Harry Potter and the Fifth Element

Wherein Neville replaces Harry; Dumbledore departs; Harry and Ron arrive; a battle is fought; casualties are suffered; a confession occurs, then another rescue; then the rescuers need rescuing; Jazzy's friendship pays off, and an exorcism is conducted.

Thanks once again to betas Mark Gardiner, Shane, Mathiasgranger, and Chris Backus.

We're in the home stretch now.

Disclaimer: I neither own nor claim any other rights in the characters and other concepts created by J.K. Rowling. I make no money, nor do I seek any commercial advantage from this work. As such it constitutes "Fair Use" as defined in 17 U.S.C. §107.

Chapter 86 - Jagged Edges

Neville half hoped - half expected - that Dumbledore would cancel their expedition once he, not Harry, appeared on the Headmaster's doorstep.

The old man did not work that way.

The serenely imperturbable old wizard characteristically took this unexpected last-minute change of plans in stride. "Does Mister Potter's unavailability involve Miss Granger's absence?" was the Headmaster's first question.

Receiving an affirmative response - then a negative answer as to Neville's knowledge of Harry's current whereabouts - Dumbledore calmly, almost fatalistically, accepted Neville's impromptu substitution.

"I wish Mister Potter the best of luck."

Without hesitation, he pronounced Neville a "commendable stand-in." They had no time to lose, Dumbledore explained. An essential link in Voldemort's eventual destruction beckoned this evening - accessible only at low spring tide.

The Headmaster briskly removed a nondescript notebook from his desk drawer and added a couple of notations, revealing nothing to Harry's replacement. Done with his quill, the wizened wizard removed two turquoise rectangles from a different desk drawer, placed them in an envelope, and slipped it between the notebook's pages.

Dumbledore stated laconically, "Our mission is perilous, but I trust Mister Potter's judgment as to where his presence is most essential."

Summoning his travelling cloak, the Headmaster announced placidly, "Let us depart. We must acquire our fraction of a soul, whilst Mister Potter attempts to make whole his own. Time and tide wait for no man."

* * * *

"...That's bloody crazy! I can't just stop willy-nilly! I'm having enough trouble as it is. He's run off - after her, no less. If I give it up now ... I lose him...." Ginny's flood-current of a tirade ebbed to a tearful trickle.

"No, that's just the point, Gee-Vee."

Only he could call her that and get away with it.

"Unless you stop, you lose not only him, but potentially ... everything. You have to...." Bill shuddered. "What was that?"

"It felt cold." Ginny responded, momentarily distracted from Bill's discontinued line of thought. "I have to what?"

"Not just stop, you absolutely, positively must tell him," Bill declared, rising from his tattered deckchair to emphasise his point. "Like Mum did with Dad. You have to trust what's good.... Whoa! There it is again. Feels like winter's coming early."

"I want to, Bill, but not yet," Ginny pleaded. "He's not settled in, and he has so many other damn slags after him - not at all like Dad. Look, Harry graduates in a year.... I promise by then ... ooh.... There it is again. That was freezing. I think I have to go back, now...."

"But I told you that over the summer...."

The final, frigid sensation guided Ginny to consciousness. Her eyes fluttered, then popped wide open, once she saw a pale face staring at her from, literally, centimetres away. The face's owner had one icy arm down - or through - Ginny's throat. Its other arm emphatically signalled for silence, tapping a forefinger vigorously against very pale lips.

"Shhhh, they're out there," Moaning Myrtle whispered. "Don't let them hear you're awake."

Ginny took a deep breath ... and for once had the good sense to say nothing. Frantically, she looked around. She realised that whoever had Stunned her whilst she discussing her Harry problems with Draco, must have left her in a stall in the nearby abandoned girls' loo. "Who's out there?" she asked almost soundlessly, accepting the ghost's caution.

"Two boys," Myrtle hissed. "The skinnier, dark-haired one Stunned you. They do whatever that awful, obnoxious blond they call 'Drake' says."

"Draco?" Ginny mouthed.

"He wasn't happy with you, Weaselette."

"What?!" Ginny's violent reaction almost gave away the game.

"It's what they call you, isn't it?" Myrtle disclosed slyly.

"They better not...."

"They're up to no good. Shhhh ... listen...."

"How do you know?"

"Believe me, I know."

The pair in the stall listened to the pair by the sinks.

"...was nothing. Nobody here but Potter's slag, and I Stupefied her but good."

"Great, now I'm hearing things. I tell you," Cambo complained. "I'm getting right nervous about all this. How much longer you reckon we've to wait?"

"You heard Drake," Spott reminded his co-minion. "Half-hour, tops. Then all we just lay low and sneak back to Slytherin in the confusion."

"Somebody else could show up, with this thing wide open," Cambo fretted. "I don't fancy Stunning ... you know, Filch."

"He's a Squib. The door's magicked shut, so I doubt it," Spott reassured. "At least Potter killed that damn Basilisk. I wouldn't fancy meeting some giant snake crawling out of that big hole...."

That raised another of Cambo's worries. "Yeah, Potter. If he shows up looking for his bitch, I don't think even Drake's Colloportus could keep him out...."

So it went.

Soon Ginny heard enough. Something was very much amiss, and whatever it was, Malfoy was involved ... like last year with Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad.

"Can you create a diversion?" Ginny whispered to Myrtle.

Myrtle grinned for the first time in weeks, if not months. "I thought you'd never ask."

Ginny shuddered through a final wave of frigidity as Myrtle passed through her and down the toilet pipe. Her wandtip touching the stall's lock, Ginny pressed her ear to the door.

Shrieking like a banshee, Moaning Myrtle burst from the toilet nearest the two Slytherins. "AAYYYEEEE!!" Simultaneously, every sink and bowl in the bathroom violently overflowed - including, unfortunately, one just behind Ginny.

"Aloho-MORA." Ginny attempt at stealth failed as a spray of cold water soaked her behind. The stall's door flew open, slamming loudly against the partition, ruining the element of surprise.

It hardly mattered. Spott and Cambo - thoroughly distracted - had little chance to react.

With an avenging fury's speed and determination, Ginny felled Spott with Petrificus Totalus. Cambo tried bolting for the door, but slipped on the wet floor. She put him down with a ferocious Bat Bogey Hex.

Duplicating her neutralisation of the defeated Inquisitorial Squad almost exactly a year earlier, Ginny vanished both unfortunate boys' clothes. She conjured stout ropes, binding the two fast enough that their limbs went chalky white. "That should handle those creeps," Ginny said to herself, before she turned....

...and stared into the maw of her worst nightmare.

The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets yawned, wide open, not three metres away - as black as a pit.

Oh, Merlin!

She knew that abyss - from when Tom possessed her. Then, Harry had rescued her. Several weeks ago, when Harry went public with his Basilisk heroics, she had viewed his complete memory of the event.

No Basilisk remained, but neither did Harry. He would not be rescuing her again, should she need it.

She might.

She was hearing noises - like faint shouts - from the depths of that horrible hole. Ginny shook to her very core. The echoes grew in intensity. Something very bad was about to happen.

She had to get out! She had to tell Dumbledore, McGonagall, somebody ... anybody...!

Ginny dashed for the door, but like Cambo earlier, she lost her footing on the wet, timeworn marble floor. She went sprawling just as a horde of Dark wizards began spewing from the mouth of the tunnel.

Rolling to one side, Ginny sought to defend herself. "Diffindo!" Her spell cleaved the leading Death Eater's broomstick cleanly in two. The masked, black-robed wizard crashed to the floor and slid into the far wall with an audible thud.

Her strike prompted a salvo of return curses. Except for a Cutting Curse that nicked Ginny's side, everything went high.

"Estus!" Ginny's Heating Charm produced a fog of steam from the wet floor. It provided just enough cover....

"Reducto!" she cried, sweeping her wand broadly. An entire wall of stalls exploded and collapsed in a heap. Ginny dove behind the resultant barricade before the Death Eaters could react.

Incoming curses - at least a dozen - crashed ineffectively into the pile of debris.

With Death Eaters, it was only a matter of time. "Avada...."

"No, I forbid it," a coldly familiar voice commanded. "It would not do to kill her."

Snape's voice.

Why?

Ginny had no time to think. Another volley of curses - none Unforgivable - blasted the disintegrating rubble that concealed her.

With a wail, Moaning Myrtle showered the crowd of Death Eaters with more filthy water. During their momentary distraction, Ginny dove behind the central pier of sinks. "Kinitecus!" Ginny propelled the shattered remains of the stalls at the Death Eaters. Hunkered down behind the sinks, she heard them conjuring shields.

Maybe, she could hold them off long enough.... Her other alternative was diving into that hideous tunnel, which brought back terrifying, previously suppressed memories....

How she wished Harry were here.

"We haven't time for this foolishness, Draco," Snape insistently demanded. "She's of no consequence, but every second of tumult and delay is...."

"I can burn her out," Malfoy responded huffily - raising shivers down Ginny's spine. Draco? With Death Eaters? What in Merlin's name was going on?

"Every spell cast reduces our element of surprise," Snape's chilling voice chided. "She is trivial; just end it."

Ginny cringed. Conjuring a small mirror, she peeked through the forest of pipes and stanchions for some idea what was coming.

Should she jump for it?

She heard Snape free Spott and Cambo, conjure clothes for them, and contemptuously order them away.

She spotted Draco's movement out of the corner of her eye, reflected in pooled water under the sinks. She heard the clink of something small and metallic. "Reducto!" he cried.

Ginny ducked backwards, expecting something aimed at her. Nothing came.

BLAM!!

Ginny crept forward....

The inside of her skull virtually exploded in pain. "AIEEE!!" she screamed.

Blinded, writhing in a pool of grimy water, grabbing her head with both hands, Ginny lost track of her surroundings. She could no longer raise a finger to oppose the Death Eaters. Contemptuously ignoring her, they exited the ruined lavatory and slipped as stealthily as possible into the Castle.

"Well, well, well," another familiar voice - far worse than Snape's - echoed through Ginny's mind, as if from a nightmare. The pain receded, and Ginny's head felt numb....

Possessed.

She knew this feeling all too well.

Tom.

"The little girl who befriended me thinks she's all grown up...."

He was back. She was helpless.

"Finally, I need not lurk in the background ... at the beck and call of the one called Draco," Tom's mellifluously evil voice resounded. "It was quite tiresome...."

"W-W-Why?" Ginny asked limply, unable to prevent the young Voldemort's spirit from reseizing control of her mind.

"I was injured ... expelled by paladin Potter and his Basilisk fang," Tom almost seemed to relish telling the tale. "My strength ebbing, I fled into the only available haven - you. There I lay, impotent, crippled, incapable of anything save bare existence...."

"For years, seemingly forever, I lay trapped in a simpering schoolgirl's inane and torpid world - I was alive but useless. Your dear friend Draco, somehow he knew of my fate. He reached me ... and you. So besotted with Potter you were. He called upon me to assist.... I did so gladly...."

"But it, you, proved ... boring ... a waste of my skills. A little nudge, and you became romantically dissatisfied.... A small tweak, and you turned on your Mudblooded friend.... You were so jealous, hardly any effort was necessary. You achieved that bit all on your own...."

"Boring until you succeeded.... You surprised me. I didn't think you had the nerve.... But you did...."

"Matters grew more interesting - unusual, odd indeed. I'd never had ... sex...."

'Oh my God,' Ginny thought - he knows everything....

"Oh, yes, I know," Tom Riddle chuckled. "You were so determined and plotted so exquisitely. Your Bowtruckle ploy would do Slytherin proud. You wanted him, so you took him for everything.... A pity he never found what he was seeking in you.... Yes, when you were intimate, I could feel him, too - maybe more than you, since you were distracted...."

Throughout Tom Riddle's monologue, Ginny lay on the soaked floor of the destroyed lavatory, barely able to move, her eyes staring blankly at curse-pocked stone walls. Suddenly, a serpent's head, huge, dull green and silvery grey, filled her field of vision. Its amber slit-like eyes regarded her unfeelingly. Its black, forked tongue flicked and just touched a revulsed Ginny's face.

"Pleessssss doont killlll meeee," Ginny gurgled in an abhorrent parody of her normal voice. Cruel realisation struck her - she now could speak Parseltongue....

Correction.

Tom Riddle's shade spoke Parseltongue.

"Sssssserpenttt fffriendddd," Tom seized control of this conversation. "Pppasssss mmme bbbyyyy, annnddd yyyouu ssssshhallll bbbe rrrewwwarrdddedddd."

"Mmmmasssssstterrrr," Nagini replied. Her diamond shaped head rose, looming above Ginny's body. "Ssssspppirrrittteddd awwwayyyy, sssshallll yyyyou bbbbee, onnccccccce I rrrettturrrnnnn. Ssssstttayyyy."

The gigantic snake slithered off, leaving ripples in the draining water.

"Ssssstttayyyy I sssshhhh....."

Tom's unexpected discourse with the huge reptile distracted him, providing Ginny a moment to think. Her hand slid to her robe's outer pocket, futilely seeking her wand. It lay inaccessible over a metre away.

Instead she touched the two phials of Love Potion Malfoy had given her - it seemed like æons ago.

Harry had never really loved her, Ginny realised. It was all chemical.

She did love Harry, however hopeless that (and she) might be.

With a single motion, she swept the phials into her mouth and bit down hard, shattering them.

Before Tom could react, Ginny swallowed everything - Love Potion and jagged shards of glass.

