Harry Potter and the Fifth Element

Chapter 85 - The Revenge Of Bellatrix Lestrange

The most important night of Draco's young life was upon him. His heart racing, his hands clammy, Draco tried to remain calm. Finally, it was time to act. To prove the Malfoy family's worth as loyal serv... no, supporters....

The last couple of hours had been physical and mental torture - hidden under his Invisibility Cloak in a too-small and too-full storage cupboard just below the roof of the Astronomy Tower. Draco's cubbyhole had nothing to recommend it save a felicitously placed window with an unobstructed view of the Headmaster's office and its adjoining balcony.

His instructions were clear. Observe the Headmaster's office closely. The moment Dumbledore departs - probably with at least one associate - Draco was to owl Burke. If the Headmaster had not left by eleven, via the Parseltongue translator Draco was to contact Voldemort himself.

In either case, immediately after sending his message, Draco was to complete final preparations for his mission.

So Draco had watched - both the tower topped by the Headmaster's office and his map, since his target's planned means of egress was unknown. Draco doubted that Dumbledore would travel on foot, but if he did, Draco's message would identify exactly who was with the Headmaster.

Draco's map of the Castle, whilst sufficient for most purposes, had gaps. Critically, it omitted Dumbledore's office, as the Slytherin had not been there since obtaining mapmaking tools. Only fools like Scarhead were caught often enough for regular appointments. He had obtained the Gryffindor common room and girls' dormitories, thanks to a Mapping Charm surreptitiously cast on the Weaselette's robes, but their boys' counterpart was lacking. Scarhead had not entertained her there - at least not whilst she wore those robes.

Despite his map's imperfections, Draco knew that Potter was somewhere in that dormitory. The git had vanished up the stairs and not left. Except for Filch and Longbottom, both briefly, nobody used Dumbledore's stairway. Neither was significant enough to worry about.

The Headmaster might have a Floo connexion or even a hidden Apparition point in his office. If so, Draco would have to report that, for all he could tell, Dumbledore had stayed put.

Finally, something happened.

Fortunately for Draco's cramping arms and legs, his top-of-the-line, night-vision enhanced Omnioculars detected two Thestrals flying to the Headmaster's balcony. Within a minute Dumbledore and someone else - shorter than the Headmaster was all he could say even after replaying the scene twice - flew off to wherever.

Longbottom? Draco could hardly believe it.

Since Draco's true loyalties would be revealed tonight no matter what happened, he sent his own eagle owl with the critical message for Burke. Concealing his role as a spy hardly mattered anymore.

From the owlery, he practically sprinted back to the Slytherin common room to collect Cambo and Spott. This mission was so important and so secret that Draco had not told his minions about it. But Draco had chosen wisely. Cambo and Spott were no more intelligent or independent than Crabbe and Goyle.

They followed Draco blindly to a second storey bathroom usually haunted by Moaning Myrtle, the ghost of one of Voldemort's first victims. In less than five minutes Draco and his two accomplices reduced the easily offended ghost to tears and drove her away - faster than Draco usually managed with living females, and less time than it took to clean up after Myrtle's rather sodden exit.

Draco employed his Parseltongue translator to very dramatic effect.

"Holy shite...!"

Cambo shrunk away at the scrape of massive stone upon stone.

"Merlin's balls, what the hell is that...?"

"That my friends, is where I'm headed in a minute or two," Draco announced proudly. "Finite!" His shrunken broom regained its normal size.

"This is the original entrance to the Chamber of Secrets," Draco began explaining Cambo's and Spott's role in this mission for the Dark Lord. "My job's down there, best you not know more.... All you need do is guard this pit until I get back. After that, you're done and free to go. Now whilst I'm.... Oh, bollocks!"

It had to happen then.

Something vibrated inconveniently in Draco's trousers' pocket. He fumbled beneath his robes and extracted a largish button. It glowed bright red.

"Dammit!" Draco swore. "I don't need this!"

Cambo asked, "What is it Drake?"

"That wretched Weaselette," Draco spat angrily. "Thank Merlin I.... Anyway, Merlin knows why she's picked now of all times to come looking for me...."

"Well, she won't think to look for you here, will she?" Spott commented. "We've put the 'Out of Order' sign back up."

Draco rolled his eyes. Preston Spott was definitely no improvement over Gregory Goyle. "Except that these blasted buttons have a homing function - which you'd know if you'd ever tried yours out. Blast it! I should have retrieved hers...."

At their quizzical looks, Draco quieted. Ginny Weasley was something else he had never mentioned to the two Slytherin fifth years. "I'll have to meet her in the hall or else she'll barge in here. You two stay put. I'll be right out front.... You can even watch through the keyhole - but no bloody noise."

Draco gave his button a responsive twist and stepped into the corridor. A distraught looking Ginny Weasley hove into view much sooner than anticipated. Either she was moving very quickly or had been considerably closer than usual when she signalled him.

The answer was both.

Distraught did not begin to describe the redheaded witch. "Hysterical" was more accurate.

"Draco! Draco! You've got to help me!" she wailed. "Something's happened. Harry's left!"

"What! Left you? For whom? Not bloody Daphne Greengrass, I hope," Draco answered. "Now, calm down...."

"No!" she continued shrieking altogether too loudly. Even in this usually deserted corner of the Castle, the noise risked drawing attention.

Draco had to act fast. Violating the no-magic-in-the-hallways rule was infinitely preferable to being discovered. "Impertubatus!"

That spell was a good idea.

"He's left for Hermione ... that bitch!" Ginny screeched even louder.

Draco almost froze. A Potter-Granger reconciliation would displease the Dark Lord. "How? That makes no sense. I heard Dumbledore at dinner, she's not even.... Shite! You mean they've run off together?"

Ginny's face went almost as red as her hair. "No! He's gone haring after her. I tried to stop him and ... something happened...! Oh, Merlin!"

Only Draco's steely self-discipline prevented him from breaking out in a large - and Ginny would have thought wholly inappropriate - grin. The Great Git was not in the Castle! One major potential stumbling block had just been removed from his path....

"...And I need your help," Ginny beseeched the Slytherin. "I think something might have gone wrong with the potion. He's never been that short with me!"

Draco blocked out the Weaselette's whines and woes.... With Potter and Granger both out of the way, that stupid D.A. of theirs would never fight. It would be leaderless....

"Draco! I need help! I'm afraid of losing Harry!"

Ginny's laments brought him back to the here and now.

"Yeah, I'll help," Draco answered quickly, if untruthfully. Her despair concerned him not one iota. If he could get away - and keep - the bloody redhead away from him for a few more hours, he would never be tormented by her whingeing again. "In fact you're in luck...."

"I could damn well use some right about now!"

Draco improvised. "I've two more phials of Potion right here...."

That, at least was accurate. Because puttering calmed his jangled nerves, Draco had fortuitously finished another follow-up batch earlier in the day.

"...and I've improved it," he lied through his teeth. "I included ... umm ... Puffskein musk extract to make it even more powerful...."

"Oh, Thank Merlin! He didn't eat what I tried to give him tonight...."

Draco could practically feel Ginny's wave of relief. She almost lunged at the proffered potion as Draco held it out, grabbing for it as if drowning.

Suddenly, to Draco's surprise and dismay, a red bolt of magic emerged awkwardly from the bathroom door keyhole. Thanks to the Silencing spell, Ginny neither saw nor heard the Stunner, which hit her squarely in the back.

She flopped unmoving onto the floor.

Draco Malfoy's fury was incandescent. "What the hell was that for?!" he yelled. Hearing no response from whichever knuckleheaded minion had hexed Ginny, he angrily flung open the door - passing through the boundary of his earlier Imperturbable Charm.

"What the hell was that for?!" Draco repeated himself, losing none of his earlier venom or volume.

"Drake, she looked like she was attacking you," Cambo attempted to defend his actions. "I couldn't hear anything. I had only a split second to react."

"Ten seconds more and she would have been gone, dammit," Draco seethed. If time were not so short, he may have cursed the perpetrator.

He would simply have improvise for a suddenly more complicated situation.

Taking a deep calming breath, Draco took control. "All right, shite happens. Just forget about it. Drag her in here and stuff her into one of the stalls. And for Merlin's sake, lock the bloody door."

* * * *

Try as she might, Hermione could not move Viktor Krum. He was not merely in love with her; from their discussion he seemed truly besotted. But critically, Krum was just as thoroughly Imperiused, and no better now than before at resisting that Unforgivable Curse. He would not, could not, allow her to escape. Even telling Viktor that helping her escape was the only way she would ever speak to him again did not push him an inch in that vital direction, however much he might have wished.

Viktor had made the proverbial deal with the devil. Attempting to win her love, Viktor had destroyed any chance of that ever happening. She would never, not voluntarily, have anything to do with anyone in league with Voldemort. Her mind closed on Viktor, but only this morning she had gone into her date with it open....

At least she told herself that.

Their allotted hour drew inexorably to a close. Viktor was convinced that whatever Voldemort (whom he infuriatingly called "the Dark Lord") was planning would not do her significant harm. "The Dark Lord has promised," he repeated over and over again.

Hermione was absolutely certain otherwise. Once Viktor mentioned Bellatrix Lestrange everything clicked - an entire roll of pennies dropped. Completely at odds with her long-standing reputation as the Death Eaters' most flamboyantly cold-blooded killer, Lestrange had dropped from sight after Stonehenge.

Harry had told her, and also the confidential side of Shak's enquiry, that the Bose-Einstein condensate might have deflected Voldemort's Killing Curse towards Lestrange. But Harry had barely been conscious, and conventional wisdom was that the Killing Curse could not be deflected; only blocked by a solid object. His muddled memory was not taken seriously.

But if true...?

Lestrange could have made her own Horcrux....

Voldemort would have to use the same spell to restore Lestrange that he used to restore himself.

Aside from Voldemort's followers, Hermione was probably the only witch in Britain to have researched that spell.

The spell's donors would have to be female.

Bellatrix Lestrange's ancestors' bones were here. She was a Black. The Black family's ancestral graveyard was hard by the Château's south side.

Hermione knew she was a logical choice for the "enemy" whose blood would be shed to restore Lestrange. But for the regeneration magic to work properly, it had to end with the "enemy's" death.

Hermione desperately tried to get that through Viktor's Imperiused skull. She explained the complete sequence of the spell to him - how each piece fit together.

He would not believe. All Hermione could extract from the recalcitrant Bulgarian was a promise that, if Voldemort tried to kill her, he would curse Voldemort first.

Viktor was not Harry and never would be. He was incapable of throwing off the Imperius Curse.

At the end of the appointed hour, without even a courtesy knock, Death Eaters barged into the Proprietor's Suite. Their voyeuristic jollies, if any, were disappointed. Hermione was fully dressed in the discrepant outfit Viktor had collected.

"Hands behind your back, Mudblood," one of them ordered through his mask.

"Go to hell, Deater," Hermione shot back. She would not voluntarily do anything that might reduce her chances of escape.

"Bitch," the Death Eater spat. Had Viktor not intervened, he would have backhanded Hermione across the face.

"Ne," Viktor stepped firmly between Hermione and the Death Eaters. In a move appearing rougher than it was, he spun the recalcitrant witch about by one arm and grabbed her opposite hand. He drew them together behind her back.

Using a spell unknown to Hermione, another Death Eater bound her hands with a silver chain. Before anyone else took charge of her, Viktor did. Shoving her in front of him, he frog-marched Hermione through the Château's halls with two other Death Eaters leading the way. "You must trust me, Her-my-o-nee, it is the only vay," Viktor whispered in her ear. "I have a deal."

