Harry Potter and the Burden of Becoming

Harry Potter and the Burden of Becoming

Chapter 70 - The Power That Lies Within

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Deep in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic, ancient stone walls, roughly hewn, watched as the young wizard cast panicked glances on every side and into every corner. These stones had seen many deaths, many horrors, and had come to expect the worst from wizards and witches. But this wizard... this wizard was different. They sensed that first last year when he burst through their doors chased by evil. They felt the anguish of his heart call out when he lost his loved one; something they had rarely felt even in the oldest of days. Tonight, on the night of the full moon, when they helped guide his path into this chamber they felt a new purity in his spirit and were happy for his first victory over darkness. They had grown weary through the centuries of the travesties performed in the name of righteousness and they, like the wizard with the glasses by the dais, sensed the impending battle. How many more must be murdered in this chamber? There was a great groan and the stone floor shuddered. Tonight, it would end.

Gabriella let out a short shriek as the small earthquake quickly came and went. Harry was oblivious, looking at the walls and back through the roiling golden mist. Why hadn't he remembered this feeling upstairs? He should have known then that it wasn't Voldemort floating before Hermione. The feeling tumbling his insides was new, untested, yet the nausea was now crashing within telling him what was about to happen. He gazed intently at the figure still forming behind the veil. If it was Sirius, he was nearly through, but so was--

"Hide!" he screamed to Gabriella and her brother Antreas who still looked as if he were in a state of shock. Only, there was no place to hide. Aside from plunging into the veil, the singular way to leave was up the great slabs of stone steps and that would mean leaving the basin behind for Voldemort to control, and if Harry were to spill it now Sirius would be lost forever.

"Run!" he yelled. "Get out, they're coming!"

Without asking, Gabriella heaved hard to help a much larger Antreas to his feet, but both she and Harry knew that there was no way her brother would be able to climb the steps. Harry pulled his wand to cast a locomotor spell, but it was too late. In the same instant, the air filled with the sound of popcorn cracking in every direction. Hooded Death Eater after hooded Death Eater filled the stone arena. Nearly two dozen black robed wizards, some of them quite short when compared to the others, surrounded the three still standing at the dais. Harry and Gabriella held their wands at the ready as Antreas knelt weakly back to the floor. There was no sign of Voldemort, but Harry sensed that the Dark Lord was close; he'd simply sent his henchmen to clear the way for his meeting with the Lady. A meeting that would never come, at least not in the way Voldemort had hoped.

"Where are you, Tom?" thought Harry, scanning the upper steps with his wand held high. "Come out come out wherever you are."

As the Death Eaters oriented themselves to face Harry and his friends, he pulled Gabriella closer and pushed her down next to Antreas beside the stone dais for what little protection it could provide, at least from one side of the room.

A short squat wizard to his left seemed to take offense to the motion and raised his wand, but a voice Harry knew all too well drawled out.

"Stop, you idiot!"

The short wizard lowered his wand and held his head down, backing away from Lucius.

"Why," Harry thought, "would they not want to blast him?" But then a glimmer of golden mist caught his eye, and he knew what they were after. Anaxarete was to release Voldemort's army for him, perhaps as a wedding present of sorts. If the basin spilt, the curtain would close and Voldemort's army would be lost. He straightened himself, steadying his wand at the black hooded figure he knew to be Lucius Malfoy.

"Still in charge then, Malfoy?" he asked with an impudent tone. "Or did you have to give up more parts to stay in his good graces?" There was no answer as the ring of Death Eaters edged in more closely, a few stumbling trying to negotiate the steep steps. "Let's see... Peter gave up his hand, you gave up an arm, when does Bellatrix give up her neck?" He was hoping to provoke a response, and he did.

"Where is she Potter?" demanded Bellatrix from behind her mask. She was two to the left of Lucius and kept looking all about. "Where's the Lady?" It was unusual to hear her so nervous. The ring of black robes edged down and in once again. Harry considered using his wand as he glanced at Gabriella and then to Antreas. She shook her head; Antreas would not be able to help, and even if he could they had no chance of defeating so many. Then an idea came, and he pointed his wand sharply at the basin.

