Beyond This Point Lie Monsters

At the edge of the mariner's
Map is written: 'Beyond
This point lie Monsters.'
(Rita Dove, Primer to the Nuclear Age)

Part 4 ~ Walking on Glass

It still feels strange, you often muse after the night you broke with Albus Dumbledore and made your move on Lucius Malfoy, how an edifice as forbidding as Malfoy Manor has managed to become an almost home in three short weeks.

To your surprise, sex has come to you as naturally as Quidditch, only that it's a game in which falling is actually fun. You never talk to Lucius about Tom, although you know that on some of the nights you spend alone, he shares Lucius' bed. You keep a careful, unspoken balance. On the one hand you really don't want to know what they do together, but sometimes you still wonder how those extreme egos can accommodate each other. If they ever let go of their power struggle long enough to have fun.

The bedchamber is the one place where you refuse to be on your toes. Sharing your body gives you a sense of calm that goes far beyond the shield against the manor's invasive magic which is provided by Lucius' arms. And there is the additional bonus of baiting Tom without having to say a word. Oh, he would never acknowledge that having to share his bedmate infuriates him, but you see it in the strained curve of his neck when he looks away from you, and in the tense line of his jaw when he doesn't. You may be as powerless as a Muggle, but it doesn't matter here.

You spend your fair share of nights in Lucius' bed, and most of the days on the duelling floor. Lucius insists that you - and Tom - spend nearly every waking moment acquainting yourself with Gryffindor's sword and the art of using it.

Not that he bothers to teach you in person. Instead, he directs you to one of the ground level galleries and instructs the house-elves to rearrange the paintings there, exchanging prim Malfoy ancestresses and wild-eyed sorceresses for life-sized Malfoy ancestors of past centuries, armed with both wands and swords. A low-level necromantic spell - an advanced version of what wizarding painters use to bring their portraits to life, Lucius explains - permits them to move freely in the corridor between their frames.

It's not as if the painted Malfoys can really duel with you, of course. There isn't anything remotely like force behind their blows, but they teach you technique, and occasionally the ghost of one of Lucius' ancestors slips into its painted shell, and the burn of a ghostly blade, not painful but sliding grave-cold through your body, teaches you as much caution as sparring with Tom does.

You hold your own, and well, with a non-magical training blade. Tom isn't slow or clumsy, but he lacks your Seeker's reflexes. In his hands, even Gryffindor's sword isn't distracting enough to gain him more than the occasional victory that his skill would secure him anyway.

When you wield it, however...

It had been distracting, even painful, to carry it through Hogwarts. In Lucius' Slytherin fortress of a manor, it seems challenged to burn even brighter with its own power, enough to turn into agony at the touch. It first stings, then burns when you clasp the hilt, and discomfort turns to searing pain the more tightly - and the longer - you hold on to it, until it rises to an almost Cruciatus-like level. You can feel the weapon's inherent magic crawl through your veins in search for some answering call inside you, and it sears you viciously when it finds none.

Tom doesn't need any effort to disarm you when you wield Godric's sword. In fact, he much prefers to draw out the mockery of a battle, knowing that the pain will mount the longer you hold the weapon; and watching you suffer remains a source of endless fascination for Tom Riddle.

After disarming you at last, he forces you flat on your back on the ground, doubled up in pain. The tip of his own blade slides along your throat in a provocative kiss.

"Poor little Muggle," he murmurs, crouching down to have a better view of your face. "So helpless against the magic, and on the ground before its betters, just as it deserves..."

"... says the jumped-up, half-life Mudblood," you sneer with a mental apology to Hermione for employing ferret-face's insults. But for this one, it's more than appropriate.

He backhands you across the face in retaliation - in so thoroughly Muggle a fashion that you think it a pity he's not yet skilled in Legilimency and can't take that thought out of your mind - and turns his blade to open a nasty gash from the side of your neck to mid-chest.

That, predictably, Lucius refuses to heal, but he worries the cut, and the nearby nipple, with his mouth and tongue that night until your vision threatens to grey out under the onslaught of pain and pleasure. But that he took you to bed in the aftermath, not Tom, must surely be as good as a statement, mustn't it?

