The Crux of the Matter

A/N: The chapter title says it all. This is the big one, the chief culprit for the long break this story recently returned from, and the original reason I sat down to write the thing in the first place. I hope this makes up for the wait.

I am grateful to everyone for sticking with me this far, and I hope you continue sticking hereafter. Though the following may put to rest many of your questions about the direction things are heading in, I assure you there are more surprises in store and I have plenty more story to tell.

And now, as Volshebnik says, we arrive at...



Chapter 6: The Crux of the Matter

Volshebnik set off down the dark, narrow hallway without a word, and Harry followed in his wake, very aware that with every step he took, he brought himself that much further from Ron and Hermione. His heart beat riotously in his temples with a heady mixture of anger, pain, and anticipation of what lay ahead.

"Where exactly are you taking me?" he asked Volshebnik, and he was acutely embarrassed to hear his voice cracking.

"My experiment hall," said Volshebnik lightly.

"And what are we going to find there?"

"My experiments." Harry could not see Volshebnik's face, but he could hear the smile in the old wizard's voice.

"And this all has something to do with Horcruxes?"

"Something, yes."

The hallway went from dim to dark, the walls slowly leaning in, as if the corridor might eventually come to a point. Harry could think of nothing else to say to Volshebnik. Ron's words (We're not his followers! We're his friends!) were still ringing in his ears.

Finally they reached the end of the hallway. Harry had to squint to see the darkened outline of a narrow set of stairs stretching up before him. They looked uneven and crumbling, as if they had been carved right out of the earth.

"Now we climb," said Volshebnik, and with a theatrical groan he pulled himself up the first step.

"Shall I give us some light?" Harry asked, feeling it would be awfully dangerous to climb a steep staircase he could barely see.

Volshebnik's reply was swift and firm. "No," he said. "Some things are better left in the dark."

Harry knew better than to ask what that meant. He started up the staircase, following Volshebnik's example in running his hands along the walls so that he had some stability as he climbed. The stairs seemed never-ending; the darkness was incredibly cloying, and there were no other entrances except the one they came through and the one they must be trying to reach.

Fifteen minutes into their trek, Harry's leg muscles churned acid and his patience had worn as thin as paper. He felt suspicion growing in him. Was this a trap, as Ron and Hermione had feared? Perhaps this staircase was enchanted, and Harry would climb it forever, lost in the dark.

But suddenly Harry's foot lifted in search of a stair and failed to find another. He stumbled a little, not used to flat ground, especially flat ground made of sleek ice that squeaked slightly under his boots. They were in utter darkness, but somehow Harry knew that they had emerged from the tight confines of the stairway into an enormous space. Goose bumps lifted on his arms and neck.

"Is this it?" he asked, his voice drifting into the darkness after Volshebnik.

"This," Volshebnik murmured, "is it." He whispered a sibilant incantation, and with it an eerie blue glow slowly spread through the walls and floor of the experiment hall. Harry's eyes took their time adjusting to the newly-kindled light, but he could immediately tell that this was the largest room he'd yet found himself in -- a cathedral made of ice, with a vaulted ceiling nearly obscured by shadows.

"My favorite place," said Volshebnik, appreciating Harry's awe.

They had emerged from their climb in the very center of the hall, the staircase entrance now only a black square hollowed out of the cool blue floor. Harry peered around at the walls and saw that they were made of ice, too. But the hall was empty. Were the experiments hidden, present but invisible, like the old Horcruxes in the previous room?

Harry took a step forward, his eyes searching through the gloom. He was very aware of Volshebnik watching him.

He took another step forward, but he saw nothing, felt nothing. What if Volshebnik was having him on again? What if this really was another trick, another test?

Harry's footsteps echoed in the empty hall. And it was empty, there could be no doubt about that. But wait -- here was something strange.

Harry stared at the eerily-lit wall nearest to him, and saw that there were pale things encased inside the ice. People-shaped things, arranged in a long row that stretched from one end of the hall to the other. Harry's breath caught in his throat; he walked towards the wall, his eyes stretched so wide they were beginning to hurt.