The Death Eaters were thorough. Not the slightest escape opportunity presented itself before Hermione was pushed through a side door, into the night - and back into the malign presence of the Dark Lord himself.

"Ah, yessss," he hissed. "The clever little Mudblood.... You have done well, Viktor. I shall take over now." Voldemort returned his attention to his attending minions.

"Tie her to the gravestone!" he ordered. Two Death Eaters grabbed Hermione from behind, under each of her arms.

"Let me go, you scum!" she screamed. It was no use.

Lifting a struggling Hermione completely off the ground, they carried her to a pre-prepared obelisk-shaped tombstone. She concentrated so much on resisting what could not be resisted that Hermione did not notice the runes carefully laid about the stone - precisely on the four points of the compass.

She did see the name engraved on the monolith - DRUELLA BLACK.

Mother of Bellatrix.

Hermione had learnt that much from the Black tapestry at the former house on Grimmauld Place.

Hermione was so firmly trussed to the cold stone she could barely move a finger.

She only had her voice.

"Viktor, this is your fault!" she howled at the Bulgarian responsible for her in extremis position. "You were never fit to clean Harry's wand!"

Her last-ditch attempt to goad Krum into action on her behalf failed. From the corner of her eye, Hermione saw him clenching his fists, but he stood by, his expression hidden beneath a Death Eater mask.

Voldemort smiled a wicked smile at her outburst. He turned to the object of Hermione's tirade and hissed. "She's right, you know. But rest assured; I do keep my promises...." The Dark Lord turned from Viktor and spoke to his assembled minions, "Let us begin, shall we? But first...."

With uncommon speed Voldemort wheeled. "AVADA KEDAVRA!" The green bolt of death from his wand struck Viktor Krum before he comprehended what was happening. The world's greatest Quidditch player slumped bonelessly to the ground, dead before reaching it.

Hermione screamed again - in horror, rather than anger, at the fate of the late Viktor Krum.

"Shut her up," the Dark Lord hissed. "We need no longer be troubled by Mudblood commentary."

Hermione felt herself roughly gagged with some sort of cloth. The unseen Death Eater tied it tightly enough to cut the corners of her lips. The back of her head hurt as it scraped against the timeworn tombstone's rough granite. She was now truly alone - bereft of any prospect of assistance - and utterly at the mercy, if any existed, of the monster Voldemort.

Nobody could save her. Nobody knew where she was. The Death Eaters could all of the Dark and dreadful things she had imagined in her most extreme nightmares - or they could do worse.

"The fault is yours, Mudblood," sneered the Dark Lord. "Your sorry charms somehow beguiled a perfectly promising pure-blood until he was no longer trustworthy. I had no choice. Viktor Krum's blood is on your filthy hands. But your beguiling days are at an end...."

Voldemort was obviously enjoying himself. "You see, little Mudblood, cleverness and wisdom are completely different. I know everything worth knowing. I knew your late, lamented Krum's motive. I could tolerate his loving you more than me, because this vaunted 'love' is weak and puny. Against control, love means nothing. Potions can manipulate love whenever necessary. Only control matters ... as Krum learnt too late for his - and your - own good."

"Now, for Act One."

Under the Dark Lord's orders, the Death Eaters proceeded with sadistic efficiency. Bellatrix Lestrange would be revived from that pathetic half-existence she had endured after being struck by Voldemort's deflected Killing Curse, ironically intended for the one unwilling member of the audience.

For the unwilling, some fates were worse than death - at least for those not embracing death with the full-throated fervour of Tom Riddle, who had renamed himself the "Flight of Death."

And so, partially within Hermione's sight and partially beyond it, the tripartite spell of bone, flesh and blood was completed.

She heard, but could not see, the splash as Lestrange's grotesque, disfigured remnants were consigned to the huge cauldron this spell required - a cauldron moved to its present location by the Château's quiescent elves.

From beneath her feet, Hermione heard, and fleetingly saw (or imagined seeing), the hiss of powdered bone as Lestrange's Black ancestor rose to restore her daughter.

She heard another yowl as a witch Hermione never met, named Candace, sacrificed her hand to bring Bella back to something approximating life.

Soon Lord Voldemort was before her. "Yesssss...," he hissed. "I've planned this for quite some time. You may have outscored me on some meaningless test, but from this night forward ... I will own you ... whether you like it or not...."

He reached into his jet black robes.

"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken...." Reciting the incantation, the Dark Lord brought a silver rondel level with Hermione's eyes. It glinted dangerously in the half-light of the Château's looming, partially lit windows.

"...you will resurrect your foe."

Voldemort's blade flicked upward, slicing a neat lighting-bolt-shaped gash in Hermione's forehead. The blade was so sharp, and the Dark Lord's movement so quick, that she hardly noticed - until feeling warm blood dribbling down her face.

Hermione's blood spattered the front of her jumper, whilst the Dark Lord mocked his helpless victim. "How appropriate ... it will be a perfect fit...."

Voldemort turned to his audience of followers. "Where is the vaunted Boy Who Lived, anyway? Cavorting with another? Before this night is through, this Mudblood and the pliable Miss Weasley shall share more than having carnal relations with the Chosen One...."

He spoke Harry's hated nicknames like an epitaph.

Although nearly petrified with fear, Hermione's mind still functioned. She wondered what the Dark Wizard before her could possibly mean by that.

She would learn all too quickly.

"Yesssss, to restore Bella," Voldemort changed subjects. He produced a glass phial and filled it with blood dripping from Hermione's chin.

"I shall perform the ritual's final stage personally," the scaly white Dark wizard announced as he stepped out of her sight. Within seconds Hermione heard the WHUMP of a muffled explosion accompanied by blinding white light that briefly illuminated everything she could see with the brilliance of a lightning bolt.

"Robe her," Hermione heard Voldemort order. "Candace, come with me."

Once again, the Dark wizard's pale death-like visage loomed before the helpless young witch. The witch attending Voldemort was not much older than Hermione. She had a brand new, glowing silver hand.

Her argent digits clutched something disgusting, something dark and wiggling resembling a cross between a centipede and a vinegaroon.

"...Should your lamented Mister Potter be so unfortunate as to survive this night," the Dark Lord gloated, "he shall learn the truth ... how my faithful servant played you both for fools.... Candace, provide the Mudblood with her first little present."

The witch named Candace stepped forward. She put two fingers of her normal hand between Hermione's loosely belted khakis and her waist and pulled. Before Hermione knew what was happening, the witch dropped the squirming creature into her pants.

Hermione writhed, straining helplessly against the silver chains binding her.

"Now, you will treat the gift you are about to receive with appropriate respect." Lord Voldemort spoke coolly.

"Illuminati!" he incanted. The runes surrounding Hermione's colonnade glowed an unnatural chalky white. She could see an ankh and a pentacle.

"Now, to ensure that the seer's reading never occurs, you, Mudblood, are granted a singular honour.... You will become the receptacle for a piece of my cosmic essence...."

Hermione's eyes nearly left her sockets in horror. Voldemort was not about to kill her. No! He meant to make her a Horcrux - on the occasion of Viktor Krum's death.

"Look into my eyes," the Dark Lord demanded.

Hermione tried doing something, anything else.

She failed. With her head pinioned to the tombstone, she could not look away. An unknown spell suddenly paralysed her eyelids. She could not even close them. Lord Voldemort's livid scarlet eyes bored into hers.

"Look into my eyes," he repeated, "and sssssee my sssssoul."

The Dark Lord's mental embrace was suffocating. Hermione saw, smelled, and felt death in all its horrid forms. Not even Dementors caused such awful feelings. She felt the blood lust of the vampire, the blind hunger of the zombie, the mindless, hopeless actions of the Inferi.

Hermione tried to shield herself. She attempted to resist the vile assault upon her mind - but to no avail.

The Dark Lord drew her in more deeply. She experienced fœtid slaughter of innocents machine-gunned in freshly dug pits, aloof malice turning a valve opening gas jets disguised as shower heads, and animalistic rage of neighbor hacking neighbor to death in steaming jungle massacres.

Under Lord Voldemort's assault, the barriers of Hermione's mind began collapsing. She saw nothing save his burning, rufescent eyes. Everything, everywhere was red ... blood red....

Despite her gag, Hermione began screaming, screaming within her own mind. As her consciousness was beaten into submission, pure instinct surfaced. She screamed until her voice failed and the screams became incoherent screeches.

"Tantum per nex est principatus super nex...."

As everything dissolved into a ruddy, blood-soaked fog, Hermione never saw Lord Voldemort raise his silver rondel yet again....

* * * *

Ron had never flown so far so fast. Hermione's Valkyrie far outclassed any broom he had ever piloted. With Luna hanging onto him for dear life, the flight should have been tremendously enjoyable.

The reason for such breakneck speed was anything but tremendous. Terrible was more accurate. Awful.... Atrocious....

Quite possibly futile.

Hermione was in mortal peril, maybe even dead already. Harry plainly had the same fears. He was flying like a madman, a wild wizard. Sometimes Ron's best efforts barely kept him in sight.

Finally, Harry began descending. Ron, shaking from the windswept journey, followed. Harry landed in a copse of beeches on the north side of a small hill.

When Ron and Luna approached, Harry was scrutinising what resembled the Marauder's Map. "On the other side of this ridge is the Château's boundary line. A secret passage through the wards is right here," Harry stabbed at the map. "The map's wonky, but that dot's Hermione."

Ron saw many dots - at least thirty, all nameless - in that general area. When Harry touched a finger to that part of the map, they all flickered and jumped about. Briefly, one name - Hermione's - flashed and was gone.

"Why her and nobody else?" Luna asked.

"No bloody idea," Harry admitted. "The important thing ... this means she's still alive. Now let's go. Disillusion yourselves."

Ron and Luna obeyed. Harry was in command mode.

Harry shrunk his broom. Since the other Valkyrie was not Ron's, they left it behind. Bushwhacking through untamed tall grass and brushy undergrowth, they reached the actual boundary, marked by a low stone fence.

A familiar querulous voice met them.

"Harry Potter, sir ... you've come!"

"Dobby, quiet," Harry ordered. "Nothing could keep me away. Did you give the goblins my order not to intervene until I signal?"

Dobby nodded vigorously. "They's being unhappy and nots liking it, but will wait for your signal."

Harry cautiously approached the fence, walked parallel for about ten metres, and stopped. "This should be the way through."

"Mas ... Mister Harry," Dobby pleaded. "Let me be first checking. I's learnt how the Château's wards be feeling....:

"Go ahead, then."

Dobby crept over the fence. "It's still being clear," he announced in a stage whisper. "Is how I escaped before."

Relieved, Harry vaulted over the fence, the others hot on his heels. His own dot, associated with his name, appeared on the map. Only his dot bore a name - his and sometimes Hermione's.

"This way," Harry pointed, following the Château's features outlined on the map. The nearest unidentified dots - presumably Death Eater scouts - did not move towards them, so Harry concluded they crossed the manse boundary undetected.

"Dobby, wait here until I call," Harry ordered. He rarely outright commanded his favourite elf, but this mission was different. "The goblin tunnel is just underneath. I'm digging our way in. Ron and Luna, stay close. Dobby, clean away the dirt and cover our tracks. Once we're in the goblin tunnel, I'll call you."

Thanking Professor Flitwick and Brikwal for his mastery of Tunnelling Charms, Harry set both of his wands to spinning. "Encavernous!" Almost silently, they bored into soft earth, excavating a tunnel more than a metre in diameter. The whirling wands did send loose dirt flying, which Dobby disposed of efficiently.