"One more step and she'll be lost in there forever!" he cried, hoping they'd believe the lie.

"You fool!" Bellatrix howled. "You pushed her through?" Then she began to cackle. "Well, if he wasn't going to kill you before, boy, he will now. And if he doesn't," her voice grew sinister, "she will."

"She won't kill anybody if I blast the basin," Harry threatened. He could see the figure growing more corporeal behind him.

"Is she coming?" whispered one of the Death Eaters excitedly. "Is that her?" Nearly all looked at the figure coalescing behind Harry.

"You'll not threaten me again, Potter. Kill the redhead," hissed a high cold voice near the entrance to the death chamber. Harry looked up and knew at once it was Voldemort; he could see him -- he could feel him. Without hesitation, the Death Eater to the right of Lucius pulled the black hood off of his nearest companion to reveal Ron Weasley, his voice silenced by a Silencio spell. Lucius spun on the spot and lifted his wand to kill Ron.

"No! Wait, my Lord!" called another Death Eater whose voice stalled Malfoy. Harry didn't need to see under the hood of the shorter wizard; it was Draco, Lucius' son. Draco turned to Voldemort who was gliding down from the top of the stone steps. The Dark Lord's eyes flashed red; Draco knelt low. "My lord, this one is a Legilimens, the one that brought back the Longbottoms. Inside the castle he would be very useful... with your guidance." With an evil grin, Voldemort moved lower and raised his wand.

"Crucio!" he sang. From thirty feet away, the spell struck Lucius squarely and he cried out in agony, dropping to his knees and nearly tumbling down the steps. A moment later Voldemort stopped the spell. "Lucius," he said as softly as if the two were sitting down for tea, "why did you not tell me the boy reads minds? Surely Severus brought this to your--"

"I did not know my-- Ayyyy!" he screamed again as Voldemort struck him one more time for the interruption. As soon as he stopped, he turned to Harry. The Dark Lord looked intrigued.

"Harry... Potter," he sneered, emphasizing the P and looking as if he beheld some grotesque creature chained inside a cage. Then he gazed passed Harry at the figure continuing to take shape behind him. Voldemort's eyes were filled with curiosity, interest, and eager anticipation. The boundary between death and life was his greatest fascination and the Curtain of Phenolem was a very dark and ancient magic. Harry imagined that the last time Voldemort held the same expression was at Hogwarts when he was simply Tom Riddle. The moment stood frozen: Harry threatening to destroy the basin, Voldemort trying to understand the magic at work behind the curtain, when the Dark Lord let out a short laugh. "I warned her of your ingenuity, of your skill... traits you have undeservedly pilfered from me." Voldemort bared his teeth and revealed rows of sharp stumpy points lining his gums. "Unmask the bushy haired bitch!"

Further to the left of Ron, a Death Eater slipped off another mask and there stood Hermione Granger a deep gash across her face was still bleeding down her neck. Again, Voldemort laughed, but it was not jovial in the least. To the contrary it was a threatening laugh, an ominous laugh.

"Six Death Eaters!" scorned the Dark Lord; two black robed wizards took a half step back. "Can you imagine, Harry? It took six to capture this mudblood and bring her here alive." He glanced about the room. "I must say my collection is wanting." Then he glared at the golden curtain. "But that shall soon be rectified, thanks to you... boy."

Voldemort continued to approach ominously toward Harry, and soon he was only a few feet away. Harry could clearly see the slits in his read eyes, the flattened face, but worse was the smell. It rivaled that of the breeze still streaming from the curtain. Then Voldemort took note of Antreas and Gabriella hunched on the floor by the dais.

"Ah, more friends of yours, Harry?" He flicked his wand and Gabriella and Antreas flew across the stone floor and rammed straight into Hermione taking the Death Eater next to her down as well. Harry raised his foot over the basin, precariously balancing on the other.

"Harm them, Tom," shouted Harry, "and I'll smash it, I swear."