Ginny was right. She did love Harry Potter.

Harry had told her, in a rare moment of openness, about Voldemort's failed attempt to possess him at the Ministry. According to Dumbledore, Harry's love was toxic to Voldemort.

Then, she had hoped (but not believed) Harry's love for her was the source of his strength.

Now, she prayed her love for Harry would give her enough strength ... strength to do what she now realised was absolutely necessary.

Tom screamed as if doused in acid.

Ginny felt Tom's control over her mind and body melt away. Her mouth bleeding, she spat out remnant bits of glass. She scrambled to her feet, grabbed her wand, and looked towards the door. Thankfully, the huge snake did not return, unaware of her Master's shade's predicament.

Her brain, temporarily within her control, felt fuzzy from the effects of Tom's possession. Worse, she could sense Tom still struggling. Her burst of love for Harry - a temporary effect from ingestion of a massive Love Potion overdose - repulsed Tom's incursions ... for the time being.

Ginny had no illusions. The potion was but a passing reprieve; she had consumed it all. Tom would be back. His return would mean permanent possession. Ginny knew, from harsh personal experience, that her mental defences could not possibly resist Tom's onslaught.

His return would be sudden, vicious, and overwhelming

Ginny knew something else - something overheard when Mum and Dad thought her unconscious in the aftermath of her first year ordeal. Over her sickbed, Mum had voiced fears that Ginny could never truly recover; that such a possession could only end with her death.

Dad had confirmed those fears, mentioning an Unspeakable he had consulted after learning the nature of Ginny's condition.

Then, Ginny had healed. Harry's lucky strike with the Basilisk fang had destroyed the rogue memory of Tom Riddle lurking in that diary.

Or so everyone thought.

Actually, Tom had not been destroyed, only gravely injured.

Now he was back.

Only one way could stop Tom forever.

Ginny owed everyone - especially Harry, whom she had grievously and irreparably wronged - to make that happen.

Harry....

That was over.

Her whole life was Harry, and her whole life was a lie. She had been manipulated, and in turn had manipulated him. Now she was unclean ... polluted ... defiled.... She had abused him, mentally and physically....

The lies had to end - now. The lies and all the rest....

Ginny pushed herself towards Gryffindor tower as fast as she could, determined to put things as right as she could. With little time, a quick, inconspicuous entrance and exit was essential.

Perhaps Myrtle would like some company.

No matter what, Tom would not win. Ginny would see to that.

* * * *

Drained by her ordeal, Hermione could barely sit once her first-ever phoenix transformation ended. Sitting was not on her to-do list at the moment. She wanted, needed, a long, private chat with Harry about whatever was going on.

Luna swore she had felt Harry's efforts. Luna would never lie about something so important.

If Harry had personally generated those emotions to bring her back (again), how could her month from Hell have happened? Harry's emotions utterly confused her, as had his earlier actions.

Now he would go back to Hogwarts, because that was who Harry was. She would find some way to help. She certainly could use a little down time to organise her thoughts - especially her thoughts about Harry.

* * * *

Over the last twenty-four hours, Harry had hurtled through almost the entire gamut of negative human emotions. He began with helpless uncertainty, totally powerless when Hermione was endangered. He experienced guilt-ridden heartbreak in rejecting Ginny's entreaties and ultimately Ginny herself. He felt all-encompassing terror rushing headlong into unknown peril. He faced the abject finality of death before drawing another breath. He witnessed heart-stopping horror when the Killing Curse strike down Hermione. Dark rage immediately followed. He intentionally tried to kill someone for the first time. Bleak emptiness ended the sequence. He had lost everything - the only thing - making life worth living.

With the craziness finally over, Harry was utterly wrung out and ready to crash, a drained husk.

One emotion flowed unabated - insecurity. An abyss of unfinished personal business yawned before him.

Exhausted or no, he needed, absolutely, a one-on-one chat with Hermione - so he could begin making sense what had happened and begin atoning for all he had done.

It would be the most mortifying and crushing experience of his life - past, present, or future. However, Harry's trek to his personal Canossa was not to begin just yet.

Roxtar's announcement drove all else from his mind. Hogwarts was under attack by Death Eaters! The Dark Mark meant that someone, probably several people, had been killed!

He needed to get there right away.

Hermione, the only person who could possibly have stopped Harry, knew better than to obstruct his Saving People Thing.

"Go on, Harry and save the world," she sighed, opting for time to ponder Harry's actions and intentions. "I'll stay safe."

Luna's nod to Ron indicated that he, likewise, could follow his instincts.

Ron turned to Harry, "Got room for one more?"

Harry spared a glance for Healer Huxley. "She'll be safe," the Healer answered his implicit question. "When I receive an all clear, I'll bring her to Hogwarts. It sounds like we may both be needed."

Harry turned back to Ron. "Let's go, then."

Together they raced out the door, Ron limping noticeably, pursued by the loyal, if exasperated, Roxtar.

"Are we gonna Apparate to Hogsmeade?" Ron panted.

"Don't even think about it," Harry warned. "Jerry ... er ... my estate manager, altered the Anti-Apparition wards so the Death Eaters thought they were down. They weren't. Instead all Apparition out of here directs to the most remote property I own - some island near Antarctica...."

"So what, then?"

Outside, Harry slowed to a brisk walk. "Accio Valkyrie! I figure we fly beyond the Château's wards, and then Apparate...."

"Harry, I was kidding," Ron backed off. "I've never Apparated that far. I've only had my licence a bit more than a month."

"I'll Side-Along you."

"Are you sure...?"

Roxtar caught up. "Impratraxis! To Hogwarts to go determined are you?"

"Absolutely!" Harry vowed, then added hopefully, "Can you get us there faster than Apparating?" He paused as his trusty broom arrived.

"At Hogwarts regrettably exists no splixat," Roxtar explained. "Speed journey cannot I, but safer can be made it. Your arm if would you, sire."

Harry blinked. He took a second unravelling the goblin's syntax and realised that Roxtar wanted his arm. He extended it to the goblin.

Roxtar ended the Fitting Charm on Harry's Basilisk skin jumper and loosened the sleeve. Carefully, almost reverently, Roxtar exposed Harry's forearm, and its Tladimax scar, visible only in ultraviolet frequencies that humans like Harry could not perceive. Roxtar bared his forearm - leading to a hand shy a finger - and placed it besides Harry's. Then he recited a Sylimps, a goblin charm, in Gobbledegook.

Harry understood nothing, but felt a wave of inexplicable warmth spreading through his arm. "What was that?"

"What at Hogwarts may find you know not I," Roxtar cautioned, "but at least safe will be your arrival. When Apparate do you, in the Nation's camp land will you - not in Antarctica."

Roxtar was as good as his word.

Harry Side-Along-Apparated himself and Ron as near as he dared to the uncertain extent of Hogwarts Castle's anti-Apparition wards.

Signs of unfolding disaster greeted them, starting with Hogwarts. Above the Castle, almost leering, hovered Voldemort's Dark Mark, outlined in cold eldritch fire and glowing ghastly radium green. The evil symbol seemed anchored to one of the towers - which was uncertain in the night's cloudy gloom - demarcating some undoubtedly awful event.

Aimed by Roxtar's unknown charm, Harry and Ron Apparated into the midst of a detachment of quite sullen goblin warriors. Spitting rain had nothing to do with their attitude. Rather, since Harry had (so Dumbledore decreed) abused his goblin rank to facilitate his infamous all-night tryst with Ginny, goblins were forbidden from setting foot on Hogwarts' grounds.

The Headmaster had insisted, and Harry - faced with an explicit precondition for remaining a Hogwarts student - had issued the order. It was absolute. Goblins could observe him and the Castle from a distance but could not enter, except by Dumbledore's (or Harry's) express invitation.

Tonight, neither Harry nor Dumbledore were available to issue an invitation - until now. The Impratraxis' standing order was law. Thus, over thirty battle-hardened Stonehenge veterans stood sulking on the sidelines, certain something heinous was happening within the Castle but unable to do anything save gawk at the Death Eaters' calling card.

Arriving without warning amongst a crowd of frustrated goblin warriors, Harry and Ron were nearly set upon. An instant shy of unimaginable lèse majesté, the goblins recognised their prince by his distinctive armour. "Impratraxis!" several voices chorused at once.

Instantly, the entire battalion unhanded the wizards, dropped their weapons, and prostrated themselves.

"Anyor!" Harry yelled whilst lowering his wand. "Why aren't you in there fighting?"

Māktrax, the commander, answered, "Impratraxis, to enter forbidden are we, by order of yours. Invited must we...."

That memory hit Harry hard - almost as hard as his hand smacked his forehead. "Get the hell in there!" Harry fiercely cut him off, pointing at the Castle.

Goblin braves scrambled, grabbing their weapons and other combat gear in borderline chaos. Converting to their boulder forms, they began bounding away.

A shrill inhuman shriek spun Harry about. At most five metres away, a goblin flier urgently spurred his gargantuan mount, prodding the still sleepy flying reptile into imminent take off.

"Granz!" Harry commanded the flier to halt. He leapt on the quetzalcoatlus, grabbed the rear of the flier's saddle with his left hand, and reached to Ron with his right. It was decision time. Looking at the redhead, Harry asked, "Are you game?"

Ron tested his injured ankle. "Episkey," he numbed it again. "Good day to die and all that," he uttered his first friendly words to Harry in a month. Rather less gracefully than Harry, Ron climbed aboard.

"Go!" Harry commanded. The goblin flier, whose English was sufficient to understand, instantly obeyed.

"Shite!" Compared to this leather-winged monster, flying Buckbeak was like sitting on a throne. The rapidly accelerating reptile weighed considerably less than a Hippogriff, but had wings more than three times larger. Even with two extra passengers, the beast's exertions produced tremendous lift and speed. Ron was almost pitched over the side, and would have fallen, had he not caught hold of Harry's belt. His weight yanked Harry's legs from under him, and Ron slipped off altogether, dangling precariously by one hand.

"Aaauugh!" Harry bellowed as his grip on the goblin's saddle weakened. Just in time their goblin pilot sensed a problem and pulled back hard on his reins. The pair tumbled back aboard the flying beast. They wound up bracketing the flier, each with one hand clutching the pilot's saddle billets, and the other clutching fistfuls of one another's robes.

"Bloody hell, mate!" Ron yelled into a howling wind lashing raindrops against their skin. "I'll even take Thestrals next time!"

Neither could completely right themselves. Unlike a flying horse, quetzalcoatalus wings extended fully to its tail, providing nothing to straddle. Pressing his scaly armoured chest against the equally scaly beast, Harry performed a silent Sticking Charm on himself - at least he hoped he did.

"Take us to the Dark Mark," Harry told the flier.

"What?" The goblin asked, unfamiliar with the term.

"That damn ugly green thing!" Ron clarified, loosening his grip enough to point his finger.

Soon their mount slowed, now directly beneath the glowing skull-themed symbol. Harry's blood ran cold as he recognised the Headmaster's balcony. It appeared dark and deserted.

"Please fly as close as you can to the railing," Harry instructed the pilot, ending his Sticking Charm and disentangling from Ron. His request was difficult, as the giant reptile was not nearly as manœuvreable as other flying beasts. Drizzling rain made its scaly back increasingly slippery.

Finally, the goblin pilot approximated a close-in hover by sinking in from above. With the downdraft from beast's huge wings swirling sodden debris on the balcony, Harry leapt. He met the rain-slicked stone surface at an angle, and his feet slid from under him. Harry dropped, rolled, and bounced up ready to cast curses. He found no targets.

"Ah-ah-ah ... AHHH!" Harry turned just in time to see Ron come hurtling after him. Taller than Harry, Ron needed a bit more clearance than he gave himself. His left boot heel caught the balcony's top railing, and he landed hard on his already injured right foot.

"Aaaww ... FUCK!" Ron howled as he crumpled.

"Gradnuk...!" Harry yelled to the hovering goblin. "Go hunt Death Eaters!" Waving off the goblin flier, Harry turned to Ron. "Can you walk on it?"

Ron grabbed the offending railing and pulled himself up. He winced when he put weight on the leg. "Not well, mate," he groaned. "Episkey," he numbed himself again. He nonetheless moved haltingly, almost falling when he released the railing. "Shite.... I'm afraid, I'd ... only get in the way," Ron admitted. "You'd best go on...."

"Umm ... okay, be careful," Harry agreed. "Keep your back against a wall."

"You too - you're the after the bloody Death Eaters," Ron replied.

"If I'm lucky, the goblins will find them first."

"No, if they're lucky."

Harry's attention was elsewhere. He pointed his wand to the drizzling heavens. "EVANESCO!!!" he roared.

The Dark Mark dissolved into tiny chartreuse pixels that scattered, like fireflies, in the sloppy sky.

Leaving Ron on the balcony, Harry moved cautiously inside. Dumbledore's wrecked office was deserted. Glowing, purple smoke curled from behind the seriously charred door of a corner cupboard. Harry's nostrils flared at the acrid, burning smell. Whatever was inside seemed burnt out. Dumbledore could fix it later....

The portraits of former headmasters were in disarray, their occupants having fled. The table once holding the Headmaster's collection of odd magical artefacts was blown to smithereens - a Reductor Curse, probably - leaving the floor strewn with bits of wood and silver. Dumbledore's desk was covered with debris from a smashed chandelier and what remained of the Tudor ceiling.