During these nervous minutes, Harry observed movements of what presumed Death Eater patrols on his map.

The wands clattered upon encountering something solid.

"Ron, light your wand, since mine are occupied."

Harry crept into the earthy smelling tunnel, Ron and Luna close behind. They half crawled through five metres of cramped space as quickly as they could. Behind them, Dobby filled in the entrance so no Death Eaters would stumble on it.

They were committed.

Harry was committed the moment Godric Gryffindor told him about Hermione.

Or maybe he was committed since he stuck his wand up a troll's nose in first year....

No. Harry shook his head to dispel such thoughts. He already had more than enough to deal with....

At the end of the earthen tunnel, Harry stilled his whirring wands. Impervious goblin-carved obsidian, black and shiny, glinted in the dim wandlight. The goblins had taken pains that their tunnel - intended (and used) as an escape route if Death Eaters attacked - would not be easily breached by wizard magic.

An unwelcome obstacle, but not insurmountable - not for a wizard with access to goblin magic.

Harry drew his Sempiternal League dirk. Bespoke goblin forged, its Vorpal steel essence sensed what Harry needed almost before he knew. The diamond-tipped blade morphed into a maul with a solid, wedge-shaped head.

Immediately, Harry had at the obsidian's crystalline structure. With a great grunt, he slammed the maul into the barrier. In the tightly constricted space he failed to generate sufficient momentum.

Ron's voice sounded over Harry's shoulder. "Bloody hell, Harry, try using magic. The map doesn't show any Death Eaters nearby."

Harry agreed. "Depulso!" A strong Banishing Charm sent the maul crashing into the obsidian, visibly cracking it. A half metre left, he repeated the process with similar results.

One more should do it.

"Depulso!"

A large chunk of obsidian gave way....

Success!

Disaster!

A blast of superheated air seared their astonished faces. Angry molten lava glowed floridly through the hole at Harry's feet. Goblin armour or no, they would be fried to cinders within seconds.

"Fridigio Maximus!" Harry choked, using the last air in his lungs. His elemental magic cooled their tunnel's environment to survivable levels. A thin, black scum formed on the magma beneath.

"We can't stay here!" Harry spat an obvious conclusion. The advancing lava's crust was already cracking. Silently, with his bare hand, Harry summoned more elemental magic - earth magic.

The ground about them shook, and a crack appeared overhead. "Dobby!"

Instantly, the elf popped into their presence.

"Get us out of here!"

"Grab onto me!" Dobby shrieked, and all three wizards immediately obeyed the house-elf's directive. An instant later Dobby had popped them to the surface, about twenty metres distant.

"Thanks Dobby, that was close," Harry panted.

"Is being Dobby's pleasure, Harry Potter, sir. But I's being...."

"Shite!" Ron's exclamation cut conversation short. "The Death Eaters felt that earthquake, too. Their dots are headed this way fast!"

"Over here, all of you," Harry's command voice reasserted. Ron, Luna, and Dobby followed Harry as he ducked behind a large tree encircled by a white sitting bench.

Harry's right hand reached for the left sleeve of his goblin armour, intending to yank it up to his elbow. His left hand unexpectedly touched ... the grip of his Sempiternal dirk, snugly in its scabbard at Harry's side.

That puzzled Harry. He had assumed it was lost to the lava, but the goblin-forged weapon seemed to have a mind of its own.

With Death Eaters bearing down, Harry had no time to ponder this good fortune. He pulled both sleeves of his goblin armour past his elbows. With the others crowded around, he crossed his forearms and uttered a familiar incantation, "Karpasinat."

Nothing seemed to happen.

"What dijya do?" Ron whispered.

Three Death Eaters sprinted out of the gloom to their left. Ron raised his wand, drawing a bead on a target. Harry laid his hand firmly on Ron's wrist. "Don't."

Ron shot Harry a querulous look, but stayed his fire.

The Death Eaters ran by, as close as ten metres, but never stopped and gave no sign they sensed the intruders. Their paid sole attention to the stream of lava oozing from the crevasse Harry had made.

"Goblin Cloaking magic," Harry answered Ron's question once the Death Eaters had gone. "They can't see or hear us. If you look at my Château map, we shouldn't even appear...."

Ron did. Harry was right. Their dots, and Harry's name, had vanished.

"Wicked," Ron approved.

The only named dot was Hermione's, surrounded by more than thirty unnamed persons.

"We need to get moving" Harry brushed off the compliment. "Give me the map. Hermione's dot means she's still alive. Going underground is out, so we'll have to stay under this spell. We can't outrun it. It only moves so fast...."

"Then I's ... needing to go," Dobby hesitantly broke in. "The other elves, they's being tracking me since I popped you out. Ima Hogg's being ordering them to catch and lock me up. She's being lying that she still works for you, but enough elves is still believing...."

"Don't worry, Dobby," Harry reassured as the party moved toward the Château at a brisk walk. "This is goblin Cloaking magic - even elves can't block it."

Dobby looked uncertain, but when Harry said stay, he would stay.

"Must be damn good magic," Ron signed as he quickstepped beside Harry. "Wish I could do that.... Hold on, just how do you know so bloody much about it, anyway...?"

"Ron, let it go," Luna slipped her hand in his.

"Don't ask if you won't like the answer," Harry snapped. If Ron wanted to learn that using goblin Cloaking magic had been Ginny's idea, to facilitate their trysts at Hogwarts, he would have to ask again.

Ron kept quiet.

The nearer the rescue party approached the Château the more exposed their surroundings. Blackwalls' well-maintained gardens replaced underbrush. Trees, and anything else convenient for cover in a wandfight, became fewer and farther between.

Harry ploughed onward, setting the fastest pace possible without outrunning the rescuer's goblin camouflage. Fewer obstructions also meant better footing, allowing him to keep his eyes glued to the map, focussed on the only dot that mattered.

Hermione was unmoving - probably because she was not free to move - somewhere up ahead, near the Château. Now, he could see the building's lights quite clearly.

So many Death Eaters encircled her. More shadows fell across the Château's wide garden spaces than dots were on the map.

"Hold up," Harry ordered.

Everyone stopped. Harry knelt and raised his sleeves again, muttering more Gobbledegook.

"What are you doing?" Luna asked, her voice calmer than any of the others could have managed.

"I'm seeing too many bloody Death Eaters," Harry answered, upon completing his latest incantation. "The cloaking magic hiding us will end the moment any of us casts a spell through it. I've reset the magic so once that happens, the goblin army automatically gets a signal for immediate attack."

"Goblin army?" Ron echoed incredulously. "Why wait so long for reinforcements? We could all be dead before they get here."

Harry gestured towards the Death Eater conclave. "They have Hermione, Ron. Whatever the Death Eaters are doing, I'm absolutely positive they'll kill her the moment they're attacked. That won't happen until I've...."

A blinding white flash, followed by a cloud of steam, abruptly shut Harry up.

"Shite! That's it...."

"What's it," asked a confused Ron. "Don't fool...."

"They'll kill Hermione for sure," Harry spat, panic creeping into his voice. "That's the same damn spell that brought back Voldemort - I was supposed to die. It must be effing Lestrange, and that's why they're here.... I'm sorry I got you into this mess...."

"Whoa there, we agreed to come. You had bloody little...."

"Sorry. That doesn't matter anymore," Harry hissed, a desperate plan gelling in his head.

"You can't go back on us now," Luna joined Ron.

They dodged another passing Death Eater patrol, oblivious to their presence.

"If I could, I would, but I can't," Harry breathed. "You can't do anything now.... Head for those tombstones."

"Don't give me that crap, Harry. We can fight," Ron protested.

"And get killed," Harry shot back. "Dobby, how long do you need to pop Hermione away? I don't care where - just getting her out."

"Depends, sir. If she's being stuck to a big, heavy gravestone, I'd say ten seconds, Harry Potter, sir," Dobby answered. "Less if Miz Myown's not."

"You're sending Dobby in there?" Luna was incredulous.

"Not alone," Harry clarified, his voice shaky but determined. They reached the first line of tombstones. Harry saw Voldemort standing less than two metres from a stone obelisk glinting with shiny chains. On the opposite side, Harry presumed, was Hermione.

She was still alive. Her dot continued flickering on the map.

Voldemort, as was his wont, seemed to be monologuing. Another Death Eater, next to him, reached towards Hermione, but Harry could not tell why.

Harry drew his goblin dirk. "Dobby, you're going to pop me in there - between Voldemort and Hermione. With this, my wand, and some surprise, I should buy you at least the ten seconds you need."

"Harry, that's suicide," Luna protested.

"Yes, it is," Harry dismissed her objection. "Ron's been right all along, and now it's my turn to do what's necessary. My carrying on with Ginny caused this. It's my fault she's there, so I have to fix it. It's the only way...."

"Harry, you're mental. You can't charge in there alone," Ron started in angrily. "Think about that damn prophecy." Ron regretted keeping that secret from Luna, but now keeping Harry alive was more important. "You're the key bloke, not her. Hermione would say the same thing, you know it...."

"Fuck the bloody prophecy, Ron," Harry seethed, not looking at anyone. "D'ya really think, with her dead because I couldn't control my stupid self, that I could carry it off anyway?"

Without mentioning names, all Harry's listeners knew exactly who he meant.

He stared intently at the map, and the dots nearest Hermione, praying for an opening. "Dobby, come here. It's death or goddamn glory time."

"M-M-Master, Dobby's being thinking this isn't a good idea."

"Dobby - here," Harry ordered. "You two, Disillusion yourselves ... no, here, take this...." Harry undid an armour fastener on his chest, intent on giving Ron his Invisibility Cloak.

"Bloody, effing hell," Ron swore. "You're so damn alike. How this whole bloody mess happened, I have no frigging idea, because you both still fucking lo...."

"NOOOOOOOO!!!" Luna screamed at the top of her lungs.

Harry tore his eyes from the map. Voldemort had a dagger raised over his head, poised to strike.

Instinctively, Harry rolled to his left, wand out, bellowing, "EXPELLIARMUS!!"

With a report like a shotgun blast, a Fifth-Element aided bolt of fiery red magic streaked towards Voldemort. At the same instant - too quickly even for an echo - a second loud bang heralded a brilliant red flash that dazzled Voldemort himself. That flash came from the far side, Hermione's side, of the obelisk to which she was bound.

Voldemort staggered back a step as the entire monolith, chains and all, lifted straight into the air. A furious screech split the night.

As he faltered, Voldemort never saw Harry's spell. It struck him flush in the side, but the Dark Lord's enchantments provided protection that prevented a mere Disarming Charm from relieving him of his wand - although the same could not be said for his ceremonial dagger.

Rather than Voldemort's wand flying towards Harry, Voldemort himself - wand and all - went sailing through the air at an oblique angle, falling somewhere beyond Harry's sight.

His dagger bounced off Harry's armour, unnoticed, as Harry could scarcely believe what he saw. The dark stone obelisk to which Hermione had been chained pivoted in midair, revealing a brilliantly scarlet phoenix, its wings flapping furiously as it soared upwards.

With another earsplitting screech, the angry firebird burst the chains binding it. Phoenix Hermione shot into the sky, whilst the heavy tombstone fell away. It landed, with a dull, sickening thud, directly atop the Death Eater closest to her. Nothing save a motionless silver hand could be seen.

