If the Fates Allow

Chapter 18

Veni, vidi, vici

"Winning isn't the most important thing - it's the only thing."

(Vince Lombardi)

"I've come to reclaim my wife," Draco told the Weasleys at the Burrow.

"To reclaim her?" Fred raised an eyebrow. "What sort of rubbish is that? She goes with you if she feels like it. If she doesn't, then she stays. It's her choice."

"Yeah, yeah, hers, but I still want to talk to her," Draco insisted.

"All right," Mrs Weasley sighed, reluctant to let her 'son-in-law' have access to her daughter. "But be prepared to find that she's changed. Perhaps she's changed so much that you won't even want her back..."

"That's out of the question, dear mother-in-law." Malfoy smirked and climbed the stairs to Ginny's room. "Ginny! It's me, your husband!"

No one answered from inside, and no movement could be heard.

"I know you're in there, open up!"

Silence.

"Ginny... pleeease, open up!" said Draco with a suffering expression - obviously it was a torment for him to utter the word 'please'.

Still no one answered.

"At least say something! Send me to hell, but say something! Ginny... hello? Are you still alive?"

"It's no use, Mr Malfoy." Molly shook her head, joining him in front of her daughter's door. "Ginny dear," she said in a soft voice, "let us in, please. Don't play the sulky little girl..."

"I'm not sulky," replied a voice as silent as a whisper and the door opened to reveal a dark figure. Neither Molly nor Draco managed to make out Ginny's features, for all the curtains in her room had been pulled over the windows to keep the light out of the room.

"May I?" asked Draco, feeling more and more awkward with every passing second. He wasn't the type of man who'd beseech anyone to let him in.

Ginny stepped back and made a swishing movement with her hand, indicating that he might enter. Draco cast a sideways glance at Mrs Weasley, who gave him a little smile. It was the very first time that Molly had smiled at him, Draco noted to himself.

He entered the room and his mother-in-law tactfully closed the door behind him. In fact, Molly would have rather stayed and supervised their meeting, but she knew well enough that even if Malfoy had come into the family by stealth and blackmail, she had to give him a chance to make things up to her daughter; and perhaps this was the time for it. She was sure she'd ever grow to like Draco, she'd never forget Arthur's torturing... but then again, it had been done by Lucius, not Draco, and why punish the son for the deeds of his father? Molly just couldn't come to terms with her feelings towards Draco - she loathed him, but something deep inside her told her that perhaps, just perhaps, he wasn't as bad as she thought him to be - so why not give him a chance to prove himself?

She descended the stairs and took her place at the kitchen table, facing her glum-looking twin sons.

"You shouldn't have left them alone, Mum," said George, and Fred nodded.

"Perhaps I shouldn't have..." Molly sighed, propping her head in her palms, gazing at the table. "But even he deserves a second chance..."

"A second chance?" Fred snorted. "He's on his... um... ninety-ninth already?"

* * * * *

"Ginny?"

"What?"

"Why is it so dark here?"

"Because the curtains are drawn."

"I know that, but why are the curtains drawn?"

"Because I felt like drawing them."

"May I pull them back... just a little bit?"

"If you want to..."

Draco pulled one of the curtains back just enough to let a thin stripe of light into the room that fell on Ginny's face.

Draco gasped.

This wasn't Ginny. Couldn't be Ginny! Not his pretty, sexy, wildcat-like Ginny!

This was a Ginny so pale that Snow White would have died of jealousy. Her eyes had sunk into her skull, her cheekbones stood out in an almost frightening way, her hair was dishevelled and matted and she rather resembled a banshee.

"Oh, Ginny..." he breathed, automatically reaching out to caress her face, but she pulled away. Her gesture of rejection made him come to his senses. What was I thinking? Trying to console her? Why should I? She's suffering because of another man! A man with whom she'd eloped, with whom she might easily have cheated on me! Okay, Potter said they hadn't done it, but... he never said they hadn't snogged at all! That's cheating on me, too!

"So." He stepped back too, examining her in an indifferent way. "Will you ever come out of this room or are you going to bury yourself alive in here? And all this because of dratted Potter?"

Whack.

Ginny slapped him hard across the face.

"Oh, is it so hard to accept the truth?"

"What truth? That he died?" she hissed.

"Not exactly... the truth that he was a low-down scumbag, a dirty seducer, not to mention a murderer."

"Wouldn't you also have killed the murderer of your child?" she demanded in a raspy voice.

