Harry Potter and the Soul of the Hero

Harry Potter and the Soul of the Hero

Chapter 13 - A Greater War

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go
instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

~~Strode

July 1^st, 1997

Thirteen Death Eaters lined the floor of the courtrooms beneath the Australian Ministry of Magic. Courtrooms that had not been used for decades, since capital punishment had been abolished. Lucky thirteen. These Death Eaters were spies, secretly working against their Ministry for Voldemort's gain. They were not high in his standing, but each had done their part to ensure their Lord's victory.

Under the truth serum, each one had confused to torture and murder, and in three of the eight men, rape. Crimes enough to damn them here, now, as they knelt before Harry Potter with their hands secured tightly behind their backs with invisible bonds of magic.

Over the last five days the Australian Ministry had interrogated all of its personnel - those who hadn't fled in time, anyway - and had uncovered thirteen Death Eaters, thirteen Marked Death Eaters, as well as seventy two Death Eater sympathisers and dark wizards. Those latter two were either fired or serving prison sentences.

The punishment for being branded with the Mark though was death, and would be death until the war was over. It was a hard choice, one that added to Harry's feelings of guilt and pain, but one he had to make for the greater good - if there was such a thing in these matters.

The thirteen Death Eaters were in varying states of distress and, in a few cases, anger and calm. Eight of them were shaking, knowing their deaths were at hand, whilst three glared unblinking at Harry, and the remaining two just knelt tall, neither moving nor meeting eyes with anyone. Shock had claimed those two.

All of them, after their confessions under truth serum, had been immediately silenced, unable to communicate any longer. Stephen Cornwall, the acting Minister, had ensured one more question was asked before they were silenced.

If given a choice now, who would you serve, which side would you choose?

Under the truth serum they could not lie, could not even think of lying. All thirteen had said that they would flock to Voldemort, and that alone ensured their deaths. It was a dirty, sad business. One that was not exactly in accordance with the Light, but then nothing truly could be.

Besides the thirteen condemned prisoners, there were a handful of other people in the room. Four executioners, who were being paid three hundred galleons for every Death Eater they... took care of. Greed, gold, could make people do anything. A series of witnesses from within the Ministry, namely department heads, and on the high bench were Harry, Stephen Cornwall and a bunch of frightened aides.

The four executioners stood unmoving, faces hooded, behind the thirteen prisoners. Harry nodded, just once, and with only hesitating an instant and the four men moved behind the first four Death Eaters.

Harry grit his teeth as he watched this, knowing it was necessary - that nothing could prevent the coming maelstrom of death and fire except total willingness to do what had to be done. He'd pay hell for it, but his life was a small price to pay for the future of this world.

The last five days had shot by quickly in a blur of pensieve memory, international anger, assassination attempts, rebellion, and little sleep. As expected, the International Confederation was outraged, appalled, and frightened out of their wits. It seemed Harry was making good on his threat, and had dispatched of one Ministry with pitiful ease.

Rebellion.

Although it slowed him down, Harry actually felt respect for those Australians within the Ministry who had declared him an enemy of freedom, of the right to choice and life. They had formed a sort of separatist government in an unknown location, supported by, Harry suspected, John Rafter - the American with influence over their Minister. It was heartening to know that, even after all he'd done, some people - some humans - still had the strength to stand by their convictions, to stand against him. It gave him hope that the human race, if it survived what was coming, would do alright in the long run.

That said, they were enemies, and Harry had had their positions revoked, declared them rebels to be imprisoned, offered a thousand galleons to anyone with information leading to them, and seized their Gringotts accounts. It was unfortunate, as they did have families, but he could not afford betrayal and rebellion. Could not!

By God, it hurt to do though, and so far he had kept it from Ron, Hermione and Ginny. It wouldn't keep, and he felt they may abandon him for it, but as long as they lived there would be time later for forgiveness. If he deserved it.... There was also the small chance that they'd understand why he had done what he had done, but it was small.

But right now Harry did not allow himself to feel that, or think about it any longer. He nodded once, and in so doing sealed the fates of thirteen people, thirteen human beings. The four white-hooded executioners, faces hidden in shadow, raised their wands. Even though magic prevent the prisoners from moving, Harry could feel the majority of them struggling to.

Except for three, two women and one man. They never broke eye contact with him, and their smiles remained until they died. Arrogance, superiority and the unchangeable belief that he was damned for this was on their faces. Their lord, Voldemort, would burn him for this. Retribution would be swift.

Personally, Harry didn't think Voldemort would overly care about losing these followers, but soon enough his losses would amount up to something worth taking note of. Then the world would feel the wrath of the Dark Lord once again. Unless Harry was there to stop him....

"Vestic!"

Thirteen Dark Marks - thirteen deaths.

The executioners had just earned themselves six hundred galleons, one nine hundred, and the world had to survive with thirteen less Death Eaters.