More than two score Death Eaters, those assembled in the graveyard and others stationed in the Château's windows, belatedly recognised an attack. They opened fire with a cacophony of curses. The kaleidoscope of streaking spells, all arcing in his direction, forced Harry to focus elsewhere.

As during the Malfoy Manor firefight, Dobby's shield of elfin magic blocked most of the initial fusillade. Dobby bought Harry and his outnumbered friends precious seconds to duck behind nearby tombstones.

Combat focusses the mind like nothing else. Time seemed to slow down. The senses Harry needed - sight and enough hearing to detect spellfire - sharpened, whilst everything else went conveniently numb.

After cursing Voldemort, Harry had rolled over twice and huddled behind a gravestone. "Incandens!" he conjured a fiery shield that obstructed his enemy's view. Wild hexes streaked in every direction.

The flames likewise blocked Harry's vision. Firing blindly, Harry cut a Limb Removing Curse five ways. Dropping his goblin dirk, useful only in close quarters, Harry pulled out his second wand and began casting curses with both hands. "Confringo!" "Diffindo!" "Osteo Pulvisæ!" "Regurgito!"

The Death Eaters' overwhelming fire blasted away at the tombstones shielding Hermione's pinned down would-be rescuers. A well-aimed Reductor split Harry's stone vertically, sending jagged chunks of granite in all directions.

A Mirror Charm cast on a nearby tombstone....

Some misdirection - bounce a Hacking Hex cut five ways off the mirror....

Harry gave better than he got. He brought down the two nearest Death Eaters by surrounding them with tightly pulled barbed wire. "Cephalus Fricassus!" A Lesson 128 curse dropped another Death Eater who was aiming at Luna. A Reductor Curse, cut ten ways, turned several more opponents into widely scattered raw hamburger ingredients.

Keep track of Ron and Luna ... and curse everything else that moved.

Harry had to sigh, just a bit, hearing Ron roar out "Sectumsempra!" Ron's curse struck the giant stone cauldron behind which Bellatrix Lestrange had taken cover, trying to use an unfamiliar wand. The cauldron rang like a bell as Ron's spell tipped the cistern over. Lestrange flopped from sight as a torrent of leftover Regeneration Potion bowled her over.

Harry was hardly perfect. Something angry and orange streaked in from an odd angle, connecting with his right hip. Thanks to Basilisk skin armour, he felt only the dull pressure of impact.

Luna, for her part, faced the other way, using Idiotus Jinxes to pick off Death Eaters trying to sneak in from behind or above.

Suddenly, screeching like a vuvuzela powered by a lorry horn, phoenix-Hermione swooped down. Diving in, she knocked a couple of Death Eaters off their brooms. After putting their air patrol to flight, phoenix-Hermione skimmed the ground until she grabbed two other Death Eaters in her claws. She soared upwards. Seconds later her evil cargo plummeted back to earth, as their counterparts scattered to avoid their incoming carcasses.

"Multiplicitus!" Harry heard Luna create multiple images of herself to confuse the Death Eaters.

Still the curses kept coming. A purple slash whipped across their besieged position. One of their adversaries knew the Dark Fire of Tu Fan, but that curse could not penetrate their Basilisk skin armour. Bits of grass and dirt spattered Harry as Death Eater curses - some Unforgivable - gouged fiery divots throughout the surrounding turf.

With his protective tombstone gradually being reduced to rubble, Harry kept blasting away ambidextrously. "Stupefy!" "Reducto!" "Hornetentious!" "Incarcerous!" He lunged for a more substantial headstone nearby. Two curses found their marks - something icy blue that arrived exactly at eye level - blocked at the last second with his armoured forearm....

The other was a Cruciatus.

"AIEEE!!" Harry screamed. Scrabbling to stay upright, he concentrated, cupped his hands at the proper angle, and incanted, "Suturc!" to defeat the curse.

The Cruciatus briefly distracted Harry from the battle raging about him.

Briefly and fatally.

"Good-bye, Harry Potter."

Harry knew that chilling voice.

"Avada Kedavra!"

The Killing Curse came from his left. Harry turned his head the moment Voldemort Disillusioned himself. The Dark wizard's triumphant, malevolent grimace glowed radium green, lit by a bolt of death Harry could not possibly dodge.

It was all over. Harry knew he was a dead man. His last thoughts on earth were, 'You didn't need me. You saved yourself. But when it comes to you, Hermione....'

Without conscious direction, save its own, Harry's Sempiternal dirk pivoted at his side, its elongating blade splitting its scabbard in two. With the deafening sound of plate glass shattering under extreme pressure, Killing Curse met Vorpal steel.

The blade absorbed the curse, but the curse pulverised the blade.

Stunned, disbelieving that he still lived, Harry fell to his knees. He gawked as shards of goblin metal magically reformed the rough outline of a blade - still diamond tipped and Basilisk fang edged. Glowing silver, the metallic swarm shot directly at Voldemort.

Unprepared, the Dark Lord Disapparated just before scores of blade fragments turned him into a pin cushion.

The reconstituted blade lost its purpose for existing. Jagged scraps fell to the ground.

The battle raged on.

Luna screamed as a curse lit her up in a shower of yellow sparks. Her armour protected her. She had never been under fire before.

Another Death Eater curse blasted the stone against which Harry was leaning. Being pelted by slivers of granite brought Harry abruptly back to the only slightly less desperate here-and-now.

Only the three friends remained - and a few of Luna's doppelgangers. Dobby had vanished after providing his initial shield. Perhaps half the Death Eaters lay as casualties on the ground, but more than a dozen of their number still fought in the Black family cemetery between them and the Château.

Almost as many more were behind them; those who had patrolled the grounds and the air. Still more Death Eaters perched in the Château's upper floor windows, commanding superior fields of fire.

The goblins would arrive soon. They needed little more than ten minutes....

Harry had to equalise the odds - quickly. Could Hermione possibly...?

That was it.

"DEVOLVUS!!" he roared. With a series of pops, thirty metres of turf, tombstones and all, pulled loose from the earth between Harry and the Death Eaters - from the Château doorway on the left to the overturned cauldron on the right. Slowly, but with accelerating speed, the turf rolled over itself like a snowball on a downhill run. Harry had employed the same spell, on a much smaller scale, when duelling Hermione.

Over the next five seconds, the Death Eaters between Harry and the Château either fled in panic, Disapparated, or were swallowed up and crushed by an onslaught of the earth beneath their feet.

Before the result of his first spell had come to rest with a "splot" against Blackwalls' stone ramparts, Harry had turned and repeated the process in the opposite direction.

"Protego! Now that was bloody brilliant," Ron exclaimed as he stood up. "I only wish you'd thought of that sooner. Now where's ... AAAHHH!"

A wild Bonebreaker Hex from their left ricocheted off a tombstone behind them, bounced off a rock on the ground, and found the top of Ron's ankle, where his ill-fitting armour provided no protection.

Despite multiple deflections, the Death Eater Bonebreaker did its job. Ron fell heavily forward, both bones of his lower leg shattered. He landed flat on his face halfway into the depression from the turf tearing loose. Ron was an inviting, utterly unprotected target for Death Eaters still perched in the Chateaus' upper storey windows.

"Ronald!" Luna angrily fired a Disorienting Hex in the direction of the curse's origin, and ran towards Ron as curses flew about her.

Conjuring balls of fire simultaneously with two wands, Harry tried suppressing the Death Eaters' fire with mediocre results.

A screech rent the night. Phoenix Hermione swooped in to gather up Ron. She dove in low from the right, on a path that gave both Harry (and Ron had he been looking) a full face-on view of her magnificent flying form.

"Go, Hermione!" Harry cheered.

An all-too-familiar voice shouted, "AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Bellatrix Lestrange's Killing Curse found Hermione.

Before Harry's shocked eyes, phoenix Hermione disintegrated in a ball of flame as the ultimate Unforgivable forced magic, and life, from the magical creature's body.

All Harry's breath left his body in a screaming "NOOOOOOOO!!" of unimaginable grief and rage. He felt his hopes, his dreams, his ... everything ... being consumed with Hermione's phoenix form. Left to their own devices, Harry's limbs went flabby. He stumbled and fell to his knees. His guts churned like someone had inserted a turbo-beater through his navel and turned it on high.

"Hermione!" Luna joined Harry's roar with her own wail. Heedless of her safety, Luna hurtled past Ron and threw herself on Hermione's smoking remnants.

"Ha-HAH!" a gleeful shout crossed the devastated no-man's land that used to be the Black family cemetery. "Ding dong, the bitch is dead...!"

Partially shielded by the upturned cauldron, Lestrange cackled, "Wittle baby Potty's pwaymate's gone and there's nuffink anybody can to bwing her back! Hee, hee, hee...."

Harry wheeled toward the voice, his grief rapidly corrupted into an overwhelming urge to kill - to repay that hateful witch for what she had just done to Hermione. A million generations of evolution fell away as Harry went primal....

Six months earlier, such a scene - even without the taunting - would have yielded an explosion of raw, indiscriminate magic - destroying everything and killing everyone, friend, foe, or in between, within a dozen kilometres.

Since then, Harry had trained constantly and been tempered by mortal combat. The out-of-control adolescent was no more, replaced by a gladiator's gut instincts.

Lestrange was determined to test his mettle. Her sing-song voice now jeered, "Bye, bye, filthy Mudblood has died. Sent by Potter to the slaughter when another he tried...."

Harry would have toasted her with green lightning bolts from his eyes, had that been possible. Hatred and revenge - raw and overpowering - tinged Harry's vision. "I'LL KILL YOU; YOU DISGUSTING BITCH!!" He trained his wand on the demented, Dark Witch and bellowed, "CONFRINGO!!!"

A brilliantly orange Blasting Curse, surprising even Harry, emerged from his wand like a blast from Mallet's mortar.

Lestrange timed him and Disapparated as Harry's incantation left his lips.

Harry's curse vaporised the great stone cauldron that incubated Lestrange's resurrection. Continuing unabated, the curse crashed into the corner of the Château, nearly parallel to the building's west wall. The curse's passage obliterated the structure's near corner at the junction of its ground and first floors. It continued, blowing the west wall to smithereens all across that face of the 255-room building.

Losing support, the entire west facade of the Château - its remaining six storeys - collapsed in billows of rubble and plaster dust. For a blessed minute, the obscuring cloud prevented Death Eaters still in the Château from taking more potshots at the now thoroughly dispirited would-be rescuers.

Not until later did Harry learn that, from there, his spell ripped through a forest for half a kilometre, laying waste to centuries-old oaks and beeches, before burying itself in a hillside to create a new cavern sufficient to house the aging of the Château's entire output of wine and champagne.

As terrible as Harry's curse had been, it did not - could not - restore what the Dark Witch had taken. Whatever remained of Hermione lay in raw dirt a few metres before him, glowing faintly blue beneath Luna's human shield.

Oblivious to everything, Harry staggered forward, disregarding his exposure to curses from leftover Death Eaters. He sheathed his still-smoking wand. Tears blurring his vision, he fumbled with his upper armour's fastenings. Jerking the Basilisk skin open, he removed his Invisibility Cloak, and spread it over Luna's body.

Then, numb and with nothing left to give, Harry sank to his knees in the bleak, battered moonscape of the Black family graveyard. His thoughts followed what, for Harry, was a predictable course.

'What a mess I've made. I should have known Hermione wouldn't need me. Bloody hell - she learnt that phoenix transformation. She didn't need rescuing. Our ... my ... arrival bollixed everything. Without us needing rescuing, she could have flown away. We got her....'