"I wouldn't know, would I? I'll never have a child... at least not from my legally wedded wife," he replied sarcastically.

Ginny shot him a contemptuous look and turned away. "I've told you: go and shag anyone you want, I don't care if you have a dozen illegitimate children, as long as I don't have to act as their mother. But perhaps..." She turned around. "Perhaps you can't father a child, either."

"We'll see," Draco said coldly. "Anyway, I've come to take you with me."

"Oh, is that so?" She let out a mirthless laugh. "And what if I don't want to go? Will you cut Dad's hair?"

"Don't joke about something like this, Virginia!"

"Then don't expect me to go with you! The only way you can drag me out of this house is if you kill me first!"

"So, you won't leave with your husband, but you willingly left with your lover!"

"What if I did?" she shouted, stamping her foot.

"You could have brought shame on the whole family, didn't you realise that? Had the Minister not left you out of the story of Potter's death, everyone would now be talking about you as a slut!"

"What do I care what they say about me?"

"Then at least care for your family! Care for the name Malfoy!"

"I don't care a damn about a name thrust upon me by force!" she snapped, her pale complexion not so pale anymore, but red with anger. She was trembling with fury, gasping for breath. In the past few days she had become unaccustomed to speaking, and shouting drained her of her energy in no time.

"Right then, Virginia. I'll come back when you're in a bit clearer state of mind," said Draco. "And don't think I've given up on you. You're my wife and you'll continue being so, with all the obligations of a wife..."

Instead of replying, Ginny spat in his face.

"Good aim," Draco grimaced, wiping his cheek. "Calm down, Ginny, and start eating something. A Mrs Malfoy can't look like a living skeleton. What would people say?"

He managed to slam the door shut behind him just in time, so the five inches thick Encyclopaedia of Wizarding Sports banged into the closed door.

"Well?" Molly gave him a questioning look.

"She's a little nervous." Draco shrugged. "I'll come back later."

"You don't need to, you know..." Fred said hopefully.

Draco gave him a nasty look and Apparated away.

* * * * *

"Are you all right, Harry?" James asked, seeing that his son had turned slightly paler than usual.

"Yeah, I s'pose so." Harry nodded, but he had to admit to himself that he was indeed feeling a bit nervous - about just as nervous as he had felt before the Quidditch Final in his third year at Hogwarts. Quidditch was just Quidditch, but here in the Underworld it was slightly different: he was playing on a team full of dead people, against a team also full of dead people. Then there was the skull-like Quaffle and the real Golden Snidget, and he had difficulty getting used to them. Also, on normal Quidditch pitches the hoops weren't blazing with a mysterious blue fire, while the hoops here most definitely were - Harry didn't know why, perhaps to discourage the Chasers or just to add to the image of the Underworld. If the latter was true, then the Underworld must have a very twisted PR manager...

The players of Tartarus were leering at him as he and his team mates entered the stadium with their StyxSweeper 2003 broomsticks on their shoulders. Harry felt more and more uneasy by the second. Not that he was afraid of them... he'd just never played against dead people...

Fortunately he managed to forget about the uneasy feeling when he heard a bunch of female spectators chanting on the stands with pompoms in their hands:

Everything about the man just plain impresses

He's a winner, he's a whiz, a wonder!

He's about to pull my heart asunder!

And I absolutely love the way he dresses!

Harry didn't even need to look around and see who the women were singing about - Alcibiades was waving at them with a Gilderoyishly wide smile, sweeping his curly, golden locks out of his bright blue eyes.

Harry looked at Sirius, who was rolling his eyes, then at his mother who was eyeing the cheerleaders with an expression 'you've-gone-off-your-rocker-girls'. James just shrugged and grinned at Harry. "This is a common thing before the matches," he told his son. "Alci always gets this much attention. I bet it's unusual for you to see someone having so many groupies..."

"No, in fact it isn't." Harry shook his head. "Not when you know Gilderoy Lockhart."

"Lockhart? Hmm... I think I remember him... he was an attention-seeking jerk back at school. He was two years above us, in the same year as Lucius Malfoy. He was also a Slytherin, but as far as I know, the two of them loathed each other. I think they were jealous of each other's looks, trying to beat the other in the Blondest Hair Contest."

Harry chuckled as they reached the middle of the pitch where Hades (playing the role of referee) was standing with the Quaffle in his hands.

