towards the room access."We ‘ ll try to keep on you informed."He pushed back through the room access and hurried back towards the curtain bed.

genus Draco looked back over the piranha. Through their sand-filled, droopy optic he could see their unhappiness. Harry had fought so hard and got cypher in income tax return but accusation of murder and a permanent disfigurement. And a night marking, they could not leave that.

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

"Of track 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 death 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 open air, 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 vocalisation admirably unfreeze of shaking."You could get a bracer like Harry ‘ s. Or perhaps there are less encroaching mean of removal."

"There are not, it was not made to be removed."Snape tightened the shoulder strap around his arm."And I would favor to not be dependent on an item of illegal jewellery. 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 tegument 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 skin back after the German mark was gone. He was in his apartments at Hogwarts, the only when home he could suffer gained those potions without interrogative was from his own supplying. 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 iniquity lord as well. What would he do next ? What would his side by side motility be ...

"He may go into hiding."Natalie answered his unreciprocated question, still intent on his arm."Like he did fifteen age ago."

"He will not."Snape shook his foreland."He was forced to obscure then, he had no might. 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 savage, I am certain of that."Snape felt the cutting stop and watched as Natalie picked the picayune fuss of skin up and calmly incinerated it. It was done, he was disembarrass. Strange that he should palpate so little. Perhaps because he knew he was not truly disengage until Voldemort was dead. Perhaps because he knew that, without the power 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 headway."Perhaps not useless but ... if I had not acted on instinct we would now have a go at it exactly what Voldemort was planning. We would be able-bodied to counter him instead of stumbling around in the darkness."

"You had to."Was all she said.

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

"You know them dear than anyone."Natalie continued."You can work on out what he will do next."

"I have been trying."Snape replied tetchily."But I can not consider of anything he would wish to do that he has the manpower to execute. Unless he has some design I am unaware of. Which he almost certainly has. I always got the good sense that he had something brewing."

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

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

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

"And if he is not perfectly then he is doing merlin knows what."Snape shook his top dog."It could be anything."

"Severus,"Natalie took his nerve in her manpower and tilted it up to adjoin her eyes."Not so low now. We won today. It may not find like it, but we won a victory. triumph have been few and far between this past year, we need to cherish them, not care about what will fall out next."Snape was once again amazed by the way she could let on through to him, whatever his mood. He smiled,

"I believe I have some wine."
*


The boy who carried the public figure Harry felt himself enter the associate dream. He felt floorboard under his back, scratchy through the thin hospital robe. He knew where he would be when he opened his center. And finally, he even knew why.

He pushed himself off the flooring, leaning his tired frame against the paries. The bulwark painted with bears and stool pigeon over a pale blue sky full of flossy swarm. Harry felt like spitting but he couldn't muster the energy. He ignored the pony in the center of the way, it's burnished mobile spinning idly in the dream-wind. He shoved the door open and descended the step. The repugnance he always felt was still there, but he could barely bring himself to like. He knew what this place was now.

No one-year-old remembers their house. No one-year-old could recall every picture, or the pattern on the wallpaper. This place was a lie, a parasitic memory that had been burnt into his mind. The creeping illness in his skin was his nous's way of telling him that it wasn't real, that it didn't belong.

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

He couldn't feel the orchard nearby. God knows what that represented. Some metaphor for safe his mind was projecting out maybe. Who knew. The river ? Some other contribution of his mind ... it didn't matter. Harry let himself go down to the ground on the grass, it was all pointless. It wasn't worth fighting this anymore, it was burnt onto the dorsum of his scull. He could never escape.

His center flickered open in the hospital ward. He could feel the sore new growth in his hand. It was pink, new skin, and smaller than the other. Harry dropped it back onto the blankets. Other part of his body hurt too, little scars and combat injury. They had fixed him up. He wished they hadn't bothered.

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

The predator were sleeping there, lying across benches or curled up on the floor. He didn't wake them. He didn't want to talk to anyone right now. Couldn't public lecture, he had no mind how he would even depart. He hurried away and down the stairs. He didn't stop until he was out of the building and a few streets away. A small street, not engaged. Breathing hard he shoved his verge out into the street. He found that he could barely prevent his arm up for the few bit it took for the knight bus to blur out of nowhere and screech to a full stop in front of him.

"Ere are you Harry potter ?"The acned music director squinted at him, his spokesperson wide of amazement.

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

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

"Right."Hero ... that cut to the magnetic core like a knife."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 need to go to it as there had been to leave in the dream.

"Godrics hollow ?"The pimpled 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 intellect ? He didn't seem to have reason's anymore. He remembered being full of fire and need, burning rage for the fight. But now he just felt excavate, 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 hitch and he got out without speaking. The bus disappeared with a whoosh, a purple blur in the air. Harry looked up and down the street, it looked like any former settlement. It was empty this prison term of day, like a ghost town. Suited his mood perfectly. He looked forward, an derelict sign of the zodiac, burnt and with the top floor blown off.

But he knew what had stood there. He had seen it in his dreams. 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 lies. The feel in his straits, grief, loss, fear. They weren't his, they weren't his exit. but strangers had died here, two unknown. hoi polloi who had nothing to do with him. The sorrow was another trick, just another floor 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 think of nada. His feet brought him to the square and he lent tiredly on the war memorial. 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 Oliver Stone, hissing out rage through his teeth. The lie poisoned everything. Even his real memory were tainted. He didn't even look like this for Jesus Christ's sake ! His whole body was a mask !

The endocarp shifted under his fingers. He looked up just as the memorial seemed to melt, morphing into, a statue underneath. Harry stumbled back. No ... no no no. Under the commemoration there were two number, a man and a woman. The 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 fury as he looked on the felicitous thrower family. The testament in Lucy Stone to the life he had never really had. His fingerbreadth went to his wand.

"Reducto !"The wand flickered out, even through the craze the magic spell flew true. It struck the straits of the father statue, shattering it into splinters. Some of them cut the boy's flesh. He didn't care.

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

"Reducto ! !"The last shaft was the strongest, striking out in a blinding bolt of luminosity, obliterating the bundled infant. Blowing the little boy-who-lived to smithereens. Flames flickered across the statue before they died out. Flickered across the ruined dais of caput and died to nothing.

The unnamed boy stepped back, breathing like he'd run a battle of Marathon. His clothes wet with perspiration. He dropped his wand back into his scoop and turned his dorsum on the statue, his breathing space still coming in furious outburst. He couldn't think, couldn't breathing time. He walked off down the street, not trusting himself to face on the statue again. It made it all too real.

His middle found a burying ground. Both centre, real and magical. He shuddered, he'd got used to the shining overlay over his vision, the roentgen ray sight of the humans. Now it was just a constant reminder. A admonisher of what he'd sacrificed for the lie. He pushed the cemetery gate open air and let the eye roam, in a present moment it had angled in on the thrower grave. He walked hesitantly to it, his verge safely away in his air pocket. He pushed a piece of music of ivy off the Oliver Stone and read the inscription.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death


Well that was bollocks. Being all in meant you had at least one other enemy left, namely the one that killed you. His eye whirled in it's socket, looking straight down. The two casket, side to side in the terra firma, stared back at him. But ... there was a shadow. Like a vacant sphere. He drew his baton and muttered a revelation patch. Faint whiffs of delusion drew out of the ground to get together him. He waved his wand again, cutting the misty waifs away. He worked ... he didn't cognise how foresightful. Probably minute, maybe hr. At some point the gray sky gave way to rain and the graveyard smoke turned glib. Harry ignored it, concentrating on the spells. It was well. It was a puzzle, breaking the fancy. It stopped him from thinking.

Finally he was done. Nothing different showed on the surface, but down underground ... Harry stood and stepped back, his heart hammering in his chest of drawers. There was a thirdly coffin on top of the former two, arranged like a pyramid. Inside ... inside was a lowly body, a child. It's tiny limb crossed over it's chest.

The nameless boy fell to his knees. There it was, the concluding validation. The final incontrovertible check. That misfortunate wasted body in there was Harry Potter. He could even see a tiny scratch on the os of his scull, above his eye, in the physical body of a lightning deadbolt. The real scar had cut all the way to the bone, his was barely more than makeup. That was all he was in fact ... constitution for a puppet. A god-damn doll.

He raised his scepter to the Isidor Feinstein Stone, but said nothing. The wrath in him was gone. He had seen the bodies of the real Potters, lying together. It was hard to feel anger, but he wished he did. The anger at least filled him up, filled the emptiness with flaming. But now the flak was gone and he felt even emptier for it. He found himself resting the point of his verge against the gravelly, wet stone.

It wasn't even his wand. He stared at it, thinking skittering over the asleep inwardness of his mind. It was a wand gained from killing, killing and fighting in a war he was never supposed to be part of. This wand was his killing baton. He had done atrocious things for the saki of this war ... to others ... to himself. He found himself pressing down harder on the wood. He had pickled his soul in rake and what had it got him ? He added his former arm and pushed harder. He had fought, and he'd been broken. The wand splintered with a loudly go, the springy woods bending almost double before it twisted into ribbons. A little red fluff was visible through the respite. It had had a phoenix feather core, he never knew.

"fountainhead that makes thinks easier."

The part had come from behind him. He turned slowly but his magic eye had already whizzed around to find out the intruder. The black robe told him everything he needed to know. Harry knew he should experience panic, or dread, fear perhaps, at to the lowest degree surprise. But he was damned if he felt anything.

"You would be Rookwood."His vocalization sounded utter in his ears.

"Yes I am Aug Rookwood."The man sketched a sarcastic bow, his sceptre in his hand."Thank merlin I still have a watch on the nonaged magic detectors. You ‘ ve come a long way just to steal now. A long long way ..."

"Felt like further."The empty boy dropped the corpse of his wand onto the Potter grave. Perhaps some fool genius would find it and gain up some story about it. He turned back to the end eater and asked,"Are you going to shoot down me ?"He was surprised that his vocalisation did not sound eager.

"Eventually Mr ceramist, no doubt."Rookwood held out his scepter."But first you ‘ re going to secure something for me."

"What ?"

"The iniquity God Almighty ‘ s undying favor."Rookwood tilted his head up arrogantly."I will be raised above the others, above even that bastard Crouch."Rookwood paused, obviously expecting the pall 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 care anymore."

"Is this some sort of trick ?"Rookwood raised his wand threateningly."You are alone here I know that ... well, to be sure. Stubefy !"

He closed his eyes before the tour hit. The darkness was welcome.
*


A crashing noise woke him. Flashing brightness burned through his lid as he groaned. The racket went on and on, associate ... very familiar. His memories twinged, his real ones.

"I ‘ m in the underground."His eyes flickered undefended just as the pipe train flashed out of mickle, leaving the tunnel in darkness. He felt the cords binding his bridge player together, his fingerbreadth danced along them trying to find a knot. There was none. They were tight though, biting into his skin, magical no doubt. He didn't have to feel to love that his legs were similarly bound. He didn't bother to try to stand.

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

The nameless boy twisted and looked around him, one of the bulwark was been broken through and a dark, down-to-earth burrow stretched away. Now that the train was gone he could hear something in the iniquity 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 grey wall stopped the light source, a writhing pile of material 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 shadow lord ? Slipped your thinker ?"

"Dementors ..."The boy looked into the swirling mass. Wasn't he supposed to be feeling some kind of coldness, 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 mortal could only find so much despair and he was already at his limit. And as for making him live over his worst remembering ? Ha ! His darkest here and now was still fresh in his mind.

"The dementors like it down here."Rookwood continued."They ‘ ve been breeding down here like tent-fly. There are hundreds 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 matter. In fact, none of that topic. Now be quiet."Rookwood flicked his wand, making a silencing magical spell. A second moving-picture show levitated him off the floor. Rookwood reached into his pouch and pulled out a tenacious silvery length of cloth, easily recognizable. An invisibleness cloak. He just hung 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 black place 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 office fit him like a glove. He hung weakly as Rookwood moved further towards the scratch, digging sound. The dementors followed after, filling the tunnel with coldness. Up ahead there was a turning. As Rookwood walked calmly around the bend soma came into view. One nighttime cloaked human body standing tall, the rest ragged and torn and scrabbling at the shite mindlessly. No, it wasn't just their clothes that were ragged. It was their flesh.

Inferi, or zombies. Who could tell the conflict ? The digit in figurehead of them turned as Rookwood approached. Dark foresightful hair spun out as Bellatrix stepped towards Rookwood.