"This is all my fucking fault," Harry grumbled. He had charged into battle with no Felix Felicis Potion. The results spoke for themselves....

"Avada Kedavra!"

Like nothing else, a Killing Curse concentrates the mind - especially when uttered by a familiar voice.

Harry dove behind the nearest reasonably intact gravestone, brandishing his wand as he tumbled. If the spell were meant for him, its aim was extremely poor.

He knew who cast it. He knew the voice of his traitorous, turncoat former employee, Ima Hogg. Crouching once more behind a curse-scarred monument to a long-dead Black, Harry felt a fierce, bitter enmity towards any and all things associated with the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black - especially its Death Eater sympathies - what motivated both Lestrange and Hogg to use the Killing Curse against his friends....

A half-dozen Death Eaters remained silhouetted in windows or backlit in gaping holes created by collapse of the Château's walls. Harry's murderous fury blazed in a red haze of hatred. They must be eradicated. Harry would not chance waiting for the goblins' arrival.

His rage would undoubtedly support a Killing Curse, but Harry had never learnt Unforgivables - nor did he think that way. The spell he chose would not only extirpate all remaining Death Eaters but eliminate an unwanted inheritance that caused Harry naught but pain, and heartache ... and death.

Malevolent spawn of Black had just deprived Harry of his truest friend - and so much more.

Never again.

Harry stood, his mind swimming with poisonous visions of revenge. Pointing his wand at the loathsome Hogg, he began to roar, "Infla...!"

Thunk! Something hit her from behind.

Harry's narrowed eyes widened, and his spell intended to immolate the Château was never completed.

Propelled by some unseen force, Ima Hogg lurched from her fourth storey perch as if taking flight without wings.

Over the next few seconds every other visible Death Eater followed suit.

Had Voldemort taught his followers flight? Harry altered his aim to account for that awful possibility.

The answer, thankfully, was no.

Ima Hogg swan dove into solid ground, landing with a splat that left no doubt that nothing had broken her fall. Just before she hit, Harry heard a popping sound.

Dobby appeared beside him, the elf's face triumphant.

"Harry Potter, sir, there's being no more bad wizards inside. We elves, even being without magic, has gotten rid of them."

Harry's last epinephrine dregs evaporated. He finally mumbled, "Thanks, Dobby." His weak response left the elf wondering what else had happened.

Robotically, Harry tried Levitating the now-unconscious Ron. Nothing happened. He examined his wand - it was once his father's. Like the day James died, it was hollow. Harry's last spell had burnt out the core entirely.

Numb, Harry stowed the destroyed wand and removed his original wand from its invisible holster. He floated Ron's body beside Luna and covered both with his Cloak. He kneeled in the dirt near them and dejectedly rocked back and forth, muttering over and over, "What have I done?"

Hermione was dead - gone forever.

Dejected ... angry ... Harry blamed himself for this amateurish, botched and totally unnecessary rescue attempt. They had drifted apart - another fault lying squarely at his feet. He should have known Hermione would succeed where he had not, mastering her phoenix whilst his golden griffin remained out of reach.

She had escaped.

She came back to save them.

She was AKed trying to help Ron.

"AAIIEE!!" Harry's anguished cry rent the night. Despairing of magic, he raised his remaining wand, dagger-like, and stabbed into the earth as deeply as it would go.

The fight over, Harry's façade shattered. Choking sobs wracked his chest. He could barely see, barely breathe, and he barely cared. He had lost. The anchor of his life was gone. Tears watered the raw earth.

Voldemort had won ... how could he go on...?

Or had he?

What did it matter anymore?

The only way to win was to go Dark. Revenge - kill more Death Eaters and make his own Horcruxes.... With an ominous groan, Harry realised he now could. The Dark Lord's followers had reduced him to their level. He wanted to kill them ... especially the bitch Lestrange. Not to capture, not to disable, but to kill....

Damn them! Damn her! Damn them all!

Still clutching his wand by its hilt, Harry exuded despair and rage. The soil began to bubble and boil.

To survive, he had to become as unkillable as Voldemort....

No!

Hermione's memory was all he had left. He would not defile it.

Harry wept anew. He had lost. Even if he won, he lost.

The goblin army rolled in moments later - delayed more by malfunctioning wards, enchanted molten lava, and a turf tsunami than by enemy combatants. They encountered almost two score of Death Eaters dead and wounded scattered over a battlefield. They believed their valiant Prince Harry had won another great victory.

They found their Prince, on his knees in steaming, putrid mud, unaware of his surroundings, inconsolable, and ruing the most catastrophic defeat of his life.

Harry was beyond caring. Without his restraining influence, the goblins butchered every surviving Dark Mark-bearing human they found.

* * * *

The void was calm, warm, and inviting - a remarkable contrast to the hellhole of her life over the past several hours ... days ... weeks...?

Did it matter? Time seemed suspended.

Hermione perceived herself - assuming she retained what passed for a "self" - floating weightlessly in some vast and formless place, lacking discernable direction. "Up" and "down" had no meaning.

She imagined herself an astronaut in zero gravity, except astronauts could see stars and planets. This blank void had nothing.

On more thorough inspection, that was not quite right.

A single exception shown amidst the infinite gloom - a small spot of achromatic light, glowing yellowish white, maybe the size of the full moon. It resembled light shining from the far end of a very long tunnel.

Was this death? Some gateway to death? Limbo? For once, Hermione did not know the answer. She did know that her present - assuming "present" meant anything - improved vastly upon her prior circumstances.

All the pain, threats, and terror haunting Hermione's earthly existence had fallen away - dwindling to an indistinct buzz that tickled her ... her navel.

That was odd. She reached down and felt ... something even odder. Her fingers encountered a stringy, irregular, rather prickly umbilicus. Hermione managed to shift herself until the single dim light source illuminated the strand. It consisted of feathers - red phoenix feathers, she surmised - twisted and woven into something like rope. The thin filament lacked tension and terminus and meandered through the gloom until disappearing ... somewhere.

"Gloom" was an inadequate description - too pejorative. Peace was more accurate. The void was soothing. None of Hermione's prior afflictions existed, a huge plus.

The void was tranquil.

The void was painless.

The void was empty, devoid of the eye-popping fear inspired by monsters all too eager to inflict unspeakable evil on her simply by the accident of her birth.

No, that was not quite right, either. Being a Muggle-born was hardly unique. Her Hogwarts class alone boasted four others. They were not considered for the macabre honour of becoming the unwilling repository for a fragment of Voldemort's evil soul.

For Death Eaters, her transgressions transcended ancestry. Her true crime was that she ... was not stopping herself when she - why deny it now - fell in love with Voldemort's mortal enemy, Harry Potter....

The void had no magic, and thus no Dark magic.

...She had fallen in love with, and - in limbo veritas - was still in love with ... Harry Potter.... Then he discarded her for someone prettier, more athletic, and pure-blooded. For all her genius, Hermione felt she was the stupidest, most useless person who ever lived.

Despair could intrude upon the void's cosmic depths.

Despair.... It was trivial compared to the death, destruction, defilement, and debasement she had endured since her Death Eater kidnapping from Hogsmeade.

Save a stupendous stroke of good luck - her entirely unplanned first phoenix transformation ever, following months of unmitigated failure - Hermione would be a Horcrux, her mind and body forever possessed by an odious part of Voldemort's soul.

Only death could break such a possession. Unnervingly, Voldemort was remarkably unconcerned with that possibility.

'I would have killed myself, surely, at my first opportunity,' Hermione sternly told herself, 'before ever letting that go on....'

An equally stupendous stroke of bad luck prevented Hermione's phoenix transformation from making good a most remarkable escape.

Amazingly, naïvely ... heroically ... Harry somehow located her - just a bit too late to save the day. Instead of fleeing, Hermione, in phoenix form, found herself in a furious battle. Three of her friends (she saw only Ron, Harry, and Luna) had engaged literally dozens of Death Eaters, including Voldemort himself.

So she came to the void - a phoenix struck by the Killing Curse whilst attempting to rescue one of her would-be rescuers. One of her first real friends.

Hermione did not regret sacrificing herself for Ron - he had certainly risked the same for her.

The void contained regrets, but no more hatred, torture, fighting, or killing.

Compared to the horror show Hermione's life had become, semi-existence in serene repose seemed downright inviting.

So Hermione waited, relaxed if regretful, for however her final act in the course of human events would play out. She considered her mind well-organised....

A non-believer to the core, Hermione expected neither winged angel choirs nor legions of demons. Indeed, nothing of that sort happened, no bearded deities nor horned devils, no celestial host of cherubim or seraphim. Harry and Luna had mentioned unconscious encounters with the spirits of loved ones, but Hermione never prised into such personal matters.

She expected nothing of that sort, either, since none of her loved ones (to her knowledge) had died.

A minute, or a month, passed. Then a surprising voice broke the void's comforting silence.

"Hermy-own-ninny! Finally, I have found you!"

"Loved one" meant different things to different people.

Surprised but not frightened, through sheer force of will Hermione floated towards the voice.

She came face to face with Viktor Krum. This was not the torn, tortured Krum of their last encounter - someone unsuccessfully attempting to navigate a knife edge between the lesser and greater of two evils.

This was the adolescent Krum - Durmstrang Champion, Bulgaria's pride - astride his red, white, and green trimmed broom from the 1994 World Cup.

He wore crimson, fur-lined robes from a long-ago day - burnt into their memories - when after weeks of hemming and hawing he invited her to walk with him. They meandered to her special secluded place on the far shore of Hogwarts Lake. He confessed how she made him feel differently than anyone else. He asked for two things: a date to the Yule Ball, and a chance, a fair chance, to compete for her affections.

She happily granted the first ... but, Hermione realised, she never delivered the second. Her heart was already spoken for....

"Viktor," Hermione replied, sounding breathless even in the void. "Why are you here? You died. Am I ... dead?"

Viktor smiled at her. "That, my alvays perceptive obicham prijatel, is the ultimate question. For you, the ansver is vithin your control, making you more fortunate than I." His smile, still bright, bore a distinctly more wistful cast.

"If I'm not dead, what are you doing here, Viktor?"

"Again, only you can ansver," he unhelpfully answered. "Vot happens is vot you vant to happen."

"Then I don't want to be dead," Hermione immediately declared.

"From personal experience, I vouldn't be so sure," Viktor responded thoughtfully. "I know, at the end, I could not have said that ... and remained truthful."

Hermione thought more deeply, contemplating recent days and weeks. Although romance with Harry was no more, Death Eaters nonetheless pursued her. Even without romance, her friendship with Harry remained. Friendship, nothing more, motivated Harry to find her somehow, and then come for her against his usual, impossible odds.

That was who Harry was.

Would not letting the inevitable happen be better, so her continuing vulnerability would no longer endanger Harry?

Bluntly, would they both be better off with her dead?

"Hermy-own-ninny?"

"I'm sorry, Viktor," Hermione apologised. "Lost in thought."

"Don't be sorry. I have all the time in the vorld," Viktor temporised. "But Hermy-own-ninny, shouldn't you consider vot is best for you, instead of vot is best for him...?"

Hermione could not bear looking at the first man who ever said he loved her. "I'm ... I'm not sure there's a difference...."

"And that is vhy I never had a chance," Viktor sighed, sadly but with no trace of rancor. "My clever one, you should consider your course both objectively and subjectively...."

"In what sense...?"

"Assume he really vould be safer vithout you constantly their target," Viktor recommended. "Still, consider carefully how, subjectively, he vould feel in that event."