There were people, people in long gray robes, standing under the ice like museum exhibits behind glass. Harry quickly walked towards the nearest one, his heart throbbing, his feet slipping over the slick floor. The nearest body was that of a man with long straw-colored hair, his eyes open but unseeing. He was frighteningly pale, but -- but --

There was something on his forehead.

Harry blinked hard. His eyes were playing tricks on him, that was it.

But the scar was still there when he looked again. It was shaped like a bolt of lightning, and in the man's pallor it seemed to darkly blaze across his skin. Harry's first mad thought was that his scar was reversed on this man, that they were not alike at all. Then he realized, with disturbingly calm clarity, that he was simply accustomed to seeing his own as a reflection in the mirror.

This frozen man had Harry's scar.

Harry's neck seemed to twist all on its own. His feet began moving. He walked to the next figure, a woman, young and pretty with slightly slanted eyes. She had the scar too, the same place, the same shape. Harry walked towards the old wrinkled woman on her other side. The scar again.

It was a test. It had to be. Volshebnik was throwing the scar back at him to see how he'd react. He had to keep calm. He had to --

But Harry's feet mutinied against this half-rational voice in his mind. They pounded at the ice, taking him up and down the hall at top speed. The bodies slipped past him dreamlike, as if the wall was moving and Harry was standing still. A heavyset man with a bushy gray beard -- the scar -- a squat teenager with straggly hair -- the scar -- a woman who could have been Mrs. Weasley's dark-haired twin -- the scar -- the scar -- the scar!

All these people, frozen as if dead, eyes so wide -- why did they all have his scar?

A voice was echoing around him. Volshebnik.

"It's a pity, isn't it? I haven't had any success at all. I've been trying for twenty years now, and I have yet to even puzzle out a pattern to my failures."

Harry had no idea what he was talking about. He tried to turn, to look at Volshebnik, to even formulate some kind of question to ask him, but his tongue was slack and immobile in his mouth, and his eyes kept flicking from one scarred body to the next.

"Part of the trouble is that subjects are so hard to come by these days. I used to find people from the village nearby. I created an avalanche in their path that stranded them out here, and then all it took was the promise of warmth and doctoring to lure them back to my home. Simple enough. But the villagers learned to stay away. Now I am forced to depend upon happenstance, stray travelers and the like."

Why was Volshebnik talking to him so casually? Why was he behaving as though nothing was wrong? He must see the scar. Was he going to put Harry under the ice with these other people?

But then he remembered the Polish mill, the Dissimulata potion that was still in effect. Volshebnik did not know then.

Harry tried his voice, and barely recognized it, for it was so utterly calm it frightened him. "Why do they have that scar?"

Volshebnik let loose his big, echoing laugh. "Hard to miss, isn't it? I told you Specialis Revelio wouldn't be necessary. Living matter is very sensitive. On it the Spell of Division always leaves a mark. The snake will have it, too."

Harry's heart sped up in his chest. "These people, they're dead?"

"No, they are Suspended. They have been given the Draught of Living Death. If I hadn't done it they would have died or hurt themselves beyond repair. You see, their souls, their own souls I mean, could not take the strain, and so they rotted away inside their bodies. A terrible thing to witness. They lost their minds entirely. With some it happened as soon as I finished the spell, but with others it took some time. Those were the worst to bear. For a moment I was allowed to think I'd done it."

Harry finally ripped his eyes from the walls and gaped at Volshebnik. "Done... what... exactly?" he asked, knowing and dreading the answer.

Volshebnik tilted his head back. "Made a human Horcrux," he said, terrible pride trembling in his voice.

"A human Horcrux..." Harry repeated. He felt empty, limp, drowned. It was as if his brain had seized up, curling in upon itself like an animal under attack. "Why?" he asked. Still his voice was strangely calm, and he didn't seem to have to think to make it that way.

Volshebnik frowned at him. "Why? Why? I should think it would be obvious!"

Harry shook his head. "No," he numbly muttered. "It's not."

Volshebnik let out another long, shuddery sigh and stared off at the nearest frozen figure -- the pretty girl with slanted eyes -- his face alight with an emotion Harry could not identify. Pride maybe. Excitement perhaps. Probably madness.