Save for occasional sizzling, staccato pops from the smouldering cupboard, the Headmaster's office was still and as quiet as death.

Ron stumped in. "Hell, as long as you move that slowly, I've got your back," he quipped. "I'm coming in. Contrary to what Luna thinks, I do have enough sense to get out of the rain...."

"Funny, Hermione's said the same about me...."

Rather than try entering Dumbledore's private quarters, Harry slunk towards the office door. It hung precariously, the lower hinge blasted clean away. Listening carefully, he thought he heard distant spellfire somewhere below - down the pitch black stairwell. The spiral staircase was not rotating, a first.

His wand lighting the way, Harry examined the landing. Seeing nothing threatening, moved towards the sounds of battle.

"...Hhaarryy..."

Instantly, Harry straightened and spun around, wand ready to fire. That almost ghostly groan was not Ron ... but was familiar....

"...Hhaarryy..."

"What's going on?" Ron asked, getting no answer.

Harry's Lumos flared to searchlight strength. He scanned the landing, stairs, and finally Dumbledore's office. He saw nothing.

"Neville, is that you? Where are you?" Harry raised his voice. He called to Ron, "Do you see Neville anywhere?"

"Up ... here...."

"Where?" Even with his augmented Lumos, Harry saw nothing.

"...Hhaarryy ..."

Harry finally looked straight up, his wandtip pointed at the ceiling of the Headmaster's foyer. Listening intently, he heard a faint scratching sound. Something was rocking back and forth - almost directly overhead.

"Oh, hell," Harry swore under his breath. "Finite!"

Neville flickered into view just in time for Harry to avoid his plummetting body. Casting and dodging at the same time, Harry saved his friend from serious injury. "Arresto momentum!" Neville floated to the floor, his face as pale as alabaster.

"Neville! Are you all right? What happened? Where's Dumbledore?" Questions tumbled from Harry's lips, each toppling over another like a row of dominoes.

"Oy, Nev - what are you doing here?" Ron tossed in a query of his own as he limped over.

"Harry ... Dumbledore's ... dead," Neville rasped, on the edge of tears.

Neville's words burned Harry's psyche like a branding iron. "WHAT!!" He simply could not believe it. Harry's mind reeled, insistent that what Neville said could not be true.

Ron was only marginally more eloquent. "Oh, triple shite!"

"Dumbledore's dead," Neville repeated, his voice hollow.

Harry flinched at a particularly loud spell impact somewhere in the dark distance. He could not afford to fall to pieces. "How, Neville?"

"Death Eaters ... in the Castle," Neville's lips trembled. "Effing ... Draco Malfoy ... AKed Dumbledore.... Snape was with him, and a bunch of others...."

"I'll kill that little ferret." Ron vowed.

"Dammit!" Harry cursed loudly. "I'm sorry, Nev, I should never have made you go with him. I should...."

Neville cut short Harry's apology. "Did you find Hermione?"

"Umm ... yes."

"Is she ... all right?"

"I - we - rescued her. She's ... safe as houses," Harry answered largely truthfully. How was Hermione, really? She had survived a Killing Curse. Harry knew firsthand that could have unusual, long-term effects.

"Then, you're forgiven," Neville declared.

His head spinning at the awful news of Dumbledore's demise, Harry took several deep breaths. Urgent sounds of curses exchanged somewhere below ended the interrogation. They could talk more later.

"Cover me," Harry squared his shoulders and headed for the battle. Dimming his wand, he started down the eerily stationary stairs.

Maybe halfway down to the gargoyle an open passageway pierced what had heretofore been a blank stone wall. The curse sounds echoed from the unknown corridor. Despite never having seen it before, Harry did not hesitate. "This way!" he called to his friends.

In he dove. The passage was no more than a metre square. Hunched over, half running, half crawling, Harry charged along as quickly as the cramped passage allowed. He pulled up when a stray spell punched a hole in a grate at the tunnel's far end. With a flash and a puff of smoke it gouged the wall in front of him. He had found the heat of battle, but with no idea which side was where.

Harry needed to suppress both enemy and friendly fire until he could sort things out. He smiled, recalling one of Hermione's favourite spells. He quietly Transfigured a bit of debris into a mirror and Levitated it to observe the battle through the hole in the grate.

Harry reminded himself that he was watching a mirror image of what was actually happening. When he came crashing through, everything would be on opposite sides.

A full-throated battle raged in the large corridor on the Castle's fifth storey near Ravenclaw tower. Large cracks disfigured the walls and ceiling. Many windows were shattered, letting the rain - heavier now than before - patter in, a ghostly, ghastly mist lit by colours from assorted curses.

Death Eaters were crouched behind a bulwark of wooden beams and fallen stones directly in front of him. That meant his side....

"Cover me!" a voice screamed. It sounded familiar, and Harry tried focussing on it. Suddenly, someone dashed into the Death Eaters' field of fire with an animalistic howl. Harry started, shaking the mirror and blurring the image. Drawing Death Eaters curses, the figure sprinted left (which actually meant right), towards the shelter of a blown-out door and a crumpled suit of armour.

Harry gulped. That person wore green goblin basilisk armour like his. By process of elimination.... No, her hair was black and cropped, not long and red. A couple of curses, thankfully not Unforgivables, hit home, but her armour absorbed them.

The girl rolled behind the makeshift barricade, spun and from a new angle began firing Stunners, Reductors, and other D.A. curses. Two Death Eaters fall backwards, hit by her spells.

"NOW!" the girl cried. She looked back, presumably towards her followers, and thus straight into Harry's mirror. Harry drew a disbelieving breath. Jazzy - a mere third year - was spearheading the D.A.'s counterattack.

Harry crawled forward, keeping one eye on the mirror. A new volley of spells pelted the Death Eater's position, sending them ducking. Harry was crouched behind the entrance when he heard a hated voice he hoped he was rid of forever. "Sectumsempra!"

Almost immediately, someone screamed. That curse had hit home.

Harry had found Snape.

From Neville, Harry knew that Snape, the traitor, had connived in Albus Dumbledore's death.

Harry was ready to return the favour.

Again, Harry summoned wandless elemental magic. "Pulvis!"

The grate covering the passageway blew out horizontally, like a cannonball, into the opposite wall. A raging sandstorm, driven by one-hundred kilometre winds, burst from the secret passage's entrance, Harry in its midst. Windblown sand forced all combatants to cover their eyes. Harry dropped to the floor.

Oof! "Urrkk!" Harry landed on something - someone - soft.

"Sorry," Harry whispered genuinely. He had accidentally jumped on someone - a Ravenclaw by the robes' piping - seriously injured. He wanted to help, but a battle needed fighting. Still....

"Mobilicorpus!" At least the incapacitated soul was further out of harm's way so Neville or Ron would not do the same.

Stinging sand was everywhere as Harry picked himself up. Determined, he bolted across the corridor to the side opposite Jazzy's last known position. Harry dove behind stone from the Castle's collapsed outer wall.

Now, the Death Eater emplacement would take fire from both sides.

Harry had a personal score to settle. Before the sand stopped swirling, his wand pointed towards the hated voice. "Ultrasonicus!"

Perhaps the loudest noise ever heard in that ancient corridor rumbled through. The already cracked outer wall creaked ominously, and all remaining intact windows blew out. Harry unleashed a sonic boom in an enclosed space. The shock wave penetrated both physical and magical Protego spells.

Cries of pain - and fewer curses - arose from the Death Eaters' barricade.

"It's Harry!" somebody yelled from behind. A new salvo of D.A. hexes and jinxes peppered the Death Eater position.

"Avada Kedavra!" Harry ducked behind the fallen stones, coming face-to-face with someone's lifeless arm. Yellow trim on the sleeve meant some Hufflepuff had been crushed to death.

The Death Eaters quickly recovered from the unexpected intervention, and their curses pinned down the group, consisting mostly of Ravenclaws. Harry recognised the voices of Zeb Bradley, Roger Davies, Padma Patil - and surprisingly Cho Chang - trading curses with at least a baker's dozen Death Eaters. Perhaps the proximity of Ravenclaw Tower explained their predominance.

A Hornetentious Hex streaked over Harry's left shoulder. Neville and Ron had joined the fight.

"Specularis totalus!" Jazzy's voice rang out. The result was instant and blinding, as all the surfaces about the Death Eaters' location became reflective. She followed with a resounding "Stupefy!"

Her scarlet Stunner ricocheted wildly, causing Death Eaters to duck and cover in all directions. Harry had to smile. Jazzy had obviously carefully observed his epic duel with Hermione, and now applied her learning to actual combat.

The Death Eaters, or at least Snape, were not stupid. "Bombardo!" the erstwhile Potions master incanted. Conjured ball bearings flew everywhere and shattered the product of Jazzy's Mirror Charm.

Two could play that game.

Stone chips were strewn chips thickly across the floor. Harry swept his wand broadly, using the same curse, "Bombardo!" Bits of stone became ball bearings and pelted the Death Eaters at the far end of the hall.

"Draco, go with the others," the hated voice commanded. "I'll cover your escape." The Death Eaters had either had enough, or accomplished what they intended.

Harry was beyond caring.

The D.A. continued strafing the Death Eater's positions, but Snape used unknown magic. A cloud of peridot-green smoke billowed towards Harry and rest of the D.A. Behind it retreating Death Eaters randomly cast Blasting Hexes and other dangerous, but non-deadly curses - to keep Hogwarts' defenders pinned down.

The fog reached the nearest defenders, and its true nature became painfully clear. Jazzy's gravelly voice - obviously magically enhanced - sounded the alarm. "Garroting Gas," she declared. "Fall back!"

General disengagement followed, with the intervening miasma separating the sides from one another.

Harry stayed put. His eyes began tearing, and breathing became difficult. Using air elemental power he generated a breeze that sent the noxious gas out the corridor's many shattered windows. Impatient to re-engage the Dumbledore's killers, Harry performed a Bubblehead Charm and charged into the thinning mist.

"Avada Kedavra!" Harry hit the floor, but Draco Malfoy's Killing Curse missed badly.

Malfoy had probably used that curse to kill Dumbledore not more than an hour earlier. "Expelliarmus!" Harry responded emotionally, but he missed just as badly, punching another sizable hole in one of the walls.

"Draco, I said go," Snape's cold voice ordered. "We've accomplished our mission. Remember that killing Potter is the exclusive province of the Dark Lord."

"YOU TRAITOROUS BASTARD!!" Harry roared. Incensed, he cut a Reductor multiple times and, as at Kew Gardens, hurled it at the remaining Death Eaters.

Since Kew, Harry had gained much more skill with the Fifth Element. He put a little something extra on his spells. The entire corridor - floor, walls, and ceiling - disappeared behind the flash of Harry's spellfire ... then much of it simply disappeared.

With a tremendous rumble, the outer wall and much of the ceiling of the main corridor to Ravenclaw Tower slid away as shattered debris, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the Castle. Now, the downpour streamed in from directly overhead.

Ravenclaw Tower also soared overhead in the now outright stormy night. As his magic faded, Harry realised that the rightmost of his Reductors came within a couple of metres of bringing down the entire tower, which would have killed everyone in it.

"You remain a bumbling fool, Potter," Snape's voice taunted. "All power, zero perspicacity. The Dark Lord will make short work of you ....as Draco has already."

What did that mean?

Snape's evil voice was overhead. Harry raised his wand, but found himself dodging, not entirely successfully, a small avalanche of sodden rubbish kicked down upon him. He had to cast a protective shield, instead of his planned curse.

"Stop running away, Snape!" Harry yelled at the unseen Death Eater. "Stand and fight, you bloody coward!"

Surprisingly, his challenge had the desired effect. "DON'T CALL ME A COWARD!" roared the former Potions master's voice from the darkness above.

Heedless of both danger and adverse weather, Harry climbed after Snape, seeking mayhem or worse. He emerged precariously onto the Castle's roof - where he had never been, let alone at night, let alone in a drenching rain ... let alone with a gaping hole at his back and an exposed 30° sloping expanse of copper and slate stretching before him.

Somewhere Snape was lying in wait.

Hunched over in what had become a deluge, Harry Disillusioned himself and, stepping gingerly across rivulets flowing towards the gutters below, crept towards shelter - the looming spire of Ravenclaw Tower.

He heard something, a splash, but before Harry could train his wand in that direction, Snape had snapped off a spell - only not at Harry.

"A priori!"

Snape's spell - unlike Harry, he could cast it directionally - streaked into the cavernous hole from which Harry had just emerged. Hogwarts' innate magic asserted itself. Bent and jagged edges of the Castle's greenish-grey copper roof rippled, roughhewn surfaces of broken-off stone and wood glowed and reknit. The gash Harry's Blasting Hexes had rent in Hogwarts Castle magically repaired itself.

Harry was isolated on Hogwarts's roof with ex-Professor Snape.

"That should prevent reinforcements," Snape's disembodied voice scoffed. "Don't flatter yourself that my Death Eaters ran from you. Your goblin friends are far more fearsome. But they can't help you now ... pity. I've fixed your vandalism, so it's just the two of us. Think you can take me, Potter?"

During his lurking adversary's taunts, Harry silently added a magic-stopping Protego shield to his armour. Snape's magic was more dangerous than any physical object he might hurl.