"YOU impudent..." Voldemort flicked his wand as if swatting a fly and Harry went sailing across the floor, smashing his head into the stone wall above his friends, only to crash down on the floor. For a moment, he couldn't see -- all was a brilliant white as if a thousand flashbulbs were bursting inches from his face. Still, he could hear the Death Eaters roar with laughter. Harry knew his left arm was broken, possibly a rib on his left side, and he could taste the blood in his mouth as Hermione gasped. He felt her warm touch against his face

"What are you smiling for?" she asked in a whisper, as the Death Eaters continued to laugh.

"Tell the others," he rasped hoarsely, "hold tight to each other; hold tight to me." Once again, the great stone room began to tremble. And as it rumbled, raining pebbles and dust onto the floor, he heard Hermione whisper, and then Gabriella. The tremor also quieted the Death Eaters' jovial laughter as Harry's eyes slowly began to focus. He felt Hermione grab him from one side and Gabriella from the other, and he looked up at the dais where Voldemort now stood.

"We're ready," Gabriella whispered in Harry's ear, although he wasn't sure if she had moved her lips.

"When she emerges," slithered Voldemort, "I will allow her to kill you if she desires. It can be my gift. Perhaps now she will understand why I am the most powerful wizard in the world." His words were haughty, self-centered as if Voldemort had debated this fact before, and Harry thought he and Anaxarete would have made a wonderful couple. Alas, it was not to be.

Smiling about Ana's prenuptial death, Harry winced as he reached into his pocket and pulled, not the ball of cinnabar, but a small furry object no bigger than his hand. Around its neck was a golden ring through which Harry slipped his finger. "Pull in case of emergency," Harry chuckled to himself. Well, if this wasn't an emergency, he didn't know what was. Still with blurred vision, Harry looked up at the image of Voldemort standing on the dais. Next to him, through the archway and into the swirling mist, a figure was now emerging.

"She's arrived!" someone yelled.

"Hail, Anaxarete!" the room cried in unison. All the Death Eaters fell to their knees, only Voldemort stood his hand outstretched in welcome. Harry pulled the ring off the molamar and onto his finger, and then held tight with his one good arm to the back of the molamar's neck.

There was a snap as a Death Eater Apparated into the death chamber upon one of the highest steps. He missed the mark and began to tumble down steep stone step after steep stone step, thud, thud, thud, then finally came to rest on the floor next to the dais. Broken, he forced himself to look up at his master.

"They're coming!" he squeaked with a mousy voice. "Severus sent me to warn you!" And then he collapsed on the floor.

"Bloody fool," cried Lucius behind his mask. "The rat's shown them the trail!"

The room began to jerk in sharp swift shakes, as if the walls were laughing. Harry felt sand splashing against his hand as the tiny molamar chewed away at the rock. He could feel the creature growing underneath him while at the same time it fell away. The walls began to shake more violently, and the floor beneath him began to sink. The dais was rocking back and forth, undulating beneath Voldemort's feet and causing him to stumble backwards. His foot landed squarely on the lip of the golden basin, flipping it over and spraying the liquid all over the lower portion of his legs. There was a blood curdling scream as Voldemort cried out in agony.

As Harry felt himself being pulled downward, his vision sharpening, he could hear more pops and snaps in the chaos. Aurors and members of the Order were flooding into the chamber above. Instantly, the room above erupted with tremendous flashes of light.

"Draco, stand behind me!" cried out Lucius.

"What's happening?" screamed Hermione as she, Harry, Ron, Gabriella and Antreas were being pulled underground behind the enormous living drill.

"Hang on! It's a molamar!" cried Harry, closing his eyes against the dust. With the Death Eaters distracted, Hermione summoned both her wand and Ron's just as the chamber above faded from sight. Only flashes of colour filled the tunnel, growing before them.

"I-I can't hold on," said Harry cringing in pain, "I need--"

"Arripio!" erupted in both his ears as both Hermione and Gabriella simultaneously cast gripping charms adhering the group to the back of the molamar as it continued to dig its way underground with amazing speed.

"Better," said Harry still choking in the dust, but feeling a far sight safer than in the chamber above. The creature was astonishing, digging through stone as if swimming in water.

"Are... you... mad?" cried Ron, spitting dust with each word. "We'll be b-buried alive!"