When it was done, Harry felt nothing really. He knew he'd just killed thirteen people - sent them beyond this world and probably into eternal damnation for their crimes, but it didn't matter. That scared him - it did.

You have to find yourself again, Harry, Ethan said unexpectedly. You're too... detached.

Killing the dark wizards was only half of the executioner's job. Body bags had been provided and they were to be taken by Portkey to a crematorium. Their deaths would be announced in the newspaper to make sure Voldemort heard of it, and Harry had made it known worldwide over the last five days that any Death Eaters found in territory he controlled were to be put to death.

"Well, I don't know what we've started today," Stephen Cornwall whispered next to Harry. "But we're no longer on the sidelines of this war...."

"There are no lines in this war," Harry said absently, still thinking about his lack of feeling over death. "Except the one between myself and Voldemort. Other than that this world is one huge battlefield."

Cornwall nodded and let the moment stretch on before saying, "What are your orders, Minister?"

Harry inwardly groaned at the title - hating what he had done to this country - but answered nevertheless. "Continue training new Aurors, triple their pay rate to increase numbers. Conduct random searches for Death Eaters in the Ministry, and inform me if a foreign force enters the Ministry - they haven't yet, but they will."

Cornwall nodded. He looked troubled but he nodded.

Taking a final look at his now dead enemies, Harry disapparated silently. There was still too much to do, and he felt slightly sick. His stomach churned - something was on the horizon. It was his sense... part of the Darkslayer curse. Something big was about to happen.

The world materialised as the kitchen of his house on the southern coast of Australia. It was an hour earlier here than it had been in Canberra, and Harry saw Ginny enjoying her breakfast at the table. She was alone - Harry had been longer than he thought he would be at the Ministry.

"Where've you been?" she asked, motioning him over to the seat next to her. "I was getting worried."

Harry sighed. "Just taking care of business," he said. "Sorry. I was longer than I thought."

Ron and Hermione were not here. They had gone to the Gold Coast and the Great Barrier Reef for a few days as part of their planned and paid for holiday. Hermione felt obliged to go, and Harry had sent Ron with her for protection. He'd probably need it from her if anything happened though.

Ginny had decided to stay. She did not want to leave him alone.

Ginny nodded, pursing her lips and glancing down at her cereal. "What do you want to do today?" she asked.

Harry opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off.

"And don't tell me you've got to go save the world!" she exclaimed, waving her spoon under his nose. "You can take a few hours off."

Harry closed his mouth and smiled. "I was about to say," he said. "How about we go for a walk on the beach... I need to tell you a few things that I've been holding back."

The sun wasn't high in the eastern sky when Harry and Ginny set off down the beach hand in hand. It was the pale light after dawn that lit their way, that glittered off the large endless expanse of the tranquil blue ocean. There was a reef about half a mile out, and that caught all the waves, leaving this little bay calm and peaceful.

Shoeless, Ginny and Harry walked in the swash of the tide towards the sun. It was a cloudless day and, despite the early hour, already quite warm.

"So..." Ginny said, once they had walked in companionable silence long enough. "What did you want to tell me?"

Harry didn't quite know how to phrase it, so he just said it. "I'm the Australian Minister of Magic."

First Ginny smiled, laughed simperingly, but then frowned. "You're serious!?"

Harry shrugged. "The Twilight Guardians - the Muggle soldiers - and I, Apparated to the Ministry whilst you and Ron and Hermione were in the pensieve. We took it over and I forced the previous Minister out of his job."

"Why?" Ginny whispered. "I didn't really believe what the papers said you said at the International Confederation!"

Harry chuckled. "That was fairly accurate, for once. I... em... I did it to save the world."

Ginny sighed and walked a few steps ahead, letting go of his hand. "Yeah, it seems we always come back to that. Did you hurt anyone in this takeover?"

It had been a long time since anyone had actually openly faced Harry with anger on their face, anyone on his side that is. At that moment he realised just how... powerful... he was. The whole damn world feared him - he did not have to do much to change that. But it hurt when it was Ginny.

"No one died," he told her. "And I've added four hundred Aurors to the army I'll lead against Voldemort."

Ginny paled and shivered despite the heat. "You seem so hard, Harry," she said sadly. "I know what happened to you was awful, terrible, but you can't have forgotten what it was like before that...."

They had taken a break over the last few days from the pensieve memories. Currently they stood in the world where he had met Tarishma and faced Allarius' demon army with a human army of his own. Almost up to the battle that had destroyed a universe, torn it apart.

In all honesty, Harry found it very hard to remember who he had been before the time travel and universe jumping. He wasn't that person anymore, and couldn't be, really. God above, he had just calmly killed thirteen people.... thirteen enemies.

Who was he to decide that they had to die? What made him so special? Why, in all the life in all the universes was he chosen to be the godforsaken Darkslayer? It was tearing him apart, burning his soul in the blood of the dead. And there was an ocean of that. So many years, so many fights against power hungry madmen who dealt in the powers of the universe and believed themselves invincible.