"Ah, yes," Hermione understood. "Would objective safety outweigh his tendency to blame himself for everything bad that happens?"

"That is ... consideration," Viktor neutrally allowed, "but your fate belongs to you."

Viktor reached inside his robes and withdrew an oversized pair of scissors that, even in the dim light, almost shone from within. Smiling wanly, he offered her the shears.

Making no move to accept, Hermione instantly grasped the metaphor. "Now, this is rather cliché, I'd have to say."

"Don't blame me. Is from your mind," Viktor pointed out. "It is how, in your heart of hearts, you vish this to resolve."

Again he extended the golden implement to her. Finally, Hermione accepted.

"Vell, there is limit to vot I can do - as alvays," Viktor spoke as he prepared to take leave. "If you vant me, you know vere I am. It vould be an honour...."

Without completing the thought, Viktor flew of into the gloom.

Alone again in warm, safe isolation, Hermione stared mutely at the tool. Idly, she opened and shut the scissors' blades. Their sharp snipping sound seemed quite loud in the otherwise silent void.

It was familiar. Hermione had once done something similar. The cautionary sound then had been the safety's click on one of her father's pistols. Hardly mythological, that.

Could she make the same choice again?

Could she go back ... to that? To constant fear and pervasive heartache?

She pondered her choice. Seconds passed ... or perhaps hours ... or perhaps days.

Again Hermione's recess was interrupted.

A searching. An invitation. A promise of ... sanctuary...?

Initially far away ... it felt tentative, even confused. By degree it grew stronger and more emphatic.

Hermione resisted. Could she trust what she now sensed? Was it a ruse - another Death Eater blandishment? Could Death Eaters have sent Krum? In the void she was safe. Here, she knew peace.

Was her ordeal really over, as the sensation promised?

She felt peace - the peace of the dead.... Still, was life - her life - amongst the living preferable?

The mute invitation ripened into an appeal ... for her to follow. Could she trust it? Was she honestly being offered refuge?

Then she felt it.

No one who has well and truly loved ever forgets that feeling. Certainly not Hermione.

That could not be Voldemort. Love, Hermione knew - convinced more now than ever - was the power he knew not.

The void's comforts were thin gruel compared to the heartfelt warmth appealing to her.

The depths of the void held no answer. For all her genius, Hermione could not fathom what was happening, or why.

If he truly felt that way, how could the last month from hell have happened?

Only one person could make Hermione feel this way, but Harry no longer held such feelings for her. He had left her, chucked her, humiliated her ... abandoned her. He - that - had caused, why, everything....

Harry's love was wonderful, but was only a fond memory.

Only one other person had ever felt that way about her. Could Viktor be sending those feelings to her...?

Should she, at literally the thirteenth hour, finally give him the chance he originally merited?

Nobody having known a great love would turn it down, certainly not for nothingness.

Instinctively, Hermione moved towards the feeling. It was beautiful, infinitely more satisfying than the void.

"Viktor, where have you gone? Viktor?"

Leaving the aureate shears floating aimlessly, Hermione sought the beckoning feeling. Back to her last great adventure, or on to the next, she would follow her heart.

No one who has known love - true love - ever wants to be without it.

Hand over hand, creeping along the phoenix feather umbilicus, Hermione pulled herself closer.

Pursuing the euphoric feeling, Hermione's soul moved, slowly but surely, towards the distant light - whether it was the light of the past world or the next, she took her chances.

"Viktor, is that you?"

So intent was her pursuit of the blissful sensation, Hermione did not notice as the void's surrounding darkness lightened and faded to dawn.

That music ... she'd heard it before....

How could Viktor have known?

* * * *

Neither healer, Paracelsus Huxley nor Hypatia Bosworth, had made a house call not involving Harry Potter in many years. That record continued, if barely. Not coincidentally, "Hermione Granger" also carried rather more cachet than the usual witch or wizard.

Harry's signed personal note all but begging for their immediate presence provided additional incentive. The note was vague - admittedly and intentionally so - alluding to Dark magic and serious injuries. His specific request for Hlr. Bosworth's specialty lent an additional intrigue to Harry's mysterious summons.

Personal delivery by a familiar house-elf, accompanied by a well-known goblin, underscored the urgency of Harry's request. Roxtar the Lost Finger was imposingly armed and hard to miss. He did not seem likely to leave without the Healers.

Properly motivated, the two senior Healers gathered their kit and allowed Dobby and Roxtar to lead them. Dobby immediately popped them to the battle-damaged hulk of Château Blackwalls. Roxtar then took over and guided them past numerous goblin sentries guarding the building's remaining halls and corridors.

Heavy, unrepaired spell damage was present almost everywhere - on the Château's grounds and inside.

Eventually, they would receive answers. Now, they had only questions, and nobody to ask save taciturn goblins.

Halfway down a corridor - sumptuously carpeted but littered with plaster lumps and stone chips - the goblins halted. Hlr. Huxley was directed to a bedroom where he encountered a pale and gaunt Ron Weasley. Wordlessly, the goblin Healer in attendance turned back Ron's bedsheet, revealing the boy's severely mangled leg.

Hlr. Bosworth was not allowed to attend. Roxtar grunted, "No, madam. For you a more difficult case, have we. Needed is your specialty ... badly. If ... if please, if you...."

'Someone must be gravely hurt, indeed,' Hlr. Bosworth thought. She let Roxtar lead her onward. 'I've never known a goblin, a warrior at that, ever be so polite to a wizard.'

Once Hlr. Bosworth passed through a partially splintered oaken door, her speculation ended abruptly. The room was immense. Its formerly palatial trappings were reduced to fragments of destroyed furniture piled in corners and curse-scarred paintings hanging haphazardly on the walls.

Hlr. Bosworth spotted Harry standing beside an older, obviously exhausted wizard flopped in a chair, once plush, but now missing an armrest.

The only other occupant, a blonde witch, sat Indian-style on a vast bed, a four-poster with its torn-off canopy lying in tatters against the near wall. The blonde girl seemed oblivious to her surroundings - to everything - save something she held in her arms like a baby, although much too small for that.

Harry looked agitated - gravely worried. The older man was wan and weak. They were deep in conversation.

"...Oh, it's really lucky I didn't try Apparating anybody to St. Mungo's, then," Harry sighed.

"Yes, sir, sorry but that would have been exceedingly dangerous," the older man spoke deferentially. "I should have alerted you to my secret...."

"Impratraxis, sir," Roxtar hesitantly interrupted. "As wanted you, the Healer Bosworth have we."

Forgetting the older man, Harry jumped up and bounded over. "Thank Merlin! ...And Healer Huxley?"

"Is with, I presume, your friend Ronald, I believe that's his name," Hlr. Bosworth replied.

The Healer's arrival brought the blonde witch on the bed out of her apparent trance. "Wonderful, let me introduce your patient, Miss Hermione Granger." A quail-sized bird with a prominent yellow beak and large brown eyes nestled in her arms. She ... it ... the patient had hairy, copper-coloured feathers, and smelt faintly of cordite.

"My word," gasped Hlr. Bosworth, momentarily flabbergasted. Recovering quickly, she added, "What happened? How did Miss Granger acquire this symptomatology?"

"Hermione had ... has the ability to become a phoenix," Harry spoke haltingly, until urgency quickened his speech. "A Killing Curse hit her in that form and forced her through a burning."

"I'd best examine," Hlr. Bosworth declared somewhat dryly. "Such a condition becomes more refractory to treatment the longer it persists."

Harry barely heard her. "I - I thought she was dead.... I'd forgotten.... I almost fainted when Luna said she wasn't. If only I hadn't...."

"Harry, let me handle this." Hlr. Bosworth took charge of the situation. This young man had plainly experienced too much horror tonight. "You've suffered enough. I'm a professional; let me help her."

Dazed - giddy that Hermione lived, but utterly devastated at her current state - Harry wandered to a chair by the wall and sat heavily, his thoughts far away. Before learning that Hermione lived, he had been on the verge of breakdown. With all the shocks, he had forgotten witnessing the same thing happening to Fawkes.

He still had difficulty believing that Hermione lived. He had seen her die. It had been real. Harry believed in fate, if not in God. He felt he deserved punishment, not reward. Had he done anything to deserve Luna's good news?

Hermione deserved life because she was good ... the best - not because of him. He deserved....

"Harry, I need your help." Hlr. Bosworth's voice penetrated his jumbled thoughts. "I need to know everything possible about exactly what happened to Miss Granger tonight. Can you get find out for me?"

Harry jumped upright, looking for and finding Jerry McAllister. "Thanks for risking your life for me, Jerry. I'd like to let you rest after what's happened, but you heard the Healer. We need every scrap of information anyone can possibly find about what happened to Hermione. Get the house-elves to help."

"Clothing bits, too," Hlr. Bosworth called from the edge of Hermione's bed. "Anything imbued with phoenix resonance will aid my diagnosis." She opened her black bag and removed several phoenix feathers. "The resonance will attract them."

"I'm on it." Jerry heaved himself from his chair, grabbed a feather and began hobbling off.

Before McAllister reached the damaged door, Harry had a thought. "Jerry, what was, umm, Bellatrix's mother's name?" He uttered the Dark witch's name with deep distaste. It fouled his mouth just to form the word.

"Druella."

Harry turned to Roxtar. "I need your warriors' help. We need Druella Black's tombstone. It's in the big dirt pile beside the Château. I made a right mess of the graveyard when I rolled it up ... but anything unusual.... Anything at all.... Please."

If a goblin could blush, Roxtar would have. He took another feather and followed McAllister from the room.

Harry and Luna watched the remainder of Hlr. Bosworth's examination of Hermione's post-burning phoenix form with bated breath, not wanting to disturb her.

Following a complete battery of diagnostic tests, the Healer turned to Harry. "Your observations appear accurate. How much experience has Miss Granger had with this Animagus transformation?"

Harry felt miserable. "Umm ... she'd never done it, at least as of several weeks ago," he answered slowly. "We haven't exactly discussed it much lately, so she might...."

Luna, sensing Harry's hesitancy, broke in, "I doubt she'd ever done it before. Earlier this week, after practising, she complained about regressing...."

"Practising? When? Under whose supervision?" Hlr. Bosworth demanded.

"Dumbledore," Harry and Luna answered in unison.

"Oh my," Hlr. Bosworth groaned. "This is important, even critical. I peer-reviewed a paper Healer Huxley recently wrote about Dumbledore using rare magic, the Sacrifice of the Phoenix, on an anonymous...."

"That's Hermione," Harry announced immediately. "Dumbledore told me that happened last September, when she nearly died."

"Then, this form ... her phoenix," Hlr. Bosworth gestured towards Hermione, "has an independent soul, and is far more complex than ordinary Animagus transformation. It's harder to attain, but also harder to revert once the phoenix accepts her. If this is her first...." The Healer's sentence hung, uncompleted. "Something traumatic, something terrible, must have triggered it."

"I'll say," Harry answered grimly. "She went through, what happened to me a couple years ago. Voldemort used her blood to resurrect Bellatrix Lestrange in a Hor ... umm ... you know about Horcruxes...?"

"Yes, I'm more familiar with them than I care to be," Hlr. Bosworth affirmed.

"Well, there's a ritual, 'Maledictus omnia resuscitum,' that required Voldemort to come here. He needed an ancestor's bone, the closer, the better...." Harry hastily added, "Umm, Hermione found a book describing it."

Both Hlr. Bosworth's and Luna's faces paled in horror.