"You are of late Augustus."The female last eater was not as pretty as she had been. It seemed like a steel toed boot with the personnel of a falling teenager behind it did more than damage than expected. The leftfield slope of her expression was crushed in, a mass of scars and bulging skin. When she spoke she slurred, only the right side of her mouth moving. Her eye was a raw socket, zippo left.

She had lost her eye. How wonderful. How very poignant. Under the cloak the invisible prisoner felt his emptiness filled with a midget glint of satisfaction.

"howdy Bella."Rookwood stopped, his hand flickering to his sceptre."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 late. Why were you late ?"

"I was delayed momentarily, nothing to concern you."Rookwood waved his paw away."You should go to your own tunnel. Without soul there the wrangle them the dementors may be getting restless."

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

"You will not get it."Rookwood dropped his crisp demeanor and snapped at her."Get to your own tunnel. We take down the ministry tonight, there can be no mistakes because one of us is trying to separate themselves out from the crowd."

"There is no crowd together anymore."Bellatrix sneered through her ruined typeface."There are three of us. There will be Thomas More than adequate glory to go around."Bellatrix turned and dissaperated into slim air.

"fabrication bitch."Rookwood grated."We all want to be the dark Almighty ‘ s right helping hand. halt digging you freaks !"He directed the finis one to the creatures burrowing in the filth. They stopped moving and stood, their vacant eyes rotting in their skulls. Rookwood raised his wand and the soil began flying away faster. In a short moment the dirt became a brick wall, old and faded. The wall of the ministry.

"Are you set up Mr potter ?"Rookwood grinned up at the unseeable prisoner hanging above him."Here we go."He turned to the rampart and raised his verge. There was a shattering gust and the wall caved in. Behind it a man at a desk jumped to his understructure his bridge player tangling in his robe. A super acid flash lamp of Inner Light struck him in the principal, 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 !"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 Wills Moody ?"Albus appeared around the corner, his brass a masquerade of concern."You were on guard responsibility. What are you doing here ?"

"Didn ‘ t you listen to me ?"Helen Wills Moody threw his mitt back the way he'd come."The ministry ‘ s falling ! Enough dementors to paint the sky black !"

"Why didn ‘ t you send a patronus ?"

"Didn ‘ t you hear what I just said ! Every inch of that place is good of the individual sucking devil ! No patronus could cut through that !"

"My god, we must assist them !"

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

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

"But there could be a hole !"Helen Wills Moody tried to keep up, his breath detection 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 architectural plan ! Do you have a plan you old bast-"But Dumbledore was gone, already around the corner. Dwight Lyman Moody doubled over, he was old, too old. But God he wasn't done yet, he wasn't ... done. What the hell was Dumbledore thinking ? He could get them all killed ! The entire society. The entire bloody order in one fell swoop, and what the hell could he do to stop 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 !"Helen Wills shouted towards the startled Professor."The order needs your help !"

"The fiat ?"Snape stood, his bridge player flat on the table. Zhao was beside him in a bit."I am not a member of the order any-"

"The ministry is compromised !"Moody saw his words cut Snape."Dementors in more than figure than ever before."

"And you want all the assist you can get ?"Snape sneered."The order had done me no favor lately."

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

"smarting girl."Helen Wills Moody shook his headway."Dumbledore is heading for the ministry, by now he ‘ s trailing half the order. He ‘ s going in without any eyes, without anything. It is a gob, or could be. Even if it ‘ s not he ‘ s still going to drop off 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 happen ..."

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

"That ‘ s why I ‘ m here Snape."Dwight Lyman Moody was gritting his tooth. Every moment 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 back this."Helen Wills Moody growled as the unspeakable dashed from the way."You know that."

"I know. I know well ..."Snape pulled a gown off the rachis of a hot seat."We need an army."

"Do you experience where to find one ?"

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


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

"Welcome Mr ceramicist, to the section of Mysteries."Rookwood pulled the cloak off his floating prisoner. Harry Potter. His captive was just hanging there dumbly. Well ... he couldn't really do any different. Rookwood let Harry down to the floor and canceled the silencing appealingness."fountainhead Mr Potter ? You have anything to say ?"

"What are you doing with me ?"ceramist's voice was a trivial horse from the longsighted muteness."You ‘ re trying to take in points with your Almighty, isn ‘ t capturing me enough ?"

"More than enough Harry. more than than enough."Rookwood tweaked his verge and the Bond on Harry's ramification snapped off. Another click and Harry stumbled forward."But I am after the icing on the cake. If I am to pass Crouch in terms of deservingness to the lord ... I must seek the icing."

"That ‘ s the stupidest affair I ‘ ve ever heard."Harry said dully.

"fountainhead I didn ‘ t ask you."Rookwood hurried forward through the ministry, he had to retard down a import later though as Harry shuffled along behind him."rushing up !"

"My foundation are asleep. Your roach 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 dupe. There were still a few left. Not enough to bother over though. He stepped into out into the memory office, pulling his oddly compliant mission past the army tank of mental capacity. He stopped by the door to the expiry chamber, there was the strait of magical spell from within, individual holding out perhaps. He pushed the doorway assailable in fourth dimension to see a wizard scrambling away from an inferi trip and dip. The corpse-warrior grabbed the blubbering unspeakable in it's unshakable grip and threw him away with inhuman strength. screaming as he flew across the elbow room, his screaming was cut off as he fell through the archway in the center. The curtains ruffled for a present moment, then went still again.

Rookwood hid a shudder, he was never entirely comfortable with the execution portal. Harry watched from his side with dull centre. What was wrong with the boy ? Never intellect. Rookwood picked his way around the sharpness of the room, giving the inferi a wide birth, and pushed open the door at the other side.

"well Potter here we are."Rookwood gestured impressively at the cant of shelves in front of them, each one with rows upon rows of tiny spheres."This is the G. Stanley Hall of prophecy."

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

"They are criminal record of vaticination, and they are the reasonableness 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 answer, but he sniffed again, his sass twisting into a sneer.

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

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

"The night noble is very eager to get his hands on the prognostication. That prophecy."Rookwood pointed at the particular orb."And I will be the one to give it to him. My icing, you could say."

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

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

potter stared at the orb for a moment longer, the words sinking into him. Then he threw his head back and laughed, laughed so surd his center ran with tears. It was a reaction Rookwood had not expected. laugh, but not in jest, not in joy. This was a caustic laugh, full of darkness. What was going on ?

'' So that 's it is it ? '' Harry choked out, his dead heart still glistening."What a bitter joke"

"What ?"Rookwood shook his head.

"And if somebody else grabs one ?"Harry reached out his hired hand."What happens then ?"

"If they are very prosperous they might get off with only major injuries."Rookwood answered confusedly."But in all likelihood ? They would die. Screaming."

"Really ?"The Potter boy's hand hovered over the swirling glass."To hell with it."His fingers closed around the orb.
*


Minerva screamed as she threw her patronus against the grew rampart before her, knowing it was too later. 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 fast. She spun as insensate hands grabbed her from behind, crushing her with cold strength. The breath fled from her lungs and she felt ribs crack. In despair 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 physical body ran from out of the madness, his viridity bowler still clutched in his hands."Please !"

"Get out of here you fool !"McGonagall shoved Fudge away. She could not deal with him. Her eyes searched through the scrambling mickle for the head word of the ordination."Dumbledore ! Dumbledore we must commit back !"

She could not see him, she could not see anything. Despair was her but warning and she spun, a shining light throwing a dementor away that had been practically on her spine. She didn't even know where they were anymore, near the courts possibly. Down in the deeps, no escape.

She heard a scream from her left and sent a patronus wildly into the surging crew. The shriek cut off sharply. Whether she had had any effect she did not know, she had to metamorphose again to dance out of the way of a swooping dementor and snapped back to mail another shining visible radiation to hold them back again. But her physical structure was tired, her scepter arm tired.

putrefaction frame filled her nostril and she tried to lend her sceptre around. Too slowly. The perfectly clenched fist crunched into the incline of her pass and she fell. She brought her sceptre up and blew the absolutely physique to fragment, blood already dripping into her eyes. They needed service, and there was no one to give it.

No one.
*


The orb came release in ceramicist's hand, it's faint shine shining through his fingertips. Rookwood felt his substance bounce, but the ceramicist boy was staring at the prognostication like it was a springy snake.

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

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

"Just devote me the bloody orb !"Rookwood made to grab it but Potter slipped away.

"It ‘ s not ... It ‘ s not ... Can ‘ t."Suddenly the white luminousness faltered. A tinny whine filled the air, like grinding gears. Harry held up his hand, slowly uncurling his fingers. In the middle of the white a bantam spindle of darkness was growing, like ink in milk. The pitch blackness grew until it covered the whole inside of the orb, it was no recollective shining glass but a polished orb of obsidian. The whine grew in the air, biting into his ears. Suddenly there was a froth crackle and Potter yelped in pain, spilling the prophecy onto the story. Rookwood cried out, it would come apart for for sure ! But when the orb struck the earth it squelched, spreading out like clay. Smoke rose from the blackened glass.

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

The Potter boy ... he did this !

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

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

"Dumbledore could not induce touched the prophecy !"

"He could if it was already played out."potter glanced at the goop on the floor."A trap, or else his illusions on me interfered somehow."

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

"He ‘ s come."The thrower boy was staring through the cap like a lunatic, his nerve again an empty mask of repugnance."He ‘ s come."
*


Suddenly the dementors went still, floating off their enemies to oscillate by the cap. The silence broken only be the groaning of the offend. Minerva 's middle found the entranceway to the elevation, it 's mesh opening move in a grating crash. Stepping out into the corridor, black robe floating behind him and a hand curled in a moving ridge to the creatures swirling above, was the drear lord himself. Minerva felt her heart jump to her throat. She glanced around, the ordering was in tag end. Only Dumbledore stood tall, the relaxation of them were covered in rakehell and shaking from the travail of the battle. There was no force here to stop a nighttime lord, no strength at all.

Voldermort's eyes found a quivering stumblebum on the trading floor and he smiled. Ignoring Dumbledore the shadow lord crooked a digit, pulling the figure to his feet. The putting green bowler was gone, but the pale figure remained.

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

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

"scathe 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 sleep together is a nest of soul sucking wraiths. Why would I need to hurt you ? I already have everything I wanted from you."

"Tom,"Dumbledore's voice spoke out soft in the darkness."You can not possibly think I will let this tolerate ?"

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

"Tom I shall-"

"No !"Voldemort cut the headmaster off with a sharp Scripture."I have grown tired of you."Voldemort raised his script and the Dementors fell like hunting hawks. Minerva was forced to fight back for her life against the grizzly hoard, spinning around her like a vortex of death. And in newsflash of light beyond that vortex she could see Dumbledore rushing towards his foe, his wand out like a sword.

Minerva tried to cut her way forward. Tried to get to them, to help. But the press was too bang-up. An inferi had her arm in it's vice like grip and she blew it off with fire. Another took it's place 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 story in a paries against the wickedness lord, but it was blasted to shreds just as quickly. Dumbledore was driven to his knees.

Minerva dashed towards him but the Second Earl Grey pot closed between them. She cast another patronus before her but it was absorbed almost immediately. She felt an arm hold hers and spun to combust it off before she recognized the face.

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

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

"Then what do you purport !"

"We die."lupine delivered that live in a flat growl."We are finished."

"We are not !"Minerva tried to throw another patronus but the despair was sinking in and it faltered as Elwyn Brooks White mist, easily brushed aside by the wraiths. Suddenly there was a fit of tearing racket, breaking the flagstones and making the chamber shiver with it's military force. As it died there a flare of red light and a high school cruel laugh.

"That is the sound you could do ?"The voice of Voldemort was unmistakable."I win old man."

The dementors parted for a instant, like clouds in wind instrument. The dark God Almighty stood over the sprawl form of the master, his bang on Dumbeldore's neck. Minerva felt despair that had nothing to do with the dementors. She let her wand helping hand drop to her side. They had lost. It was all over.

"Expecto Patronum !"A refrain of strong voices cried the magical spell and the elbow room was filled with a wall of light. Minerva watched as a charging white lion crashed into the massed forms before her, a snarling brute running at it's heels.

"You ! traitor !"Voldemort had his scepter drawn and had spun to face up the lift. Minerva turned to look but saw just one chassis standing there, his arms crossed in arrogant casualness.

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

"I will kill you !"Voldemort surged forward and Snape's wand stabbed forward. There was a flash of light and Snape was thrown backwards. He stumbled and pushed himself up, driving a barbarian blast of rooted wind at the shadow lord.

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

"Minerva !"A straits appeared out of nowhere as a cloak was thrown back. Natalie Zhao ? What in Merlin's epithet ?"Minerva the students can ‘ t save them back forever and sooner or later Voldemort ‘ s going to enquire where those early patronus came from."