The team of Elysium lined up, facing that of Tartarus to see many of its players baring their teeth and cracking their knuckles. They didn't look nearly as menacing as Crabbe and Goyle had, for none of them was as burly as the two Slytherin boys. Salazar Slytherin sent the Beaters (Cesare and Lucretia Borgia) a meaningful look, then glanced at Harry. Godric Gryffindor caught his old enemy's glance and edged to Harry so that he could whisper to him:

"Potter, watch out for the Borgia. I think they'll be aiming for you. Remember: you can still die."

"Okay, I'll keep my eyes open." Harry nodded, squinting at the Tartarus Beaters who were indeed sizing him up rather darkly.

"Daddy!" little Daphne was waving at him from the stands, a flag of Elysium in her hand. The flag was sky blue with a nice yellow sun on it. Harry waved back at his daughter, then turned to see the Tartarus stands and a sea of unsympathetic people waving dark banners with a grey cloud and a skull on it. If it weren't for the cloud, Harry would have thought they were pirates. One of them in the front row seemed very familiar to Harry: blond hair, a nasty-stuck-up expression... "Why, isn't that Lucius Malfoy?"

"Yep, that's him," James said sourly. "He always comes to the matches and keeps giving us those superior looks of his when we lose the game..."

"Some people never change, do they?" remarked Harry, and kept looking at the Tartarus stands. As he was skimming the supporters of the opposing team, his glance shifted over a squat person with huge, bulging eyes. He immediately directed his eyes back to that figure.

"I've found another acquaintance," he murmured to his father while Hades announced the beginning of the 74^th Quidditch match in the Underworld's history. As Harry had heard from his parents, Elysium had only won 6 of all the previous 73 matches, and it hadn't won a match for 246 years.

"Who?" James asked distractedly, exchanging dark glances with Rasputin who had the bad habit of tailing him at every match.

"Dolores Umbridge."

"And who's that?" asked his father, mounting his broom.

"I'll introduce her to you. You'll love her." Harry grinned, pleased to see that the old toad had landed in Tartarus after she'd died.

"Aaaaand they're off!" announced the commentator. "Chaser Grindelwald passes to Rasputin, he tries to pass to Henry VIII, but James Potter intercepts, passes to Lily Potter, who passes to Si... well, the Quaffle's back in Grindelwald's possession, he scores... 10-0 to Tartarus!"

The Tartarus stands roared with satisfaction.

"The Quaffle's again in Lily Potter's possession, passes to Sirius Black, Black scores... no, he doesn't score, Slytherin saves."

After fifteen minutes Tartarus was leading 90-20, and Harry was getting desperate to catch the Golden Snidget. However, Brutus, the other team's Seeker was just as desperate to catch it and wouldn't leave Harry alone, kept following him all around the pitch.

Alcibiades, to Harry's surprise turned out to be a really talented player - something that Gilderoy Lockhart couldn't have said about himself. Well, he had said it about himself, but Harry didn't believe him.

As he watched Alcibiades sending a boulder-Bludger towards Henry VIII, he found it hard to imagine that such a wonderful Beater had ever done such horrible things as cutting his dog's tail only to get attention, but according to Sirius it had been true. For the time being Harry didn't really care what a stupid, attention-seeking git this Alcibiades was, as long as he played this well.

However, no matter how well Alcibiades played, no matter how well his parents and Sirius handled the Quaffles, and no matter how hard Godric tried to defend the blazing hoops, Elysium was doing quite poorly compared to Tartarus. But then again, Elysium was at least playing fair, while the members of the Tartarus team were playing dirty - cobbing, stooging and stuff like that were pretty common in their playing tactics.

Apparently Hades had been trying to put an end to cheating, but his efforts proved to be futile. He couldn't punish the players of Tartarus, could he? What sort of punishment could he have made up for them? Send them to hell? They were there already - Tartarus was definitely like hell. There weren't any cauldrons with hot water boiling in them, no devil kept cooking those who got there, but it was still a place so dreary, so dull and dark that one couldn't do anything else there but suffer. Once Hades had decided to make the Tartarus players help the Danaides filling their leaky barrels, but not even this punishment managed to deter them from cheating.

Brutus was still tailing Harry, making sure he'd see at once if Harry dived for the Snidget. In order to try and shake his unwanted follower off, Harry was making loop-the-loops, swerving, diving, doing all sorts of acrobatic stuff that would have made Draco Malfoy say 'practicing for the ballet, Potter?'. However, Brutus seemed exceptionally good in mimicking Harry's moves and try as he might, Harry didn't manage to shake him off.