"It is lonely here in the mountains. I haven't had a student in some time. Voldemort was my last before you arrived, and that ended so badly I thought I never wanted to meet another human being again. They all have their own terrible secrets, their hidden lies. I have been betrayed so many times I am tired of fighting back.

"My wife nearly broke me, you see. That is why I came here in the first place. She betrayed our marriage with another man, and when I found out, I killed them both. I told you, I cannot abide traitors. I loved her terribly and killing her was painful. They say you cannot feel your soul rip but I felt it, I did. I used her death to make my Horcrux. I thought that in living forever I could remember what I'd done, I could atone. Romantic foolishness. The years have only made me more certain that what I did was right."

Harry forced himself to listen to Volshebnik's story. He clutched at every word as if each was a floating bit of wood that could save him from drowning in this strange, thoughtless sea in which he had lost himself.

"But after suffering so many betrayals, I did not spurn human contact. In fact, I craved it. I found that all I wanted was constancy. I wanted someone whose loyalty would never fail me, whose dedication was complete. I had that hard-won fragment of my soul, torn away from my body after my wife's death. It was her final gift to me. I can use it to replace her, Mr. Potter! I can use it to create a companion who will always be faithful to me, who will understand me perfectly, right down to the inner workings of my heart. If I can only discover how to do it right, I will achieve what mankind has always struggled to find through our long duration in this world: true and perfect love!"

True and perfect love. Love.

It was horrible. It was inconceivable. It simply could not be.

The numb waters enclosing Harry parted for an instant. In that heartbeat of a moment, all he knew was that he had his wand in his hand, and that he needed -- desperately, desperately needed -- Volshebnik to explain what had been done to him, what had really happened. Perhaps Volshebnik could even tell Harry that he was mistaken, that he'd read everything wrongly, that this searing certainty within him was some kind of illusion.

Harry put the wand to his head, and thought "Induxi!" He felt the sharp pain that meant the Dissimulata had been overridden, that the last remnant of his disguise had been removed. He turned to look at Volshebnik again.

"It isn't love," he whispered.

At first Volshebnik only stared at him in confusion. But then his eyes found the scar, performing the upward flick so familiar to Harry that, for an instant, it was almost comforting.

And then, quite suddenly, the old wizard swept at Harry with unnerving speed. He grabbed Harry firmly by the shoulders, and peered into his face with clinical interest, as if Harry were some specimen for study. Volshebnik's eyes were firmly planted on the scar; perhaps he expected it to do something interesting.

"Him?" Volshebnik finally whispered. "He did this?"

Harry said nothing. There was no need.

"How?" Volshebnik asked.

"I don't know," said Harry.

"What do you mean, 'you don't know'! You must know, how could you not?"

"I was a baby," said Harry. "I don't know what happened. I thought he was trying to kill me. He must have been trying to kill me, because he's been trying ever since. He cast Avada Kedavra on me, but it didn't work; it bounced right off me and hit him instead. They always told me that's what made the scar..."

You and he are connected by the curse that failed. That is no ordinary scar.

"And I believed him," Harry gasped. "I believed it." He was talking mad, spilling secrets he had no business revealing.

"Avada Kedavra leaves no mark," said Volshebnik.

The exception sits before me, Dumbledore had said.

"He meant to kill you," Volshebnik continued. "There is no sense in any of it. Unless -- unless it was an accident... If he intended to make a Horcrux with your death..."

Harry could only nod.

"By accident," said Volshebnik, his eyes gleaming. "He used what I had taught him, he cast the Spell of Division before he murdered you. But when Avada Kedavra failed him, his soul divided anyway. He had effectively murdered himself and the spell went forward, with no guide and no target. Yet it still found you. The possibility of such a thing occurring -- incredible. I cannot believe it. For twenty years I torture myself, no luck, no progress -- and Voldemort comes along and does it by accident?"

His fingers dug sharply into Harry's arms, and what felt like an electric charge passed through Harry's body. His fingers spasmed and he dropped his wand.