"And back-ck there is better?" questioned Gabriella, sputtering herself.

Harry could tell they were digging deeper; their weight was resting comfortably against the soft dusty fur of the ever growing molamar. From Hagrid's class Harry knew that as the molamar plunged on it left an ever widening hole behind where it had been, but the tunnel's darkness made it impossible to see. Then, suddenly, the creature stopped.

"Lumos!" cast Ron, trying to survey their situation.

They had dug a tunnel some ten feet wide that twisted down and away from the chamber above. In less than a minute, they had traveled at least one-hundred yards. Gabriella noticed the gash on Hermione's face and closed the wound with a blue light from her wand. There was a loud rumble as the creature lifted momentarily from the ground, and then a foul stench filled the air.

"Oh, that's bloody awful, that is!" cried Ron holding his hand over his face. "A molamar fart?!"

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the creature began again, twisting to the left in search of more organic material. By the light of Ron's wand Harry could see that they were traveling mostly through stone, and he grew a bit concerned that the only organic material nearby was the five of them stuck to the molamar's back.

"I could have gone all day without that!" yelled Ron.

"We can climb back up if you want!" yelled Harry.

They seemed to be twisting randomly in no particular direction. Harry wondered how Hagrid and Firenze had controlled the molamars to build the caverns beneath Hogwarts. No wonder there were so many earthquakes shaking the school grounds. A moment later Gabriella asked to see Harry's arm.

"It's broken," she said with concern as they continued to glide through the earth.

"Yeah, I kind of figured that," said Harry, smiling back with the mask of a coal miner. Everyone's face was covered in a dull black dust.

"Madame Pomfrey showed me a little trick," said Gabriella. As they gently bounced along she held his arm in her hands and muttered a spell he didn't understand. He was about to tell her to make sure and leave the bones there, when he felt a cool sensation over the break that vanished as quickly as it had come.

"Better?" she asked.

"Brilliant," he whispered, squeezing the fingers of his left arm. He looked back at the tunnel behind them. "You know, they might try and follow us," said Harry, thinking out loud.

"Not with so many of the Order to fight," said Ron emphatically, still holding his lit wand high. "They'd need to be possessed to care about the bunch of us. Why on earth would they want to..." and he stopped himself, remembering the prophecy of Harry's fate. "Oh, right." Ron positioned himself a little closer to his best friend.

"Well, Harry," said the redhead defiantly, "Voldemort will have to take us all to get the one."

"That's right," said Hermione, pulling her wand as well.

Gabriella simply squeezed his hand. Harry felt a warmth and closeness he had long missed. He felt energized, and remembered the strength Dumbledore gathered as he strolled along the corridors of Hogwarts with students at his side. It was a bit like the Four Musketeers; they all had their wands out, all that is except Antreas, who was still fading in and out of consciousness. The molamar stopped again; the creature and the tunnel it was creating had grown to some twelve feet across.

"Please no!" cried Ron. "Please, please, please--"

R-R-R-RUUUMBLE.

The explosion of gas lifted the creature and the five stuck to its back a few feet off the ground. Everyone groaned, Ron the loudest. The stench was twice as foul as before and made Harry's eyes water.

"Move you foul beast!" commanded Ron, turning his wand around.

"Ron, no!" Hermione cried, but it was too late. A blast of red light emitted from his wand, and the creature squealed, eating its way straight upward as a blast of flame ignited the tunnel below. After about ten seconds they had climbed some hundred feet and the real possibility that the molamar might decide to put itself into reverse and crash downward, plunging them into flame, had crawled into everybody's mind. A few seconds later, it was no longer a concern. The molamar breached like the squid out on the lake into a great room, its dim light nearly blinding relative to the darkness they had just escaped.

"Finite Arripio!" cried Gabriella and Hermione at once. The five fell to the wooden floor as the molamar plunged back downward.

"Rigamortus!" cried Hermione, striking the molamar in the back causing it to freeze in suspended animation.

"Reducto!" said Gabriella, and the molamar began to shrink.

"You two are a bit scary, really," said Ron looking at the two women with rather self-satisfied expressions on their filthy faces. "You'll, er... you'll need to put that ring thing back on its neck or it won't...erm..."