"The student ?"

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

"But Snape-"

"Is holding him back !"The indescribable grabbed a prone physique on the floor."Now tell your mass to fall back before everyone else is dead !"
*


The boy who had been Harry didn't know where he was. There had been a mad panache away from Rookwood, screaming and dashing through the mental confusion of conflict, then there had been some steps, then a corridor ... The auditory sensation of fight were everywhere, coming out of the rampart. He had just kept running., unable to do anything else. His heart raced beyond what any human effort should stimulate forced it to. His mind was white, a dead weight unit. Today had been a lifetime.

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

"cum on dance with me you mangled bitch !"Albert Michelson came into view down a long hall, 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 torso on the storey. pinko hair, auror ‘ s robe. Oh no ...

He crouched down on the base, his finger's breadth going to Tonk's neck on instinct. He did not really expect to find anything, her skin was pale and ...

She had a pulse.

The nameless boy had to shield her body as a shining laser of something cut through the rampart above them. The affaire d'honneur was raging just on the other position of the wall. She wouldn't have a pulse for long if he left her here.

So long ... His psyche was grey goo, he just wanted to shut down. He had no wand and his muscles were water. They would never gain prophylactic anyway, this place was a warzone. But on the former hand ... Tonks.

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



revaluation and you will grow sprite extension that will let you fly.


Due to former allegiance my bill may get a little further apart for a patch. Sorry everybody.



Snape let himself down tiredly on the bound of the fountain of magical crony. Every off-white ached and his arm was tied up to his physical structure in a sling. There was no clock time for healing yet though, no prison term at all.

"Stay back. !"Natalie was shouting calmly ( a problematic combination to maestro ), raising her hands to the crowd of ministry survivors."Just stay there and the healer will get to you ! And you get out of here !"The last was directed to a day-after-day prophet newsman furiously scratching away at a notebook.

The other side of meat of the mansion house, back behind the fireplaces, a line of layer were set up for triage. From where he sat Snape could see Elizabeth II Heathland lying sedated, her hand clutched by her constant familiar Vanessa. She would be alright though, a short cold and quiet for week to derive and likely not ever wanting to encounter a dementor again but she would subsist. Oh to possess just one of them back in his house, or any of the piranha. They had fought like Tamil Tigers, like attack dogs with wands.

One of the doors slammed heart-to-heart and Markus stepped out angrily. His robe were mostly burnt off and he had bloodline running down the side of his chest but he seemed unaware of these little details.

"She got away."The massive necromancer reached the edge of the fountain and plunged his nous under the surface. A minute later he lifted it up and labour his wet hair out of his centre."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 victory he could get."Forneus is in detainment and Rookwood is numbered among the dead."

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

"Bella has more biography than a cat, do not cogitate any more of it."

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

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

'' They deserve bloody ribbon ! ``

'' Yes but I can not give them medals. You however can consecrate them Os. '' Snape smiled a fain smile and saw it returned all-inclusive. He gestured towards the elevation with his beneficial arm."Voldemort holds the department of mystery. Or to put it another way he is trapped there. He has placed a ward on the lift and on all staircases."

"I can go through."Michelson nodded arrogantly. `` consecrate me five minutes. ``

"I doubt that you could do it in five or five hundred."Snape shook his head."I know that Barbara Ward. There is only one way to get through it, and that is with a dark German mark on your arm."

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

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

"How many ?"

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

"Mother of god."Albert Abraham Michelson slammed his fist into his palm."So it ‘ s a dead end ?"

"For now, until he makes his relocation. He can not wait forever."Snape felt a little shudder run through him. Whatever the dark master's motility would be it would be the last of at to the lowest degree some of those hostage. Probably all.

'' What the ... '' Suddenly Albert Abraham Michelson was on his feet, an formula of stupor on his face. `` Merlin 's ... Harry ? ``

A moment later Snape saw what he had seen. Out of a passageway Harry was stumbling, a prone consistence weighing him down and his grimace a grayness mask. He did n't look up, did n't acknowledge anything, just stepped directly to the dear bed and lay his burden down bedside a shocked therapist. Snape rushed forward and saw marauders stand in every corner of the room, running towards the unexpected survey of their leader.

'' Harry. '' genus Draco came to a diaphragm just in face Harry. `` Harry what are you doing he- ''

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

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

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

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

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

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

'' Where 's your scepter ? ``

'' Shut up. ``

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

'' I SAID SHUT UP ! '' Harry yelled angrily. As the marauders shied back there was a bang of heat from behind them. Snape spun around in time to see the fountain of magical sidekick go red hot and set out thaw, dissolving into the urine with a hiss. But the atomic number 79 was not disappearing, it was staying there in the water, mixing with the H2O. Harry forgotten, Snape stepped forward as the surviving Holy Order extremity, ministry proletarian and vulture surrounded the pool of gold.

It was like a mirror, shining with yellowish light up to the ceiling. As they watched it faded to silver, then to grey, then finally to pure white. The blanched resolved into shapes, colour bloomed out of the pure Light. As the shape coalesced Snape heard a screaming from someone on the other side of the pool and almost felt like following suit.

In the consortium, rippling on the aerofoil of the liquidity, was an image of Creator Voldemort. He was standing in what was clearly the department of mysteries. The wand in his handwriting was tenacious and pale, it was not the one Snape was used to seeing him use. It was unmistakably Dumbledore 's wand. Behind the dark lord, lined up and chained together, were ten mavin. Though the picture was faded and the colouring ran together Snape could easily distinguish the two on the end. Cornelius Fudge and Albus Dumbledore.

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

'' adept hotshot of the ministry, '' The nighttime Divine greeted amicably. `` fellow member of the order of the capital of Arizona and the honorable child. What you are seeing is the inside of the department of secret, where all the keen secrets are hidden. All the rich magic of the ministry is within these walls, all controlled by me. ``

'' He 's lying. '' Natalie assured the panicking necromancer around her. `` There 's nil down there he could use. ``

'' And see at my friend here, '' Voldemort gestured out over his prisoners. `` They all fought. They all failed, such is the price of defying lord Voldemort. '' He took a bundle of wands out of his pocket and hovered it into the air. With a gouty arthritis of flame they burnt into ash. `` Such is the price ... And look who we have here ... '' Voldemort crooked a finger and Fudge was dragged forward, his bond separating from the others. He came to a stop by the dark master 's feet and looked up with pained 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 fiddling man, whatever you say. ``

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

'' Yes ? ``

'' Well I spat in your tea. '' Fudge shuddered out through gritted teeth. `` Every prison term. Even back then you were a creepy fiddling addict. ``

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

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

'' Avada Kedavra ! ``

Green light filled the puddle of body of water and for a moment none of them could see anything. Snape felt his heart beating rapidly in his thorax. The light cleared in clip for them too see the dark God Almighty savagely kicking the diplomatic minister 's torso to the side and stabbing his sceptre towards Dumbledore. The master was thrown forward roughly.

Snape swallowed worriedly. The dark Maker was showing them this to show his power but Fudge had openly defied him. Voldemort would be enraged.

'' Well old man ! '' Voldemort stabbed his wand down at Dumbledore, a bolt of electricity charring a jam in the Headmaster 's robe. `` Do you not have something to say ? Some last intelligence before I take your life. ``

Dumbledore just stayed silent. It was only from the light rise and fall of his chest that Snape could enjoin he was still alive.

'' Speak Albus ! ... Crucio ! '' Voldemort held the master in the throws of the torture curse for a few instant before releasing him. `` You will speak ! 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 acknowledge that I have won, you will say it ! You will acknowledge this victory in some way before I kill you with your own wand ! ``

Dumbledore did n't even see at the nighttime lord. In a rage Voldemort slashed his baton through the air, dragging Dumbledore to his feet.

'' You will verbalise ! '' The Snake like face was set with cruel ire. `` You will speak before you die ! ``

'' I ... '' Dumbledore wet his backtalk and tried again. `` I am ready to die. ``

'' What ? ``

'' I am ready ... '' Dumbledore closed his oculus. `` I am ready to die for everything I have done. Those are my last Scripture, the only ace you will get. down me. ``

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

It was as if metre froze. The puddle exploded with viridity light again and Snape's pharynx closed, every muscle tensing. The former viewer around the pool held their work force to their faces, or shook there fountainhead ... they would not consider it. The common light faded and the consistency of Albus Dumbledore dropped to the terra firma. It crumpled like a paper napkin, his byssus trailing onto the flooring like a rag.

So fell Albus Dumbledore. Snape felt a minor hand louse into his. Natalie 's handwriting. He did n't know whether she was offering puff or asking for it. Perhaps both.

'' Here dies Albus Dumbledore. '' Voldemort laughed. `` A fool to the end, and in the end a disappointment. So there you are, two hostage all in. I have eight left and all will die if you do not founder me what I want. I want Harry thrower. Bring him to me in one half-hour or I will shoot down another, perhaps the lycanthrope. I am certain no one will pretermit him. But if any of you wish to see these wizards alive, then you know what you must do. fetch. Me. Harry. ceramist ! ``

The pool went black and Snape stepped back. All around him people seemed to be going mad, crying and shouting to one another in confusion. His center were only trying to notice one figure. Harry ceramist. He swept the crowd. Nothing.

Snape turned to the entrance in clip to see the doors snap shut.
*


The unknown boy crashed out of the phone box and dashed away, his feet slipping on the wet pavement. Rain splattered against his face as he ran out into the streets. He did n't even sleep with why he was running, just that he had to get away. All of them would depend to him, would look at him and expect to see Harry ceramist. wait to see their rescuer, when all there was was a impostor. He dashed past the people in the street, some of them turning to look at his odd clothing and panicky expression, but he was running too fast and they were left behind.

He heedlessly ran into the road and heard the screech of fault. He prayed that one of the cars would hit him. His feet would not stop moving and the sound of trump was left behind. His magic eye painted the world in shimmering curtains of phantasma, distorted by the raindrops settling on it 's surface. He pushed past a man in a suit and heard the man vociferation. He could n't stop running. Had to get away. But what he was running from could not be escaped. He was running from reality. The rain ran like a river. Roaring like the river.

Finally, with his heart whipping 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. Wait ...

He turned to lie on his back 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 ceiling he had hid ... He had come a to the full circle, entirely.

Heedless of the driving rain he opened his rima oris and laughed. Laughed in gross bitterness. If only he had never stopped here, had never been caught, had never gone to Hogwarts. Then he would never birth known, would never bear known any of this. He would deliver been able to keep on being Harry Potter. He felt binge running down his boldness and mingling with the rain, freezing him to the bone.

But there was warmth. A piffling point of heating plant at his dresser. He dug his hand into his shirt and slowly drew it out.

His pendent. Pythea's pendant. Worn so long he had almost forgotten it was there. But now it was glowing like a star topology, so bright beneath the grayness sky. He knelt and held it cupped in both hands, staring at it in wonder as a silver mist swirled out from the spot. It pooled in his hands, swirling and sifting. Slowly the scintillation liquid rose, shaped and colored and separated until two orbs hung in the air by his hands. One of burnished gold, the other pure white.

'' Harry ... ''

The white orb shifted, moved and expanded. It shaped into a design, every curve glowing with ignitor, every flowing bloodline of her pure white dress and her porcelain skin.

'' Theia ... '' He breathed.

'' Harry I wish I could possess come sooner. '' Thea stepped forward and encased his hired hand in hers.

'' Another illusion- ''

'' No. '' Pythea shook her straits. `` This is no illusion. This is really me talking, from Greece. I thought you might necessitate my service. ``

'' Your ... aid ? ``

'' You 're lost. Lost in the woods. '' Theia smiled faintly. The aureate orb was still circling her, pulsing faintly. `` And I am the oracle. I thought you might involve a guide out. That was why I gave you this all those old age ago, to help you happen your way. In your darkest hour. You need to detect your way again Harry, or else were all doomed. ``

'' Thea, '' The boy ducked his read/write head, his middle squeezing shut. `` I 'm not who you think I am. I 'm not the one you were trying to avail, 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 representative filling the nothingness between the buildings with joy. `` I was n't helping you because you were Harry ceramicist I was helping you because you were you. ``

'' Do n't call me that. Do n't squall 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. ``

'' plosive speech sound. '' Too painful. Memories of pleasant times,

'' I will not stop. I will never end trying to serve you. I knew the mo I met you that you were n't the chosen one. I mean please Harry, I 'm the mistress of prophecy. Did you honestly think for a moment that I would escape a thing like that ? I saw who you were. I also saw that, in a humankind without Bob Hope, you were the sole polishing chance. ``

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

'' I saw zip about your future. I saw everything about you. '' Pythea knelt to forgather him eye to eye. `` I saw you a brave and true mortal who would campaign for this mankind even if the entire world was against him. I saw someone who could get struck down a thousand metre and would still pick himself up. I saw that the dark lord would turn out and I hoped ... I did n't know but I hoped that you would never crumple before him. With the creation in peril and the futurity uncertain I took the best prospect the humans had. I took a probability on you. In a time of ended despair, I trusted you. ``

'' But, I ca n't fight anymore. '' The boy dropped his middle. `` I just ... I just finger empty. You do n't know what it 's like to have someone walk up to you and snap your entire 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 expect you to accept what you have to do from me, which is why I brought him. '' Pythea gestured up to the lucky firmament. `` You've carried this necklace close to your kernel for almost four old age now. I think it's time you saw what's inside. Do n't die Harry, please do n't die. I 'll see you soon. '' She faded into zero, leaving just the lucky orb left. As soon as she was gone it began stretching and shaping.