Shadows prevailed amongst the rain-swept crenellations and stone parapets atop the uppermost termini of the Castle's flying buttresses. Harry doubted that Snape could see him any better than he could see Snape. The murky sky was unrelievedly black - no moon, no stars, only bloated clouds scudding low over Hogwarts' mediæval towers. A few spottily-lit Castle windows provided minimal illumination, along with indirect light from what could be flickering flames far below.

The wet weather meant any fire must have a magical origin.

His senses tingling, Harry stole towards Ravenclaw tower, anxious to put a wall at his back.

"Sectumsempra!" Snape sent the first curse.

Harry reacted too slowly, but Snape's Dark curse bounced off Harry's armour. The Protego, however, did not stop the resulting shrapnel.

"Diffindo!" Harry returned fire blindly, sweeping his wand horizontally to cover as much of the roof as possible without hitting one of the towers.

"Pathetic, Potter," Snape mocked. "Eddies about your feet betray your position."

"I guess you know about betrayal!"

Snape evidently had superior night vision. Harry instinctively changed directions. Instead of continuing towards the questionable shelter of Ravenclaw Tower, he dropped and slid towards the crenellated ledge of the walkway edging the roof.

It was a better move in theory than practice. Harry misjudged acceleration on the rain slicked roof. He was moving too fast and about to careen into space.... "Incarcerous!" he cast desperately. Ropes entwined the two crenellations in front of him. Harry slammed into his own conjuration, and avoided a twenty-five-metre fall by grabbing the cordage.

Although his Idiotus Jinx missed the sliding Potter, Snape kept up the pressure, allowing his opponent no succor from nasty rope burns. Harry splashed facedown in the gutter to dodge the slashing purple calling card of the Dark Fire of Tu-Fan. Snape's silent casting was inaccurate. The spell sailed well over Harry's head.

"You bastard!" a dripping Harry screamed at his phantom foe. "You killed Dumbledore!" He crawled behind a flying buttress' mossy capstone.

"I did no such thing, you insipid fool," Snape drawled dismissively. "That honour went to Draco Malfoy. He needn't bother killing you."

"Reducto!" Harry squeezed off a strong Reductor Curse at what he took for Snape's shadow. Instead he exploded a decorative gargoyle and disintegrated some of the roof's peak walkway.

"Go ahead, Potter, blow up the Castle," Snape's voice ridiculed. "What's done is done."

"That inbred wimp couldn't tie his shoes without you showing him," Harry replied. "Lumos!"

Harry assumed Snape already knew his location. More light gave nothing away.

Suddenly Snape's voice bore the silkiness of his classroom orations. "A fatal but unsurprising flaw, Potter - underestimating your enemy. Draco and I have had a long chat. He's been plotting rings around you most of the Term. Who killed that elf...?"

Harry was also busy and not to be underestimated. From the direction of Snape's gibes, he noticed raindrops spattering off something invisible. Harry carefully drew his Lumos away from his wandtip, like Hermione could do with bluebell flames. Soon the light hovered a metre away.

Knowing Snape would be watching the light, Harry cast again. "Frigidio!"

The wet copper beneath Snape's feet became a sheet of wet ice. Instantly, Snape lost his balance and began careening towards the edge much more rapidly than Harry slid earlier, howling all the way.

Harry swept his Freezing Charm along Snape's path - greasing the greasy git's skids. With a final yowl his nemesis disappeared over the edge. Harry recast the Lumos past the lip of the gutter, hoping to watch Snape hit the ground.

He saw nothing. Then he heard ... the man's voice behind him. "Silent Levitation, Potter. Underestimation will be your death ... Imperio!"

Snape was astounded that Harry hurled himself over the side to avoid his Unforgivable.... He had never intended....

...Astounded that is, until Harry's foot contacted the back of the former professor's head. Snape went sprawling in one direction, whilst his wand clattered away in another. "Someone else knows silent magic," Harry hissed whilst Vanishing ropes that his burnt hands gripped so painfully.

Another of Harry's Incarcerous Hexes had bulls-eyed a gargoyle atop the nearby buttress cap. He then put a Kineticus Charm - on himself and gone pin-wheeling through the air like a cartoon superhero.

When Hermione's life was not involved, Harry was not, temperamentally, a killer. He wanted Snape well and properly Kissed. "Petrificus to...."

Sprawled and hurting, Snape retained his presence of mind. Wandlessly, he Banished a handful of Peruvian Instant Darkness Power into Harry's face. The rain washed it out within seconds, but seconds were all Snape needed.

Temporarily blinded, Harry felt for, found, and pressed his back against the buttress' stony mass. Rather than finishing him off, Snape inexplicably contented himself with recovering his wand and continuing his taunts.

"Nice move, Potter. I won't underestimate you again," Snape sneered, but his voice sounded much further away. "Still, you're too soft. Not like Draco. He'll be the ultimate Death Eater, I am certain...."

"Dammit ... Ultrasonicus!" Like a thunderclap at ten metres, a wandless supersonic pressure wave roiled from Harry's person.

Silence.

Snape's snide yammering recommenced.

"Sound and fury, Potter, signifying nothing. Face facts.... You're not ruthless enough for this - and you know I know what this is. The Dark Lord ordered Draco to kill Dumbledore. The boy repaired a Vanishing Cabinet and reopened the old route to the Chamber so we could access the Castle. When the Dark Lord ordered Draco to separate you from the Muggle-born brains of your operation, he arranged to substitute a redheaded piece of fluff."

Harry's anger blazed when Snape probed this source of extreme insecurity. "Leave Hermione and Ginny out of this, you boot-licking traitor!" he shouted. "Fluvius Azote!" Liquid nitrogen - which Harry hoped would either freeze or suffocate his adversary - spewed from Harry's wand.

The distinctive double pop of short-range Apparition followed.

"What the...?"

"Underestimating me still, evidently," Snape sneered. "You see, I disabled the Castle's anti-Apparition wards. I suppose you never bothered to check. Enflagrate!"

Two could play that game. Harry Apparated to the walkway at the peak of the roof, dropped flat onto the soaking slate, and incanted, "Nimbulus!"

An obscuring cloud enveloped Harry.

"So, you really think you love that Weasley girl?" Snape's pointed question ended with a harsh laugh.

To that, Harry had no answer, at least none he cared articulate. Following his recent outburst involving Ginny, he was no longer sure of anything - except that something was not right ... dodgy. "Leave them out of this, you bastard!" Harry repeated.

Snape, however, was just getting started. "Love potion, Potter. My love potion. Draco told me today; your lovely Ginevra's recipe was in my handwriting - mine, Potter. Draco essentially gave you to her as a present, tightly bound by an artificially enhanced ribbon. All you lacked...."

"Diff -"

Snape knocked that spell away before Harry even finished it. "You'll have to do better than that. Wrapped around their fingers, you've been...."

The sinews of Harry's neck stretched taut beneath his skin. He snarled, his eyes wild, "I don't give a flying fuck what you or Malfoy say; you're Death Eaters."

Harry, too angry for his own good, was sloppy.

"Incarcerous ennervatus," Snape cast as Harry screamed. The double agent skipped a more dangerous variant of one of Harry's favourite spells off the roof and under Harry's shield. Snape's version conjured magic-sapping chains similar to what had held Harry during his Death Eater captivity.

Hit on his feet, Harry toppled over, immobilised.

Snape finally appeared. "Suit yourself," he scoffed. "I know who and what I am, and I am the Half-Blood Prince. Someone evidently managed to find something I thought I'd lost - a certain sixth year textbook. My old textbook...."

As Snape gloated, Harry's eyes nearly left his paralysed head. He forgot his current bound-in-chains straits. "You were Ron's idol!?!"

"Shut up and listen to the last lesson I'll ever teach you. I told you once, Potter, about potions that could bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses."

The former Potions master could have ended Harry's life, had he been so inclined. Instead, he contented himself with a minor Stinging Hex on Harry's exposed hands. "Keep your shields up, Potter; your duelling style is woefully amateurish...."

Harry tried wandlessly to comply, but his attention focussed elsewhere. He saw something - he thought, anyway - something dark and solid passed by and obscured some lit windows in the Astronomy Tower. To avoid tipping Snape off, he wandlessly invoked the D.A.'s Face Fogging Charm. 'Just keep talking, Snape,' Harry thought.

"...Yes, I said Love Potion." The phrase curled spitefully from Snape's lips. "Your mind and your senses.... But regrettably, it had imperfections .... Had it worked as intended, you would never have been born...."

'Come on,' Harry rooted. 'Just a little longer.'

"Answer me this, Potter, have you the same feelings - the same sexual feelings - for the lovely Miss Weasley when you're away from Hogwarts as when you're here?"

What!?!

How could Snape possibly know about that?

Snape continued, "Or when you're away, do you get peckish...?"

Harry's face paled in shock.

Sensing he was hitting home, Snape pushed his advantage. "Or perhaps even nostalgic...?"

'No! It couldn't be....'

Harry found it hard to breathe. He heard blood roaring in his ears....

Merlin! Snape could not possibly know that.

"Is the truth dawning, Potter? That potion was my special concoction, Potter... I devised it...."

BREEEEEEEE!!

Snape could say no more.

With a deafening screech, a familiar goblin quetzalcoatalus pounced upon the former potions master from behind, seized him in its claws, and carried him away.

The goblin's cry of triumph was cut short by a loud Apparition pop.

But Snape or no Snape, Harry was too heartsick to care.

If Snape were right, how could Ginny have betrayed him so completely?

Worse, how could he have done the same to Hermione?

* * * *

Snape's malicious charm vanished with him- at least its potent, magic-sapping aspect. In short order, Harry broke the now ordinary chains using Lao Kung's elemental magic. Cycles of extreme heat, followed by bitter cold, embrittled them enough to shatter by being non-magically bashed a few of times against Hogwarts' roof.

Physically drenched but emotionally numbed, Harry shimmied down the conjured rope that he had left hanging from a nearby gargoyle. The Castle's windows were restored. "Alohomora." The nearest window opened, and Harry re-entered the battle-scarred corridor. It was almost deserted.

"There you are," Ron hailed. "Did you get that bastard Snape?"

"I ran him off," Harry answered distractedly. "Dessicatus!" Harry dried himself. He had too much to think about. Everything was different - and not just due to Dumbledore's murder. "Umm ... where is everybody?"

Something seemed ... off. A serious battle had just ended. A pall of dust still hung in the corridors. Where were any of the staff? For that matter, where were the elves? The staff might be fighting elsewhere, but the elves - surely they would be trying to clean things up.

"Not five minutes after you went after Snape, the goblins rolled through," Ron recounted. "They didn't stay long. They were after Death Eaters, but those bastards were already gone, except for a couple too badly hurt to get away.... Their end wasn't pretty, but I reckon they deserved it."

The goblins! How could he have forgotten them?

Neville also confirmed Harry's earlier impression. "I shocked, but Jazzy was leading the D.A., at least this lot. She had them Levitate their wounded and move them to the Hospital Wing. Nothing could save poor Megan, though," he added with flat finality, glancing towards a rubble pile on the right. "She's dead."

Harry shook his head, not knowing what to say. Another death....

Ron broke the awkward silence. "We could have helped Jazzy, but decided to wait for you."

"Well ... thanks." Harry noticed a nasty, blood-tinged rip in the right side of Neville's robes. "Nev, I think you should go to the Hospital Wing, too. I don't like the looks of that."

"Nah," Neville shrugged it off. "Just winged by a Cutting Curse. I want to hear about Hermione."

"She's recovering. Some really good Healers - the same ones who helped after my rescue - are treating her. They think she's well enough to help in the Hospital Wing once everything...."

Professor McGonagall's voice silenced him - booming through the corridor, and presumably the whole Castle.

"ATTENTION EVERYONE. GOOD NEWS, FINALLY.... THE CASTLE IS NOW FREE OF DEATH EATERS. BACKUP WARDS HAVE BEEN RESTORED. THE LEVEL ONE LOCKDOWN IS LIFTED, EXCEPT FOR GRYFFINDOR TOWER, DUE TO FIREFIGHTING ACTIVITY AT THE BASE. THE SLYTHERIN EVACUATION REMAINS IN FORCE. EVERYONE ELSE SHOULD STAY IN THEIR COMMON ROOMS ABSENT A GOOD REASON, APPROVED BY A PREFECT, TO LEAVE...."

Firefighting? Harry's first instinct was to dash off in search of another crisis. Before he could muster a head of steam, Harry felt Ron's hand on his shoulder.

"Slow down, I think Neville does need the Hospital Wing. Me, too, with this gimpy leg. Hermione's probably there, and Luna, I hope.... If anybody really needs you, they'll get you."

Sighing, Harry felt the weariness in his body. "All right then. To the Hospital Wing...." Exiting the ruined hallway, it registered with Harry that, unlike he and Ron, Neville wasn't wearing his customized, goblin-crafted Basilisk-skin armour.

Pointing to himself, Harry wondered, "Damn Nev, too bad you didn't wear yours. It would have stopped that curse for sure...."

Neville winced, and not from his wound. "That reminds me.... I need to thank you, again ... wish I didn't.... Your D.A. training saved my life...."

A shared battle had rekindled Ron's friendship with Harry. Neville still begrudged Harry his actions towards both Hermione and Ginny. Ron, though, was intrigued. "Oh really ... how so?"

"Same reason I don't have my armour. The cave we went to was so near the ocean that Dumbledore ... may he rest in peace ... made me take it off. He feared I would drown if I fell in the water wearing it. He was right, but not how he thought...."