"Harry, do you have its stasis ring?" asked Gabriella. He was a bit surprised that she knew about molamars, but then she lived much closer to the desert than Harry. He handed her the ring of gold that was still around his finger and she slipped it around the molamar's neck. The five finally had a moment to relax.

"Is everyone, okay?" asked Harry, trying to slap the dirt from off his robes with his hands.

"Honestly, Harry," sighed Gabriella. She flipped her wand and the dust fell from his robes as if it were being magnetically pulled back to earth.

"That's a good one," said Hermione excitedly, and pointed her wand at Ron. "I think I'll have a try."

"Not on me, you w-..." She cast the spell, but instead of pulling the dirt to the floor, it pulled all Ron's clothes to the floor. "Hey!" he screamed trying to cover himself.

"That's a good one too," said Gabriella with a grin. "What was that wrist movement?"

Soon four of them were clean; Hermione was exasperated that Ron refused to let anyone point a wand at him again, filthy robes or not. They all took a moment to catch their breath and take in the scene around them.

Harry had never been to one with the Dursley's before, but he suggested that the room looked like a museum of sorts. The walls were wood, roughly cut into long planks that reached up to the ceiling some thirty feet high, but there were no windows. It was filled with collections of Muggle artifacts: fine sculptures and paintings, tapestries and toilet seats.

"Maybe we're in an art museum somewhere in London," Ron suggested.

"You don't find collections of toilet seats in an art museum, Ron," corrected Hermione, "unless it's a modern art museum." She shrugged her shoulders as they looked at the long rows of knick knacks.

"Where do you think we are?" asked Gabriella.

"We're probably miles from the Ministry," said Harry.

"No," a voice rasped from behind. They all turned to see Antreas pulling himself up on one knee his eyes blinking. He held his hand toward the wall, wanting to say something, but unable to find the words. Gabriella rushed to her brother's side as the others turned to the wall. Ron narrowed his eyes, then closed them. An instant later they were wide open.

"GET DOWN!" he cried. Everyone obeyed and in that same instant a huge stone slab flew through the wooden wall sending shards of splinters and rock everywhere. Harry and Hermione cast shield charms as the stone tumbled toward them, crashed, tumbled and crashed again flipping up and over their heads only to come to rest on the row of toilet seats. But then the seats exploded sending the stone slab back their way. Hermione and Harry couldn't turn fast enough as the slab was about to crush them. A voice from behind them called out.

"Hasrestra!"

The huge stone froze in mid air five feet over their heads and gently descended to the ground between Harry and a row of green telephones that bore small labels: Prop #221: Arthur Weasley, Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office; Explodes when placed next to ear. Harry turned to see who cast the spell and found Antreas on his knees brandishing his father's wand. His face bore the expression of someone just waking early in the morning.

"Papa!" gasped Gabriella. "Antreas, Papa is with you!"

Through the yawning fissure in the wall left behind by the large flat stone, streaks of light were jetting everywhere. Harry looked up and saw the same gray stone and immutable gargoyles staring down at the battle below.

"We're still in the Ministry!" cried Ron.

"Brilliant," said Hermione rolling her eyes. "Any more revelations, Ron? It's the warehouse from your father's old job!"

Staring through the gaping hole, Harry was transfixed at the streaks of light filling the room on the other side. Everyone now battling about the bottom of the chamber was oblivious to the fact that Harry and the others were in the room next door. Searching for any sign of Sirius, he began to walk to the hole in the wall and his hands began to tingle; Voldemort was still close. Harry moved to have a better view.

"Harry, no!" called Gabriella. "We must leave, now!"

He stopped to look back at the four of them. Antreas was now standing; he was taller than his father, and far more muscular. He too waved for Harry to leave.

"Gabriella's right," he said with a voice that hinted of Grigor. "We must leave before they discover our--"

"Presents!" hissed a high cold voice, snakelike and incensed.