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

The figure resolved into a pattern. His long robe were buttoned tightly and long arms, rolled up now to show his branch. Those robes were familiar. Tonks had worn them final year, auror trainee gown. The side remained misty for a moment More then coalesced, becoming a firm model in golden illumination, right down to the last tousled hair.

The boy who had been Harry 's mouth fell open in cushion. He was looking up into his own human face. No ... no there were differences. The jaw was more pointed, sharper, the eyes closer together. He did n't have a scar on his neck opening, nor a dark Deutschmark on his arm. He looked sr. 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 understand this. '' The ghostly golden figure of speech said. `` Your booster, Pythea, she says that you 're in a different world or ... or proportion or something. A different time too. I do n't quiet understand it, need Hermione for that sort of thing. ``

'' So do I ... '' A croak susurration. 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 existence is very unlike from mine. For one thing ... I 'm not in it. I died. ``

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

'' I wish I knew why but ... your friend wo n't tell me. Something about lessening the interference as much as possible. There are other things I wish I could severalize you, things you really should do it about- '' The recording skewed like stable 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 affair is really confusing me. I 'm recording this in my hereafter, to be given to you in your past times, to play in your present. Apparently Pythea thinks that maybe I can say something to you .... maybe explain ... I do n't know. I do n't live 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 clip it 's worse because you know you had a past it 's just been taken. I know you must feel like crawling into a hole and demise, I 've felt like that. When my godfather died I ... but that 's not the Saame really. I do n't know what I 'm saying. ``

The ghostly figure began pacing up and down.

'' I do n't have intercourse what I 'm supposed to say to you. '' The Harry stopped pacing and distribute his helping hand. `` Except that, that it gets better. I 've been through things as bad as you, and I 'm probably the exclusively soul you 'll ever meet that can say that. Your supporter says that, since I 'm stagnant in your humanity, the job of fighting Voldemort falls to you. I ca n't say it'going to be well-fixed, but you know that. In fact I ca n't think of anything that I could say to carry you to take aim the job. Except that you have to. The world depends on it. And I know that the humanity has n't done you any favour. 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 recognise what I can say to convince you that 's not dead on target except for two things. One, it gets better. It really, really does. Eventually. And two ... ''

The shadow figure of speech licked it 's lips.

'' Do you bed how many regulations are broken by this variety of inter-dimensional transit ? Certain countries still have the death penalization for messing around in latitude human beings. Just getting here, the attempt it must take in 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 entire rest of the human beings is hell right now you 've got one someone who 's uncoerced to put on the line everything for you. hazard her life. So if zero else ... competitiveness for her. ``

The fig faded. It 's eyes lasted the longest, staring out into the rain, then they too were gone and the alleyway was saturnine again. The boy on the ground stood, slowly and with aid, but he stood.

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

He chuckled to himself, the laugh building. His manus went to his stomach as he threw his point back and laughed, the rain trickling down his human face. That was Harry thrower was it ? Git. I mean who talks like that ? Screw him. Screw the too spectacular, hesitating bastard. If that childish gimboid can save the macrocosm I sure as hell can.

He pushed his rain soaked hair out of his eyes. It was like the emptiness was, somehow separate. It was still there, the gaping nothingness, it was just that all the important parts of him, the things that made him who he was, were outside it. He settled the little eggshell necklace back around his neck. Just a plate now, it's legerdemain gone. But not wearing it was unthinkable. It was part of him, the real him, and he needed it back. Especially since he intended to nibble the biggest fight of his life.

He needed a program though .... and if he was going to survive a fight with the greatest dark genius in the world it would take to be a crashing good programme. Or a all-fired insane one. Let's see, he had no vantage. Voldemort held all the cards. Voldemort could pour down him without thinking. And Voldemort had surety. On the other hired man Voldemort was alone, he had no last feeder, no night brute, no servants.

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

So construct it an unjust fight.

His sassing curled into a smile. There it was, there was the approximation. A Harry Potter plan.

Smiling, he walked out of the alley. He picked up his pace and he reached the street, how lots of his half hour was gone ? He had lost all track of time. He broke into a run. He knew he should go faster but he would assist no one if he was to outwear to struggle. It seemed an age until the earphone 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 state your name and business."The phone said flatly.

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

The auto apparently took him a little too literally as ...
Harry thrower
Messiah


... Clattered into the ground ball. Harry didn't bother to pick it up. If he didn't know who he was now no badge was gon na tell him. He dissilusioned himself before the doors slid open again and stepped out into the ministry foyer. There was a level of organized chaos and another braggy storey of disorganised topsy-turvydom. Harry ignored it and his trick eye picked out the marauder. The were all clustered in one station. Harry wandered over to them and quietly said,

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

The marauder'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 massive open fireplace. Once they were all behind Harry dropped his conjuration and smiled at his friends.

"Hi Guy. 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 evacuate place in his chest begged to differ 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 meter, how much time we got until the first surety goes ?"

"Five minutes."genus Draco pointed at the clock.

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

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

"Yes."Harry nodded, and there was a sudden aspiration of breathing space from the predator."But I have a design ! Seriously guy, it ‘ s ok. I have a plan."

"Do you come back how badly some of your former plans have gone ?"Padma asked dryly.

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

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

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

A timber of hands were stretched out towards him. Every single wand. Harry picked one at random and tried a simple magic spell. It was stuttery and faint. No practiced. He picked another and almost set his pilus on fire. The third the magic spell came out right but the scepter felt Wyrd. The fourth ... Harry did first one magical spell then another ... then another ... they all came out perfect tense. His eyes came up to meet Malfoy's grey ones.

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

"Thank you."Harry pocketed the wand."The arcsecond affair I need is healing. Just a flying refresher. I ‘ m to tired and have it off up to fight like this."

"Here."Ginny drew a feeding bottle out of her robe."I swiped it from the triage eye. I thought you might demand it if you came back."

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

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


"Here ! Look !"Snape was shocked out of his thoughts by the yell. His heart found the beginning in the Loretta Young Weasley shaver, crouched down by the outpouring. Ginny was furiously jabbing at the pond, waving him over. `` It 's going clean again. I can see something ! '' Snape dashed over, staring down into the inky shadow. He could see nothing.

'' Where ? '' Snape asked hurriedly.

'' There, there by the box. ``

'' I see cipher. ``

'' aspect. ``

'' Miss Weasley there is nothing there. ``

'' There was ! ``

'' There is not now- '' Snape 's centre flickered up to meet those of his scholar. A flicker of memory twitched behind those centre. He pushed ... No ! Snape spun and dashed to the elevator, but the grating was already slamming shut. Snape came crashing up against the cellblock. The witching roadblock sparking against his pelt like static. He could n't get through. Before his eyes the dissilusionment fell and Harry Potter was standing there, looking back at him. Snape felt people crowding all around, murmuring, speaking, crying. All pressed up to one slope of the barrier, and on the other ... just Harry.

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

'' Eight people. '' The kid shrugged. `` VIII the great unwashed or me. selection is pretty obvious. ``

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

'' I know I do n't. '' Harry nodded, a faint smile on his expression. `` I 'm doing it anyway. bid me fate. ``

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


The rhytidectomy grate slid open and Harry stepped warily out into the corridor. The wreckage of battle was everywhere, great dent gone from the bulwark and room access blown off their hinge. This was n't the department of closed book yet though. Just the courtroom. Harry 's eye whirled wildly as he picked his way around the wreckage. The door to the department came into vista, a vacuous rectangle at the end of a long corridor. Harry could see zippo beyond the room access, not even with his magic eye. Some sort of auspices must extend around the department of mysteries. For the sake of his architectural plan he hoped it did n't go inside the department too. Harry raised his wand to his cervix and spoke the sonerous charm.

'' Tom Riddle ! '' Harry 's amplified voice shook the bricks in the walls. `` I 'm here. '' There was a moment 's delay, then.

'' Welcome Mr Potter. '' A similarly booming vocalization sounded down the hallway. `` I was not sure as shooting you would follow. ``

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

"Those are the terminal figure I gave."Voldemort sounded amused.

Harry waited in silence for a moment ... then the threshold at the end of the corridor swung subject. Grinning quietly to himself, Harry walked in. The tantrum was just as it had been reflected in the pool, the line of merchandise of captives, the wreckage, and Voldemort standing in the center. The consistence of Fudge and Dumbledore were lying where they fell. The room was the circle room, the spinning elbow 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 elbow room beyond.

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

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

'' Of course. '' Voldemort gestured mildly. The Ernst Boris Chain on the prisoners crashed to the ground.

'' Go on cat. '' Harry stood out of the way so they could get to the doors. `` Get out of here. '' Slowly, the prisoners began to shuffle towards the door.

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

"In only lay off people from entering, not from leaving."

'' Ok, mulct. hold ! '' Harry held up a helping hand, then pointed to lupine and a muscular looking auror. `` Fudge and Dumbledore, use up them up with you. ``

Lupin bent to cradle the body of his instructor 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 express joy. Some thing did n't change.

As the finally man trouped out Harry pushed the door shut and locked it. The heavy bolt of lightning sliding into place sounded like a hammer.

'' Well Mr Potter. '' Voldemort smiled like a snake. `` It is down to just you and me. The kings in our little chess plot. The pawns are gone, the rooks are taken. Now it is just down to you and me. ``

"Have you never even played Bromus secalinus ?"Harry quirked an brow."If all you have is the two B. B. King that 's a stalemate snake font. You ca n't checkmate with one king."

"I was being metaphorical."

Harry rolled his eyes and picked a clear blank of floor. He pointed his wand down.

'' Calx. '' A chalk line appeared on the level. Harry drew his wand around in a rough rectangle then stepped back and measured his handcraft by eye. `` Tommy boy give me your opinion. Does that expect like fourteen feet to you ? ``

'' What in Merlin 's public figure are you doing ? ``

'' Well we have to have a affaire d'honneur. '' Harry shrugged. `` power as well do it by the record book. ``

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

'' I am unpredictable. '' Harry shrugged and stepped up to the middle of the rectangle. He put his wand into his scoop and held his bridge player away from it to register he was n't touching it. `` But I believe that the future step is to bow to one another. Like valet. ``

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

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

'' Of course. ``

'' Hmm ... '' Harry grinned up at the cap. `` Hope you like this guys. It 's going to be one Scheol of a display. ``

'' 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 region as admirer. '' Harry smiled. Voldemort chuckled wryly and encircled Harry 's paw in his own. Harry pulled forward and hugged the appalled 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 verge. The spell flared across the room. Just before it hit the wickedness noble seemed to waver and wither into mist. The spell passed right through his back and exploded in arc against the wall. Voldemort turned and rematerialized, a mocking sneer on his face,

'' Jumping the count Mr potter ? That was your masterly design ? ``

'' Worth a jibe. ``

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

'' foretell me Harry. ``

'' I will not. '' Voldemort raised his wand. `` Goodbye Mr ceramicist. I wish you all the practiced in the next world. Avada Kedavra ! ``

Harry closed his eye and smiled as a flash of lightness filled the room.



recap or the wickedness chicken with the DEAD EYES that only I can see will kill me.


A lot of multitude seem infelicitous 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 thing in his hand.

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

The chicken managed to unblock itself and dropped to the floor. It took a look at the two mavin on either side of it and wisely decided to be elsewhere. Squawking and flapping it scampered through an exposed door.

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

Voldemort's eyes went wide.

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

The dark lord's mitt twitched to his pocket.

"Oh look !"Harry drew something else from his gown."And here ‘ s your early 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 anger."You ... you ... you ..."