As the three walked the Castle's eerily deserted halls, their footsteps echoing in the profound post-battle silence, Neville summarised the Horcrux hunt that Harry had abruptly dumped in his lap. They managed to enter the cave reasonably intact - nothing but a flesh wound - and successfully navigated a lake brimming with Inferi.

The wheels came off once Dumbledore had to drink a poisonous potion to access the Horcrux. Trying to escape, with the Headmaster virtually incapacitated, Neville had fallen headlong into the lake amongst any number of Inferi.

From his D.A. lessons, Neville knew enough about Inferi to survive.

"...That's where the D.A. saved my life," Neville explained. "You taught us Hellas Infernus, and that Greek Fire burnt underwater. It kept the Inferi away. I needed it several times to cross the lake. Dumbledore was practically delirious.... Fortunately the Thestrals hadn't strayed...."

They arrived at the Hospital Wing just as Neville finished reciting the gory details of the Headmaster's death at Draco Malfoy's hands.

It was bedlam. Controlled bedlam, but bedlam nonetheless.

All beds were occupied. One side of the ward was filled with mostly Ravenclaws, wounded in the battle Harry and his compatriots had helped turn. As Harry expected (and hoped), Hermione was in the thick of things, with Luna, tending to them.

She wielded her wand. Harry was happy someone returned it to her. He wished he had done it.

The most serious cases, like Zeb Bradley's Sectumsempra lacerations, were attended by Hlr. Huxley and Madam Pomfrey. The Hogwarts staff had taken casualties. Filch lay in one bed, unconscious and looking miserable. Shak had nasty looking burns on one arm, and thirty degrees of traction on his left leg. Professor Sinistra also nursed painful burns. Hagrid, too. The Astronomy professor suffered in silence, but not Hagrid. "Awwww!!," the half-giant roared in pain. "That's wors'n a dozen bloody screwts!" Madam Pomfrey, very tired but at least uninjured, tried to persuade him to drink a potion. It was probably a sedative - if the other occupants were lucky.

Worst was Hlr. Huxley, behind a privacy shield and a forest of instruments, talismans, and artefacts, working on someone. Whoever it was, the treatment was not going well. Harry had never seen the eminent Healer look as defeated as he did right now.

Not too far away, and looking out of place, were three Slytherins - Blaise Zabini, Preston Spott, and Smedley Cambo - whose injuries consisted assorted tentacles, multicoloured boils, and overly long teeth. Spott and Cambo also belched slugs. Whilst many of the Castle's inhabitants fought for their lives against a Death Eater attack, and some sort of conflagration, these Slytherins evidently had engaged in some juvenile intra-house hexing, and ended up on the losing end.

Ron and Neville strode - or in Ron's case, hobbled - into the Hospital Wing's active theatre, seeking treatment for their wounds, hopefully by Hermione and Luna.

Harry hung back. His injuries were comparatively superficial. Nor was a hospital ward overflowing with active casualties conducive to the serious discussion he owed Hermione. He should not draw her away from treating the injured. Others needed her more than he - at least right now.

Nor could Harry rule out that Hermione might refuse to talk to him at all - or else slap him across the face.

He noticed someone else alone with her thoughts.

Harry's rope burns from his duel with Snape were no worse than the cuts and scratches marring Jazzy's face. The fierce third year slumped in a chair at the opposite end of the long room. Harry could sympathise with Jazzy's thousand-metre stare.

Giving his hands a quick Episkey, Harry wandered over and flopped into an adjacent chair. The Hospital Wing was hot, so he unbuttoned his upper armour, revealing a thoroughly sweat-soaked "Property of Gryffindor Quidditch" cut-off t-shirt. Harry ruminated over everything he had recently learnt - most of it hard to believe.

Dumbledore's dead....

Snape was Ron's Half-Blood Prince....

I've been Love Potioned for weeks....

Malfoy not only killed Dumbledore, but probably brewed that potion....

Hermione's safe and sound....

The last meant more to Harry than the rest put together.

"Glad you got back in time to save the day again - sort of." Jazzy's half whisper finished with a mirthless "hah."

One thing never changed about Jazzy, her attitude.

"Hell, Jazzy, you hardly needed my help," Harry replied evenly. "Your D.A. group had the Death Eaters pinned down. They couldn't do anything but run for it. But...."

Harry thought something was odd.

Jazzy called him on it. "But, what?"

"Where in Merlin's name was Gryffindor ... 'cept for you?"

"Long story."

Harry looked down the hall. Hermione was crying. A nervous Neville patted her on the back like she was a porcupine. Nearby, Ron and Luna held each other. Whoever Hlr. Huxley had been trying to save had not made it. A sheet covered the body, from head to toe.

Harry cursed his luck. He should be comforting Hermione. All doubt was gone; his relationship with Ginny was kaput - even if not formally ended.

He sighed. "I've nothing but time."

"All right then," Jazzy assented. "I was in the library, trying to study. Your ex-girlfriend had gone full drama queen in the common room, and I couldn't get...."

"Ex-girlfriend?" Harry was hopeful. "Really, I'm not sure...."

"Bloody obvious," Jazzy snorted. "How thick are you? Ginny-whingey certainly acted that way, but that's your problem, not mine. Anyway, I was finishing up when things started happening. I hustled back to Gryffindor. You know me ... always spoiling for a fight...."

"And you got one, too," Harry commented. "But why not the rest of Gryffindor? You're not that much braver than the rest."

"True," Jazzy conceded, "only quicker. Back in Gryffindor ... well, it was a mess. People milling about. You, Neville, Ronald, and of course Hermione, all missing.... The only logical leader left was Ginny. A couple of people claimed they'd seen her, but she wasn't to be found. I went looking, and ... and...."

Jazzy's eyes looked rather glazed, as if distracted by something more important. She stared across the Hospital Wing. The body of the Death Eaters' latest victim had been removed. Luna and Hermione had moved to the Slytherin casualties.

"And what?"

"Ginny wasn't in the dorm, but obviously had been. She'd left her trunk wide open. That's where I found this armour," Jazzy raised her arms to emphasise what she wore. "I nicked it. Back down in the common room, the Prefects were finally taking charge. They didn't want anybody lower than fifth year to fight Deaters. Bloody idiots! Well, you know me...."

Harry could guess the rest. "Yeah, you probably told to go straight to hell ... loudly."

"Yup, and I was out of there, armour and all, before anybody could try stopping me," Jazzy confirmed. "Lucky thing, because Gryffindor tower was locked down before they got organised. Deaters set Fiendfyre near the base - don't know why, but I'd smelled something burning as I left. That's also why Slytherin was evacuated. The blaze was too close to them for comfort."

"Not necessarily a bad thing," Harry put in.

"Anyway, I went looking for a fight and found some Ravenclaws and a few Hufflepuffs headed for Ravenclaw Tower. But the Deaters found them, too, a bit before I did. They went after Chang first, since she can't walk well, with her feet and all. I started blasting away, which caught everyone by surprise. You pretty much know the rest. Umm ... could I ask you a question?"

"I guess."

"You meant it, didn't you, when you said I could stay at your ... that château rather than go back to my relatives?"

Harry brightened. Finally something he could answer. "Absolutely."

"Okay, then, because I think I want to."

"No problem."

Jazzy stood. "I've got to go. You reminded me of something...."

"Back to Gryffindor?"

"No. Ginny left a note on her bed, which I also took. I just remembered it."

"Okay," Harry shrugged, holding out his hand. He assumed the note was for him.

"Not for you," Jazzy disabused him. "Ginny wrote to Neville.... That's another reason I assumed you two were over."

Harry shook his head as Jazzy walked away. He made ready to leave. He could do nothing useful here, since he had no Healer training.

'Don't you dare, Harry Potter,' Hermione's telepathic voice echoed in his head. She had not communicated with him that way since their break up. 'We need to talk, so will you wait for me - please...?'

As usual, Hermione was right, and if she wanted their talk sooner rather than later, he was ready. They had nowhere to go but up.

Harry flopped into his seat and watched distractedly as Jazzy approached Neville. She handed him Ginny's note.

* * * *

For the first time in ... it seemed forever, Hermione harboured hope that somewhere, beneath all Harry's inexplicable and often inexcusable behaviour, he might still feel something for her. Whilst not superstitious, she wanted to have it out with him before anyone else....

She and Luna readily accepted Hlr. Huxley's offer to Side-Along to the gates of Hogwarts. They quickly acquired a highly motivated goblin escort and trooped Castle-wards in a steady, hard rain. Through debris-strewn corridors they made their way to the Hospital Wing.

Changing into Healer trainee's robe, Hermione avoided discussing her own harrowing experiences through the simple stratagem of listening to others describe theirs.

From Madam Pomfrey, Hermione learnt the shocking truth - Headmaster Dumbledore was dead - killed by invading Death Eaters.

From Hagrid she found out that Death Eaters had burnt down his hut, killed Rotfang, his replacement boar hound, and forced him to flee into the Forbidden Forest to avoid a similar fate.

According to Shak, mobilising the D.A. had been impossible with Harry, Neville, Ron, Ginny, Luna - and of course her - all missing and unaccounted for. Most of the staff, and virtually all the elves, had been pinned down in a desperate, touch-and-go firefight.

Literally.

A handful of Death Eaters set part of Hogwarts alight with Fiendfyre. Given the Castle's magic-rich environment, a catastrophic conflagration was barely averted - by liberal use of the new Fluvius Azote charm and the elves' magical vacuum equipment. Hermione's recent invention of the charm that saved Hogwarts went unsaid, but not unacknowledged.

Blaise Zabini recounted that, in the chaos of Slytherin house's evacuation (the Fiendfyre started only a couple of stories directly above their common room), some of the Snakes' more pro-Death Eater faction unsuccessfully assaulted Daphne Greengrass. Caught in the crossfire, Blaise claimed, he gained quite an appreciation of D.A. duelling skills.

Before Hermione finished talking with Blaise, Professor Vector was brought in, hideously wounded and barely breathing. Shortly thereafter, the door flew open as Jazzy led in a group of mostly Ravenclaw casualties. Hermione was pleased that at least some D.A. members had accounted themselves successfully against the Death Eaters.

She was tending to them when Harry finally appeared, with Ron and Neville. Intensely aware of his presence, Hermione was torn between disappointment, as he kept his distance, and relief that Harry was not seriously injured.

Professor Vector died. Neville offered comfort, but Harry he was not.

When Harry started to leave, she almost violated her Healer's Oath. Addressing him telepathically for the first time since ... that ... she asked him to stay. She was not confident he would, but thankfully he did, remaining where she could see him.

Neville had a Cutting Curse to his midsection - fortunately too shallow to penetrate the peritoneum. She heard his shocking eye-witness description of Draco Malfoy's cold-blooded murder of a weakened Albus Dumbledore....

"Umm ... Neville?" Jazzy's hesitant voice sounded from behind. "Ginny left this note for you.... I forgot...."

"That's okay." Neville sounded world weary as he accepted the folded parchment.

Hermione was closing Neville's wound as he started reading....

Unexpectedly Neville's breath hitched, almost causing a premature halt to her Dermameld Charm. Hermione glanced up. Neville was wobbly. His mouth gaped in shock, his eyes bugged in disbelief, and a strange purple anger suffused his features.

"Neville...?"

Reminded of his own existence, Neville's colour drained away precipitously, and his hands started shaking. Breathing shallowly, he dropped heavily onto the nearest hospital bed - nearly reopening his wound, not to mention almost sitting on the unconscious Filch.

Hermione wondered if he still knew she was present.

"Great Merlin's ghost," Neville rasped. "How could...?"

"Neville...?"

His lips trembled. Tears formed at the corners of his hazel eyes, mixing with a sudden cold sweat.

"...what...?"

Mechanically, he thrust the note at Hermione. "Here, you're more clever than I am."

She took it from his shaky grasp.

Dear Neville

Everything's a lie. He's back. Possessing me. Tom. Worse than before. Can't hold out long. Have to stop Tom. Never again.

All my fault. Brewed HBP's Love Potion. Draco's idea. No, mine. Maybe Tom's. I wanted it. My fault. Harry never loved me. Only you did. I loved Harry. Hurt him. Hurt you. Hurt everyone.

I'm not myself. Malfoy let in Death Eaters. Too weak to stop.

Hurt Hermione, too. Draught of Despair. Won't hurt anybody ever again. Nor will Tom.

Goodbye

Ginny

Anger and pain, in equal measure, swelled in Hermione's breast as she read Ginny Weasley's barely legible parting words.

She had betrayed them! Betrayed Harry! Betrayed her! Betrayed who knows how many others!?

Neville was essentially Healed. "Take over," she choked out to nobody in particular. Hermione's eyes locked on Harry, head-in-hands, in a chair by the front door. Somehow she controlled herself enough to march purposefully to where he sat.

Harry looked up at the sound of her none-too-subtle approach. "Hermione? Do you want...?"

"I-I don't want anything right now, Harry," Hermione answered, her words unnaturally even, 'except to curl up in a ball and not move for a week,' she added to herself.

Hermione thrust Ginny's now quite crumpled note at him. "You need to read this." After he took it, Hermione collapsed in the chair next to him, mimicking Harry's prior pose, oblivious to everything and everyone else.

Harry read, and as he did magic begin radiating off him - first anger, then fear, then agony, then ... nothing at all as he employed Occlumency to prevent yet another potential catastrophe in a day filled with them.