Meanwhile, Elysium had managed to score once more, but Tartarus had done twice, so the score was 110:30 to Tartarus.

For a while Harry didn't notice that the two Tartarus Beaters were deliberately aiming for him, but when he had to jerk his broom out of the way of the eleventh Bludger, he started to suspect that Godric had been right and Tartarus had indeed decided to kill him - or rather disable him.

Someone on the opposing team must have done something illegal again, for the Elysium stands echoed with the booing and hissing of the outraged spectators. Harry was too occupied with trying to shake both Brutus and the two Borgias off to see what had happened. He ducked a Bludger sent at him by Lucretia Borgia, while Brutus, who was too absorbed in tailing him to react quickly enough, got the Bludger into his face. Harry paused only for a second to watch Brutus' nose bleed, but that single second was enough for Cesare Borgia to beat the other boulder-Bludger right into Harry's back.

Harry felt something weird, as if something had hit him, then saw a granite boulder bounce off him, and came to the conclusion that he must have been hit by it. However, he didn't feel any sort of pain. It crossed his mind that perhaps his backbone had snapped and that was why he didn't feel pain, but then he realised that if his spine had broken, he wouldn't still be able to sit upright on his broom. Tentatively he tried to move his hand - he managed it without any difficulty. He shifted a bit on his broom to check whether he could properly move his legs, and they also seemed to be fully operational.

What had happened, then? he wondered. He remembered having got a Bludger in the back in his fifth year at Hogwarts -, in the match against Slytherin -, and that had caused him pain, while this one didn't. All he had felt when the boulder collided with his back was some sort of soft thump, nothing else.

Confused he looked around to see that Brutus was still cradling his bleeding nose and whimpering something about missing teeth. At that moment something caught Harry's eye. A little, round thing was flying around the Elysium goalposts in a rather familiar way - exactly the way he'd always seen the Snitch fly. This one, however, wasn't gold and didn't glint; it was rather something yellowish-brown with a long, narrow beak.

"The Snidget," Harry breathed and spurred his broomstick to get there before Brutus noticed or any of the Borgias tried to disable him again.

"Grindelwald scores, 130:30, it seems today isn't the day for Elysium... again," boomed the commentator's voice throughout the stadium, "but wait! Isn't that the Potter boy going for the Snidget? Holy Hades, he catches it! Ladies and gents, after 246 years, Elysium wins the match!"

The roar in the Elysium stands was almost ear-splitting. Harry had never heard any of the school teams cheer like this, not even Ireland's supporters in the Quidditch World Cup. Elysium flags with their happy little suns were waving frantically and hats of all shapes and colours were thrown into the air.

"You did it! You did it, son!" James hugged Harry before he could even touch down onto the grass. A moment later Lily joined them in the enthusiastic embrace, her eyes filled with the tears of joy.

"We've come, we've seen, we've conquered!" Julius Caesar declared with a smug expression and patted Harry on the back as a sign of his respect.

"Well done, Potter!" Godric Gryffindor beamed at him, occasionally sending triumphant grins at Salazar, who was eyeing Harry with a rather sour expression.

"How came your Bludger didn't do him in?" Salazar whispered to the Borgias.

"No idea." Lucretia shrugged. "My Bludger hit his backbone, I am sure it did... he should have been maimed by it..."

"Then why hasn't he been maimed?" Slytherin wondered, scratching his jaw.

The cheering crowd broke into the pitch and swarmed around Harry, trying to touch him, trying to shake his hand or just give him an admiring smile.

Alcibiades was eyeing his usual groupies with a slightly hurt expression, for they were now giving all their attention to Elysium's new ace Seeker.

Harry had never in his life shaken hands with so many persons (many of whom weren't even humans but elves, goblins and centaurs - even a giant happened to give him a friendly pat on the back that made him fall forwards into a bunch of squealing witches). Trying to disentangle himself from the witches' embrace and turning his head quick enough so that their kisses would fall on his cheeks instead of their original destination - his lips -, Harry caught a glimpse of a pair of eyes gazing at him across the sea of Elysium supporters.

His stomach gave a jolt - he knew these eyes. He couldn't have counted how many times he had felt relief wash over him whenever the serenity and peace of these eyes shone down at him, filling his heart with encouragement and the certainty that he wasn't alone... yet these had been the eyes that had been so often diverted from his face, not wanting to look at him, and making him feel more frustrated than ever...

These were the eyes of Albus Dumbledore.