"A baby," Volshebnik muttered feverishly. "I never thought to try a baby. But it makes sense. You must have been so much more malleable, able to withstand the violence of the thing without even remembering it. A blank canvas... If it weren't an accident it would be ingenious..."

Again Harry heard the echoes of old voices, not muted like a distant memory, but loud and vivid. Dumbledore could have been standing there, whispering in his ear. Unless I'm much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure...

And what had Harry's response been?

Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?

A bit of himself.

No no no.

Panic began to creep through Harry's mind, easing the numbness aside.

"How does it feel?" Volshebnik asked breathlessly, though he still addressed himself not to Harry's face, but to the scar.

Bile rose in Harry's throat. "F-feel? I dunno...let go of me..."

"You must tell me," Volshebnik commanded. "Can you share his thoughts, his feelings, his memories?"

"No! Get off me!" Harry tried to pull away, but Volshebnik was shockingly strong. He wrenched Harry back towards him. "You can," he said. "I know you can. I see it in your eyes. I should have figured it out before. That's how you found me...you simply followed in his footsteps. And you were so like him during dinner, the way you asked to be trained: 'There are things they won't teach at Hogwarts. Things I'd like to know.' It was uncanny."

"I -- I was just pretending..."

Volshebnik laughed. "What you're doing now is pretending. What you've been doing all your life is pretending! At that table you were finally being honest. Tormendenta -- you pulled that off so beautifully. Flawless technique. That spell usually takes practice, but not for you."

There are strange likenesses between us, after all. Even you must have noticed.

Harry couldn't breathe. It couldn't be true. It couldn't be true. His brain had jammed. "No" was suddenly the only word he knew, and he loudly repeated it over and over.

"What about dreams?" asked Volshebnik, as if he could not hear Harry's agonized denials. "Do you share them, too? That girl there," -- he thrust his head towards the pretty girl under the ice -- "she was lucid for nearly two days, and my dreams that night were spectacular...so vivid. It might have been the most wonderful thing I ever experienced, if not for the pain..." He paused here, and stared at Harry. "There's pain for you, too. Don't bother to deny it, I can tell."

But Harry needed to deny it. He was standing at the brink of some long black drop, and denial was the only thing keeping him from falling. "Let me go!" he screamed. "Let me go, you're mad, you're a daft old goat, you don't know anything, I'm nothing like him, nothing --"

Volshebnik slowly narrowed his eyes, watching Harry's wild struggling with total detachment. "You really did not know?" he finally asked. "You poor fool. He's got you under his thumb, in his complete control, and you have no idea. You think you've been so clever, running around all of England with your little followers, destroying his Horcruxes. But you just stumble across them, don't you? It's been rather easy, hasn't it, Mr. Potter...almost as if you'd hidden them yourself?"

Harry reared up and screamed in Volshebnik's face, "No! No! It's not like that, not at all! I'm going to kill him, you hear me? I'm going to kill Lord Voldemort!"

Volshebnik nearly smiled. He put his face very close to Harry's and whispered, "You are Lord Voldemort."

The long black drop rushed up to meet Harry like a very old friend. Frenzy spilled over him in a torrent, and all he could do was scream. Harry's wand leapt from its resting place on the floor back into his clammy hand. Volshebnik had no right -- no right to say that -- to say -- no --

A violent, invisible force ripped Volshebnik's hands from Harry's shoulders. The old wizard staggered and fell to his knees.

Harry's hands were shaking terribly. It took the whole of his concentration to keep his wand steady as he pointed it at Volshebnik.

"Get it out of me," he said.

Volshebnik's pale eyes shifted from Harry's wand to his face. Harry felt a dim, flickering pleasure at seeing Volshebnik finally look surprised, if not quite scared.

"Beg pardon?" Volshebnik asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Get it out!" Harry cried. "Your spell -- your transference spell. Use it on me. Go on."

Volshebnik stared at Harry for one long moment, and then slowly shook his head.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Harry shouted, anger burning inside his head. "I know you can do it! You got it out of them, didn't you? Those people in the walls! When your experiments went wrong you took your soul away from them! You can do it to me then! You can -- you can dig him out of me! STOP SHAKING YOUR HEAD, I KNOW YOU CAN!"