At Hogwarts, Harry had no Bellatrix Lestrange acting as a convenient outlet for his feelings. He stood up, rigidly. "Let's get out of here," he hissed through tightly clenched teeth.

The heavy Hospital Wing doors flew open of their own accord, slamming loudly into the walls. Harry barely heard them.

"Oi! Wait up!" Ron yelped from behind.

"Ronald, you're supposed to be in traction until morning," Luna admonished, but made no serious attempt to restrain her boyfriend. "If you keep abusing that ankle, all the magic in the world won't mend it."

"Don't care right now, Luv. Something's badly off with Harry."

Harry glanced at Hermione and received a long-suffering nod of assent. Ron (and Luna, if she wished) could participate in whatever was going to happen.

They made a motley crew, with Luna the most normally dressed - undoubtedly a first. Harry's armoured shirt flapped loosely open. Hermione was in blood-spattered Healer Trainee's garb. Neville was unselfconsciously bare-chested, clad only in a pair of jeans and open, billowing robes, sporting an angry, just-Healed curse mark on his side. Ron inexpertly self-conjured a loose-fitting shirt and trousers from his tie-across-the-back in-patient's robes. He limped noticeably and had a Restraint Charm on his lame ankle, glowing brightly orange. Jazzy remained tightly vested in full goblin armour.

They reached the Ceremonial Library, which was essentially unscathed from Death Eater depredations. Seething, Harry plopped into one of the squashy chairs in the centre, not far from where, months ago, they first contacted the Sisters of the Moon.

Without waiting for the rest, Harry started swearing. "Goddam Ginny Weasley dosed me with Snape's goddam Love Potion ... and you too, Hermione, with bloody Draught of Despair...."

"Wait a minute," Hermione interrupted. "Who said anything about Snape?"

"Fucking Snape did," Harry uttered the name with utmost loathing. "That turncoat bastard bragged about all this when I duelled him on the roof...."

Disdainfully, he tossed Ginny's confession to the floor. Luna quickly Summoned it and shared Ginny's words with Ron.

Shocked that Harry had duelled Snape alone, Hermione's eyes darted to Ron, and then Neville. Silently, they both confirmed Harry's latest derring-do.

"Harry, you could have been killed up there."

"Yeah, but I was too busy trying to kill Snape to worry about that. Finally he Apparated off," Harry grumbled. "The goblins almost got him...."

Harry remembered something else. "Not only that, he told me.... He is the bloody Half-Blood Prince. You were right, Hermione, the Prince was a damn Death Eater...."

It was Ron's turn to gape.

"...Wrapped us around their damn fingers."

Before Ron could speak, Neville broke in urgently, "What about Ginny? That wasn't just a confession. It was a suicide note...."

"What about Ginny?" Harry threw Neville's words back at him. "If Voldemort's possessed her, maybe it's for the best. She played us all for fools; she strung you along...."

"NO, GODDAM IT!!" Neville exploded, refusing Harry's logic absolutely. "None of that matters right now." He tried to penetrate Harry's vengeful mood. "We're not her judge, jury, and executioner...."

Neville was not alone. "Harry, mate, I hate to say it, but I'm with Nev. I hate what she says she did, but she's still my baby sister. ...."

"She was in cahoots with effing Malfoy behind our backs," Harry scathingly stood his ground. "Malfoy killed Dumbledore little more than an hour ago...."

"She was possessed, dammit!" Neville gave Harry up as a lost cause and turned to someone he prayed would be more sympathetic. "Hermione, please," Neville pleaded. "You took pity on Cho...."

All eyes turned to the cleverest amongst them. She paled. "What are you asking of me, Neville," she responded in a hoarse whisper. "I'm not a bloody robot. You didn't have to see that - that little ... slut in the very act of seducing Harry away...."

Hermione seemed moments from breaking down - or blowing up.

Harry felt like throttling Neville, but wisely kept quiet. For the first time in literally weeks, Harry put a supportive arm around Hermione.

"...Because of what Ginny did, Viktor is dead for the sin of loving me more than I could love him. I came within seconds of becoming Voldemort's latest Horcrux...."

Neville and Ron gasped, the latter looking positively nauseous. Until then, neither had known exactly the horror Hermione had experienced.

"I'm, I'm s-s-sorry," Neville stammered, stepping backwards. "It's just ... someone else has something in common with Krum.... I'll go find her myself...."

"No, Nev. I didn't mean that I wouldn't ... just ... this is for me...."

"The Chamber of Secrets."

Everyone turned and stared at Luna, who until then had said nothing.

"Tom Riddle was defeated there once before," Luna explained. "She knows. That's where I'd go to finish the job."

"Oh, Merlin's ghost - GINNY!" At a dead run, Neville shot towards the stairway leading to the Chamber, his robes flapping behind him. Everyone else was in hot pursuit.

Save one.

Jazzy was hesitant to follow. She shared Harry's reflexive position, before Neville began pleading for Ginny's life. Hermione eventually would relent - she was too soft that way - and following her Harry would give in. As an outsider, with no ties to Ginny Weasley, Jazzy believed that the redheaded, double-crossing witch deserved to die alone and in agony for the sheer enormity of what she had set in motion.

Ginny herself agreed with her.

After walking halfway to Gryffindor Tower, curiosity and a novel sense of responsibility overcame Jazzy. She did wonder how events would ultimately play out. For once in her life, she sensed that this really was her business. It involved people who had shown her more kindness than anyone she could remember.

Jazzy turned around.

* * * *

Harry almost hoped that, this time, Luna's eerie intuition was off the mark. If asked, he could not have articulated his feelings about his treacherous ex-girlfriend, but were she to die by her own hand, Harry would not have lost much sleep.

No such luck.

With Dumbledore's gargoyle blown to bits, they accessed the Chamber with ease. Ginny lay, unconscious and barely breathing, in plain sight at the base of Salazar Slytherin's massive likeness. Luck - a relative term - was with them. Ginny had poisoned herself. Beside her was an open, half-empty can of Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover.

Her consumption of a great deal of the caustic substance was graphically evident. An acrid, slightly soapy odour, noticeable upon approach, surrounded her. Her body violently thrashed as, occasionally, her muscles involuntarily seized and spasmed.

Ginny's mouth was obscured by a thick scum of bloody froth. Her long hair was matted, and her cheeks thick with blisters and open sores from exposure to the corrosive powder.

For her final agonies, Ginny wrapped herself in her most beloved possession - the shawl Harry gave her for Christmas. Having selected that shawl for a clueless Harry (who would have chosen something Quidditch related), Hermione was staggered to see it. Had she unwittingly encouraged Ginny...?

Hermione's simultaneous realisation that the shawl might also be Ginny's salvation eclipsed such recriminations. The balls dangling from either end were bezoars. A bezoar would quickly counteract Ginny's self-poisoning.

Taking her Healer's Oath seriously, Hermione felt honour-bound to try to save Ginny's life - especially since Ginny had provided the means.

Once the bitch had recovered, things would be different. Azkaban was too good for her....

"Neville, I think she'll survive the most immediate crisis," Hermione explained, pushing aside retributive thoughts. "Ginny's shawl ... I helped Harry pick it. The baubles on the ends are bezoars. That should counteract the poison she's swallowed. That leaves us with the tougher nut, because if Ginny's note is to be believed...."

Hermione never finished. With word of the bezoars, Neville rushed to Ginny's side. Heedless of risk from caustic chemicals, he cleaned Ginny's face and mouth with his bare hands. He ripped a bauble from her shawl.

With a backwards, "I sure hope you're right," comment to Hermione, Neville shoved the bezoar down Ginny's burnt and bloody throat.

Hermione was worried. "Neville, have you considered that...?"

Harry was alarmed. "Neville, what are you doing? Have you thought...?"

Neville ignored them. "I'm trying to save Ginny's life," he replied brusquely. "You wouldn't think twice if this were Hermione, or you if this were Harry...."

Everyone backed off. Neville rejoinder was undeniably accurate, even if his premise was flawed, given Ginny's actions.

'Come over here,' Hermione Legilimenced to Harry, 'and bring the others. Don't say anything....'

Theatrically touching his finger to his lips in the universal sign for quiet, Harry motioned to Ron and Luna to follow him.

They did.

The bezoar worked its magic. Ginny's seizures abated. Her facial burns rapidly healed. Her breathing grew stronger and regular. Neville sat determinedly next to her, completely bare-chested. He stripped off his tattered robes to form a makeshift pillow.

The others perched on various parts of Long, Tall Sally's podiatric anatomy, arrayed behind Neville. Everyone wanted to hear what the confessed Love Potioner would have to say once regaining consciousness, especially Harry and Hermione,

They did not have long to wait.

Ginny started stirring - groaning as she did. Neville whispered her name, but nothing seemed to register. Instead, Ginny lapsed into unconsciousness for about thirty seconds before once again beginning to move. She let out a soft sigh, almost a whimper.

"Ginny?" Neville asked gently.

"Oh ... Neville...? You - you found me in time...? I - I don't believe it.... I wanted to die...." She groggily reached and took his hand.

"Well, you didn't die, and for that you can thank yourself," Neville replied. He closed his hand around hers.

"Were only I that strong, Neville," Ginny sighed. "I couldn't take it any more ... all the deception. It wasn't right. You know, it's always been you...."

"Maybe, but you bringing this shawl made it easy - since it comes with bezoars...."

Behind Neville, the others waited. Neville's body, and how Ginny was sprawled, blocked her from sight.

'What's she doing?' Harry Legilimenced to Hermione.

'Apparently she's trying to reconnect with Neville.' Even telepathically, her voice sounded waspish.

"I don't like this," Luna whispered from the other side. "Her aura's way, way off...."

Meanwhile, Neville's last comment surprised Ginny.

"I wasn't even thinking of that," Ginny answered. "It was a gift from ... how would you know about that?"

"You were lucky. Hermione told me," Neville revealed. He glanced backwards and shifted his position. Ginny saw, for the first time, that they had company.

"H - H - Harry!" Ginny gasped. "Oh, I'm sorry! I ... I couldn't stand it any longer. Everything was a lie.... So I tried to kill myself. Please don't hate me. I can't apologise enough...."

"Then ... then don't try," Harry answered testily, fighting his emotions.

"Neville, Luna's an empath," Hermione intervened, carefully avoiding addressing Ginny. "Okay if she checks her out?"

"Umm ... yeah, of course," Neville haltingly agreed. He moved away from Ginny, who remained lying on her side. Luna hopped off Salazar Slytherin's stone instep and approached.

Looking peevish, Ginny sat up and extended her arm, offering it to Luna for examination.

Luna grasped Ginny's forearm. She almost cried out in pain at the evil she felt....

WHAM!

Luna did cry out in pain and surprise. Ginny punched her in the face as hard as she could, drawing blood. Ginny grabbed the dazed Ravenclaw and roughly swung her around. Used the girl's forward momentum to regain her footing, Ginny simultaneously forced Luna to her knees. By then Ginny had her wand pointed squarely at the side of Luna's head. A grotesque voice, sounding like Ginny's but clearly belonging to someone else, addressed the stunned onlookers.

"All of you - drop your wands now, or this one's dead before she hits the floor. Both of them, Potter...."

"Ginny...?" came Neville's strangled voice.

"Back off, Long-boring!" Ginny jerked Luna's neck around so that Ginny's elbow pointed towards Neville. Her elbow emitted a nasty Cutting Hex. It missed Neville, but served its purpose.

Only a fifth year, Ginny Weasley had never learnt magic using other body parts.

Neville stumbled backwards as Voldemort's Horcrux, in total possession of Ginny's mind and body, repeated his demand. "Now drop them!!"

Harry's wand clattered to the floor. "I only have the one," he explained.

The rest followed suit.

"So," Tom/Ginny hissed, "I suppose you've figured out everything. She always feared you would - especially the Mudblood. You're too late...."

Dragging Luna with her as a human shield, Tom/Ginny manœuvred towards the door.

"Did you bring a basilisk fang to finish me off?" Tom/Ginny taunted. "I learnt from Slughorn that's the only way. What an insipid excuse for a Slytherin. Perhaps he told you the same."

'Harry, Riddle's using Ginny's memories - he knows about the new door,' Hermione silently communicated.

"You won't fool me a second time, Potter. Stay where I can see you!" Tom/Ginny ordered. He pulled Luna helplessly backwards, moving towards the exit.

Abruptly, she ordered, "Hands straight up, over your heads!" Following Harry's lead, everyone complied. Tom/Ginny carefully kept Luna's bleeding body between herself and Harry and Hermione. She (rightly) suspected they might know wandless magic. She espied the culvert of dark water that ran lazily through the Chamber.

"All right, get in," she motioned to the culvert. "Now...! I killed my own parents. What do you think this sorry excuse for a witch deserves?" She jammed her wand, its tip alight with the orange glare of some unknown, unspoken curse, into Luna's temple.

"P-p-please...," gasped a terrified Luna.

With a splash Ron jumped into the tepid water. Something hissed and he screamed in pain as he submerged. Ron emerged dogpaddling. The culvert was over his head.

Tom/Ginny smiled evilly. Keeping them swimming was good. "Everybody! Meaning you, Long-boring!"

With an even bigger splash Neville half jumped, half fell into the water.

At that moment, something moved behind Tom/Ginny's back.

'Did ... did you see what I saw?' Hermione shakily Legilimenced to Harry.