Had he become one of them? Was the fact that he questioned it sign enough that he hadn't? Or was he walking the line, edging on both sides of it, swaying left and right. Would he, sooner or later, burn that line and piss on the ashes? This world was doomed if he did... and it seemed there was nothing he could do about it.

"I sentenced thirteen Death Eaters to death this morning, Ginny, and any other Death Eater found operating in Australia. No excuse - they take a truth potion and confess and then die. I... I felt nothing when I did it... Does that make me a monster?"

Ginny was silent for a long time, a long time, and she stared at him with an unreadable, unblinking face. Harry found himself unable to meet her eyes and knew his face was a mask of pain and anguish, both physical and mental. For some reason it felt as though a lot more than mere happiness rested on her response to that question.

When Ginny still did not say anything, Harry continued.

"I'm sorry...." he said, croaked, his voice was hoarse. "I try... I tried to tell them, to tell them all at the IC... they wouldn't listen.... so many people are going to die... I'm doing what I, what I think is right for the innocent...."

Harry's cheeks were wet with tears, tears he did not know he still possessed. A moment later Ginny's hands closed over his cheeks and gently wiped the tears away. She lifted his face to meet her eyes.

"You do," she began, "what you have to do, Harry.... and I'll be there to keep your feet on the ground, to... to save you from yourself. You're only human, Harry, no matter how much has changed. You can cry, you can bleed... you can feel. You are not a monster - you're a hero."

Harry nodded, for lack of anything else to do. "Where are we now, Gin?" he asked despondently. "When are we? I've seen and done so much that at times I just want to lie down and die. What do you think will happen in the end?"

Ginny managed a small smile. "It'll get better, you'll stop Voldemort, and we can forget all about this - you can move on."

Harry shook his head and sniffed. "There's more to it than that, I'm afraid," he sighed, looking out over the ocean and the small waves crashing against the reef half a mile offshore.

"What do you mean?" Ginny asked him, putting her arm across his shoulders.

"There's a war going on...."

Ginny blinked. "Yes...."

"A greater war than the one I'm fighting against Voldemort, Gin, a war for Creation itself."

Ginny stared into his eyes with a small frown. "I don't... don't understand."

"Neither do I," Harry whispered, eyes stressed and voice riddled with inner pain. "Allarius once told me it would never be over.... I think he was right."

Ginny paled at the mention of the demon. She had seen him in a memory only, and yet felt more than awe and admiration for Harry, who had remained strong against that monster in real life. Had fought him in more than one way, on more than one world. It was incredible. Harry was made of stronger stuff than she could ever hope to be.

Still, it did seem that no matter what he did something evil was always there to challenge him again, to try and destroy the world (worlds) and each time it got harder for him to hold onto himself, his soul. He had lost so much and, in the end, had really gained so little.

Ginny knew he was a hero. One of the last heroes in all of existence, for all she knew. The last power of reason and justness in a universe of uncertain evil and blind selfishness. Countless billions owed their lives to Harry, owed him their thanks, and these people never even knew his name, the pain he went through, the things he sacrificed.

His family, more than once, and his friends. As morbid as it was, Ginny had noticed over the years that Harry was always the survivor. Everyone could die around him and he'd figure out a way to survive, to live on, to move on, to continue to be. It wasn't necessarily a good thing - especially when the dead were counted.

But, at this stage of his life, she was really all he had. Ron and Hermione were there as well, but they had each other as much as they had Harry. It was her, and she knew it. Somehow, someway, the future for Harry had fallen to her. He was self-destructive, took risks that he could not afford to. Somehow she needed to remind him he was the Boy Who Lived. LIVED!

"Listen to me, Harry," Ginny said, pulling him close. He seemed so light, despite the muscles that rippled across his body... most of it scarred. "You just listen now. It will be over, d'you hear me? I'm telling you that one day it can end, you'll end it - no one can stop you from doing that, no one who has tried so far has lived, Harry, save Voldemort - and you'll get him."

Harry chuckled mirthlessly.

"Who are you going to believe?" she asked. "Me or Allarius?"

For one terrible moment Ginny could see him wavering towards Allarius, could see it in how his already dim eyes seemed to die, but then he frowned. His care worn forehead, with that infamous scar, crinkled down into a frown and, just like that, the fight came back into Harry's eyes. They sparkled in the early morning sunlight, sparkled enough to set the world on fire.

"Thank you, Gin," he said, open honesty painted in his eyes. "For a m--"

Suddenly Harry lurched forward, as if someone had punched him in the stomach, and his eyes bulged. Ginny saw he was holding his stomach. He glanced at her once, briefly, and then spun in the sand until he was facing north, looking up into the sky.

"Harry," Ginny said, her voice laced with concern. "What's the matter?"

Harry didn't seem to hear her. "Oh.... you stupid bastard," he mumbled. The sparkle in his eyes died and they become as hard as stone. He clenched his fists. "So be it then... Gin, get back in the house and stay there."