Harry looked up at the entrance to the artifacts room and found Voldemort floating off the ground. His first thought was Tonks. From the shin down, Voldemort's legs were gone, and his robes tattered as if they were burned by acid. "The basin," thought Harry, remembering his last sight of Voldemort. He reached up to his breast pocket and felt the vial beneath his robes; there was at least nine gallons of water remaining, he was sure.

The Dark Lord's red eyes were filled with rage and focused on one thing only -- killing Harry. If the water removed the evil within someone... Without a word, Harry ran and jumped headlong through the gap in the wall just as a jet of green light passed to his left further widening the fissure.

Harry entered the ancient arena of death to find it a shambles. Gargoyle heads littered the floor. The flat stone that had just blasted through the wall was the dais that once lay at the bottom of the chamber, although the archway and black veil remained, the golden glow was gone and there was no sign of any golden basin. There were bodies littered everywhere, but still more than a dozen wizards were battling, filling the room with resplendent colours as shards of stone flew in every direction. Harry didn't look to see who they were; his mind was elsewhere.

Before the year began, Dumbledore sat with Harry in Grimmauld Place and told him of the enemies he would need to forgive, enemies that he would need as allies to defeat Voldemort. "None of them deserve your hatred, Harry. What's more, the day will come when we will need many of these people, and more, to help us in the fight against Voldemort. Would it be possible to forgive them all without being asked? When you can, you will have accomplished that which I could not. You'll have tapped into the true power that lies within each of us. On that day, you'll be ready, Harry, and you'll know it." Tonight, in the Ministry of Magic, Snape had defended Hermione against Tonks and then turned to take the Auror to St. Mungo's to save her life; Draco risked his life to keep Weasels from being murdered; and even Grigor Darbinyan acting through Antreas saved Harry and Hermione from being crushed beneath the tumbling stone dais. The sequencing of events had led him inextricably on a path to this one moment. What was the true power of the falls? Harry slipped the vial from his pocket and, holding it tightly in his fist, he closed his eyes and thought of all his enemies... even Bellatrix Lestrange.

"I forgive," he whispered, as blast after blast echoed in the chamber around him. He opened his eyes and felt a warmth flow from his heart and into the vial; it flashed a brilliant white then dimmed looking almost invisible against the flesh of his hand. Harry levitated the vial high above the fissure through which he'd just passed and let it hover near the face of an aged gargoyle. For a moment he looked at the stone creature's features... there was something in the eyes.

A blast of green swept past his face breaking the trance and he turned to run, but tripped over a body sprawled out on one of the great stone steps. Facing the fissure, crawling backwards on his hands, he waited for Voldemort to appear. He didn't have to wait long. Ignoring Harry's friends in favor of his singular prey, the Dark Lord floated into the gap with the solitary focus of destroying Harry once and for all. His snake-like face was oblivious to the mayhem about them.

"Your time has come to an end, Potter... a mosquito that I am now ready to swat." Blasts of light from the warehouse for misused Muggle artifacts framed the fissure where the Dark Lord floated striking him in the back, but they had no effect. Indeed, Voldemort looked every bit the Dark Lord, framed in a brilliant ever changing glow that made him appear all the more invincible, all the more evil. Voldemort lifted his wand.

"Zipper-Pitch!" cried Harry, suddenly realizing one of Voldemort's greatest weaknesses, something of which Voldemort would have no understanding... a game. A bright purple light spit forth from Harry's wand, but traveled slowly, no faster than a falling Quaffle toward Voldemort. It was an absurd spell really and, worse than that, it was well off the mark clearly heading high over the Dark Lord's head.

"Is that the best you can do, Potter?" he crowed. "Is that what they now teach at Hogwarts, pathetic spells cast by pathetic wizards? I should have crushed you long ago." The light from Harry's wand slowly floated towards its target, but Voldemort, ignoring the floating fairylike glow, was still framed inside the wall. He needed to come closer... and he was. The blasts that were raining down on Voldemort from behind were causing no damage, but they were moving him forward, ever so slowly into the chamber of death. Just a few more inches. Voldemort again raised his wand to kill. Harry stood to his feet in defiance, prepared to die if that was his fate, particularly if meant bringing Voldemort down with him. But then there was a rush past Harry's shoulder.