"...To complete this ritual properly, the caster must kill the 'enemy' whose blood is taken. Voldemort was about to stab Hermione when she ... umm ... transformed, I guess. I saw a bright red flash, and she pulled the whole tombstone - she was chained to it - right out of the ground and flew off...."

"Stab, you said ... and chains," Hlr Bosworth caught what Harry revealed. "Where are the knife and these chains?"

"Dunno," Harry admitted, seeming perplexed. "When I saw Voldemort raise that knife, I hit him with a Disarming Charm. Maybe it rebounded at me, but by then I was too busy dodging curses to pay attention...."

"And the chains?" Hlr. Bosworth repeated.

"Hermione burst them," Luna put in. "She shed the chains and the gravestone as she flew away. The stone squished a Death Eater." Luna looked frankly awestruck whilst recounting the scene.

"Were the chains by any chance silver?" Hlr. Bosworth inquired clinically.

"I believe so," Luna reported.

"Does it matter?" Harry inquired.

"Ordinarily, I would not discuss a patient's diagnosis or prognosis with a non-relative...."

"I have her bloody living will," Harry countered, "umm ... somewhere...."

"Point, that," Hlr. Bosworth conceded, "at least for you, Harry. Since you were both witnesses, our discussion can code as therapeutic. Suffice it to say that Dark rituals are often quite specific. It would be useful - extraordinarily so - to know exactly what prompted her phoenix transformation, thereby causing her present state...."

"I already told you. The Killing Curse hit Hermione in her phoenix transformation," Harry peevishly cut across. "Isn't that damn well plenty?"

"I'm telling you, if as ... I'm sorry, I don't know your name...."

"Luna."

"...Now listen. Luna believes tonight was Miss Granger's first successful phoenix-mediated transformation. You state that her transformation is secondary to the Sacrifice of the Phoenix, not ordinary Animagus magic. In my professional opinion, it could be difficult - damn difficult - to induce retransformation. Her phoenix alter ego is extremely strong, particularly having now accepted her fully. Her human form ... that depends on exactly how traumatised she was ... and the rituals...."

"That's why you must examine the knife and chains," Luna summed up.

"Then, by Merlin, you'll have them!" Harry decided. Not waiting for any confirmation, he shouted, "Dobby!"

POW!

Dobby popped into the room. Hardly his usual voluble self, he seemed distinctly downcast.

"Dobby, I need you.... Are you alright?"

"Dobby's being fine again soon enough, Harry Potter, sir. Just ... I's been burying elves who's being dead."

"Dead...?"

"They's a-went and pushed Death Eaters out windows, like Dobby, but their magic was still being bound. Not being able to pop off like Dobby, they's a-been killed by the fall."

Hlr. Bosworth interrupted. "Whilst you're chatting, I must consult Healer Huxley. Miss Granger is stable, perhaps too stable, so there's no...."

"What do you mean, 'too stable'?" Harry whirled around, his eyes flashing. Dobby only gawked.

"Her prognosis is difficult," Hlr. Bosworth stood firm under Harry's glare. "I worry that her human form is hanging by a thread. Even our most powerful magic might be inadequate to induce re-transformation. A real possibility exists that she could be trapped in phoenix form indefinitely. So I must consult. Here...."

Hlr. Bosworth handed Harry the last charmed phoenix feather and left the room.

"Harry," Luna called from the bed, where she continued cradling Hermione's baby phoenix form. "You're the most powerful wizard I know."

"What's Master Harry being needing Dobby to do?"

Harry shook the growing web of guilt from his mind. "Dobby, forget repairing the Château right now. Take this feather and every elf you trust. Go to what's left of the Blacks' graveyard. Use this feather to find a thin-pointed silver dagger and every bit of silver chains in there. Phoenix resonance from Hermione's transformation will attract the feather. It's critical that you find every bit. Also, anything else of Hermione's - find it, collect it, and bring it to me, okay?"

"Yes sir, Harry Potter, sir!" Dobby almost shouted. "Everything!" Grabbing the feather, the elf popped away, leaving Harry and Luna alone with what remained of Hermione.

"I ... we ... should never have come," Harry kicked the curse-scarred carpet. "She would have, almost did, save herself...."

"Stuff and nonsense!" boomed a scornful retort. Behind Harry, the distinctive Tenth Century accent of Godric Gryffindor resounded. His image was contorted awkwardly to avoid several spell holes blasted through his damaged portrait. "You had to come, if only to finish what you started - and you're not finished, not nearly."

"What do you want?" Harry huffed. "You're almost a thousand years dead."

"At least I did live," the founder scornfully dismissed Harry's comment. "Just ... finish what you've started." With that, the scarlet-bedecked image limped off, ducking to avoid a scorch mark. He left behind a bare, pockmarked frame.

As one person (broadly construed) left, two others entered. Hlr. Bosworth returned with Hlr. Huxley in tow. Hlr. Huxley had some good news. Ron was out of danger and would recover full use of his left leg and foot, after letting them heal. He was currently resting comfortably in the adjacent room.

Harry furtively glanced at Luna, who had not left the bed. He expected her to bolt for the door - to be with her boyfriend Ron - but Luna stayed put. She had plainly concluded that Hermione needed her more than Ron.

Luna's steadfastness heartened, but worried, Harry.

Hlr. Huxley approached Luna. With some well chosen and impossible to overhear words she convinced Luna to relinquish Hermione for another physical examination. The physical was brief, and soon Hermione was returned to Luna.

Hlr. Huxley turned to Harry with concern carefully calibrated on his face. "The phoenix, Fawkes' soul, is strong within her, Harry," he began. "That very strength was probably why she took so long to achieve the transformation. I can only hope her soul is equally powerful. Fawkes, as you know from your own Basilisk encounter, is quite strong-willed...."

"So is Hermione," Harry responded. "I know that even better."

"A month ago, I would have agreed without question," Hlr. Huxley chose his words carefully. "At this juncture, I require convincing."

Harry reacted as if slapped. Better than anyone, he understood his bad behavior. But Hermione could not possibly prefer.... He had to do this - had to. Harry took a deep breath. "I'll convince you," Harry hissed. "I'll convince anyone...."

The goblins' exertions for their Prince, and the Château's elves for their Proprietor (Harry would not allow "master" - especially not now), soon produced the desired results. In a few minutes Roxtar's braves returned with Druella Black's marker held high. Hlr. Huxley's confirmatory phoenix resonance test identified the stone as the epicentre of Hermione's transformation.

Other discoveries followed in short order. Another goblin found Hermione's wand in the robes of a dead Death Eater. Several elves returned with various-sized portions of the silver chains that had once bound Hermione. With a triumphant, toothy grin, a goblin presented Voldemort's silver rondel, covered with miniature runes. Even the grass formerly covering Druella Black's grave was harvested and retrieved.

Hlr. Huxley took the dagger and examined the runes.

Bits of Hermione's clothing were hardest for Harry to accept. From his own uncontrolled, partial Golden Griffin shape shifting, Harry knew that spontaneous transformations destroyed clothing. Receiving shredded remnants of Hermione's clothing caused Harry extreme discomfort.

Hermione had worn those clothes whilst enduring Voldemort's ritual.

Dobby popped back into the room and presented Harry with a large chunk of what were once Hermione's unmentionables. Harry tossed them in Hlr. Bosworth's general direction as if the cloth were on fire.

"Oh, Circe's cervix, what the hell is that?" the Healer wailed a few seconds later. "Perry, look at this. We've got an issue.... Petrificus totalus!"

Harry pirouetted, his remaining wand in hand. He saw only the two Healers' backs. Their wands pointed at something in the damaged plush chair.

"Do you think...?"

"It's spot on - the photos and descriptions that have been circulating."

"They've been quite a problem in parts of Central Asia, and the Maghreb ... but never here...."

"What is it?" Harry loudly demanded.

Hlr. Huxley turned; his face grim. He forced calm into his voice, "Harry, this clinches it. The Death Eaters were not trying to kill Hermione Granger...."

"But, the spell...."

Hlr. Huxley eyed the room. "Can you ask everyone else to step outside? This should be for your information only."

With barely a word, the elves made themselves scarce. All but two the goblins departed. That pair almost instantly became grey boulders on either side of the door. "Should I take Hermione, or leave her here?" Luna wondered.

"No, you can stay," Harry instructed.

"Are you sure?" Hlr. Huxley questioned. His hands pantomimed someone scribbling with a quill.

"Yes," Harry reiterated. "Luna Lovegood is completely reliable regarding anything involving Hermione."

The conversation paused. Hlr. Huxley waited for an explanation that was not offered.

"Very well," Hlr. Huxley conceded.

"See this?" Hlr. Bosworth took over, pointing to a revolting multi-legged something-or-other stuck in the folds of the remnants of Hermione's knickers. "I'm ninety-nine percent sure that's a Tartaran Flobberworm. They're previously unknown in the UK, but I've read disturbing journal articles about these being bred specifically for mind control in other parts of the world...."

"M-m-mind control?" Harry stammered. "Why?"

"The key question, Harry," Hlr. Huxley seconded. "All I can say is that Miss Granger was extremely fortunate to have worn anti-rape knickers tonight...."

For the first time in an evening where Harry had witnessed the Killing Curse several times - he consciously used Occlumency to restrain himself.

"...because they entangled this thing before it could, well, do what it does.... Hype?"

Hlr. Bosworth assumed the narrative. "This ... vile thing ... gains access, through any orifice it can. It then penetrates the spinal column. It's a mental and physical parasite. It migrates to the brain stem and wraps around it. If the victim attempts to ... usually to commit suicide, it reacts, constricts, and causes intense, debilitating pain. Either the victim gives up, or the worm keeps squeezing until paralysis or unconsciousness results."

"If the Death Eaters only intended to kill her, Harry, they would not have acquired and used something as rare as a Tartaran Flobberworm," Hlr. Bosworth continued. "The rest of this - the silver chains, this silver rondel, these runestones - all point to one thing ... Voldemort intended to make Miss Granger into a Horcrux...."

Stunned into silence, Harry slammed the gates of Occlumency down hard across his boiling Fifth Element core.

"...That's what you interrupted, Harry," Healer Huxley reassured. "If they had succeeded, it's fatal. No known cure. Don't let anyone, especially yourself, think you weren't on the side of the angels tonight."

"How ... how did you know?"

"Dumbledore," Hlr. Huxley indicated. "He requested that I study certain notes - notes I gather you obtained - about Horcruxes, on the chance that I might be called upon ... well, to do what I'm doing now.... These runestones are currently blank, but I'd wager anything they had symbols of the four compass points chalked on them. The runes on this rondel.... They match almost exactly a pattern in the material Dumbledore gave me."

"She's ... she's not a Horcrux, is she?" Harry asked the unthinkable question.

"Perish the thought, no," Hlr. Huxley hastily answered. "Between her inner phoenix - utterly incompatible with a Horcrux - and your fortuitous intervention, I believe Voldemort was thwarted before actually splitting his soul. This enchanted rondel can cleave a soul. He could have killed Miss Granger without it...."

Harry breathed a huge sigh of relief - that lasted only until Harry's next question.

"Now what?"

"Unfortunately, one consequence of the threat of becoming Voldemort's Horcrux probably was to drive Hermione's essence deeper into hiding than the mere prospect of dying," Hlr. Huxley explained. "Fawkes came forward, and Fawkes is a fighter."

"No kidding," Harry commented. "But how can we get Hermione back?"