Seeing that Harry was struggling to get free from his admirers in vain, Dumbledore stepped back. "Wait!" shouted Harry, fearing that his old headmaster would just leave, but his yell got muffled by the cheering of the crowd and the rustling of several papers held in front of him, waiting for his autograph.

What could Harry do? He couldn't possibly cast a Repelling Charm on the crowd and he wasn't sure it'd be wise to try and Apparate anywhere here in the Underworld. He couldn't even try to flee on his broomstick, for he didn't have so much space as to mount it. He forced himself to calm down and sign everyone's sheet of paper/flags/hats/shoes, hoping beyond hope that Dumbledore wouldn't have disappeared by the time the crowd thinned.

About two hours later the queue of people and creatures waiting for a signature thinned enough for Harry to see through it, and he was relieved to see the old wizard sitting peacefully in the first row of the stands, practically alone. In the third row there were two figures sitting in blue robes of ladies' fashion, their hoods drawn over their faces. As far as Harry could tell, they might equally have been males, for nothing of their faces could be seen.

"Are you giving out autographs or not?" asking a simpering voice from the very end of a row of a few dozen people still waiting for his signature.

"Professor Umbridge?" Harry raised an eyebrow at the witch standing at the end of the row, but kept signing the papers of the remaining people. When those few dozen people had received his signature and departed, Harry found himself face to face with his most hated teacher. "What a surprise, Professor Umbridge. Why would you want my autograph? Aren't you supporting your own team - Tartarus?"

"Well, you know, Harry dear, I thought it wouldn't do Tartarus any harm if I had your autograph..." Smiled Umbridge repulsively, trying to give him a puppy-stare, but all she reminded him of was a toad. "Also, who knows when will be the next time a living person turns up here... it's always wise to grab such opportunities..."

For a moment Harry regarded her with pursed lips, thinking it'd be too nice of him to give this old hag an autograph after all she'd done to him, but his good heart got the better of him and he realised what a pitiful revenge it would be to deny her his signature.

"All right then, but I'm not using your quill," he said only to make Dolores beam at him in a rather disgusting way.

"I knew you had a great sense for humour, and I was sure you wouldn't still be harbouring grudge against me for that little joke of mine..."

"Well, slicing my hand open at least a dozen times wasn't my idea of joke," Harry replied, scribbling his name on the sheet of paper given to him by Umbridge. "It's a wonder that I had any blood in me left after each detention..."

"Hem-hem..." a voice interjected, and both Harry and Dolores swerved around to see Albus Dumbledore grinning at both of them. "Hello, Harry. Nice catch. I have accidentally overheard parts of your discussion and I was just wondering what you meant by it was a wonder you had any blood left after each detention... would you explain it, Dolores?"

"Well, Albus..." Umbridge shifted uneasily. "It's like..."

"Whenever she gave me a detention I had to do lines, and she made me write with a quill that used my own blood as ink," replied Harry.

"WHAT?" Dumbledore gasped, and Harry had no idea why he had turned so pale. "Is this true, Dolores?"

"Well, you see, Albus..."

"Why didn't you tell me, or Professor McGonagall?" the one-time headmaster demanded from Harry.

"I thought I'd seem weak if I did." The young wizard shrugged. "Also, I didn't want her," he said, glancing at his hated teacher, "to think that I was running to you to complain about little, unimportant things. I considered it as a battle of wills with Umbridge..."

"Unimportant things?" Dumbledore's voice rose in pitch so that even Lily, James and the rest of the Elysium team, who had been chatting nearby with some spectators, started to feel interested in Harry's conversation with Albus. "You let your pride take over, Harry? You thought it was beneath your dignity to report her to us?"

"But... why's that such a big deal?" Harry asked, not understanding.

"Your blood, Harry! You were giving your blood into the hands of a stranger!" Dumbledore said, pointing at Umbridge. "Do you have any idea what she could have done with it?"

"Er... no. What?" Harry asked, looking at Dolores, who had started to back away from them.

"No, you're not going anywhere, Dolores!" boomed Albus.

"Hah! Make me stay if you can!" she snapped. "You're just as dead as I am, and you don't have a wand either!"

"But I do," replied Harry, drawing his wand out of the pocket of his Quidditch uniform, pointing it at her. "Come back this instant you ugly old toad."

"I've never... never in my whole life been spoken to like that!" Umbridge sputtered.

"Then it was high time someone talked to you like that," growled Harry.

Her eyes on Harry's wand, Dolores approached them again, slightly trembling. "So... er... what were we talking about?"