Ginny shook her head fiercely and stepped forward. "No, wai--"

Harry disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving Ginny alone on the empty beach.

*~*~*~*

Stonehenge
A few minutes before midnight

It had all truly begun here, one year ago. It was here that the secret to breaking Potter's blood magic was uncovered; here the words that opened a gateway between worlds had been found. It was here that had led Lord Voldemort to become the strongest wizard on the planet.

Not a wizard, Voldemort thought. I am a god.

He was alone amongst the ancient stones with nothing save an old book in his hand. His eyes illuminated the inside of his hood with a pale red light, and some of that light spilled out onto the pages of the ragged text in his hands. The night was cloudless, and yet the stars offered no light here. All light was sucked into the whirling vortex of darkness that shrouded the Dark Lord forevermore.

The tome he held was a book his Death Eaters had recovered a year ago in a pyramid at Giza, in Egypt. Several thousand years old, it was quite possibly the oldest book on the planet. Voldemort idly flipped through the pages, a preserving charm keeping the text whole.

The ground froze on this summer night, just from the presence of his aura. A black rippling mass that crackled red, burnt life and destroyed hope. There was no will in this world strong enough to combat that.

Alongside the book, Voldemort also had a small slip of parchment with the Darkslayer prophecy written upon it, translated from a book not quite as old as the one he held. Potter's prophecy... that boy was a pawn of Fate, of Destiny. He had wasted his potential following the Light, especially when his defeat had been Seen over five thousand years ago.

Finding the page he wanted, Voldemort quickly translated the text and compared it to what he had learnt from the prophecy and what he knew of the stones. Here... now... he could safely open a gateway, like he had done at Hogwarts, and call forth an army to destroy this world.

Thousands of demons, thousands of Inferi, and thousands of Death Eaters. The Inferi alone could win him this war... so long as Potter was destroyed.

With a flick of his wrist the book disappeared up the sleeve of his robes, and an instant later his hands shuddered with pulsing red light, before exploding with the same light and encasing his arms up to his elbows.

Flowing in pure, raw power Voldemort had never felt more alive. With a wave of his hand he could wipe London off the map from where he stood... but Potter would feel it, and his location was still unknown. It wasn't yet time to test his strength against young Potter's. Uncertainty made him cautious.

It was then, as the hour struck midnight, that Voldemort uttered the words that had changed the world before....

"Tempus ac Capacitas!"

Outside of this circle of stones, those words would only work in the world on one of the equinoxes. But here... in this ancient circle of power....

The sky tore open in the centre of the stones, above the altar, and ripped down into that sacrificial stone, splitting it through the middle. It spun, flaring red on its edges until it formed a jagged seething circle of darkness, framed crimson in the air.

The stones were a buffer that kept a leash on the destructive capabilities of the hole. Inside here it could be safely used.

Debris, stone, and dirt flew into the growing vortex as Voldemort stretched his consciousness out towards the gateway; towards the gateway into what he believed was the Boundary. Almost immediately he felt something brush his mind in response, and a black bulge began to seep out of the vortex and onto the ground at Stonehenge.

The wind howled across the land, the stars seemed to die and the moon fail. The only light was from the tops of the sentinels of the circle, from the stones. Each of them was glowing with an ethereal blue light.

The creature, whatever it was, slowly rose and took form in front of the Dark Lord. It did not look like a demon, or what Voldemort had imagined a demon would look like. It was a shadow, really, it looked like a shadow. Dark with yellow slits for eyes, the air shimmered as it moved forward.

"What are you?" Voldemort hissed, his breath freezing the air.

The creature laughed, low and nasally. "I am the Destroyer...."

"Destroyer?" Voldemort scoffed.

"One of many, a part of a whole," the creature whispered smoothly. "Why have you willingly opened the Boundary into this world?"

Voldemort straightened. He could feel the evil in this creature - its entire existence was evil, pain and destruction. It was a destroyer. "I have come to summon the demons from the space between universes,' Voldemort answered the creature.

The shadow laughed again, mockingly. "And why would you want that....?"

Voldemort held his patience, but only just. His palms shone red, itching to kill this creature. "So I may destroy this world, and kill my greatest enemy!"

"A powerful foe, this enemy must be," the creature hissed, moving on the air in a hazy fuzz of despair. "To stand against your power."

"He is the Darkslayer," Voldemort replied.

To the Dark Lord's surprise the creature recoiled and then screeched such an unholy sound that the stone at his feet quivered and cracked. It screamed out into the night, into the world. It was a scream of anger, of pain... and of fear. This creature, this Destroyer, knew and feared Potter.

In its fury and fear the creature managed to speak. "The Darkslayer... he is upon this world?"

"He is," Voldemort nodded. "Here he is known as Harry Potter."

That name got the same response as Darkslayer.