***

Lucius himself spends an extraordinary amount of time in his study and private library. He tutors Tom there too, but never tells you just how he goes about preparing for the battle to come. You're pointedly left out of those meetings, and that bothers you more than the nights Lucius spends with Tom. But he keeps honing your Occlumency, the only one of your abilities that hasn't vanished with your magic. Which makes sense, in a way - it's a mental, wandless discipline, reliant on willpower far more than wizardry. You'd much prefer if he wouldn't use Legilimency in the bedroom as well, though, where he proceeds to dig embarrassing desires out of your skull, and goes about turning them into reality whenever he succeeds.

You are granted three weeks of this relative respite. And then comes the night when Lucius steps out of his study not for another round of Occlumency, but in familiar heavy black robes and with a faint expression of pained distaste on his face. The fingers of his right hand rest on his left forearm, and that really answers all possible questions.

You hear robes rustle as Tom leans forward to put the tome he's been reading back onto the table.

"It's time," says Lucius, and the blood hammers loudly in your ears for a few long heartbeats.

Tom reaches for the Sword of Gryffindor, which he never leaves out of sight as if having it about would score him a belated victory over the old Founder. You both rise almost in unison.

Lucius throws you your Hogwarts cloak while Tom tugs on a simple black travelling robe and transfigures a couch pillow into a shoulder sheath to carry Godric's sword over one shoulder while having his hands free for his wand. Or for your wand, rather. Then he stops and turns, very casually, and swings at you, bruising your cheek with his knuckles and enough force to send you sprawling back onto the settee.

"To keep up appearances," he drawls without even pretending he didn't enjoy that, while you glower and rub your smarting face. Bastard!

Of course you know the plan: pose as a prisoner until Lucius has presented Tom and the Sword of Gryffindor to Voldemort, and then use a concerted attack while Lucius occupies the Death Eaters. You also know that there has to be more to it, but Lucius has always insisted that it has nothing to do with you, so you'd be better off not knowing. Not knowing leaves you with a sense of uneasy dread. You remember Dumbledore's warning about Lucius' duplicity, and your own acute awareness that in this game, you're a tool first and foremost. But well, you've known that all along, haven't you, and you've made your peace with the knowledge. The facts don't change just because now you think that you might have something to lose. Many people had, over time, and fate never once cared. Like it didn't care when it took Sirius, stealing your only remaining family and Remus Lupin's last surviving friend.

Lucius' mouth twists, and the way he holds himself shows that the burn of the Mark pains him. Against all reason, seeing him vulnerable makes you shiver. You've always been told to stay away from the fight, and stumbled in regardless. Now, for the first time, you truly know how it feels when failure is not an option. It scares you more than anything.

Lucius pauses despite the pull of the Mark, white mask in one hand, wand in the other.

"There is one last thing," he says, and you notice the nervous scrape of Tom's boot against the floor that echoes the itch in your own toes. The wand comes up, pointing at the two of you. "I will link your minds before we leave."

It does not surprise you all that much, but Tom recoils, a low hiss escaping his lips that you don't need Parseltongue to decipher. So he did not know quite everything, either...

"I won't share my mind with that Muggle filth!" Tom snaps. Lucius lifts a hand to smooth a few stray curls behind Tom's ear, but he ducks away from the touch.

"You will cooperate," Lucius commands coolly. "We don't know what the prophecy will draw on to fulfil itself - our young friend's powers, or his personality. Linked, you'll be able to react quickly. Not to mention that Harry's Occlumency can shield the two of you from the Dark Lord's onslaught."

A shudder runs through you at the thought. You wish you could share Lucius' seeming confidence in your abilities.

Tom gives you a look that doesn't bother to disguise the flood of hate in his eyes. He looks older than his years and more alien than ever, standing stiffly upright with anger, the sword hilt tucked against his shoulder and dark hair and eyes almost swallowed up by the black of his cloak. You wonder about the loyalties of this warrior stranger. He hates you so much - would he sacrifice everything you have worked so hard to obtain, just to see you go down?

He does not make a move to deflect Lucius' spell, though, and the "Communimens!" hits you both at the same time. It grabs your mind with the instinctive greed of a hippogriff snatching for a dead ferret, and you feel it tweaking the curves of your brain until a cold hiss resonates through them that surely can't be coming from you.

'Riddle?' you probe.

"It works," Tom tells Lucius, out loud and without acknowledging your thought.