"How many sheets of parchment did you have to fill?" Dumbledore asked from the young wizard, but kept an eye on Umbridge to make sure she wouldn't flee.

"No idea. A lot." Harry shrugged. "About two parchments an hour. I usually spent about five-six hours a day in detention, and I was in detention at least for three weeks, so..."

"So, about sixty parchments." Albus drew the conclusion. "That's a lot of blood, you know." He turned to Umbridge. "What did you do with the sheets of parchment written on with Harry's blood?"

"Well... burned them, of course," said Dolores in a slightly wavering voice. "So that you'd never have a proof of what I'd been making Harry do..."

"Perhaps you're not aware, Dolores, but I'm a highly skilled Legilimens," said Albus calmly. "And I know you're lying. I want the truth. Don't be afraid, I can't harm you without my wand, and I don't even intend to - you're rotting in Tartarus where you belong, that's a big enough punishment for you. I also promise that Harry won't hurt you either... right, Harry?"

Somewhat reluctantly Harry nodded. "Right."

"There, you have it. And now, speak up, and don't leave out a single detail. What did you do with those sheets of parchment?"

"Well... I didn't want to, Dumbledore, but I had to... My sister Maestitia got kidnapped by You-Know-Who. Of course, I knew that You-Know-Who was back, but I had to act as if he wasn't, or he would have killed my beloved sister! Fudge also knew that she had disappeared, but kept it a secret from the press, not wanting to wake their suspicion that the Dark Lord might be back... and of course Fudge didn't believe that Maestitia had been kidnapped by He Who Must Not Be Named, but still, he didn't want anyone to get suspicious... and I was afraid, I truly liked my sister, the only other person I've loved besides my Argus..." Dolores sniffed and wiped a tear off her face. "Anyway, the Dark Lord knew I was working for the Ministry and wanted me to work hard against the news spreading about his return... so I did. That's why I sent the Dementors at Potter... to silence him. I was sure that You-Know-Who would be happy with Potter getting his soul sucked out... Well, anyway, shortly before the start of term I got a letter from the Dark Lord, saying that I had to come by some of Potter's blood and do it in a way that wouldn't wake suspicion..."

"You mean... Voldemort needed my blood?" Harry frowned.

Dolores cringed at the name, but nodded. "He sent me this funny quill to make you use it... of course later I made Lee Jordan use it too, so that you wouldn't think I was only using it on you... you would have become suspicious."

"Oh yeah, because cutting the words I must not tell lies into the back of my hand wasn't suspicious, was it?" Harry snapped, holding his right hand out of her. Some whitish lines were still visible on it, though the words were no longer decipherable.

"Harry, calm down. Dolores, please continue," said Dumbledore.

"Well, there's not much more to tell." Umbridge shrugged. "I kept sending the Dark Lord the letters with Potter's dried blood. No idea how he could use it once it had dried into the parchment..."

"I trust Voldemort to know charms which can make dried blood liquid again," sighed Albus. "This fits, though..."

"What fits?" asked Harry.

"When you came back after the third task of the Triwizard Tournament," said the one-time headmaster, "you told me that Voldemort had used your blood to regain his body. And I felt happy about it. Victorious."

Harry knitted his eyebrows, trying to remember. Yes, indeed, he had seen a gleam of triumph in Dumbledore's eyes and he hadn't been able to guess what it had been. "Victorious, sir?"

"Yes, Harry..." sighed Albus. "Good old Tom might know lots of tricky Dark Arts, but it seems that at that time he wasn't aware that if a wizard uses another wizard's blood to regain or strengthen his magic powers, he so to say seals his own fate, for the blood of the 'donor' will function as a drug... and the user will be addicted to it."

"Addicted?" Harry's eyes widened. "Voldemort became... addicted to my blood?"

"He must have." Nodded the old wizard. "And it seems he only realised this after a while...he must have started to get weaker and weaker sometime during the summer holidays after his rebirth, and it became obvious for him that he had to act immediately. You know... if you get addicted to a drug, you'll need it to keep you going, and if you try to lay off it, you'll get the withdrawal symptoms: you'll feel dizzy, weak and you'll think you'll go mad if you can't take a new dose. Voldemort used your blood to regain his body and powers... and if he doesn't get more of it, he will lose his powers."

"Lose his powers?" The young man gasped. "But... but he hasn't lost them!"

"No, he hasn't, for a while your blood in his veins kept him going. When your blood had been almost totally replaced by his through the process of blood-replenishment, he looked for a new source of getting your blood and that's where Dolores came into the picture."