"Me. Me. Me."Harry grinned like a tiger."The moral of the tarradiddle Tommy boy is this : Don ‘ t you EVER mess with a marauder because we can sink you. And we never lose."

"thrower I will-"

"Shut up."Harry stabbed his scepter forward, keeping the early two dependable in his left script."Shut your ugly murdering face. glad, civil, ‘ lets all be B.F.F.s ‘ time is officially over. Now is the time for the other affair. The bloody hatred filled battle that culminates with the killing of you."

"You think you can win ?"Voldemort hissed out through clenched dentition."Even without a sceptre I am still the shadow Maker. I am still more than a match for you."

"Evens the playing champaign a bit though doesn ‘ t it."Harry cracked his neck first to one slope, then another."So come on snake expression. Hit me. Hit me with your best shot."

The iniquity lord hissed, his fingers clenching into claws. Then a moment later he exploded into smoke, whisking away through an undetermined threshold. What the ? Harry 's magic eye focused through the wall, onto the story in the next elbow room. On the floor next to a prone body was-

WAND !

Harry 's feet moved of their own agreement and skidded across the floor to the door. His own verge lashed out.

'' Difindo ! '' The wand on the floor snapped just as the swarm coalesced around it and but Harry was already moving again. His eye making bulwark and doors meaningless. Another eubstance, another verge ! He felt the weed 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 verge up from beside the bundle of gown that was all that was left of the victim of an inferi. He skidded to a halt, his eye dancing madly to get hold any remaining sceptre ... nothing in the divination way ...

The cloud circled, reeking of malevolency. Harry could almost feel Voldemort doing the same check that he was, using grim magic to detect any remaining weapon. The cloud contracted then slam away like a squid. Harry was off and after it in a 2d, a irregular more and his eye had found it's target. The death sleeping accommodation, a sceptre rolled into a crack cocaine in the floor. Harry pelted through the corridor, the black smoke ahead of him. Too far ! Too speedy !

Harry threw another crack cocaine ahead of him, kicking up shards of detritus but the instant it reached the swarm it was squashed like a toad. The wind going flat in mid air. The smoke disappeared under a door and Harry crashed through it a moment later. The wand ! right there ! Voldemort reappeared with a bombshell and jabbed his hired hand forward. The baton leapt from the flooring and spun towards the dark Godhead. Harry aimed desperately,

"Ferio !"

There was a wisecrack from the air and splinters clattered on the flooring. The darkness lord's hand snapped back like he'd been stung.

"That ‘ s the go of them snake-face."Harry panted. Keeping his baton trained on the shadow lord he stepped down the steps till he was side by side to the flapping archway. He picked the three wands he'd acquired out of his pocket and chucked them through the caul. The gloomy cloth fluttered for a moment, then went still."All wand ‘ s out of manoeuvre, except for my one. And the only way you ‘ re getting that is to pry it from my cold dead hands."

"What an splendid suggestion Mr Potter."

Harry had just a moments warning before the orb of darkness flew from the darkness lord's hired 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 oath."Jupitall !"The ball-lightning hissed from Harry's wand and forced the dark lord to dodge to the position. The orb exploded against the paries, filling the room with sparks. Voldemort spun and cried,

"Garta !"

Harry felt the flagstone beneath his feet disappear and he plummeted into darkness. He jabbed his baton straight up.

"Hammus Missus !"mountain chain shot up and slammed into the ceiling far above."Rapellet !"The chain felt like it jerked his arm out of its socket as it pulled him up into the light. As he shot from the flat coat like a bullet a ball of darkness flew towards him.

individual not expecting it would stimulate been hit. Someone without a conjuration eye.

Harry kicked off the edge of the arch and swung out of the way. He let go of the chain and aimed at the dark image below him.

"Avada Kedavra !"The cat valium luminosity left him stunned but he landed like a cat on the incline of the stepped bowl. The killing cuss blew a hole in the paries but Voldemort was dashing away, disappearing through a doorway."Come back you slimy coward !"Harry was laughing with bloodlust and raced after him, his eye tracking him through the labyrinth of entrance hall. Harry dashed back through the entryway Charles Francis Hall and shot into a foresighted room of desks. Voldemort's fleeing shadow 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 blowup filled the air with emerald sparks. Three thunderbolt of lightning thundered through the explosion and Harry threw himself to the side. One of them grazed past his leg and he bit back a cry of pain. A freezing magic spell numbed the burnt flesh as Harry furiously dashed after the dark Divine. As he skidded to a freeze in the lobby of prophecies the dark Creator disappeared. Harry furiously glanced one way then the other, but neither eye could pick up a vestige. A wisp of spoke curled around one of the shelves, only to go away a moment later. Harry cursed, the eye wasn't so well for immaterial matter. He slowly turned, letting his optic sweep through the opening between the shelves. Voldemort was in here somewhere. Harry closed the door and whispered a vicious snare on anyone who tried to get through it. Voldemort wouldn't be able to give it, some things required a wand.

Harry walked slowly out into the prophecy hall. The glass firmament had not escaped the mass murder of the battle, many were left in glittering shards on the marble floor. The little snatch of glass cracked under his boots. Was that smoke ? Harry 's heart hammered in his pectus. Was that a-

FIREBALL ! Harry spun and yelled,

'' Ferio ! '' The hex blasted into a spinning orb of fire, exploding it in the air and throwing Harry backwards into a shelf. The Wood buckled and Harry fell through backwards in a pile of burning splinters. There was an ominous creaking sound and Harry had to skin to get out of the way of the collapsing shelves. Orbs of shining pot bounced off his shoulders and shattered on the flooring, their white smoke spilling out and going inky smuggled like swirls of midnight.

Harry 's eye swirled and he just caught a glimpse of the dark-skinned plume form before he dissolved again. Harry picked himself up and held himself at readiness. This was like a bloody shootout, it was all about who was quicker to the draw poker. Unfortunately Voldemort did n't actually have 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 attracter. The dark lord 's wispy variety was trapped between them. Before Harry could cast another spell the ledge exploded outwards, Voldemort stepping out wreathed in flames. He raised his hands, about to get smoke again. Harry stabbed his verge out again.

'' Tartrate ! '' It was a wild stab in the shadow. The magic spell was used to make liquids into jelly. Voldemort stumbled, his word form blurring a moment but not turning to smoke. `` Avada Kedavra ! ``

The nighttime Godhead threw his hand forward and a slab of the marble floor was thrown into the air to catch the curse word. Voldemort hissed and the fire behind him leapt up into a column of flaming, curling and splitting into a glow red snaked head word. The ophidian roared and bit forward, it 's dentition dripping with thaw venom.

'' Excalabus ! '' Harry slashed through the burning apparition but his shining sword slipped through it like weewee, leaving not a scribble. The snake struck forward like a viper and Harry dropped to the base, his eyebrows charring off his nerve. `` Ardor-Algidus ! '' Harry yelled the flame freezing magic spell and leapt up into the hellfire devil. He stabbed his baton at the phantom beyond the the pits and yelled the killing swearword again. The redness flashed to green and Harry could see the iniquity lord 's appalled grammatical construction as he had to dodge a spell from within his own creation.

Harry did n't pass on him an inch, he threw himself forward, shot another jinx at his off equalizer opposition and found a swarm of pitch blackness knives flying in his cheek. He dropped to the floor and heard them clatter behind him. He threw himself to the side but the knives jerked to abide by him. He grabbed a plank of shelf from the floor and spun it in front of him, hearing the heavy thunk of the sword impacting the wood. Harry spun to face up the dark lord and banished the knife towards him. Voldemort waved his hand distastefully and the knives melted into smoke.

The shadow Divine was panting, breath hissing in and out through his lipless mouth.

'' You can not win. '' He hissed, wrath and haughtiness battling for swelling in his articulation. `` You must realize that YOU CAN NOT WIN ! ``

'' Shut. Up. jerk-off. '' Harry gasped through heavy breaths.

'' You are just extending your suffering ! ``

'' Is n't that what liveliness is all about ? '' Harry drew himself up, grinning. `` And besides- Ferio ! '' The spell caught the dark lord by surprise, smacking into his shoulder with a ivory splintering crack. Voldemort roared and Harry felt the story under his foundation buckle and rumble. He flipped backwards as the flat coat where he had been standing became a swirling quicksand pit, gear up to draw him down into it 's depths. Harry danced backwards as Edward Durell Stone upon stone became suck up death. His fundament hit a shelf and he clambered up like a wanderer. The ledge lurched as it began to sink into the 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 swarm of blue 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 mark. Harry 's eye spun to find the night lord and he almost fell off in shock as he found Voldemort hovering up from the ground with murder in his eyes. The shit could fly !

'' Tempesto ! '' Harry 's crack sprung out of nowhere, drawing backbone from the flooring and filling the air with yellowish-white cereal. Harry called another cruller, and another. The dark lord disappeared in the dust storm. Disappeared to normal centre that is. `` Avada Kedavra ! '' Harry shot through the murk at the vestige in the air and dashed away along the top of his shelf, he leapt across to the side by side 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 turn were coming from. Only a gull attacked and stayed in the same situation ... unless ...

'' Acerbus cuspis ! '' Harry called the pain spears, flashing out in their slow fan. He twisted them in the air like a snake to strickle the dark lord from both sides. He was rewarded with a ululation of pain as one of the shining bolt struck place. Harry cast again but the dark lord summoned a silver cuticle. `` Motus ! '' Harry did n't even have to think. He just struck out and made the apprehension orb vibrate with unbearable noise. He twisted to bump the resonance but Voldemort was slyer than Michelson and cancelled the orb. Harry turned to run but the dark lord was quicker and lightning caught his arm, burning like hell. Harry lost his basis and dropped off the side of the teetering shelf.

Harry spun his tornado and blew himself up into the air again, shooting like a rag-doll through the sandstorm until his finger caught the edge of a shelf and he held on for high-priced life. He pulled himself up and tried to stand, his eye spinning to line up the dark lord. There he was, but what-

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

The George Sand vanished like mist but Harry had bigger problem. He leapt into the air as rock and roll the size of cars obliterated the ledge behind him. His infantry hit another shelf but it was already shattering and falling. Harry 's scepter whipped out and a hook impacted into the ceiling. Harry swung out over the expanse of nothingness. A bowlder came hurtling out of nowhere but Harry still had his storm.

The nothingness pulled him out of the route of the shooting star 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 Boulder hurtling towards him. His wand flashed out again and one Rock veered into the path of the early, shattering them both to fragments. Harry felt the woodwind beneath him switch again and this time let it carry him down a bit before leaping off and dropping to another collapsing ledge, his eye found firm terms and he jumped again as the last shelf collapsed into splinters.

Harry dropped to the top of a atomic pile of wreckage. A piling three times as tall as he was and full of broken wood, shattered glass and the smouldering remains of spent boulders. Harry waited while the last of the crashing and clattering stopped, then folded his arms.

Voldemort was hovering in the air level with Harry. The dark Almighty 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 crook eyebrow. Voldemort 's teeth clenched in fury as he stared up at Harry standing on his pedestal of ruin.

'' What are you ? '' Voldemort sneered through his teeth. `` You should not be awake ! No human should be animated ! ``

'' What makes you think I 'm human snake face ? '' Harry smiled evilly. `` Are n't you the one who 's always saying we 're dear than mere mortals ? ``

'' DO NOT MOCK ME ! ``

'' But you make it so easy ! '' Harry put his mitt 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 nighttime lord 's clenched fist clenched but he said zip. Harry smiled. `` Of course, you could surrender. ``

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

'' Hey mate, you 're the one that wants to go forever. '' Harry cracked his knucks. `` You wo n't live forever if you surrender but I can guarantee you 'll survive retentive than if you keep fighting. Not much farsighted but still ... ''

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

'' Me ? I 'm the contrabandist of the roofs at night. '' Harry laughed. `` The hero of the blood war. The only survivor of the pelter of old age and the Hogwarts triwizard champion. ``

'' But- ''

'' I 'm the mirror-blade, '' Harry spread his arms wide-eyed. `` serpent 's bane and wolf-slayer. I 'm the buccaneer of the Spirit of Njordr."

"You-"

"And, to my distress, I am Dumbledore 's fiddling changeling child."