*~*~*~*

Harry Apparated to England and appeared in the dead of night, in those magical few moments when one day ends and another begins at midnight. His Darkslayer sense, the ability to sense great evil and powerful magic, had punched him hard in the gut and told him that something powerfully evil was afoot.

And arriving here now he could see what it was.

Voldemort, of course. Who else would it be?

The Dark Lord, the source of all the wrong in the world, stood before a familiar looking hole in the air, one that led into the Boundary - and from there anywhere in existence - and before that tear was a creature of darkness, of misery... a fitting companion for Voldemort.

Harry had never met a Destroyer. Whilst he was scouring thousands of worlds for the Ways of Twilight, the Destroyers had pulled their strings from behind the scenes and never openly interacted with him. From his dreams though, a nightly insight into existence, he knew that they were waging a war against the Guardians for supreme dominance of the Boundary.

And if they controlled the Boundary, then the Stream was theirs... which ultimately meant they controlled Existence as a whole, through all of time. A problem, Harry supposed, for everything that was not a Destroyer.

Hidden in the darkness behind one of the ancient stones, which were flared blue on their heads, Harry strained his ears to hear what his enemies were saying. He had to kneel down and cover his ears when the Destroyer uttered a screech so loud that the ground shook.

Once it had died down, Harry grinned when he realised that he was the topic of conversation.

From where he knelt he could hear the two evil beings clearly.

"Darkslayer...." the Destroyer wept, cursed, raged. "He is human?"

Voldemort laughed, low and vicious. "What else would he be, creature?"

The Destroyer hissed.... "A mere human could not have defeated Evil itself... he is thought by many to be an Immortal. The Darkslayer could only be a god."

"He is human," Voldemort replied. "Mortal, and frustratingly powerful."

The creature whimpered. "Yessss..." it hissed. "Powerful."

Harry found himself biting his bottom lip with indecision. So much rested on the edge of a knife now, on the flip of a coin, that it was unbelievable. Voldemort had given him the perfect opportunity to kill him. He himself had left Slytherin Fortress, and in so doing made himself vulnerable. He could attack now, pit his power against the Dark Lord, and kill the monster... maybe.

Equal in power, equal in strength, Harry was the one with more experience using this awesome magic they both possessed. He had been using it for over one hundred years, after all, but what damage would be caused if they did fight? Too much... less than if they didn't in the long run.

For a few minutes Harry was lost in his thoughts. When he heard Voldemort speak again it was with the Destroyer, and they said something quite interesting - something that made Harry's choice for him.

"The Destroyers will swear allegiance to you, Dark Lord," the shadow creature whispered on the night air. "We will release the demons to your command; we will scour this world for the Darkslayer."

Harry couldn't see Voldemort, not and stay hidden, but he felt as if he could sense the happiness his enemy felt at that moment. And, he realised, he could. His scar prickled and he quivered with an emotion of... anticipation, joy... that wasn't his own. Still, he also felt a surge of patient fury that was his.

This could not happen! Not here, not on his own world. Rather a billion other worlds fall to the Destroyers than they bring their terrible war here.

Kill them! Ethan exclaimed. You have no choice now. Do or die, Potter!

Harry agreed, but he would listen a little longer.

"These demons...." Voldemort continued. "What do they number?"

"Thousands," the Destroyer hissed, edging around the spinning vortex of reality. "Hundreds of thousands. The Darkslayer defeated them in the mortal worlds once before, but with his quest for Twilight they were remade earlier in the Stream. He destroyed them, and created them."

Voldemort nodded. "And your race, the Destroyer army? How many are you?"

"We are infinite," the shadow replied truthfully. "Billions upon billions spread across all of Existence, locked in a war for control of Time and Space."

Voldemort had not moved an inch since the circle in the air had been torn open. The ground seemed to bleed beneath his feet, dying and withering. There were also shoots, the beginnings of black roses, growing out of the earth beneath the misty feet of the shadow creature.

"And yet you fear Harry Potter," the Dark Lord spoke to the Destroyer, both still unaware that Harry himself was less than forty feet away.

The creature recoiled as if struck, bending in the light there was and fading into the darkness before screeching, much like a Dementor, and draining the warmth out of the surrounding air.

"You cannot understand, mortal!" it hissed. "He destroyed us all, destroyed Evil itself. He struck a blow that we only recovered from because of his use of Twilight!"

It was Harry's turn to recoil as if struck. And, physically, he felt as if someone had just hit him in the stomach with a sledgehammer. NO! his mind screamed. NOOOO! Ethan was wailing something inaudible, but Harry's ears were throbbing. It couldn't be... it shouldn't be... it... it... it... it made perfect sense....

Allarius - a manifestation of the Destroyers, of the opposite of Light, of Good. Everything has an opposite, that was unchangeable. Allarius - had been destroyed, annihilated, on a mortal world, a world that had to obey the law of time. Had to, unavoidable!

And, by God, Harry had changed time at the Ways of Twilight. He had recreated evil, changed the pattern of Time, the canvas of Existence and the order of Life. He had, to return home to his friends, started a war that had decimated the Boundary and many millions of mortal worlds and other planes of reality.