Lucius' fingers tilt your chin, lifting up your head and roping you back to reality. "Harry?"

"Yes," you croak, luxuriating in the touch for a moment, aware of the flare of contempt that flickers over your mind through the link.

"Let's go, then."

Lucius binds your hands in the Hall of Apparition, with a magical spellcord that both he and Tom can dissolve with a thought. The fear hammers in your chest again unbidden, although you know how much the crucial surprise effect will depend on appearances. Surely Voldemort will be suspicious enough as it is. And yet, you have no proof that they won't just push you to your knees in front of the Dark Lord and laugh at their giant jest. You don't expect it, no, but this game comes without guarantees.

Then Lucius' Disapparition Cone envelops you and pulls all of you out of the manor and towards whatever desolate plot of land his master has designated.

***

The Cone spits you out on grass, slippery from the evening dew. Hands tied behind your back, you crash to your knees from the impact.

A first glance reveals that you are standing on the slope of a hill in a softly undulating countryside, bare but for a few windswept shrubs here and there. A muddy footpath with some gravel in its centre winds further up the hill and disappears in the greying dark behind the knoll. A few dozen yards further down the path, a dark-robed crowd has already gathered.

There is a whisper in the surrounding air when you look up. From the scimitar-shape of the early moon, light spills over your upturned face, illuminating your scar. The delicate silver fastening of the cloak at your neck doesn't serve to hide the bite of the cut that runs across your throat from your recent sparring with Tom. Together with your bruised cheek, it will hopefully give them all the impression of the Boy Who Lived subdued after a hard struggle. You can feel their anticipation like a fist around your heart.

"Guard him," Lucius orders Tom, audible for the benefit of the surrounding Death Eaters. Tom grabs your elbow and yanks it so roughly that you gasp and skid forward on your knees on the muddy ground while Lucius makes his way to the centre of the gathering. Their master hasn't arrived yet - you would feel his presence in your scar.

Just then a stab like from a white-hot needle pierces your forehead and wrings a groan from your lips, followed by a bone-deep shudder. The hooded figures sink to their knees like a garden of night-blooming flowers before the storm. The thought that your Lucius is among them sends a sliver of rage through your body. You feel Voldemort's power, a burnt taste on your tongue, and Tom's hand clenches around your forearm reflexively.

"Occlumens!" you whisper and wipe both your minds as clean of the presence as you can. It's impossible to shield against it completely, but the pain in your scar is reduced to a bearable level.

'Potter!' Tom's thoughts snap through the mind-link, acknowledging you for the first time.

'What is it, Riddle?' you snap back.

'This is your destiny, isn't it?'

'What's your point?' you hiss nervously. If he's discovered a flaw in Lucius' plans, now's too bloody late!

Tom inclines his head at the skeletal form of the Dark Lord, surrounded by his creatures further down the path.

'He's me, little Harry. He's powerful. He could assist me on the way to greatness far more quickly than Lucius...' His hand slithers up your shoulder to stroke your neck until the hairs stand up with trepidation at your nape. 'He might even let me have you, to kill as a reward.'

'He'd kill Lucius too!' you protest furtively. You've already had this kind of talk before.

'Ah, but that would happen sooner or later.' Tom's mind chuckles against yours. 'But here I am, about to fight your battle against a powerful enemy, when I hate you so very much... why should I?'

Helplessness crawls through your stomach. If Tom betrays you now, it's all over.

'What do you want?' you cry, shivering. He hasn't stopped petting your neck all the while, such a soft contrast to the poisonous steel of his words.

'You want me to fight for you, Harry? I will - I'll risk my life for you, even.' He pauses and you know, as you know him, that there will come a death blow at the end of it.

'But in return, I want you. Your life, freely offered. Your word, on your Gryffindor honour and on your mother's soul, that you won't lift a hand in your defence.'

I swear I will kill you, Harry. But not today. The memory rings in your head. So he's planned this all along, has never intended to give you even the dream of a chance...

'You horrible, repulsive bastard!' you think weakly. There is no way out, you realise as Voldemort waves Lucius to rise and turns in your direction. No choice.

'Is that a yes or no, Harry?' Tom insists mildly.

'Yes, damn you to hell.' Your thoughts spill out faster than words ever could. 'My life, no defence, on my mother's soul!' Just don't betray us now!