"What-"

"But that does n't matter because I 'm also a marauder ! unbeatable cutthroat love child and badass extraordinaire ! I. Am. Harry. Potter ! The choosing one ! '' Harry trained his wand on the shadow master, his human face set in unshakable resolution. `` That is why you should cede. Right now. Or I swear on this pile of vaticination that I will glow you from this world. ``

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

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

'' Never. '' The shadow lords hands clenched to fists. `` I will never surrender to a half bloodline boy like you. ``

'' Whatever, '' Harry grinned. `` In that case ... suck it bitch ! Depulso ! '' Harry jammed his wand straight down and the pile of wreckage exploded out in all directions, the Ellen Price Wood becoming pernicious splinters and the rock singing out in razor sharp shards. The dark lord threw up a silver shield but Harry was already on the earth. With a movie of his wand the shield screeched and Voldemort threw it away from him as if it was red hot. Harry rolled to the position to skirt a spray of black orbs and threw his wand up. `` Avada Kedavra ! ``

The dark overlord fled through a door and Harry rushed to trace, casting expiry curses before him. Harry vaulted a desk and skidded through a doorway only to observe his organic structure rising into the air. A lightning deadbolt grazed his articulatio humeri and Harry was spun around like a top. Planets were floating in this way ! There must be some spell screwing with gravity !

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

'' Confringo ! '' The testicle of plasma exploded but Harry cast another flame-freezing magical spell and pushed off Saturn directly into the inferno. From behind the cover of flame Harry shot a killing curse at the dark lord but had to twist in the air to stop his head being taken off by a non-white blade flickering through the air. He had used the flame-cover trick one too many times. fountainhead lets try another.

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

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

In total contrast to the residual of the section this room was a sort of zoo. John Cage wide-cut of animal filled the way up to the ceiling and were stacked in a pile in the middle. Some looked normal, some ... not so much. 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 magic eye swirled in it 's socket, trying to get a fix on Voldemort but all the life story and movement in the way made it tricky.

Harry tried to line out the room. Long, not so wide ... The door at the other end was closed. That meant that Voldemort was either at the wall behind one of the cages at the side or crouched down behind one of the ones in the middle. Harry grinned,

'' Alohomora ! '' He pointed his sceptre at the pile of cages in the center and all their parallel bars sprung open. creature scattered in every way. Something that looked like a mutant wolf made a starved saltation at the Cage to the left and was thrown back by a go. There ! Harry 's scepter was trained there in a instant. `` Confringo ! '' The hex blasted the cage out of the way, revealing Voldemort 's Zane Grey skin. `` Avada K- '' Harry had to come apart off the whammy to duck behind a desk as more orbs of darkness rained through the air. Harry heard a threshold slam open and leapt up from where he was crouched. He dashed to the door and swung through, his wand out.

The death chamber ! back here ! Harry saw Voldemort just reaching the door at the early side of the dimly lit room and aimed his wand.

'' Colloportus ! '' The door squelched and glowed red. Harry spun and locked the other threshold too. In a moment he had his scepter trained back on the iniquity noble. Voldemort was just staring at him from the former position of the vast elbow room, his lips contoured into a sneer. He clearly knew he could break the poxy lockup spell, but doing so would founder Harry the moment he needed to kill him. Harry tried to prevent his breath even as he spoke, `` Got you. No more track. ``

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

'' I doubt that. '' Harry mirrored the iniquity Almighty and slowly walked down the whole step. `` I rarely sign things. ``

'' I will cast you through the veil myself. ``

'' What ... ever. '' Harry shrugged. `` I 've had enough of your self important threats. Time for the showdown. Let 's end this. ``

'' zip would please me more Mr Potter ! '' Voldemort reached the bottom of the room. Harry was just a whole tone behind him. They stared at each other from opponent sides of the plinth that held the arch of the humeral veil. Voldemort 's lip curled up in a sneer. `` 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 sceptre towards Voldemort and the ray cut through the dimness like a spotlight. Voldemort threw his hands up to protect his eyes."Avada Kedavra ! ``

The dingy lord dropped to the floor, letting the spell passing over his read/write head and jabbed his arm up at the roof. The phantasma above them became awake, a writhing cauldron of shadow. Harry dodged wildly as a tentacle of night shot down and tried to wrap up itself around him. Harry felt another grab his leg.

'' Excalabus ! '' The tentacle was sheered off but Harry had been thrown to the level and had to wheel as thunderbolt of thunder slammed into the flagstones where he had been lying. A ball of blackness caught the side of his leg, simply obliterating flesh and hide. Harry screamed and pulled himself to his animal foot, jumping out of the way of another tentacle. He had to get rid of that thing ! He could n't agitate it and the dark Maker at the Same time ! But how to pour down something like that ... How else ? Harry jabbed his verge at the roof. `` Avada Kedavra ! '' The green magical spell impacted the gloomy creature and it wailed in painfulness, it 's tentacles going limp.

Harry spun back to face Voldemort just in time for an black orb to take a clod out of his shoulder. He was bleeding too much. Had to end this ! The wickedness noble raised his hand for another bolt of lightning. Harry tore two flagstones from the ground and hurled them in the path of the patch, one after the other. The first was blown to splinter but the s, hidden by the cloud of rubble, dissipate through like a marble discus and crashed with a hideous crunch into Voldemort 's ribcage.

The wickedness lord was thrown back, his arm coming up to cradle his spite dresser. Harry pressed his advantage and Voldemort was driven back by spell after spell. The dark Jehovah was pushed onto to the steps and stumbled back, lying prone against the gemstone. He seemed exhausted.

'' Avada Ke- ''

"Fulgar Fletch !"The dark Lord 's deal swung up ! It had been a trick ! Harry saw a cloud of black blades erupt out of nothing and sheet towards him. He had no protection ! He could not dodge ! There was just one luck ...

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

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

'' Bloody shield .... '' Harry 's arms dropped down, suddenly too watery. His wand rolled away on the nighttime Harlan Fisk Stone. He had n't felt the knifes go in, epinephrin perhaps, but he felt it now. Pain and fire raging out from the hole in his belly. `` Bloody ... shell .... And I was doing so well ... ''

'' Yes Mr Potter you were. '' The wickedness Maker picked himself up from the stone's throw and dusted his gown off. Now that he had won the friendly, almost fatherly, tone was back. `` I applaud you. ``

'' I could consume beaten you ya screw. '' Harry coughed weakly and saw droplets of blood spray from his mouth. `` The very low spell I threw. Back when I jumped the counting. Back when you had the fake wand. If you 'd have just tried to shield like any normal necromancer ... I could have won on the commencement magical spell. That was ... that was the architectural plan. ``

'' It was a good design. '' Voldemort must have seen no reasonableness to be angry now that he had won. `` Against a normal wizard it would birth no dubiousness worked. ``

'' Damn it. '' Harry raised his hand to spread his fingers around the knife blade in his abdomen, 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 stomach meant he was dead.

'' Do you have any finally words my love enemy ? '' Voldemort asked calmly. `` I did not hear any acceptable one from Dumbledore. Anything ? ``

'' Ca n't think of anything ... '' dark dots swam before Harry 's eyes. He had failed. `` Are my Friend still watching ? ``

'' Oh yes. '' Voldemort nodded. `` I would not have the wizarding populace miss this event. ``

'' Then my final words are ... keep fighting. '' Harry raised his eyes to meet Voldemort 's. `` Keep fighting him. ``

'' Not very pilot. '' The dark Godhead shrugged. `` But full than Dumbledore 's. ``

'' And ... '' stemma was pooling beneath Harry 's peg. `` And tell Theia I tried. ``

'' An admirable opinion. ``

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

'' Very well. '' Voldemort raised his handwriting. `` I shall miss you. My ... interest opponent. '' Voldemort opened his mouth to speak the end discussion Harry would ever hear.

'' postponement. '' Harry whispered, he had no speciality to verbalise normally. `` I 've thought of some good last word. ``

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

'' The one with the major power to beat out the darkness Godhead will be born as the seventh calendar month Dy. '' Harry 's whispered wrangle rang out in the repose way. `` Born to those who ... those who ... ''

'' rich person thrice defied him. '' Voldemort prompted, his eye suddenly desperate. `` Yes ? Yes ? ``

'' Thrice defied him. '' Harry licked his mouth, his spokesperson was barely coming out now. `` And the shadow overlord will tick off ... will mark him ... ''

'' Yes ? What then ? '' Voldemort leant airless in to listen.

'' Mark him as his equalize ... '' Harry 's back talk were barely moving, his words just disturbances in the air. `` But the dark ... the dark ... ''

'' Yes ... '' Voldemort put his manus on Harry 's shoulders, steadying him. `` Please eat up it ! ``

'' The wickedness lord, shall never ... '' Harry 's eyes were closed. `` Shall never learn. ``

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

'' The dark Jehovah ... shall never see. ``

'' What did you say ? ``

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

Powered by the last gasp of dying fad Harry pulled the tongue from his chassis and drove it into Voldemort 's neck opening. Harry fell backwards as blood fountained from his stomach and his centre clouded black. As he slipped away and his substance stopped beating all he could hear was the rustling of the veil.




drop-off. wall hanging. Again. I know. Sorry. Review anyway.


Sorry this took a piece to send. I did n't mean to intentionally leave you hanging at a cliffhanger but get-go I posted it then realised I had to change something so that sent it to the back of the queue, then it got rejected ... anyways it 's up now.

critique seem to be conflate as to whether multitude think Harry 's really drained or not and whether the series is over or not. It 's nice to ingest created such take issue panorama. : )




The first matter Harry sensed was the fragrance of orchard apple tree blossoms. It was a feeling he knew very well. His eyes flickered open and looked up onto the companion dapple leafage of the plantation in his aspiration. It was exactly as it had always been, green and full moon of life.

Harry was lying on the floor. How had he got there ? He lifted his implements of war up and realized that his blood soaked and battle frighten garments were gone, replaced by a simple albumen robe. That was n't all that was missing either. Harry 's fingers went up to his eye, poking it lightly.

'' Ow ! '' physique, not glass. Harry shook his head, realizing what must have happened. Eye 's did not grow back, grove did not spring out of nothing. `` I 'm short. I died. ``

Harry breathed out, a foresighted sigh of sadness. He had done his best, his very, very best. He had tried to hold out. He had tried to not allow the world of the keep, had tried not to leave his friends.

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

'' I tried Theia. '' 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 subsist. I guess I was legal injury. ``

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

'' I did subscribe him with me though. '' Harry spoke the caustic words. `` I got him good. ``

The wind rustled lightly through the trees. He thought he could almost, just almost, get wind children laughing. Harry sat down and set his back against a tree and closed his eyes. If this was the hereafter then he knew one thing for sure. Before he met any pearly doorman or had his sin weighed against a feather or whatever he was sitting right here and having a remainder. The host of blaze could not move him from that spot.

The flatus whistled through the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and for a moment Harry though he could see voices.

"Stop her ! Don ‘ t let her get to the consistence !"

"She ‘ s got a portkey !"

The voices faded. Harry shrugged, that kind of thing probably happened all the time when you were dead.

Harry 's bridge player wormed it 's way along the basis and found an apple. It was decent and hard, fallen recently. He brought it up to his lip and bit into it, letting the succus run down his face. It tasted a footling bitter, just a little.

Harry heard the grass in front of him disturbed by footstep. 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 placidity it had not held in life.

'' Why not ? '' Harry shrugged. `` I mean were all all in here are n't we. Maybe Elvis and Merlin will link us next. ``

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

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

'' But I do worry. '' Dumbledore shook his school principal. `` I can never rationalize to you enough for what I did to you. No words could ever do. I ... I am only glad that I got this one last chance to tell you how sorry I am. My crime was inexcusable. ``

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

'' You seem, '' Dumbledore was picking his words carefully. `` You seem at repose with what I did. Sir Thomas More than the conclusion time I saw you at least. ``

'' Mate, I can never forgive you, so do n't ask me to. '' Harry sighed and shook his head. `` I do n't reckon I can ever forgive you but at the same time ... I get why you did it. You were in a bad place, everything was riding on your articulatio humeri. I mean look at me, today I cast an inexcusable jinx ten ... maybe twenty sentence. And before that, over the course of this year I 've killed ... hoi polloi. various the great unwashed. We all do what we think we have to do. You did what ... what you thought you had to do, at the sentence. I ca n't forgive you for it. You playing with my head word. Making me your Frankenstein 's monster. Your changeling child. You ... took me and changed me. Changed who I am, put memories in my header. You said you put your store of James thrower in my read/write head. I can finger them in there now ... How much of it is me ? Is any of this me ? Or am I just a poor copy of Harry ... Or worse a wretched copy of James I Potter. Am I ? Answer me truthfully. Please. ``

'' I ... '' Dumbledore dropped his eyes to the floor. `` I do not know how lots 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 much commixture there has been. There is a chance that the storage settled harmlessly into your subconscious, but then again ... ''

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

'' Yes. ``

"Why did n't you narrate me this to begin with ?"Harry sighed,"I mean before I went and cut out my eye and everything."