In the end he had not saved Existence at all, but doomed it to repeat its misery... only slower. Instead of quick titanic destruction it would be a slow, pointless decay of life and Light.

Merlin, he was supposed to be the Darkslayer - a destroyer of darkness. And now, like one of Time's biggest jokes, it had just become clear that he had created an army, given it strength. An Army of Darkness, hell bent on bringing about the End of Creation.

"What is this Twilight you speak of?" Voldemort asked. Harry did not know how much of the conversation he had missed, and even now his head was still spinning, but that is what he heard next.

"Twilight...." the Destroyer whispered. "Twilight, Twilight, Twilight... you call it Magic."

"Magic," scoffed Voldemort.

"True magic," the creature continued. "First Magic, the Magic - the Twilight, that controls... everything!"

It suddenly became very clear to Harry that Voldemort was learning too much. Their power was equal... for everything he had done over the years, Voldemort could do the opposite. God, he could even change time and end this reality. There was too much left to chance, to choice.

Someone had to die; someone had to end the madness....

"This power will be mine!" Voldemort exclaimed.

It was then, in a quiet rage, that Harry stepped out from behind the glowing blue stone and into the clearing. As he passed across the stone he felt a slight resistance from the power in the air, but no more than that. He spoke, quite calmly, to Lord Voldemort as he walked.

"That power you speak of, Tom," he said bitterly. "That power belongs to no one!"

The Dark Lord turned with the same calm that Harry showed, a slow grin spreading across his skeletal face. It was as if he had been expecting him, and, Harry thought, he may have been. Voldemort would have had to have known that he would sense the magic of the gateway.

"Potter," Voldemort inclined his head. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

The shadow creature, the soldier of the Destroyers, wailed and stepped backwards towards the vortex and the gateway into the Boundary. Once inside of it, the creature could be a trillion miles away in a heartbeat, not even a single footstep on the path of existence.

"Distance won't save you," Harry growled at the creature. "This world is barred to you and your kind."

Harry raised his left palm and fired a wave of pulsating energy, tinged blue, at the monster. It screeched when it hit and was blasted of its misty feet back into the vortex. It hit the spinning edge and was cut clean in two. Its lower half was smeared across the altar beneath the vortex, whilst its upper half died trillions of miles away lost in the war torn regions of the Boundary.

"You are playing with forces beyond your understanding, Voldemort," Harry turned his attention onto the Dark Lord. His eyes were hard, his voice frost. Kings and Queens, demons and madmen, evil had trembled under that voice.

"And you are scrounging for power as a mere Minister," Voldemort spat. "You could be so much more, have so much more! The humans beneath us are weak, worse than useless!"

Harry grinned. "The future of Existence relies solely on the human race, of which you are a member - however long ago that was."

"I am immortal, Potter!" Voldemort raged, stepping forward and slicing his white hand down through the air. It seemed to shimmer and waver, as if about to shatter. The vortex still spun slowly. "More than human! You, on the other hand, are nothing more than a fool...."

Harry laughed and took a long step to his left, clenching his fists. "Oh, Voldie," he sighed. "You're not upset because I'm more feared across time and space than you will ever be, are you?"

Voldemort's arms, cloaked in black, exploded with crimson power, crackling across his eyes and enveloping his hands. A fraction of a second later and Harry's were the same, only lightning blue. The vortex to eternity suddenly collapsed and snapped closed, sealing the air whole once again - as it should always be.

"There's only power now, Potter, only power and death. When will the cost of this game destroy you?"

Harry shook his head. "This game, the game... the cost has always been too high, Tom. You never did realise that...."

Voldemort hissed and sent an arc of sizzling hot power coursing through the air and the space between them. Harry flicked his wrist and the crimson bolt was deflected upwards into the sky. It exploded two miles up, one second later, and for a moment lit up the night red.

"Okay then," Harry sighed, and struck back with his own strength. Crossing his arms he threw them down and a wave of blue power, strong enough to devastate a continent surged towards Voldemort.

Voldemort parried it with one of his own, red and just as powerful and they met in the middle, spinning and slipping together - both fighting for dominance, both commanding respect and fear. Sweat broke out immediately on Harry's brow as soon as he threw his power into the Dark Lord's.

Never, in all the years, had he faced an opponent so strong. Allarius came close... but there was something more intimate about it being Voldemort. They were life long enemies, after all, and equal in strength down to the last drop of power. Damn the scar link for what it had done.

The pressure steadily increased, it skyrocketed, and the compression of the air became so much from the roaring power that Harry struggled to breathe. He couldn't see Voldemort, shrouded as they were in power, but he could feel him. Like a dark blight on what remained of his tattered soul there was Voldemort, seething and corrupted. The exact opposite of all that Harry could be.