"Let me, my Lord! Let me kill him!" From behind Harry, stumbled Peter Pettigrew. The squat Death Eater nearly fell as had Harry, but kept his balance grabbing the burnt threads at the bottom of Voldemort's robe and serving to pull the Dark Lord just a few more inches into the room.

"Perfect," thought Harry.

"Fool!" cried Voldemort. He looked down at Peter and was about to punish him, but hesitated. There was a purple glint in Peter's eyes as they looked up past Voldemort to the spell Harry cast; it had reached its target. In Peter's pupils Voldemort saw the flash of purple burst bright, he heard the tinkle of shattered glass, and... he looked up just as the nearly nine gallons of water from the falls of Hogwarts fell onto his face and soaked his robes.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named began to scream as the evil in his eyes was burned away, but the sound was cut short as the evil in his voice was similarly consumed. Harry sat back breathlessly as Voldemort's body began to rinse away beneath the plummeting waterfall, like a sandcastle vanquished by the rising tide. The room fell silent as all watched the Dark Lord's black robes fall to the floor with nothing but a plume of black smoke curling upward toward the ceiling. They watched the murky cloud rise and then disappear into the mouth of the stone gargoyle directly overhead.

Someone shouted, "He's dead! The boy killed him!"

At the same instant, the walls began to tremble more violently than ever. First dust, then pebbles, and then great slabs of stone began to tumble down. The floor beneath the archway that held the veil began to sink. A few pops reverberated from about the room as some fearful Death Eaters Disapparated. Harry ran to Voldemort's robes and with his wand flung them aside expecting to see Peter cowering beneath them. But the Dark Lord's servant was gone as well. Even as the remaining gargoyle heads that had lined the ceiling began to collapse inward all around, a grand smile crossed his face. The twisting of his insides, all sense of sickness had vanished. Voldemort was gone; Harry had won.

"Father!" cried a voice from below that Harry knew quite well. He looked down to see Draco Malfoy perched on a finger of stone at the bottom of the death chamber. Beneath the Slytherin's precarious perch gaped a cavernous hole. He clutched the stone with both arms as it shook beneath him; there was no wand in his hands. Harry jumped two steps at a time and reached the left side of the void that was widening beneath Draco. Harry didn't think the molamar had dug such a cavern; something more was at work here. He reached out toward his friend.

"Take my hand," Harry to Draco, as jets of colour still screamed across the room.

"Take mine!"

Lucius Malfoy had appeared to the other side of his son, and he too held out his hand, his only hand.

"Draco," said his father, "he's dead! The power is ours to control! Take my hand and we'll begin again!"

"Don't do it Draco!" cried Harry. "It's not the path; you know it's not!"

Draco smiled at Harry and leaned toward him holding out his hand. Relieved, Harry took it in his, but felt something cold and hard. Draco pulled his hand away leaving a small circular piece of metal in Harry's palm. "So you'll know what I saw in the mirror," he said enigmatically, his two gray eyes firmly fixed on Harry's green.

There was another rumble and the finger of rock began to give way. Both Harry and Lucius cried, "NO!" just as Draco leapt to his father's side.

"It's not about power, Harry!" he called as the rock continued to crumble all around. "It's about family!" Draco's lips curled in an unhappy smile. Lucius pulled him close, and together they Disapparated from the chamber with a snap that he could not hear in the rumbling earthquake. Still clutching the circular disk, Harry stepped back from the widening hole beneath him. It seemed to be swallowing the entire room. He took another step backward and felt the sharp poke of wood in his back.

"The blood traitor," she hissed; it was Bellatrix. "Turn around, Potter. I want to see your eyes when you die."

Slowly Harry turned to see Bellatrix Lestrange. Her face was slashed, streaked in blood, and her robes tattered and torn. She had been battling long and hard.

"I'll kill them all for running!" she cried, castigating the Disapparating Death Eaters. "Don't think he's dead, little boy. He'll return!" She tried to say these words with confidence, but Harry saw the flicker of doubt in her eyes. She raised her wand.