You don't think the last bit clearly, but you feel satisfaction pouring in through the crack in your brain that is the link.

The pain in your scar intensifies as Voldemort approaches up the gravel path, Lucius in tow, the Death Eaters forming a guard of honour for them both.

'So be it.'

Tom's mental voice trails off in a faint whisper and his hand leaves your neck, splaying on your back to push you head down. Cold wetness seeps through your robes and the knees of your trousers, and blood hisses in your ears like snake-tongues.

But the Dark Lord's first gaze isn't directed at you. Out of the corner of your eye, you see his eyes fall on Tom instead, travelling sharp and red over the monochromal vision of his younger self. You feel Tom's tension through the link as a bony hand takes hold of his chin and lifts up his head.

"A most unexpected gift, my slippery friend," he murmurs to Lucius. "And so very secretive you have been about him..."

"An intriguing side effect of stripping away young Potter's powers," Lucius replies, directing Voldemort's attention from Tom to you. "And what is a touch of pain compared to being able to present my lord with such a gift?"

You gag with revulsion at listening to Lucius expressing such servility. He nearly died under Voldemort's Cruciatus and the monstrosity's vile magics! But Lucius bows and steps back into the front rank of the Death Eaters, while Voldemort keeps studying Tom's face with an inscrutable expression. It's the first time - apart from when Voldemort faced Dumbledore in the Department of Mysteries - that he pays you no attention at all.

"I've never expected to come face to face with this particular memory again," he muses aloud. "So you've come to serve me, little one?"

A flash of disgust flickers though Tom's mind, and you see the muscles in his jaw tense under Voldemort's fingers. There is a very familiar line of cruelty in the curve of Tom's lips, which makes your mouth go dry with fear.

"No, I don't think so," Tom sneers in a low, contemptuous tone. "But I'll make sure not to end up mad, clichéd and looking like a nursery boogle when I rise to power."

You notice the surreptitious move of his fingers and feel the ropes binding your hands behind your back vanish.

There is a flare of rage clawing at your mind through that other link that connects you with Voldemort. Rage, but not all that much surprise, and none of it evident in his voice.

"I though so," he states, and suddenly his wand is in his hand, aiming directly at Tom. "Lucius would not have dared defy me if he hadn't been planning a coup." The lipless mouth twists into a hideous grin. "I'll dispose of you quickly, little shadow, before we can begin killing young Harry and your bare-faced traitor of a master."

There is no way Tom can escape the Killing Curse with Voldemort's wand pointing right into his face, you realise with cold dread.

Before he can speak, however, a sudden explosion of white erupts all around you - you, Tom, and Voldemort. Duelling Wards - Kingsley and Tonks have demonstrated them - well, in theory - for the members of Dumbledore's Army at the beginning of Seventh Year. They're designed to form a magical circle around the combatants, dissolving only when one of them is dead. You dig your teeth into your lower lip. You're entirely on your own now. If things go wrong, Voldemort can pick you off one after the other at leisure.

In a momentary flicker before the ring of wards flares up to full strength, you see a number of dark shapes appearing outside among the Death Eaters. You just have a second to spare on a prayer that those aren't reinforcements - Lucius has no chance of taking all his comrades alone. He'd better have a plan - but then, he usually does.

The moment of surprise buys Tom the time to slip away from under the wand, and Voldemort's belated "Avada Kedavra!" dissolves greenly over his head. Tom shrugs the sword sheath off his shoulder just as he goes for his own wand, and gives it a push in your direction.

You dive for it, but Voldemort's wand snaps towards you.

"Crucio!"

The curse takes you to the ground in a heartbeat, tears an agonised scream from your throat until your cheek is pressed into muddy blades of grass and your spine arches gracelessly under the spill of acid that burns through your bones. The sheer force of the curse is a tribute to Voldemort's fury about the trap his trusted lieutenant has sprung on him.

"Is this what Lucius has sent against me?" You can hardly hear the vile chuckle over your own shrieks as you writhe at his feet. "A memory, a magic-less child and a piece of scrap metal?"

"Finite Incantatem!"

Tom's voice cuts almost as sharply as Voldemort's own.