'Think so,' he returned tersely, searching for an opening and finding none. The thoroughly possessed girl's wand remained firmly pressed against Luna's skull.

"You, too, lover boy," Tom/Ginny sneered. "Or I'll make her a vegetable so fast...."

'Do as he says, but make the biggest splash you can,' Hermione silently directed.

Harry did, cannonballing into the black water.

"Now you, pathetic Mudblood.... Actually...." Tom/Ginny's eyes gleamed fiery red.

Only Hollywood slow motion could sort out what happened next.

With scorpion-like speed, Tom/Ginny whipped her wand in Hermione's direction. "Ava..."

"NOOO!" Harry screamed as he began pin-wheeling his hands.

"...da..."

Hermione dove for the floor, to the side away from Ginny/Tom's wand.

"Stup...."

Luna draped herself on Tom/Ginny's outstretched arm, trying to block the deadly spell with her own body. Her self-sacrificing action unfortunately shoved Tom/Ginny's wandtip - glowing deathly green - downward, in the precise direction the curse's intended target was ducking.

With a roar, the culvert's contents surged forward and upwards, as Fifth-Element magic generated a mini-tsunami.

"...Ked..."

The crest of surging water passed over Hermione's head as she flopped to the stone floor - presenting a smaller, but totally exposed target. From the base of the advancing wall of water, emerged a pair of hands; flat together as if in prayer.

"efy!!" Glowing fiercely crimson, a Stunner slammed squarely into Tom/Ginny's back.

Propelled by massive, unseen force, Harry's body knifed through the wave. His hands reached, fingers extended, for Hermione's still rolling form. An almost inhuman "NNNNOOOOOOOO!!!" tore from his throat.

"...av...."

Tom/Ginny went boneless and collapsed; the Killing Curse failing, uncompleted, on her lips.

Harry flopped to a clumsy landing atop Hermione. His momentum sent him skidding over her and face-first into the stone floor.

Tom/Ginny and Luna tumbled to the Chamber's stone as the mini-tsunami crashed into them.

"Aaagghhh!" Neville and Ron shrieked helplessly as water from both sides poured in to fill the gap Harry's magic created. They bobbed in the current until the culvert refilled and the force of flowing water dissipated.

The surging water rolled across the Chamber. Before dissipating, the wave washed Tom/Ginny and Luna backwards nearly twenty metres.

An angry "Incercerous!" rang out. Stout ropes wound around Tom/Ginny's limp body.

"I thought coming here was a bad idea." Her wandtip glowing, Jazzy emerged from behind one of the Chamber's many stone snake statues. "Thanks for covering...."

"Accio wands," Harry breathlessly incanted, simply extending an arm. From wherever the mini-tsunami had swept them, everyone's wands, including his own, shot into Harry's outstretched hand.

"Hey!" Jazzy yelled as her wand was yanked from her grasp. "I'm on your side!"

"Sorry ... and thank you. You saved Hermione's life ... and mine.... Probably all of us." Harry barely managed. Panting, he climbed off Hermione. He turned and offered a rather wet hand to pull Hermione to her feet.

"Oh ... Harry...." Hermione could take no more. She stayed on her knees and burst into tears.

At the sight of her weeping, Harry's own emotional bulwarks failed, and he sank to the floor beside her. "I thought you were dead...." He began crying loudly - great wracking sobs. He gathered Hermione in his arms.

Ron had pushed himself from the culvert. He tried to stand, but collapsed. Luna rushed over and leapt on him. They both started bawling. When Luna had moved to block that curse, neither Ron nor Luna had expected her to survive.

Still dripping, Neville crouched over Ginny's thoroughly hogtied body. "Oh, Ginny, what's happened...?" He joined the keening, as he had to accept that the love of his life was as good as dead.... Possessed by a Horcrux, no alternative existed....

"Okay, now what?" Jazzy shook her head at the lugubrious scene.

"Well, she's possessed by Voldemort, no doubt now," Ron admitted glumly.

"Yeah," Harry agreed, his heartbeat slowly normalising. "I thought I'd ended it here, before - you know when. No such luck. I guess it sought the most vulnerable living thing...."

"But why...?" Neville beseeched, sounding broken. "She seemed like ... well, herself.... If I've ever known the real Ginny...."

"I think Harry injured it," Hermione offered. Merely thinking helped reground her. "But why did it resurface now, after all this time?"

"Goddam Malfoy," Ron growled. "Galleons to gobstones, it was him."

The others agreed.

"Okay, but the question remains," Jazzy reminded everyone. "What do we do with Little Miss Voldemort, here?"

"Don't call her that," Neville snipped.

"What the hell can we do?" Hermione sadly assessed. "Nobody knows more about Horcruxes than Voldemort - the real one. He let something slip as he was readying to put one in me...."

Neville blurted, "Oh, Hermione, I'm sorry...."

"That's neither here nor there at the moment," Hermione kept talking to hold herself together. "Voldemort plainly thought that someone living - like me, or Ginny - had to die to remove a Horcrux. He hoped to force Harry into having to kill me...."

"I could never...," Harry mumbled, his face going white. "He would have won."

"No doubt his reason for doing it," Hermione continued. She reluctantly outlined the stark options. "I see no way around it. I suppose we should tell Professor McGonagall. Best to let her handle it...."

"Hermione...." Neville's face looked pained and ashen.

Ron had pulled into sitting position. "Are you sure?" he asked, suddenly wishing he were somewhere else.

Harry grimly supported Hermione. "What other choice do we have? Dumbledore and Healer Huxley both told me the same thing. Can't remove a Horcrux from anything living without killing ... er ... it. Well, unless - well I did, but I blew up everything in sight...."

"Dammit, I know you're bloody right!" Neville exploded. "It's just ... hell ... you're Harry Potter and I'm, I'm only Neville Long-boring...." He internalised the same insult Tom/Ginny had recently sneered at him.

Hermione tried mollifying. "Neville, you don't...."

"No, I don't! I can't! I just can't do the impossible things like Harry undoubtedly did to get you back safely."

Harry whirled about, fixing Neville with a crossways stare. Neville had no idea how badly Harry felt he had failed at the Château. Hermione had rescued herself. "Neville, you don't know...."

Hearing Harry speak, Neville turned his ire on him. "Maybe, but I'm not stupid ... just damn useless. Hell, Ginny was supposedly your girlfriend, but who did you rescue? Hermione. With Ginny's life in the balance, it's 'Oops, dreadfully sorry.' I knew you'd hurt her. Ginny never mattered, and screw Snape's potion if that's what it was, you've only ever loved Hermione.... Me, I can't do shite....! With no one to save her, Ginny's going to die...."

Neville's tirade struck everyone dumb

Except....

Luna, in her usual breathless voice, intervened. "Don't blame yourself, Neville. Voldemort, Dumbledore and Huxley don't know everything about Horcrux magic." Her calmness belied the ugly, swelling bruise purpling her cheek and almost closing her left eye.

"Only more than the rest of the world combined," Hermione put in.

"Doesn't matter. They sure as hell know more than us," Neville shook his head. His fight had fled. Shoulders slumping in defeat, he grumbled, "To hell with it. I've ... I'd rather do it myself. Better me than the damned Dementors...."

"All I'm saying is that there is another way," Luna persisted.

"Oh, Merlin, please no," Hermione whispered so softly that only Harry, standing close beside, heard.

Luna looked to Hermione. "I've said before; it's the position's primary function...."

Neville gaped.

Everyone save the two witches gaped.

"What's she talking about?" Harry asked softly.

"No! It can't be...!" Hermione shrieked.

Not since Ginny had punched Luna, had Neville felt hope. "Yeah, what?" he croaked.

Harry's supportive hand found the small of her back. "Hermione, you don't...."

Hermione trembled, from more than Harry's protective touch. "I - I - I saved you with it, Harry, when Ron cursed you. He used a Dark spell ... I was able...."

"You can remove evil?" Ron jumped in. "Please, Hermione, I only have one sister...."

"Please, Hermione," Neville echoed, even more insistently. Approaching Hermione, he fell to his knees. "Please. I'll give you anything. Any price. A future promise like Harry. An oath of fealty. Anything - just, please, don't let her die...." He teetered on the edge of tears.

"Oh, Merlin." Hermione's fingers pressed into her forehead. The Chamber's massive stone walls seemed to be closing in on her. "Do you have any conception what you're asking of me?" A month's worth of burning animus fuelled her burgeoning anger. "That bitch fed Harry a Death Eater's Love Potion, and me the Draught of Despair! Because of her, I was within seconds of becoming a Horcrux tonight. Not ten minutes ago she tried to kill me, again! And now...."

"She didn't try to kill you, Hermione," Neville tried interrupting her rant, "that was Voldemort. It's all Voldemort. Still, I see how you feel...."

"You have no idea how I feel!" she screamed, feeling put-upon and pushed beyond all reasonable limits.

Neville bowed his head and turned away. "I give up. I can't save her. All I can do now is see that she dies as humanely as possible...."

"Hermione, don't," Ron tried to intervene.

Luna shut him down. "Ronald, don't. It's her choice. She has to want it to work...."

"Why me, dammit? I can't take this anymore!" Hermione burrowed her face into Harry's chest and again tears flowed.

"Everybody, stay the hell away!" Harry angrily ordered. Effortlessly, he lifted Hermione into his arms and stalked off to the opposite end of the Chamber. After putting a couple of rows of carved snake statues between them and the rest, he conjured a privacy shield, Imperturbed it, and cast Muffliato for good measure.

He gently lowered Hermione, still softly weeping, onto a block of stone softened with a Cushioning Charm. Untangling her arms from his, he took her hands and began. "Hermione before I say anything else, I will support you absolutely, no matter what you decide. I'll help you save her any way I can, if that's your choice. If not, I'll tell anybody and everybody to sod off.... Just say the word...."

"Oh, Harry, I'm sorry to be this way," Hermione moaned. "Am I such a horrible, vindictive person...?"

"No, you're the...."

It had been a rhetorical question. Hermione plunged on. "...Neville's on the bloody floor in front of me, begging me to save Ginny's life, and all I can think of is how I never want to see that awful back-stabbing hag again for as long as I live. I'm supposed to be a Healer, dammit! I took an oath! But having anything to do with her, after all she did to me - to us - makes my skin crawl! I can't...."

"Then you won't," Harry reassured. "I'll tell them Ginny went too far. The Dementors can have her...."

"Harry, no."

"Let me do it," Harry repeated. "You've been through enough. If Neville and Ron want to hate someone, they can hate me...."

Harry offering to shoulder blame that Hermione considered hers alone changed everything. She did not want Neville, Ron, or anyone, hating Harry. She took a deep breath. "No, Harry, I'll do it...."

"What?"

"Save ... well you know ... her."

"Really?"

"I think ... yes. If I'm to be a Healer, I'm honour-bound to use my best efforts."

"I suppose," Harry grudgingly consented. "And you say I have a saving people thing?"

"Harry, you just dove in front of a Killing Curse...."

"We're talking about you, here, not me."

"Umm ... well, I'm expected to separate personal emotions from...."

"Well, excuse me!" Harry interrupted. "After what she's done, isn't anything involving you, me, and Ginny personal?"

"Yes ... but saving her life doesn't have to involve you."

Harry protested. "I have a Krup in this hunt, too. She's wronged me worse even than you...."

"Worse? Than Draught of Despair? Really."

"Hermione - she violated me! Personally. What she did, I feel ... well, if it happened to you, I'd call it rape...."

"So, since you're male you don't believe...." She dropped the point, seeing Harry's pained expression.

She let him gather himself. "No," he barely whispered. "I'm just - well, I guess, ashamed to admit it."

"Harry, don't be."

"Can't help it.... You really want to help Ginny?"

Hermione could hardly believe Harry's - no, both of their - complete flip flop. "Now you're trying to stop me?" Hermione asked archly.

"No, not really.... I only want to enforce your condition - and one of my own."

"What condition?"

"What you said. I never want to see Ginny's face again, either."

"You mean, if she lives...?"

"She goes somewhere far, far away - permanently. Think about it. It's for the best. How much to blame her, rather than Voldemort, I can't say.... Given what she's confessed to, and what she just tried to do, she's facing I don't know how long in Azkaban...."

"For sure." Hermione agreed. "She used an unknown Death Eater potion, Snape's, on you, and a ... umm ... probably Schedule I controlled Potion on me. That's probably ten years, right there...."

"She just tried to AK you."

"Life, then.... Since she's mixed up with Malfoy, who knows what more she might have done?"

Harry nodded, pleased at her voicing his other major concern. "Which leads to condition number two - my condition."

"That is?"

"I doubt she did, but if Ginny helped Dumbledore's murderers into the Castle, all bets are off. What she did to us is our business, but if she has Dumbledore's blood on her hands, she deserves the Dementor's Kiss."

Hermione could almost feel Harry's anger, bubbling just below the surface of his currently calm demeanour. "I agree with everything you said."

"Okay, now what?"

Harry's countenance brightened. "We release her confession note like she succeeded. The goblins will help Neville sneak her out. McAllister can perform an Unbreakable Vow. All we need is a fake body...."

"I can handle the Transfiguration, and I think I know what we can use...."

"Done, then?"

"Yes."

"One last thing."

"Okay."

Harry reached beneath his still damp cut-off t-shirt and yanked out of his navel....

"Oh, my! The rings. Harry, what's this all about? You mean you...?"