"Avada Ked--" She stopped; her eyes grew wide. Suddenly, the skin around her eyes thickened and enveloped the look of surprise beneath. Like a rapidly spreading fungus, her flesh kept growing until it covered her nose and mouth. She couldn't speak; she couldn't breathe. She dropped her wand and clawed at her face. Harry watched as her colour began to turn blue and she slumped to her knees. When she did, Harry saw who had cast the spell. Standing just five feet away watching Bellatrix suffocate to death, her wand still pointed at the witch writhing on the floor was Nymphadora Tonks.

"Tonks!" cried Harry, but the Auror in black robes didn't register Harry's voice. The call was a mixture of joy for seeing her standing and fear as he watched what she was doing to Lestrange. "Tonks, stop! You're killing her!"

"Let her die," Tonks replied with a hollow voice. "We failed him, Harry, and it was all her--"

"Release her now, Tonks," snapped a stern wizard three steps up. "Or I'll take you over my knee!"

Harry's stomach rose to his throat, and he saw the same reaction in Tonks' eyes. At the same time the two looked up to see Sirius Black, haggard as ever but wearing a broad white smile. Tonks jumped to grab him but he held out his hands and pointed to Bellatrix.

"Listen to Harry," Sirius demanded.

Harry looked down to see the witch struggling on the floor; her wand slipped over the edge into the sinkhole below. Tonks released the spell just as Sirius sealed Bellatrix in glistening white ropes and levitated her body off the ground. Smiling, Harry turned to run to Sirius, but his feet gave way to the soft earth as it crumbled beneath him and he fell backwards into the gaping darkness.

"Harry!" he heard both Tonks and Sirius scream. The sound of his name seemed to fade as he disappeared into the nothingness.

Falling, he closed his eyes and focused his vision on the happiest moment of his life and with a loud pop Apparated behind the witch and wizard he'd just left.

"Harry!" screamed Tonks still looking over the edge into the yawning hole. She moved to jump after Harry when he grabbed her by the shoulders.

"I think he'll be okay," said Harry. She spun to see him smiling at her.

"You!" Tonks yelled as she wrapped him in her arms. "If you ever--" Sirius grabbed them both.

"We need to get out of here, Harry!" he said forcefully. "The whole place is being sucked down."

"Through there!" yelled Harry pointing at the fissure in the wall. Pulling Bellatrix with them, they crawled up over Voldemort's robes and through the crack that had been split by the great stone dais. The others still inside the stone arena gave up the fight and Disapparated to places unknown. Harry was the last to escape, struggling over a large hewn stone as the wall behind him began to collapse completely away. Gabriella grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the artifacts room. She kissed his neck and held him close.

"You did it, Harry!" she said, trying to hold back the tears. "You did it!"

Looking back, they watched the great stone archway that held the Curtain of Phenolem plummet downward into darkness and disappear into the deep. The walls and floor stopped rumbling just as suddenly as they started. The entire chamber was now nothing more than an enormous, bottomless, black pit. Stepping back, Harry opened his dusty hand and looked at the small disk in his palm; it was silver or more likely white gold or platinum. Shaped like a thin coin it was polished flat to a high sheen. If it was a talisman, it didn't look like one. There were no engravings, no markings of any kind save for a small hole that might accommodate a chain; just his own reflection looked back at him from the glossy silver surface. Harry smiled sadly and slipped the coin into his pocket, then he turned into the artifacts room and saw Ron, Hermione and Antreas next to Tonks and Sirius.

"We did it," he whispered, thumbing the small coin in his pocket.

Gabriella held him in her arms and they walked over the debris littering the floor to his friends... to his family. He stopped in front of Sirius and looked up into his godfather's eyes. It was almost too good to be true, and he was at a loss for what to say.

"How, erm..." He swallowed. "How have you been?"

Sirius barked out a tremendous laugh and pulled Harry tight into his arms. Harry closed his eyes. It was real. He opened his own arms wide and ignoring the sharp pain in his ribs squeezed with all his might. The heaviness of his heart had lifted and light poured out from his soul. Great heaving sobs filled the air; everyone was crying. Finally, Sirius pulled away and held Harry's wet face in his hands.

"I'm fine, Harry. How are you?"

Harry blinked. "Never better."