"You mean," muttered Umbridge, "that You-Know-Who used the letters I sent him to get Potter's blood from them so that he wouldn't lose his powers?"

"Yes, that's what I mean," replied Dumbledore. "I only wonder how long those blood-stocks lasted for him... they can't have lasted for seven years, for sure...What could Tom have made up to substitute for your blood?"

"Um... I think perhaps we could tell you that," a gentle female voice spoke up behind Albus.

Harry turned to look at the source of the voice and saw that the two figures wearing blue robes and hoods which hid their faces had joined them.

"You? Miss..." Dumbledore began with a surprised expression.

"...Springfield," replied the woman, lowering her hood to reveal a pretty but serious face with huge blue eyes, framed by elegantly wavy reddish blonde hair. "Adela Springfield. Perhaps you remember me, Albus?"

"Of course I do!" Dumbledore said incredulously. "You taught Defence Against the Dark Arts when I was teaching Transfiguration. But you went missing one day... and no one ever found you."

"Exactly." Adela nodded. "For Tom saw to it that no one would find me again."

"Tom?" the one-time headmaster blinked. "What does he have to do with this?"

"A lot, Albus," sighed the woman. "I am ashamed to say this, but I was his lover... and I got pregnant with his daughter."

At his moment Harry shuddered, however, Adela continued her tale: "Tom wanted to kill me for having witnessed his killing his family, but I told him about my pregnancy and he decided not to kill me... he rather froze me in time.... for thirty-eight years."

"Thirty-eight?" Dumbledore breathed.

"Yes." Nodded Adela. "He must have taken me somewhere to the north, for one day he unfroze me and I woke up in some sort of an ice cave... He told me how long I had been 'sleeping', and I asked why he had decided to wake me up... And he told me. He said it had been predicted that a soon-to-be-born boy would be his undoing, and he got an idea..."

"What sort of an idea?" enquired Dumbledore, while Harry was getting more and more nervous.

"He said he needed my daughter... his daughter... to play her off against this boy... He thought if he could live long enough to wait for our daughter to become sexually mature, then he'd... make her seduce that boy..."

"To seduce him? Why?" asked Albus, casting a questioning glance at Harry, who looked away.

"Because... because Tom thought that if... if this boy fathered a child by our daughter, and the child was in Tom's possession, then he'd be able to blackmail the boy with it..." Adela ran her hand nervously across her golden-red locks, "I told him it was madness and that I wasn't willing to give birth to my daughter to sentence her to such an evil, twisted life, but... Tom had his means to force me..."

"So you gave birth to his daughter. What happened after that?"

"He killed me, obviously. I had fulfilled my task; Tom had no more need of me. All I know of the rest of the story I know from my daughter."

"Your daughter?" Albus' eyes shifted to the other figure who still had her hood drawn over her face. "She died, too?"

Now Harry was also eyeing the mysterious woman next to Miss Springfield.

"Yes, I did." She nodded and slowly, ever so slowly, lowered her hood.

There was a sharp intake of breath, and Harry didn't even realise that it had been him who'd gasped so loudly.

The woman was stunning: a spitting image of her mother, with the exception of her eyes, those were grey... Tom's eyes. Her beautiful, wavy hair was tied in a ponytail and it fell partly onto her shoulders. Her face was white and her expression frightened. She glanced at Harry, then immediately looked away, as if fearing that he'd hurt her.

"So..." Harry spoke up after a long pause. "It was you, then. The girl with no name... excuse me, Linda..." he added in a sarcastic voice.

"What do you mean, Harry?" enquired Dumbledore. "Who was she?"

Harry pursed his lips, examining his shoes, rocking back and forth in an embarrassed way.

"Oh. I see," said Albus. "So, Miss..."

"Rätsel," Linda said. "After my birth my father sent me to Germany where he had some acquaintance. They brought me up as Linda Rätsel..."

"How fitting," Harry interjected in a derisive tone, "Rätsel means Riddle in German..."

"Let the lady talk." Dumbledore waved at him, as though silencing an insolent child. "Please, continue, Miss Rätsel."

"So, I was brought up in Germany, and shortly after I turned fifteen, my father came for me... I had never before seen him, just heard stories of him from my foster-parents, and I was hoping he'd never come... but he did..." She shuddered at the memory and pulled her cloak tighter around herself. "He told me what sort of a role he wanted me to play and I said no. But after a few Cruciatuses I just... changed my mind."