You suck in a feeble breath that still burns with the aftershock of the Cruciatus, and push yourself up to your knees with effort. Through bleary eyes, you register the flurry of curses Tom throws at his alter ego. He's fast, so fast that his wand tip is almost a blur, but the Dark Lord counters them all as they come flying. And then he pushes back, forcing his young enemy into undignified hops to evade the deadly spells.

You can feel how Voldemort pours some of his vile essence out over his younger self's mind to slow him down, so you force up your shaky barriers. Occlumency, at least, is something you still have up your sleeve. Voldemort hisses as he encounters the barrier, but unlike on other occasions, when he was sitting in his throne room with a whole night at his disposal to violate your defences, he hasn't got that leisure in the middle of a magical duel.

Blood drips from your scar into your eye, but you wipe it off and crawl the few paces towards where Godric's sword lies, the rubies on the hilt obscured by mud. Even that provides little protection, however, as the magic curling in the hilt warms under your tentative fingers. Warmth, then a prickling like from a nest of red ants, then the first slivers of pain. You do your best to ignore it as you get to your feet.

A zigzagging burn mars the shoulder of Tom's robe, and now his wand flicks come slowly, as if the tapered length of holly was caught in treacle. As you watch, he tries to hoist himself away from another flash of light, but it cuts over his hip and the side of his belly, and the scream he refuses to utter aloud echoes through your mind. Skidding on the mud, you stumble forward and aim a swipe at the tall figure of the Dark Lord. The blistering force of the Cruciatus has sapped strength from your muscles, however, and all you manage is a weak slash at his side. There is a paper-like rustle as the blade cuts skin, as if all the substance remaining in Voldemort were parchment over bones. It does not seem to slow him down. It just makes him angry.

"Fragmentarium!"

The wand flicks in your direction, a mere after-wriggle in the complex flurry of spells he's thrown in Tom's direction, but a thin purple flame dances over your chest, and although you let your body drop to the ground in an instant, the crack of one, two ribs snapping sounds sickeningly in your ears even before you feel its effect.

There is no air for the few terrible moments in which everything seems extraordinarily clear, and you're almost sure he's followed up the first spell with the Killing Curse. But your vision is framed with red, not green, and at last a shallow breath rattles back into your lungs. You suck in air as rapidly as possible, in short gasps over the ache in your chest. It hurts, yes, but there is no metallic taste or anything blubbering in your chest cavity. Praying that the spell has not disrupted anything vital, you turn over and push yourself back up onto hands and knees.

There is a vicious sting as your right hand meets the ground, as if you had touched a Knarl. You look down to see Godric's sword gleaming up at you. With a fatalistic sigh, you take it up again.

Dread creeps into your bloodstream as you take in the scene in front of you. Tom hangs in the air before Voldemort, near-immobile with your wand still gripped in his hand, but unable to move. His hood is down, his hair a dark mess. Watching from behind, it is uncannily like watching your own trapped self. One of Voldemort's long white hands is holding Tom by the throat, the other is splayed over his chest, and you're altogether too familiar with the pull he's exerting to know that, no, Tom can't fight that, not with his wand hand paralysed and him being what he is. You'd know it even if you couldn't hear Voldemort's taunts.

"You thought you could fight me, little golem, when you are nothing but a failsafe, a mere vague shadow of myself?" He snickers, high and delighted as Tom tries in vain to struggle free. "I'll make good use of young Potter's powers, which you have so generously provided for me." You can see the bony fingers digging into the black fabric of Tom's robes. "Don't fret, little one, you'll fade out quickly," the Dark Lord croons. "Unlike Potter and that slippery traitor Malfoy."

Tom's despairing wail echoes in your mind, and you grab the sword hard, the burn of its magic for once in complete accord with the purity of rage inside you. With a perfect double-handed stance - one that Kassander Malfoy of ancestry gallery fame would recognise and regard with approval - you slash out with all the force of anger and fear, stabbing Godric's sword against Voldemort's middle. This time, it takes more effort going in. The Dark Lord's scream rings in your ears and your heart, so wild it almost makes you falter. Then the tall figure crumples and sinks down to the ground, without releasing his grip on Tom's throat, pulling him down until he's lying half on top of the squirming figure in the horrible mock-image of a lover's embrace.