"Kept them rather close once you'd returned them, yes," he finished her sentence. "I just ... couldn't bear giving them up. I'm not asking about this one." He showed her the engagement ring, its jewels oddly inverted. "I can hope, but I know I have to re-earn your trust. Umm...."

"Harry, don't. Not now," Hermione cautioned.

Harry backed off, knowing - at least guessing - how much pain he must have caused her. "Nothing more than I deserved," he admitted. "Please keep the other. The Auror ring is yours. I never felt more miserable and useless than today, once you'd gone missing and I could do bloody nothing to help...."

Her face relaxed, "That must have been horrible ... sure was for me." She accepted the Auror ring, carefully not touching the other. "What did you do to it?"

"Long story, best told later," Harry tried to change subjects. "It was charmed to give alarm if the Château were attacked.... Umm ... Hermione, you mentioned 'us' a bit ago.... Do you think we could still be? I think Neville was right about...."

"Let's hold that for later, Harry," Hermione coolly deflected his question. "We have a job to do."

Harry and Hermione returned to the others. With him playing "bad Auror" and her "good Auror," they gained acceptance of their compromise plan in relatively short order. Luna helped, pointing out that, assuming everything worked, the Ministry would never believe they had removed a Horcrux. Hermione, a Druid High Priestess?

Ultimately, nobody could deny that, unless she went into exile, Ginny would at best grow old in Azkaban, and that assumed she avoided a Dementor's Kiss.

If Ginny survived the Horcrux's expulsion - a big if - Neville agreed to hide her temporarily. Harry's majordomo, Jerry McAllister, would administer two Unbreakable Vows, one between Harry and Neville, and the other between Neville and Ginny (Harry wanted no direct dealing with the traitorous Weasley) to enforce her agreement and banishment. Neville could then send, or take, her anywhere outside Europe.

Lifetime exile.

Luna privately confirmed that those arrangements - unlike Neville's prior offers - conformed to Druidic prohibitions against the High Priestess accepting emoluments.

The first step was returning Ginny's confession/suicide note on her bed, so someone would eventually discover it. A Displia and an A priori later, the note was like new. Everyone would believe that Ginny's suicide had succeeded. Eventually, Neville could inform Ginny's parents of the true situation, or not, provided that he kept mum for at least a year and a day.

Hermione employed her human Transfiguration skills to create a body. Harry used his fortified version of Accio to Summon Hagrid's dead boarhound, Rotfang.

Hermione's healing spells could infuse poison realistically into, and throughout, the fake body. A surprisingly satisfying Lesson 128 spell mimicked a Horcrux's destructive demise.

Hermione believed she dispensed poetic justice - creating Ginny's faked corpse from a female dead dog.

Jazzy saw none of that. In addition to Ginny's note, Harry gave her another, authenticated with his Manmak. He deputised her to request a few goblins - not more than a dozen - to come to the Chamber. They were easy to find since Goblins had essentially seized control of the Castle's security. Ginny would receive one last benefit from goblin Cloaking magic.

After finding the goblins, Jazzy would replace Ginny's note.

The most important task remained - expulsion of the Horcrux without killing Ginny.

That was the plan.

Few things ever go as planned.

Initially things went better than planned. Restraining Ginny in less bulky fashion was relatively simple. Hermione elongated Ginny's sleeves, and Neville tied them firmly about her waist. They kept her thoroughly Stunned - nobody wanted Ginny or the Horcrux to know what was happening. Luna and Hermione went ahead, and Neville floated Ginny's body down the corridor towards the Founders' Chamber. Ron limped along at the rear.

The closer they could get to the Gnomon-Cenotaph, the better.

For whatever reason, the Founders' Chamber wards were down. Slowly, expecting to encounter some barrier at any moment, they crept all the way into the Chamber. Reaching the Blue Stone, they deposited Ginny neatly in its person-sized depression.

Things almost went awry when, after conferring with Luna, Hermione announced that the subject of this magical exorcism (not mentioning Druids specifically) had to be naked. For different reasons, the party's three males all found that requirement extremely objectionable.

Grudgingly, Neville and Harry acquiesced. Ron outright refused to participate until Hermione conjured him a set of very dark glasses. Peeved at his immaturity, she created an outrageously pink-framed monstrosity only Rita Skeeter could love.

Ron took them without hesitating.

The preliminaries over, Hermione nervously assumed the position of honour, Luna behind her to assist with Keltoi spellwork. "Okay," Hermione began. "If this works, what happens to the Horcrux?"

"I've been thinking about that," Harry responded from the foot of the Stone. He already his remaining wand unsheathed. "I think her shawl fills the bill."

A Sticking Charm suspended Ginny's shawl from the apex of the ceiling - directly above its unconscious owner.

Harry pulled out his Invisibility Cloak. "Ron, Neville - once ... whatever comes out, does, I'll handle the Horcrux, but you need to slip this over Ginny and hold it tight. It will protect her from any fallout...."

"Why can't we do that now?" Ron wanted to know. "That way I could lose these shades."

"What are you planning, Harry?" Neville asked warily.

"I'm making damn sure that thing has only one place to go - and stays away from us. To force it in the right direction, I'll use something really, really cold...." He and Hermione exchanged knowing looks.

"Umm ... okay."

"You have to pass the Cloak beneath the Horcrux, Ron," Harry told him. "So keep the shades for now. He turned to the mæstro of the upcoming event.

"You ready Hermione?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"You know how to start," Luna whispered in her ear. "Search for the Stone; this step's easy, since you can touch it...."

Hermione closed her eyes and sought the telltale feeling she had learnt from three prior uses.

Nothing.

Gripping the Stone with both hands, she concentrated with all her might, a cold sweat breaking on her brow.

Still nothing.

Ginny's life hung in the balance. All her friends watched her expectantly. Hermione had no idea what was wrong.

She started to tremble.

Luna approached her from behind. "Hermione, is something off?"

Through gritted teeth, Hermione hissed, "I - I can't ... feel a thing, even when I touch it...."

Laying a hand on Hermione's arm, Luna was almost breathless by the intensity of Hermione's efforts. Quickly letting go, Luna lost her balance and braced herself against the Stone.

Her jaw dropped. Powerful magic thrummed through her body, calling her, inviting her....

She had found the Stone.

"Hermione," she whispered. "I don't know how or why, but I'm channeling the Stone...."

"Oh, thank Merlin ... take over, please. You know this so much better than I."

Jaws dropped when Hermione stepped back. "I can't ... but Luna can...," she breathed, exhausted. Hermione slumped against the far wall, looking forlorn and beaten - yet unmistakably relieved.

Luna started an incantation nobody could follow. Harry Legilimenced. 'If Luna can do it, I'm overjoyed. It should be her....'

'I hope so, but if not, they'll blame me,' she fretted.

'Out of our hands, I reckon,' Harry shrugged. 'Can you help with the shields?'

Desperate to be useful, Hermione nodded and moved to the opposite end of the Stone. She overlooked Ginny's head; Harry her feet.

The Stone began glowing, first deeply blue, but steadily brightening. Harry tried pacing Luna, but her cadence was so unfamiliar that he simply stopped and watched. A luminescent, sky blue liquid slowly percolated into the Stone's depression, surrounding Ginny's nude silhouette.

Luna built to a crescendo, and Ginny started shivering and shaking.

The glowing blue liquid responded. Tendrils, seemingly alive, crawled up Ginny's sides and held her fast. They snaked over her, linking up. Stimulated by Luna's unintelligible chants, the tendrils gradually covered Ginny's legs, arms, torso, breasts, and even most of her face.

With the glow illuminating her face from below, Luna appeared almost spectral. She ended her incantation with a scream worthy of a banshee, and abruptly went silent.

Ginny began convulsing as violently as her pliant restraints permitted. Still thoroughly Stunned, she thrashed and grunted, her unseeing eyes bugged halfway from their sockets. Finally, with a soft hissing sound, a foul-smelling reddish-black vapour emerged from her mouth, nose, ears - and other less polite orifices.

"Now!"

"Protego Omnibus!" Harry and Hermione incanted in unison. Their shields collided and merged into a rough funnel that separated everyone from the noxious remnant of Voldemort's soul.

"I'm lowering my end to begin the next phase," Harry announced. Bolstering himself with Occlumency, he steadied his wand.

"Finite! Frigidio Maximus!"

The oily black vapour pulsated as it rose to avoid Harry's spell.

"Now, Cloak over Ginny but under the Horcrux!" Hermione ordered. Snow was already falling onto the girl.

Ron swung into action, flinging one side of Harry's Invisibility Cloak across to Neville. The dark glasses obscuring Ron's vision meant his throw was a bit off, but Neville still handled it.

They pulled it tight just in time. Flakes of several atmospheric gasses, solidified by cryogenic temperatures from Harry's spell, began showering down. Every now and then Neville and Ron, who quickly doffed the pink sunglasses with the Cloak safely in place, gave the Cloak a pop to remove any flakes not already re-evaporated.

Harry gradually raised his spell's focal point, driving the erratically undulating free Horcrux steadily upwards - away from Ginny and towards the shawl hanging from the ceiling.

Harry concentrated; his off arm braced on one corner of the Stone. Finally, a tiny, fathomlessly black spot appeared. Utterly devoid of anything radiating, or even reflecting, light, the Bose-Einstein condensate grew as Harry applied more Fifth Element power into creating absolute frigidity.

The bit of Voldemort's soul fled the resultant energy vacuum. Finally, the Horcrux contacted Ginny's shawl, emitted a soft, sucking sound, and disappeared into the shawl's apparent shelter.

"Now, Hermione!" Harry grunted.

"Fluvius!" Hermione directed her wand at the shawl. She doused it with water at the same time Harry aimed his elemental freezing magic directly at the shawl. Within seconds, the Horcrux in the shawl was encased in a rock hard mantle of ice.

Neville's quick thinking - a just-in-time Arresto Momentum - prevented the last complication. The ice's added weight overtaxed the shawl's rather weak Sticking Charm. But for Neville's spell, Ginny might have been hurt one last time by the falling Horcrux.

Hermione led a still thoroughly perplexed Luna away from the Stone. Harry conjured a large polystyrene container, and Ron Levitated the ice-encased shawl into it.

"What next?" Ron asked Harry wearily.

"Seal this up. Stash it safely with the goblins for a couple of days. After things calm down, I intend to give that thing a thorough cleansing - with crystallised Basilisk venom as detergent."

Harry turned to Neville. "She's all yours. Get her the hell out of here. Jazzy should have summoned some goblins to the Chamber with my instructions to help you steal away undetected. I'll be in touch about the vows and other stuff."

Finally, he turned to Hermione. "We have a lot to talk about, but not until we both get some sleep."

* * * *

Author's notes: Absolutely, positively is a FedEx slogan

Draco destroyed the talisman that he had been using to control the Horcrux

When driven from their resting place, Horcruxes seek out living things

In Ch. 79 Draco supplied the Bowtruckle, and Ginny set it upon herself, knowing Harry would rescue her

Canossa, a town in Northern Italy, was where Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, stood barefoot in the snow for three days in 1077 seeking forgiveness from Pope Gregory VII

Knowing not to get in Harry's way, separated Hermione from Ginny that night

A quetzalcoatlus is the largest known flying reptile from the Cretaceous Period; the idea is from Dinotopia

"It is a good day to die" - a line from the movie "Little Big Man"

The pilot's Death Eater hunting later helps Harry

Baker's dozen = 13

Many of the spells in the Death Eater battle were used in Ch. 49

The Kew Gardens firefight was in Ch. 23

Think of Harry as Spiderman

Sound and fury signifying nothing - from Macbeth

The smoking cupboard in Dumbledore's office controlled the Castle's wards; it was described in Ch. 36

Snape is still a double agent; as at the end of HBP, he uses his duel to advise and inform Harry during their final encounter

The finale of HBP is running in the background, including Snape as the Half-Blood Prince

Bewitch/ensnare is verbatim from Book 1

The Face Fogging Charm is courtesy of Daphne Greengrass in Ch. 77

Nothing but a flesh wound is a Monty Python reference

The D.A. training that saved Neville's life was in Ch. 72

In HBP, a Rotfang Conspiracy was one of Luna's wild ideas

Rotfang's death becomes convenient

Hermione first used Fluvius Azote in the duel in Ch. 49

Ginny sentenced herself to death; Harry and Hermione are more generous

Alkali and flesh, with enough time, equals soap

Harry's shawl purchase was in Ch. 66

Long Tall Sally is a disrespectful nickname for the big Salazar Slytherin statue in the Chamber

The silent H/Hr communication, and Harry's big splash, were because they had noticed Jazzy, and were trying to aid her getting closer

Luna first told Hermione this in Ch. 80, when Hermione saved Harry from Ron's Sectumsempra

Hermione was afraid Harry was going to propose again, and maybe he would have

Neville's offer to give Hermione anything to save Ginny was a bribe in Druid eyes

A year and a day is a common legal period for various changes of status

Hermione exploded the head of the transfigured dog

They created a straitjacket for Ginny

The Founders' Chamber is described in Ch. 35

The Castle's emergency, backup wards did not reach the Founders' Chamber

Ron got Far Side glasses

Keltoi is the ancient Celtic tongue

In this fic, neither Harry nor Hermione are killers, nor are they vengeful. Ginny thus escapes with exile, although in her own mind she deserved to die

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C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\HP & The Fifth Element.ch51 Padfoot's legacy.doc 12/25/2016