Harry snorted irritably and his glance fell on Dolores who seemed to be keenly listening to the whole story, malicious joy on her toad-like face.

"So, you did his bidding, then?" asked Albus.

"Yes. I did. Somehow father's Death Eaters got a hair of that girl... Chang... was that her name?"

"You should know, you played her very well," Harry commented with his arms folded in front of his chest.

"Well..." Linda cringed slightly from Harry's angry look and continued talking to her shoes, "I used Polyjuice to look like the Chang girl and I... seduced him." She made a small movement with her head in Harry's direction.

"And I take it you conceived?" Dumbledore asked.

"Of course I did. My father had forced me to drink some potion that enhanced my fertility to make sure I would get pregnant..."

"Did your father tell you what his intentions with your child were?"

"He did," said Linda. "Firstly he wanted to blackmail Harry with her..."

"It's a girl, then," Dumbledore drew the conclusion. "Did Tom want anything else with her?"

"Yes, he did," replied the young woman. "He knew that by the time my daughter would be born, he'd have run out of those blood-stocks sent to him by... her." She pointed at the malevolently grinning Umbridge. "He knew he had to find a new source to nurture his powers... and he found a book on the topic. It said that if one who is addicted to someone else's blood and he can't get more of it, then there's only one way for him to replenish it... instead of that person's blood he could use a mixture of that person's blood and another that is partly his own."

"Partly his own?"

"Yeah. I, being his daughter was of his blood, my blood was partly his. And my daughter has my blood and Harry's... exactly the mixture my father needed. I remember something else, too. The book said that the blood donor had to be alive when father used his or her blood. There is some sort of a magical connection between wizards and their blood. Once a wizard or witch is dead, his or her blood cannot be used any longer, not even if he died a second earlier..."

"I see. So this must be that ritual, then," Harry muttered under his breath.

"Ritual?" Linda asked in a wavering voice.

"Yes." Nodded Harry, not looking at her. "Once I had a vision of Voldemort and my daughter..."

"Our daughter," Linda corrected him.

Harry continued, as though he hadn't heard her: "Voldemort was talking about some ritual and my daughter was crying, for she was afraid of it..."

"That was what I feared... that he'd hurt my little angel..." Linda sniffed and Harry was forced to look at her. What he saw in her eyes was real grief and worry, not at all the malice and nasty smugness he had always imagined Voldemort's daughter wearing. Linda was rather like Adela, she resembled her mother in all respects: not just her appearance, but her heart as well. It struck Harry that this poor girl had been forced to sleep with him at a very early age; she had only been fifteen, after all - a mere child. She had only been a victim of Voldemort's, just like her mother, Harry himself, and their little daughter...

Before he realised what he was doing, he was holding Linda in his arms, letting her weep into his shoulder, his own body trembling with her sobs.

"Now I understand..." he whispered into her golden-red locks.

"What?" hiccoughed Linda, trying to wipe her face dry on the sleeve of her robes.

"I understand why Voldemort named our daughter Amrita."

"Amrita? Is that her name?" The young woman's face lit up. "That's so pretty, I like it."

"Pretty, yes... and do you know what it means?"

She shook her head no.

"In Hindi it means 'Draught of Immortality'."

"Oh, an appropriate name, Amrita," Dumbledore said, "it seems Voldemort is using the child to keep his magic powers... Without her he'd be less than a common Muggle... and losing his powers would be much like dying for him..."

"So then... he didn't even mean it when he threatened me to make Wormtail and Bellatrix kill my daughter!" Harry breathed as he thought Dumbledore's words over. "He didn't even mean it, the sly old scoundrel! Oh, how could I be so stupid as to believe him? How could I let him live when I had the chance to kill him?"

"Did I understand it well?" Dumbledore cut in. "You had the chance to do away with Voldemort and wasted it?"

Harry heaved a huge sigh and hung his head. "I did. And I've felt ashamed of it ever since. But... I just didn't have the heart to sacrifice my daughter... I know I made the wrong choice, but..."

Linda slipped her hand into his and squeezed it. "I know what you mean. I'm her mother, after all... Harry... please forgive me for deceiving you."

"I've already forgiven you," he replied. "Now I'm asking for your forgiveness."

"Why?" she arched a blondish eyebrow at him.

"Because when I next face Voldemort... for I will face him, I won't let him blackmail me again. Now I'm aware that he needs our daughter, but... should I have to choose between saving Amrita and the world, I won't hesitate which one to choose."