"I ... There were many reasons."Dumbledore looked away into the aloofness."You see it was very easygoing to ... to not call back what I had done. To not cogitate of it. I mean there you were, looking like Harry, acting like James River. It was easy to fall into the yap of thinking you were ... that you were ..."

"real ?"

"That you were not the living substantiation of my sins."Dumbledore shook his head."At least that was the reason at first. I simple did not want to know what I had done. Then, later on, after you had defeated the basilisk, after you had come back from the cloudburst of ages, I began to think perhaps I would not experience to. You had proved yourself a Hero of Alexandria so I though ... perhaps no one would ever possess to know. Perhaps I could let you take Harry 's situation and never severalise you. I thought I could let you take the burden. I am not proud of that. I should take in known the prognostication could not be so easily avoided."

"Is it potential I still can carry his office ?"Harry pointed at his wrist."I mean, the dark lord did mark me."

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

Harry sighed. As he did the wind seemed to gnarl, carrying to him upstage voices. He strained his ears to learn,

'' Help him ! For Falco columbarius 's interest help him ! '' Was that ... Hermione ?

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

'' His marrow 's not bewilder ! ``

'' Of course It 's not beating he does n't have any blood left you hysteric idiot. Each of you, give me your hands. It's a unspoiled thing Harry acquired so many hangers-on, one of you has to be his blood type. ``

The voices faded into the zephyr. Harry's eyebrow furrowed.

"Did you hear that ?"He asked Dumbledore.

"No, but then I ‘ m a little more dead than you are."Dumbledore smiled.

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

"You are deadened, technically. Your heart and soul is not beating."Dumbledore's optic twinkled."But I believe that, with time and a generous contribution of good red lineage, you may be pulled back into the creation of the living."

"So ... Is this actually you then ?"Harry scratched his mind."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 mere beat from the veil."Dumbledore shrugged."I am just glad I got a finis chance to speak to you."

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

The old wizard and the young laughed. A thought struck Harry and the mirth dimmed.

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

"Of course Harry, anything."

"What is my name ?"

"I ... I do not know."Dumbledore hung his head."I am sorry Harry. I erased the memory 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 years ago, January twentieth. It stands about ten stat mi south of capital of Northern Ireland. If records exist then, well then you might be able to ascertain them there."

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

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

"Interesting."Harry, who had lived his life with a British capital speech pattern thick enough to float bricks on, chuckled."So, do you consider there might even be records of my parents ?"

"I do not consider so."Dumbledore looked away, not meeting Harry's optic. He seemed to be picking his dustup carefully."I do not think that you will ascertain records of them there."

"What aren ‘ t you telling me ?"Harry felt the vanity grow."Were they wizards ? Were they death eater ?"

"No Harry nothing like that."Dumbledore shook his head."In fact I believe we can safely take up both your parents were muggles. Let me explain, when I took you from the orphanage they told me a little about you. About how you had come to be there. Apparently you were not given to them in the normal way, you were ... found. Found by an elderly couple walking along the Lagan river. The river was bursting it ‘ s savings bank a little after a violent storm 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 blue air all over from the cold and moistness, but so imperfect you weren ‘ t even shivering. You had been in the piddle for a long time."

Crashing rocks. Raging white water. Harry's mind shied away from the flashes of terror in his brain and he felt his breath quicken. The raging torrent in his idea banishing all though was existent, a memory board so scaring even Dumbledore had been unable to wipe out. His sole real store was a phobia. Another bitterly put-on. He licked his lip, had to say something, anything to take his mind off it.

"How old was I ?"

"About six months old, give or take."Dumbledore answered."The couple gave you to the agency and of course of action an investigation was made. Unfortunately nothing was ever found. And, inevitably, you ended up in the helping hand of the child services. The story after that is, well, rather as you might approximate it."

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

"I ... I do not think that was the subject Harry."A teardrop rolled down Dumbledore's cheek."You see, I have something the muggle authorities did not. I have my map. That was the reasonableness Lupin knew. I needed him to determine it and show me how to use it, or it could have revealed the truth."

"The map- Or course !"Harry smiled, his heart lighting up."It should show my real 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 pluck away."Do you know how the map works ?"

"No."

"It works by making use of an ancient case of conjuring trick, the magic trick of names."Dumbledore's voice took on a lecturing tone of voice, but Harry could still hear the lump in his throat."There is an old ace superstition. An old wife tale, if you will, that a wizard's epithet is tied to their destiny. That the name first given to a wizard somehow sets his track. There was once a swell fad for concealing one ‘ s admittedly name so that enemy could not make headway superpower over you. madness really, in those Clarence Day someone ‘ s true public figure was well-situated enough to divine. That is what the map does in any case. It works by the magic of names."

"Yeah,"Harry motioned the late Headmaster to bear on."And ?"

"And for you it displays nothing Harry."Dumbledore closed his optic sadly."On the map your name is blank. Just a set of footprint and an empty scroll."

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

"Do you understand 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 month they had me and didn ‘ t even like enough to ..."Harry slammed his fist into the ground."I guess I ‘ m better off without them."

"Is his pith beating ? I can barely-"

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

Harry let the representative on the wind die away. He sighed, looking up into the calming dappled sunlight.

"Harry are you alright ?"Dumbledore asked."I realize that this is a great peck to take in on top of-"

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

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

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

"A blessing."

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

"Yes, anyone dead."

"Tom Marvolo Riddle."Harry said the apprehension name loudly into the wood, only faint replication came back."He ‘ s not abruptly then."Harry's men clenched into fists.

"No,"Dumbledore shook his header."I believe you have Bella to thank for that again. She snuck in when the wards came down and spirited his body away veracious under your admirer'nose using an emergency 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 shoulder."Perhaps as badly as he was 15 twelvemonth ago. This is a victory Harry, it will be years, possibly decades before he can move up again. And if we can catch him while he is frail and finish him off, so a great deal the better."

"I guess."Harry tried to see the good side. It wasn't easy."wellspring let ‘ s try ... Barty Crouch Jr."Again the woods remained empty but for the two of them. Harry grimaced, he hadn't really hoped that the slimy cocksucker was dead. But it would have been a receive surprise.

"Is there not anyone you actually wish to speak to Harry ?"Dumbledore asked, fading a piddling as he did so."No one in this world ? Perhaps the material Harry ceramist ?"

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

"How could you possibly ..."

"fountainhead once was year ago when I traveled through time and met him before he died."Harry checked that off on his fingerbreadth."And the second time me sent a message here from another dimension."At Dumbledore's shocked verbalism Harry grinned."I lead a very weird life."

"But interesting."

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

"I hope so Harry."

"This is weird."Harry chuckled and looked around."Why does it palpate like we 're having this whole conversation two books early ?"

"simpleton Harry,"Dumbledore smiled."Until now you have been walking someone else 's path. From this gunpoint on, you 'll have to make your own."

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

"I know you are Harry."Dumbledore continued to fade."I know you are. Oh delay, may I ask you something before I go ?"

"Shoot."

"What became of my scepter ?"

"Your wand ..."Harry thought back."Oh ... I threw it through the humeral veil along with Voldemort ‘ s. Sorry did you want to be buried with it or something ?"

"No no Harry."Dumbledore smiled broadly, a mysterious twinkle in his fading eye."Just curious."And with that the old wizard faded into nothing, and was gone. Harry chuckled.

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

The air seemed to deepen texture. Harry breathed out softly, he was alive again. He could feel his trice in his chest. Weak, but there. Harry glanced around at the orchard. It was exactly the same as before but it felt unlike. He was dreaming now, just a regular aspiration. Harry let his middle close slowly. He would stir up up in good time, but until then ? He was fine here. For now.
*


Snape reached his flat 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. verity be told he could have fallen asleep in the middle of the great Radclyffe Hall, on the flooring. He would throw been the laughing blood of every student though. Even forged he probably wouldn't have woken up when they started laughing at him, even when they started poking him.

Snape raised his verge shakily and levitated the leave bottleful of wine-colored off his mesa. It had been left open, no thing. He poured himself a glass.

He had stood in the waiting way in St Mungos for longer than he could remember while incompetent therapist told him they had no information. When they had finally told him that Harry was out of the wood all his nervous energy had leeched out and it had taken all of his genial forcefulness to stop himself sagging to the story right there. He had managed to fool to the highest degree of them. He had not fooled Natalie.

She had apparated him back to Hogwarts and made him swear to kip as soon as he got to his room. Who was she to society him around like that ? Why could she ? Snape's mouth curled into a smile. Because she was interesting enough to get away with it and was the only one who could pull it off. Which just added to the sake of path. Snape smiled as the wine-coloured curled down the back of his throat. He was very lucky in many respects. prosperous than he deserved.

"Severus are you in there ?"There was a knock on the door. Not Natalie. Snape flicked his scepter and the threshold creaked loose. Minerva stood on the other position, looking as tired as he felt.

"Minerva."Snape tried to sit a niggling less like he was falling asleep."It is in effect to see you safe, in all the confusedness in the ministry I lost cartroad. seminal fluid in. Would you care some vino ?"

"No thank you."Minerva stepped inside. Now that she was closer he could see that the bound of her centre held tattler signs of tear. She had tried to obscure it, but to the trained eye it was quite obvious."I heard you were back in the palace and came down to see you."

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

"Yes, there is something."Minerva pulled a severe endorse hot seat over and sat down stiffly."When you went off to St Mungos I called the remaining order together, there was much to discuss."

"I can imagine that there would be."Snape yawned theatrically. He did not have to manipulate it."I can not imagine how that would concern 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 of magnitude's task is far from done and we could more than use your expertise. Your primary feather reason for leaving was Albus. I will not presume to ask the details of that dissonance, it was between the two of you. But do you not think that now he is ... gone, that you might be persuaded to come back to us ?"

"That would depend on who replaced him."Snape said levelly."For exemplar if it were yourself leading the ordination, I would give birth no objection."

"I will not be leading the order."McGonagall shook her head."I will deliver 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 class. I imagine next class may be a little well-to-do but I am certain I will still have my hands full-of-the-moon. And besides, I will want to find a new transfiguration teacher."

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

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

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

"Too paranoid."

"King Arthur Weasley."

"Has no fight or strategic experience."

"Natalie. Natalie Zhao. She is-"

"Very new to the order."

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

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

"No."

"individual who knows how the dark lord thinks."

"No."

"Severus listen to me."Minerva leant stuffy to him."Do you not cerebrate we discussed all these things in amongst ourselves in the order ?"

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

"Severus please."Minerva's middle dropped to the floor."This preceding year Albus ... well you yourself saw. I do not speak ill of the dead but he had become ... exhaust. He was not the Dumbledore we all knew. He was not acting at his best."

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

"In any casing he was faltering. We all saw it, everyone in the edict. But no one did anything about it. Except you."Minerva shook her head."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 micturate his representative not sound like that of a rat at bay."I was a death eater, I fell into night magic. A long time ago yes but some Marks do not do out."

"Yours has."

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

"Albus always said he did not deserve the swelling he was given."

"Do not compare me to-"Snape bit back the end of that raging sentence. There was no to direct out his ire on the courier."I merely meant that I do not think it is good to give me this variety of power."

"Albus also said that those who seek power are those least accommodate to wield it."Minerva held his center."The corollary of that is that those who are suited to wield major 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 film the labor ?"

"Do I have a choice ?"

"You do, but I already get it on 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 thing 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 frontal bone. He should begin planning, there was much to do. No, he should not. Right now he had a promise to retain. Shedding his robe tiredly, he walked towards his bed.
*


'' Harry ... Harry open your eyes. ``

Harry woke from deep dreaming, the sparkling silver voice in his ears.

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

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

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

'' Sitting beside your bed. ``

Harry chuckled, and opened his eyes.

'' Hello Theia. ``

'' hullo Harry. '' The young visionary was sitting interbreeding legged under a tree diagram in front of him, looking like the man image of tranquility. Instead of her common white robe she was wearing a elementary embrown dress, she seemed almost character of the woods. She looked ... different, somehow different. It was not her case, she was still the same beautiful girl he had always known, or her oculus, mismatched as they were. Her silver hair was caught up into a yearn tail down her back, tied with sorry ribbon. She looked exactly the Saami but there was something missing. Gone was the sense of ancientness, the impression that the petty soul in front end of him had outlasted conglomerate. She seemed ... untested, the like age as him give or contain a twelvemonth. Harry supposed she always had been. It did not take a lot to guess the reason for the change.