The two waves of power became one and neither Harry nor Voldemort had moved an inch. This was more a battle of the minds, of wills, but also of strength. Harry had the greater experience with this force that governed the universe, and as such he knew a few tricks....

He split his power, right down the middle and immediately began to lose ground on Voldemort as the crimson light slithered closer, now only battling against half of Harry's strength. With the other half though, Harry sent a beam of light up into the sky where it arced in the night, glittering almost twilight, and pounded into the top of Voldemort's beam.

It shattered.

Millions of shards of blue and red light glittered away into the night and Voldemort stumbled back, howling with pain. Harry gritted his teeth as the countryside for miles around was annihilated from the shards of raw magic propelling themselves for miles in every direction. A rain of red and blue light to set the world on fire.

Forests melted, small towns nearby were washed away in a heartbeat and nothing living survived. A few hundred humans died, casualties of war.

The ancient stones of Stonehenge, although hit with a titanic force of power, did not break nor show any sign of weakening. They seemed to sing with the power, and flared either blue or red depending one what shard hit them. The power spread from stone to stone, and arcs of light, again red and blue, moved from one stone to the next, creating a crisscrossing fence that sealed Voldemort and Harry inside of the circle.

The fence spun through the stones, faster and faster until it was a blur of colours. Harry felt something big building up and for a moment took his attention from the staggering Dark Lord. That almost killed him as a bolt of red light, travelling faster than a bullet, hammered into his shoulder, the old scarred one.

Cursing his own stupidity, and fighting the pain, Harry spun backwards in a series of flips and hit the spinning fence of magic the stones had created. Immediately he was caught in the flow and began to scream as dizziness swept over him. Everything was lost - Voldemort, Stonehenge and his sense of power. Spinning, spinning, spinning....

He threw up... maybe... it was hard to tell. On the edge of his senses he was aware that a white light had surrounded him, sustaining him. Keeping him alive, a thin shield, as he was propelled round and round at the speed of light.

Something told him he was no longer at Stonehenge, but had been transported elsewhere - perhaps to another world or a different reality of his own world. All he knew was that he wanted it to stop, wanted to go home to Ginny. It had been foolish to challenge Voldemort, what had he been thinking?

His shoulder ached with all the pain of Voldemort's power. Stinging, biting, sizzling. He managed to turn his head down and saw that most of his shirt and cloak had been burnt away around the area and that it was bleeding quite profusely.

Time became lost, forgotten, as it always seemed to be in these things. Hours could have been minutes and minutes days - it was all relative. All he could see were spinning colours, a maelstrom of them, bearing down around him in this place.

And then it was all white - just white. No longer could Harry tell if he was moving as there were no spinning colours, no points of reference, just white. He hung on nothing, could still have been travelling at light speed, but it was impossible to discern. He didn't feel as if he was moving.

"You are not supposed to be here."

Lazily, not really caring what happened next, Harry turned to search for the voice. It sounded female, mature and infinitely sad and caring. "Who are you?" he asked, the pain in his shoulder forgotten. If there was one thing Harry could do it was forget pain. He'd long since grown accustomed to the burning of his nerves.

"One who cares, Darkslayer - you are not supposed to be here yet."

Harry sighed. "Where is here?"

"The thin layer between life and death," the voice replied calmly, almost musically. "You stand outside of death for now and yet too much will be lost should you die before the war for creation is fought and decided."

Harry shook his head. "I... don't want to die," he said honestly. "But I am so tired of war...."

"You carry more than one soul to this place, this waypoint of twilight." The voice now sounded troubled. "One is of great evil... another of Light... what right do you have to decide their deaths?"

Harry had no idea what she (it?) was talking about.

And, come to think of it, he did not really care.

So he had found another piece of existence he wasn't supposed to see, what did it matter? He could destroy it all, save it all, rule it all but for what? What did it matter? He'd broken another rule or two laid down by a Creator who had long since abandoned his creation, or died for it. None of it was of any importance to Harry, none of it.

All that he cared for was Ginny, and Ron and Hermione, but mostly for Ginny. That, above all else, was his only and greatest concern. This could all burn and he would set the fire if it gave him and Ginny a chance at peace.

"How do I return home?" he asked the whiteness.

There was no response, and Harry had the feeling that he was alone now, bereft and left floating in this nothingness between life and death, the thin line that separated souls from one world and the next.

Bugger, he thought. I won't die here....

Still alive, still human, Harry called his power into his palms. The blue light flared in stark contrast to the white of this place.

"Stop! You mustn't disturb the balance anymore."

The voice echoed and reverberated across millions of miles, through Harry's mind and throughout his consciousness. He ignored it and continued.

Over the years, the long years, Harry had seen enough of how it was done to create a gateway between worlds. Between worlds, yes, but between different realms of time and existence was another matter. The three magic words were tempus ac capacitas, but somehow that didn't seem enough here.