Hlr. Huxley had a plan, but offered no guarantees. "Her situation reminds me of your state when the goblins rescued you from Death Eaters last September. You were trapped, albeit partially, in Animagus form. Albus did something ... a spell involving laying on of hands. It caused you to relax a shield you unconsciously had guarding you...."

"Yeah, I remember," Harry recalled. "He called me back with ... with trust. Sometimes I can't stand how he manipulates everyone, but when the chips were down, I still trusted Dumbledore with my life...."

"With your permission, I'd like to call on Albus and have him try the same spell with Miss Granger.... It may be our only chance."

Harry swallowed, hard. "Won't happen. He's not ... I don't know where he is...."

"Indisposed?"

"No, Horcrux hunting," Harry opted for the whole truth. "Someplace by the sea - affected by tonight's low tide. Had this not come up, I would be with him."

"That's certainly inconvenient," Hlr. Bosworth allowed.

"If you're wondering whether it's a trap, or a diversion, yeah, I've had the same thought," Harry agreed.

"What the hell to do, then?" Hlr. Huxley ran his hands through his hair. "I can't do what he did. I don't even know what Albus did. When will he...?"

"Harry's the most powerful wizard I know," wafted Luna's declaration from behind. She repeated her earlier remark.

Harry turned to face her. "You think I...?"

"Who other?"

"But I caused all this...."

"Doesn't matter," Luna insisted. "At least you know how it feels."

"But you're the Empath."

"I didn't say I wouldn't help." Luna was insistent.

Harry turned back to the Healers. "What do you think?"

"She's right about your power," Hlr. Huxley observed. "All Albus has on you is skill. I don't think you could possibly make things worse. The worst is that it doesn't work."

"Time is of the essence," Hlr. Bosworth added. "The longer Fawkes keeps control of Miss Granger's form, the less likely is a successful outcome."

Harry instantly chose - not really a choice at all. "Okay, then how?"

"Albus used his bare hands," Hlr. Huxley stated. "He mumbled things like 'It's over' and 'you can come back, it's safe'."

"That was Dumbledore," Luna noted. "Harry needs to be Harry. That's who Hermione knows."

"I agree that Harry should do what he feels is best," Hlr. Bosworth offered. "The magic will be strongest that way."

Harry straightened his shoulders, and focussed his mind to proceed. "I remember how it felt," he echoed Luna. "I'll try to reverse engineer it."

He climbed on the bed. Between them Luna gently placed the blinking baby phoenix that tethered Hermione's soul to this world. "Put your hands on the other side," she recommended.

He laid hands on the acquiescent phoenix. It was small enough he ended up touching Luna's fingers. The Empath's urgent yearning felt like the jolt of an electric shock. Harry almost pulled his hands away.

"I said I'll help you," she whispered, for his ears only. "You're not alone in needing her. It's been two thousand years...."

Harry concentrated, letting his magic flow, trying to imitate what he remembered feeling when Dumbledore called him back from the brink of eternity.

He began murmuring, "Hermione, it's me.... It's done, Hermione.... You can trust me.... You know you can.... I said I'd always come for you ... and I did, and I am still.... You need to trust me. I want to help.... I won't hurt you, not anymore.... You're safe now.... We've beaten the Death Eaters.... Hermione, please let me in...."

Throughout, Harry maintained a gentle current of magic that, like water, flowed around the barriers of hurt, distrust, and separation that had emerged over the past weeks - a result of Harry's indefensible acts. He knew that now.

Beside him, Harry felt Luna's reverse flux. Harry's magic streamed in. Luna's oozed outward, drawing with it a pall of sadness and pain.

Harry did not envy Luna's empathetic powers.

"...Let me in, Hermione.... Trust me.... I'm here to help.... Let me bring you back.... You're safe with me...."

He heard Luna's dreamy voice in his head. 'Harry, don't be Dumbledore; be yourself. That's what Hermione ... and you ... need now....'

Harry agreed. Now was not the time for holding back.

"Hermione, you're ... I need you back.... I'm sorry.... I can't explain what happened ... or excuse it.... I can't do this without you.... That's all I know.... Hermione I-I-I ... love you ... now and always.... Love you.... Don't leave me alone.... Please."

Luna's voice again encouraged him. 'That's better, Harry ... I knew you had it in you....'

"Hermione, please come back ... to me.... Let me love you ... again.... I can't...."

Harry found himself all but overwhelmed by emotions blocked for - it seemed like forever. He could barely talk.

"I'll do.... I'll be...."

Words failing him, he switched to music - Hermione's music, her favourite, that Tchaikovsky piece she always practised....

Harry's magic surged.

How long it took, Harry could not say. He was straddling worlds. All he could do - all he could think to do - was keep channelling his magic to Hermione and hope it would be enough.

Once again, failure was not an option.

Suddenly, he was jostled.

"Oof...." Kicked in the stomach was more like it.

With the blow, Harry's eyes popped open. He saw - Hermione's face! And her....

...Her forehead - marred by a jagged, bleeding wound in the shape of....

What in Merlin's name had that bastard Voldemort put her through?

His string of stupidities had provided the Death Eaters the opening. It did not get much worse than this.

"Viktor...?" she mumbled.

It could get worse.

Her first word knocked out Harry's wind more effectively than any face slap or stomach kick. How could she think...?

Harry realised something else almost as disturbing.

Hermione had returned without a stitch of clothing.

"I shouldn't be seeing this," Harry choked out. "I need ... to get...." He jumped up, stricken.

How could she be expecting Viktor? He had connived her kidnapping!

"What ... Harry...?" Hermione mumbled again. "How could...?"

The Healers were already rushing towards Hermione with spells and sustenance. "Episkey!" cried Hlr. Huxley. Her lightning-bolt forehead wound, having escaped the Dark forces that permanently scarred Harry, healed readily.

"Stay still," Hlr. Bosworth advised her soothingly, "you've been through quite an ordeal."

"But...."

"Yes, that was Harry," Luna whispered in her ear.

Harry was on his feet, across the room and out of the Healers' way. Emotionally exhausted, physically spent, breathing hard, and borderline nauseous, he reacted rather than thought.

What more could he do? Should he simply...?

A stern voice brought him up short. "I don't care what you saw or what you think happened. Don't you dare leave your friend." Harry had never heard Luna talk to him, or anyone, like that - her sharp words held no trace of her usual airiness.

Harry stopped in his tracks. Gryffindors go forward; they do not run away.

Friendship.

Friendship had impelled him to the Château tonight. If anything more had vanished, that was her choice - and he deserved it.

So Harry stood, facing resolutely away from the bed, whilst the Healers struggled to treat Hermione.

Eventually, he heard an insistent rapping on the door, followed by a familiar voice.

"Oy, Harry! You in there mate? Somebody is...."

"Ron!?"

The two boulders at the door reformed as goblins. Hands on their swords, they looked to Harry.

"A friend. Let him in."

Ron stumped into the room, favouring his previously injured leg. Seeing Harry's ashen expression, he asked, "Blimey, mate what's wrong? She didn't.... Oh shite!"

"Urrp ... no nothing like that," Harry spluttered. "It's ... it's ... Hermione's back... I think she's ... she's safe."

Ron broke into a smile. "Don't scare me like that, mate. Where's Luna?"

"Over there, on the bed, she helped ... a lot."

The Healers had a privacy screen up. Ron limped past a still rooted Harry, looking for Luna. He found her standing uncertainly by the foot of the bed whilst the Healers tended to Hermione. "What the hell?" Harry heard his friend squawk. "What happened to Luna? She's covered in ... goo!"

Ron's protest snapped Harry back to sensibility. He turned to see what Ron was complaining about.

Typically, he had exaggerated, but not by much. Although the Healers focussed on Hermione, Luna remained nearby - seemingly dazed - her arms drenched in sticky black Amoco Cadiz-style gunk, almost to her shoulder blades.

"Luna, are you all right?" Ron asked with panic creeping into his voice. "What is all that crap?"

"Ronald, calm down," Luna said firmly, not raising her voice. "I'm fine, if a bit ... foul ... at the moment. Don't disturb Hermione...."

Ron instantly shut up. Only Luna could accomplish that.

With Ron silent, Harry whispered a question, "Where did that come from?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Luna answered, her expression cross-eyed and perplexed. "I think from Hermione. That's never happened before...."

Hlr. Huxley put his two Knuts in, "Don't either of you worry. As soon as I'm done here, you can be damn sure I'll run plenty of tests on whatever that is. I've some suspicions...."

Harry sighed. Realising how tired he really was, he sank into the busted chair, watching Ron lead his girlfriend beyond the privacy screen. His friend conjured some towels and began sorting out a rather passive and grotesque looking Luna Lovegood.

Harry had other things on his mind. 'Viktor bloody Krum....'

Harry felt an urgent tug on his shoulder.

The hand was Roxtar's. The goblin had no time for pleasantries, even for a prince.

"Impratraxis, disturbing news bring I."

"Is Harry there...?" Hermione asked simultaneously from behind the privacy screen.

Pulled in both directions, Harry threw up his hands and pleaded, "What now?"

The goblin had an answer.

"Over Hogwarts, has appeared the Dark Mark."

All thought of rest vanished with those words. "Oh, crap...!"

* * * *

Wherever he was, it was icy, dark, sleeting, and howling a gale.

In the invisible distance, wild ocean waves crashed loudly against an unseen, rocky coast, adding frothy spindrift to the ferocious wind.

For some unfathomable reason, Lord Voldemort's Apparition had gone badly awry.

No sooner had he incanted charms to protect himself from the biting, most un-June-like weather, than with a "pop," Lucius Malfoy arrived. Hot on his heels were a dozen or so rather bedraggled Death Eaters.

All had Apparated - most to avoid being crushed by something Potter had done - and all ended up here.

They asked the Dark Lord what he had done. For once Voldemort had no clue.

"BANG!" Bellatrix Lestrange, resurrected and with physical attributes unnervingly similar to the Dark Lord's, Apparated in, cackling wildly.

"What the.... Master! Thank you!" She threw herself at his feet, into a gritty coating of snow and gravel over weathered ice.

Nothing, however, could dampen her mood. "I have wonderful news," she revealed from her prone position.

"Arise," the Dark Lord commanded, hiding bewilderment at their current circumstances behind a long-practised air of command. "I could certainly use some, in this Merlin-forsaken place."

"I killed her," Bellatrix burst out, insanely proud of herself. "I Avadaed Potter's Mudblood. She burnt up and died before his eyes! The look on Potter's face was priceless! He tried killing me, but I Disapparated. Too fast for him, I was...."

"You, too, then," Voldemort observed.

"Me, too, what, My Lord," Bellatrix replied, suddenly unsure. "I thought killing Granger would ... be ... well, worthy of some reward...."

The Dark witch eyed the Dark Lord lasciviously.

"She had taken phoenix form," Voldemort reminded. "I would make inquiry before declaring her dead. It may be ... premature. A reward may well be your due, but first we must determine where we are...."

All the Death Eaters agreed on this necessity. Each had Apparated, sensing that the Château's anti-Apparition wards had been disabled, and each had ended up ... wherever "here" was.

After some fifteen minutes of tramping over barren, mostly glacial landscape, with only wandlight at their disposal, the Death Eater party reached a barren stretch of seaside rock featuring rusted, ramshackle remains of some centuries-old Muggle buildings and the skeleton of a dock.

Faded, black lettering, barely legible above the broken doors on the largest structure, spelled out: "BLACK STAR WHALING - BOUVET ISLAND FACTORY."

21

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\HP & The Fifth Element.ch51 Padfoot's legacy.doc 1/1/2015