The top part of the blade cuts Tom's hip, but he seems near-frozen, struggling only very feebly, and you sense Voldemort's power attempting to drain away his magic, his identity, through the amplified body contact. The sword hilt singes your hands so viciously that tears spring to your eyes as you lean down to pin the body of the Dark Lord to the ground, willing it to die with all the force you can muster.

You scar has split open under his fury; you feel a constant drizzle of sticky wetness running down your face, although the pain is eclipsed by the searing agony in your hands. But most of all, you feel Tom's mind, desperately wriggling away from the force that tries to suck it dry.

It is that very image that provides you with the idea. No matter how deep you thrust the sword, the thing on the ground will not die from it, this much is evident from the still-iron grip he has on Tom. And if he succeeds in taking his body, in taking over his younger self, there will be no stopping him, and you'll be the first to fall. You, and then Lucius. But part of what is Tom is yours, and you won't let Voldemort have it. Somehow you'll have to defuse him, drain him, and you know how.

You take your mental tendrils down through the Communimency connection with Tom and pull at his frantic thoughts for attention.

'Riddle - kiss him!' you order, and when all you receive in return is uncomprehending revulsion, you shove at him the memory of your clash in the manor's Hall of Apparition over Lucius unconscious body, of that instant of shifting power.

And it's a good thing Tom's Slytherin, because you're by no means sure you could do it yourself. But he does. As soon as he's grasped the plan, he practically moulds against the loathsome figure holding him, and covers that horrid, thin mouth, that lipless line twisted in pain and fury, with his own. You feel the pull skittering to an almost halt until Voldemort realises what's going on, and intensifies his struggle for Tom's essence. But this time, your young nemesis has learned his lesson, fighting back with all his might and the considerable insidiousness you've encountered at his making.

It's like a mental tug-of-war, one that casts you in the role of the backup, because you push your hooks into the fragments of self and magic within Tom that are yours. You put yourself into the link like an anchor, projecting all your fury and pain against the enemy, and hold on to Tom in a wordless snarl of possession.

Mine!

If the Dark Lord was at full strength, this shaky interlinking of minds would not have saved you. But he is grievously wounded, weakened, and Tom takes ruthless advantage of it as he drinks Voldemort's powers into himself. You feel the raging mind clawing at your Occlumency shield, trying to slip into Tom's body along with the magic, and steal control from the inside. You struggle to keep on your feet under the onslaught, held up only by the sword you're leaning on, even as its magic sears your flesh until it feels like the skin is charred and your bones incinerated to their very marrow. You throw your head from side to side in agony, tears streaming down your cheeks.

'Don't dare to let go!' Tom growls, strained but wrapped in an air of cold determination. The Dark Lord's body squirms under the magical steel impaling him. Hands that have turned suddenly feeble push against Tom's chest, trying to ward off what he had attempted to embrace before. But Tom has the advantage of youth, gravity and merciless single-mindedness.

You just barely cling to consciousness as the spill of energy from Voldemort to Tom begins to slow, until the gnarled claws twitch one last time against Tom's chest, who sucks away the very dregs of power and fires his order through the link: 'Now!'

You twist the blade sharply, nearly sinking to your knees as it sears you with greater vengeance than ever, making sure that this time you slice through whatever is left of the heart of the creature, which is drained now of all the supernatural power that has kept it breathing until now.

You feel it die, with a last clean cut through your scar that is for once devoid of the sickening power that has always lurked behind it. And then a weight lifts off you that you'd never noticed before, that would leave you giddy and light-headed if it weren't for the pain dragging you down.

You stumble a few steps back, wondering how you can still be alive, and squeeze your eyes shut as the ring of wards flashes again in that brutal white that seems intent on frying your retinas on the spot. Undone by Voldemort's demise, the duelling circle reverses, slowly burning down until the last tendrils of white light fizz out in the rain-soaked grass. You blink a couple of times, aware that the only thing still keeping you upright is a feverish burst of adrenaline. It tingles all over your skin, prickles in your nerves, and gives you the outlandish sense of clarity of someone standing just a few inches outside his body.

The outside world comes into focus, slightly blurred through your cracked and dirt-specked glasses, and a sharp breath escapes your lips.

The battle has ceased, it seems, quite a while before your struggle against the Dark Lord. You're standing in a circle of raised wands, but it's not Death Eater masks that loom behind them.