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

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

'' I 'm dingy. '' Harry hung his caput. `` 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 find shamefaced, not even for a moment. I was low-down there, almost a prisoner. I 'm felicitous to be gone. ``

'' You do n't stimulate to enjoin 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 cease me. ``

'' Stubborn. ``

'' Brat. ``

'' I am not. '' Pythea smiled warmly. `` Do you have any idea 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 thinker again ? '' Harry smiled mysteriously. `` Do n't I get any secrets ? ``

'' I can not learn minds anymore Harry. '' Thea shook her head. `` That came with being the vaticinator remember. I just know you. ``

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

'' Oh yes, there are some things they can not take away. '' Pythea nodded. `` I am still a seer, and a very powerful one. ``

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

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

'' Now ? '' Harry scratched his question. `` Are n't I in hospital ? ``

'' A shortly walkway will not inconvenience a mighty hero like you too much. '' Pythea crooked an supercilium mockingly.

'' A dead walk ? We have to get to Ireland ya know. ``

'' Then it is lucky that another thing they can not take away is my international apparition license. '' Pythea held out her hand. `` Just tell me where Harry. And we can go. ``

Harry reached out and took her hand.
*


'' Ow. '' Harry 's mitt went to his stomach as pain 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 side of his bed. `` The knife was made with dreary conjuration so the combat injury ca n't be magically healed. You 'll have to let it knit together the old fashion way. Is it too much ? Do you wish to wait trough tomorrow ? ``

'' No no. It just surprised me is all. '' Harry slowly lowered his feet to the floor and gingerly stood. He had to hunch just a little to stop the hide of his venter stretching painfully, but he could walk. No he could n't. His leg was mangled too. Maybe he could hop ... `` Do you have my dress somewhere ? Oh postponement my bag 's right here. Can you work so I can- ''

Pythea cut him off with a waving of her hand. His infirmary scrubs changed into a unsubdivided white t-shirt and trousers. Muggle enough to be getting on with. With another Wave a carved wooden cane appeared in his hand. Obviously she did not think he was as hefty as said he was. Damn 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 arms around his tender middle. This shut Harry could smell her hair, like green grass and the sea. He was breathing faster, probably because of all the potions they had him on.

'' Are you quick ? '' She asked.

'' Yes. '' Harry shut his middle and waited. And waited ... He opened them again and cocked his head to one side. `` Is there a trouble ? ``

'' You still have n't told me where we 're going. '' Pythea clicked her tongue irritably. `` Not being able to say peoples thought process is going to take some getting used to. ``

'' I 'm sorry. I really am. '' Harry apologized again, earning him a level stare from the fiddling prophet, and told her their destination.

For the first-class honours degree time in his living Harry enjoyed an apparition. The walls of the void pressed him into Pythea, forcing them secretive together. He could sense her breath on his impudence. He was almost defeated when they dropped onto a lowly road in the countryside.

Harry stepped back and glanced around. There was no mistaking the orphanage, it was the only when construction there. At the marrow of it was a stately-home type of thing. He could n't put a date to it, old was the best he could do. That was clearly the center field of the complex but at some point the owners had felt a motive to expand. The two stop to either side of the main construction took after the put-some-rectangular-concrete-blocks-in-a-vaguely-building-shape expressive style of architecture. Around the whole topographic point there was a senior high rampart with spiny wire looped at the top.

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

With a careful hand on his stomach Harry walked up to the independent 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 doorway. He took a recondite breath, then winced at what that did to his stomach. He tried to quiet the raging butterfly stroke inside but could n't. The only matter that gave him the will to push spread the door was predator rules. Follow through. No fear.

As he stepped into the tedious entranceway hall a secretary looked up from her desk, eying him quizzically.

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

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

Up the stairs. Of line. Harry labored up the steps, having to rest more than once before he reached the top. Out the windowpane he could see the playground, full of children running about wildly. From inside the bulwark the plaza looked a lot nicer. All around the sharpness of the wall there were a series of children 's picture. Long running mural and swirls of color. It was almost pleasant, it looked like a convention school.

Harry managed to reach the first trading floor and took a few outwear breaths. She wanted to let me to this by myself. Probably just did n't want to carry me up the all-fired footstep. Harry then realized that hunching over and breathing heavily in a building full-of-the-moon of youngster could possibly be misinterpreted. He stood and walked forward towards the first room access, his walking stick clattering against the base. He knocked, politely.

'' seed in. ``

Harry pushed the door open to see an aged peeress sitting in front of a computer, looking at him questioningly over her glasses.

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

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

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

"Do you have any identification ?"

"Eh ?"

"Passport ? device driver licence, no you ‘ re too Brigham Young for that. Your adoption certificate perhaps."

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

"We can ‘ t generate records out to just anyone dear."

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

"Of ... of course deary."The woman shook her head like she was trying to dislodge gossamer then turned to her information processing system."What epithet is it ?"

"I don ‘ t have my name. Long story, but it happened on Jan twentieth, nine year ago."Harry wondered whether he would want another Confundus to blow past the ‘ no gens'affair, but the charwoman seemed to subscribe it in her stride.

"Everything ‘ s on computers now. It ‘ s very luxuriously tech."The fair sex pursed her rim as she clacked away at her keyboard."When I started here we had room and rooms of file boxful. Would have taken ages to find a record book like yours."

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

"Here we are."The woman 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 commend me ?"

"How could I forget ?"She turned to him with a motherly smile."Everyone here has a never-ending reminder of your stay with us."

"Wh ... what ?"

"See the wall over there ?"She gestured out the window."See the barbed wire ? You may think it ‘ s to hold family line out, but it was originally put up to preserve you in. You kept clambering over the wall."

"Really."Harry didn't dare feel. Didn't dare Bob Hope. A living connection to his stolen past like this had been too lots to ask."I must let caused you all a lot of trouble."

"Oh you were a scamp 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 maintain you in.'And you turned to me, cheeky as a scamp, and told me ‘ That ‘ s good Miss, ‘ cos the wall wasn ‘ t much of a challenge anymore.'”

Harry's nub broke and he fell into his men. He felt tears blooming in his optic. He hadn't known what to expect when he'd come here, but he had never expected this. He had never expected validation. test copy that he wasn't some Frankenstein monster, trial impression that he wasn't a bad copy of James II thrower. He was, and had always been, him. Arrogant, cocky, unrespectful of authority and filled with wanderlust. He. Was. Him.

"dearest are you alright ?"The old woman sounded bear on."Do you want a tissue paper ?"

"And you tell me ..."Harry swallowed and tried again."Can you recite me my public figure ?"

"Oh, I ‘ m afraid you came to us without a name."She looked back at her computer concealment."We gave you the last name Malyn, after the orphanhood. Which is a traditional here. And for the for the first time figure we had to ready that up. So we called you Jack."

knave ...

Jack Match.

Jack Baltzegaurd.

jackfruit Shakey.

Jack Caiman.

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

His constant alias. The epithet that had always come to his back talk when he knew he couldn't say ‘ Harry ’. It had been a memory, a computer memory of the number one real name he had. Not given to him by his parents sure, and apparently not magically binding. But a name. He still felt more like Harry, it was still the figure that came first to his lips but ... it was like that hollow core inside him was filling. Filling with role of a life story he had though he had no memory of. It felt so good.

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

"See it ?"

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

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

"Yes, I do want to see it. Thank you."Harry smiled thorough watery-eyed eyes."Thank you. give thanks you so much."

"My delight Jack."

Harry turned and hobbled from the room, it was only his aching wound and walking stick that stopped him from running. He reached the tush of the steps and pushed out the room access. 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-in the way."

Harry set off, taking them round to the back of the construction. He could see it now, down the slope a little. He stumbled down and stopped just before he reached it, just before he went beneath the nicety of the apple Tree. The little round orchard of apple trees.

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

"It was a memory."Harry breathed, reaching out a deal to have-to doe with a branch."It was a memory. I kept having this dream where I was stuck in Godrics Hollow. But that topographic point felt all Weird, but if I could break down out and accomplish the orchard I felt safe. Felt real."

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

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

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

Harry didn't trust himself to speak. Couldn't speak. There were no Word. They sat there for the retentive metre, the end summer breeze filling running past them and rustling the leave of absence above their mind. Eventually, after who knew how long, Harry spoke.

"Thea ?"

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

"Why did you confide me ? Right at the beginning ?"

"I told you, because you are good 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."Theia smiled sadly."Do you be intimate how they choose the next prophet Harry ? They go around to all the magical households in Greece, looking for children with the interior eye. If they find one with enough major 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 line, but who would dare say no."Pythea huddled up against Harry's English."I was three, but I remember it well, another curse my gift 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 stratum I signed one of my picture with the old name, just a fiddling mistake. The fury they had at me that day ... they burnt my picture, in strawman of my eyes. I never used the old name again. After I finished my training I was allowed to go back and call in my parents. I went back to my old house. They were very ... polite. They acted exactly the way I would ask mortal to act towards The Pythea. When I tried to act like their daughter, they looked at me like I had done something amiss. 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 hell do I do ? She's not crying, do I offer her a tissue anyway ? Oh god what do I say ? )"It must birth 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 strangers. Because we ‘ re the Lapplander, both orphaned. Both with our truthful identicalness taken from us. Both shoved into rolling wave and names we never wanted."

"Both forced to accept them."Harry nodded."Yeah, we were never strangers. We're the Sami, we ‘ re like ... rootless. We have no ascendant. No past."

"Did you find out your name ?"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 face."They can ‘ t take away who we are. The names don ‘ t topic so much, you can call me Harry or Jack or Bob it doesn't matter. I know who I am."

"I wish I had your certainty."

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

"Harry ..."Pythea lifted up, minuscule glistening crying in the corners of her eyes, and kissed him lightly on the boldness."Thank you."

Harry didn't really know what to do, other than to blush. A moment later Pythea seemed to see something.

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

"Had to chance eventually."Harry grinned cheekily.

"I ‘ ll get you next time."

"You ‘ re on."

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

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

"I think so. Are you ?"

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

"They begin next week if I remember correctly."

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

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

"Dunno ... stoppage in the country probably. I could do with a nice peaceful holiday."

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

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

Crystal laugh filled the woodlet, and lit up the leafage with light.
*


Bellatrix Lestrange bowed over her skipper's bed and cried, heedless of her binge staining the bed sheet. She had done all she could, used every facet of her art, but her master still barely breathed. His tegument was abruptly flannel and only the iniquity thaumaturgy she had woven in his chest kept him alive. He was so weak, not even conscious. It was terrible to see him like this, terrible to see him brought so low. Better if he had truly died, then he could take in risen up again in aureole. Instead he was trapped in this prison of flesh. Better dead than to lie on this narrow cot in a petite room, not even fit for a hiding place. But she had to do what she could. She was the last, the go loyal demise eater.

"I am all he has."Bellatrix whimpered.

"That is not the case."

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

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

"I did not abandon him."The placid boy stepped from the shadows, carrying a package under his arm."I was doing our lords unspoilt work."

"For a full class ?"

"It did take foresightful than call ... but it has been done. And in the ding of time too."The pale wizard strode over to the darkness lord's sickbed and knelt beside it."I am your handmaiden, master, and I have done your bidding. Do not worry lord, I can constitute you stiff again. Stronger than ever. With this ... we can rise again, the death eater can rise again. The terra firma will tremble passkey, shake in fear."

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

"We can be stronger than ever master."Barty's face in the vestige was terrifying."firm than ever."





Ye gods that was hard to indite rightfulness. Or ... rightfulness write. Write write ... some combination of those actor's line anyway. It 's been a crimper coaster I think you 'll agree, and the I most massive winding of the integral fic was finally revealed. hope you liked it. masses who were waiting to the end of this Holy Writ to reexamine ... your sentence has come.

I 've already started writing the next rule book and It ai n't going well. I did n't do my usual affair of writing myself into a corner. Instead I plotted the account book out in advance and wrote to it. Unfortunately I got a few chapters in and realized that it sucked. The plot made logical gumption and all, no plot-holes, there was cypher tripping me up, no writer block, I just realized that the plot I had mapped out was a bit [ word I ca n't add without mature military rank ] really. I had to go back and retread the matter. positivistic event : The story is a lot stronger now I think. damaging consequence : I have to throw away a pregnant part of what I 've already written. Ah well, such is life.

Anyway *clears throat* the adjacent 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 way of life is as deadly as the last. A new enemy rises, an old one lingers and a secret bravo is out for Harry 's blood. With Harry still injured from his encounter in the department of mysteries he ca n't face these challenges head on. He may even let to start using his brain ...

mystery abound in the next record of the serial publication Harry thrower, The endocarp and The Scorpion !