Harry trusted his instincts as he began to flow and weave magic in the space before him. It formed a net, an intricate shape of threads so fine that they would snap in the smallest breeze. The air began to shimmer, to melt and transform. The fabric of this place was much the same as everywhere else - its foundations were the same, and this allowed Harry to tunnel a way through it.

His gateway opened upon a familiar looking beach in Australia, late in the morning, and his headquarters was visible shining in the sun. Floating forward, Harry encountered a minor amount of resistance as he broke through this realm and back into his mortal one. He snapped the thin layer separating them and was thrown down hard into the sand of the beach.

His shoulder wound immediately began to burn and sting now that it was once again bound by the rules of this realm, bleeding again and staining the sand red beneath him. Harry turned onto his back in time to see that his gateway was collapsing, unable to link the two realms any longer. Lashes of power whipped off it and he had to think fast to avoid them. Where they hit the sand, a deep gash was cut and the sea water quickly rushed in.

Saving his life, Harry Apparated up the beach closer to the house, tired from the effort, and then managed to Apparate once more into the sitting room where he and his friends were staying. Well, just Ginny at the moment as Ron and Hermione were on holiday over east.

His gateway crashed and a sonic boom from its passing rocked the windows and split the plaster in some of the walls of the house. It left a deep and wide crater in the sand, which the ocean soon claimed.

As it was, Ginny was beside herself with worry in the kitchen next to the sitting room when Harry Apparated in and landed in a heap of sand and blood on the hard wooden floor. She jumped to her feet when he did, wand out and rushed over to him.

Harry being Harry, he was already trying to stand and actually managed to stagger to his feet when Ginny got her arm around him, wincing when she saw the mess his shoulder had become.

"What happened this time?" she asked, not harshly, but in a resigned sort of way.

Harry grinned at her. "I'm not exactly sure," he said, as she dropped him onto one of the large leather sofas and immediately began to look at his wound. With her wand she cleaned away all the sand and dried blood, revealing the thick gash and burnt skin. It looked painful and yet Harry's face was calm.

It began to bleed as soon as she removed the layer of dried blood, so first things first was a skin knitting charm. The DA at the end of last year had been learning healing charms more than offensive spells. Knowing how to heal could be the difference between life and death on a battlefield.

This was a deep cut though, caused by magic, and it would probably hurt to heal.

"Ow," Harry complained when Ginny cast the healing charm.

"Stop being such a baby," she chided gently, smiling innocently at him. He glared for a moment and then laughed, leaning his head back and resting a hand on his forehead. His skin melted back together and a moment later, once it had set, Ginny cleaned up the burns.

They were stubborn, unusually so, and when she asked what had caused them, Harry just mumbled something about Stonehenge.

But finally it was done and clean. His cloak and shirt were blood stained, although they were black so it wasn't obvious, and there was a big hole in the right shoulder. His skin had healed over leaving another small scar, one which overlaid the messy lump of scar tissue his shoulder was from the sword wound Voldemort had inflicted in March.

Her work done, Ginny stood up only to sit down on the edge of the sofa above Harry. "Rough morning?" she asked.

"Afraid so," he sighed, eyes closed. "He's made an alliance with the creatures that are Allarius all over again. He'll mask his power next time... I'm sure of it... and bring through thousands of demons. I won't be able to stop it if he does it on the equinox... maybe not even if he uses Stonehenge again."

Ginny blinked. "I'm not sure I understand."

"There is a greater war being fought than you know of, Gin," Harry continued, opening his eyes and staring up without blinking at the ceiling. "The Last War for Creation, for total dominance of Time and every moment of Existence... and I think the good guys are losing...."

Harry's mind was going a mile a minute. Everything had changed now - everything. He wondered if he could contact the Guardians, Godric Gryffindor. If the Destroyers could interfere with the mortal realms, then the Guardians, sworn to protect the Boundary and watch over mortality, could as well. There were millions of Guardians, Harry knew from experience, but he feared they were all too far spread over eternity.

Damn it, why was he saddled with these choices?

A million soldiers, magical soldiers, would be needed to combat an army of Destroyers unleashed upon the world. Merlin, this was getting beyond even the Auror army he had begun to forge. They would be slaughtered under the weight of the Destroyers... what was the use in continuing with that if....

Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.

"We can't lose with you on our side," Ginny said, unwavering trust in her voice and eyes.

"Perhaps...." Harry replied softly. "But victory could come at so high of a cost as to be indistinguishable from defeat. I've seen it happen before... across many worlds...." He trailed away into regret. "But I'm bringing the mood down, aren't I...."

"Do you have any other adventures that need doing today?" Ginny asked. "Or can we sit down and have a late breakfast/early lunch together?"

Harry chuckled as Ginny playfully punched him in the arm and stood up. It took him a minute but Harry got up as well. "Okay, let's dig into what's left of the cake in the storeroom before Ron gets back and finishes it off."

"Agreed," Ginny grinned. "And then?"

"Then," Harry said, a mischievous smile spreading across his face. "Then, Gin, we can go adventuring."

*~*~*~*