Your eyes scan for Lucius and there he stands, mask thrown off so that only his hair gleams whitely in the moonlight. Slightly the worse for wear, but haughtily upright. Around him, a handful of bulky figures crowd. You recognise Walden Macnair and the elder Crabbe and Goyle. And Snape, his robe sleeves tattered and soaked with blood, a row of black hex marks travelling up his neck and the left side of his face. A storm-tossed crow fixing you with a blank bird stare from which you can read nothing. Half hidden behind them, the slight figure of Wormtail is trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.

It's the other group facing them, however, that makes you gape. You've seen Albus Dumbledore in battle in the Department of Mysteries, but now, at the head of the Order of the Phoenix and a group of Ministry Aurors, he looks for the first time like the leader you've always known he was. But also worn-out, almost fragile, with several scorched spots on his long, tousled beard. He's flanked by Kingsley Shacklebolt and Remus Lupin. Lupin is supporting a growling Alastor Moody, whose artificial leg seems to have been blasted off. There are a few scattered bodies on the ground, cloaked and masked. One of them you recognise by the curtain of black hair that spills out of her crumpled hood. Yes, it seems as if Sirius has been avenged at last. You only hope it was Lupin.

You catch Lucius' eyes among his resentful knot of associates, note his slight frown - either he didn't intend for you to live, or you look even worse than you feel - and incline your head a questioning fraction in the direction of the Order. He lifts an eyebrow, oh so innocently, and a corner of his mouth curls up.

Bastard! So he's planned all along to bring them in.

You turn to Dumbledore - to Albus - trying to overlook the expression of horrified pity on his face. Although you'd prefer to forget them altogether, you force your twisted fingers to let go off the sword hilt, praying that it'll come off at all, that the magical metal hasn't fused with burned skin beyond any hope of separation.

It does come loose, with a wet sound that turns your stomach and another burst of agony which sends dark shadows dancing in front of your vision. The blade clanks dully onto the wet ground. You glimpse blood and wet blisters all over your palms before hiding them in the long sleeves of your robes. Better not look too closely.

Then your gaze is drawn back to Tom, who still lies sprawled over the corpse of his destroyed alter ego like the perverted, boneless caricature of a heartbroken lover. There is not a whisper coming from him through the Communimency link, although you know - just know in your bones - that something in him is alive.

"Harry..." Albus voice filters through to your ears as if from miles away, and the familiar gentleness has a lump forming in your throat.

You can go home now. You can leave him to the Order, and whatever will wake up again will be out of your hands...

Even as temptation rolls over you, you can already feel your legs moving. You slump to your knees next to him, shuddering at the thought of touching him with your hands, and leave them wrapped in your sleeves as you clumsily roll him onto his back and off the cadaver. His eyes are clenched shut, face white and blood coating his lips from where he must have bitten down on them. Your vision is too blurry to see whether he's breathing.

You wonder what gives you the strength to lift him up, but you do, amidst a fresh burst of tears from the agony in your hands. He's far lighter than you'd have believed, as if Voldemort had sucked the very physical presence out of him as well.

But you manage to hold on to him as you stumble backwards, awkwardly clutching the body to your chest. Snape's scarred face enters your line of vision for an instant, twisted in shock. You grip your burden more tightly. It's not him you're looking for.

You nearly trip over the sword hilt in the grass as you move, and send it skidding along the ground in Albus' direction with one foot, wishing it could look less condescending than it does.

The sword is Dumbledore's. The boy is not.

Somehow, Lucius has made it a few steps away from his followers, for which you're grateful.

As you turn your back, another voice protests, "Harry!"

You jerk your head once in a pained rictus of refusal, and bury your face against the torn, bloody cloth on Tom's shoulder to hide your grimace of misery. You can only hope that Remus, who had once kept Sirius' secrets even when he thought him the murderer of his best friends, will understand that some bonds refuse to be broken, no matter what.

Two more steps, and you fall against Lucius' body. He lifts Tom out of your arms, holding him with one arm and pillowing Tom's head on his shoulder. His other arm comes round your waist just in time to keep you from collapsing altogether, and when the faint pressure of the Apparition Cone falls over you, you feel the woolly scratch of Lucius' robe under your cheek. You exhale and your knees buckle, and you slip into darkness before the magic can pull you away.

~ tbc. ~