He slashed his wand through the air and Volshebnik was knocked off his knees. "There is no point," the old wizard coughed out as he sprawled on the floor.

"No point?" Harry gasped, advancing towards Volshebnik with wild, unsteady feet. "NO POINT!"

"You have lived with that soul fragment inside you far longer than you have lived without it," said Volshebnik, his voice becoming smooth again, his eerie, maddening calm returning. "Your body has accepted it, indeed you have claimed it as your own. That soul is a part of you now, Mr. Potter. If I were to rip it out of you it would tear a hole through your entire being; you would lose your own soul in the bargain. A fate worse than death, I should think. Why beg such a thing from me?"

"No, you're lying!" Harry croaked. "You can do something, you can help --" Hopelessness was spinning in his chest, anger was throbbing in his head, and bitter shock sat like thick jelly around his heart. Harry felt as if he was being pulled in a thousand different directions, all at once. He must surely come apart under this relentless pressure. "You've got to help me...you've got to!"

Volshebnik lifted himself into a sitting position. "What will you do if I refuse?" he asked stonily. "Will you kill me with that wand of yours?" He shook his head, the slightest of smiles creeping over his face. "Uncanny. Really quite uncanny. You seem so different, but when you're pushed to your limits, I can see right through you, Harry Potter. I can see him hiding underneath. The man who betrayed me."

"SHUT UP!" shrieked Harry, and he lifted his wand, intending to bring it down in another slash, but he never got the chance. Something massive collided with him, knocking his chin up, driving his head backwards, his whole body falling flat on the ice. His head received a bad knock and the whole world flashed white before his eyes, as if an explosive had detonated in his brain. When the feeling passed, Harry saw Volshebnik standing above him, his long ivory wand now pointing down at him.

Harry tried to lift his own wand to attack again, but Volshebnik muttered "Conglacio!" and suddenly the ice of the floor was moving, weaving sinuous, sleek arches around Harry's wrists and ankles. His wand fell out of his hand, just beyond the reach of his straining fingers. Harry twisted wildly, struggling to get free. Some part of him knew this was useless, but he could not bear to lie still, bound flat to the floor.

"Calm down," said Volshebnik, his voice suddenly warm and amused again. "I thought you wanted help. I already said I'd give it to you, didn't I? I promised to aid you in defeating Voldemort, to help you track down his Horcruxes and destroy them. And I always keep my promises, Harry. I can call you Harry, can't I? Such a nice dependable name. What a pity."

"Let me go!" Harry croaked as he strained against his bonds, the ice burning at his skin.

Volshebnik ignored him. "Were I in your place, I should hate it if the man who killed me called me by my surname. It's very impersonal, don't you think?" He dropped to his knees beside Harry, his dead hair swinging over his ancient face as he stared down at his captive, his dreadful eyes alight with excitement.

"I have one request to make of you, Harry, before I do what must be done. I brought you here, away from the others, so that I could make a deal with you. You see, I do not give my aid without expecting something in return. I must have a new subject for my experiments. My need has become all the greater now that I have found out Voldemort has eclipsed me. Help me catch up, Harry. Give me Miss Granger as a test subject."

"What?" Harry whispered. "Hermione?"

"She amuses me," said Volshebnik. "Such a clever girl, full of spirit. And she is young and healthy. Perhaps her body will survive where the others failed. Give her to me and I shall overlook the fact that you possess the soul of my most hated enemy, and make your death clean and quick."

Harry gaped at Volshebnik. So this was what he had wanted all along -- another victim, another lab rat.

"No," Harry muttered. "You thought I'd let you -- no -- what do you take me for?"

"Her master," Volshebnik sternly intoned. "She is your follower, you can do with her as you please. A small price to pay for an easy death."

"SHE'S MY FRIEND!" Harry screamed. And he wrenched his right hand right out of its icy prison -- the sharp edge sliced deeply into his wrist, but he hardly noticed -- and then he had his wand again. He wasn't sure what incantation he shouted, but it melted all the ice around him into frigid mush. He was free, and he threw himself at Volshebnik with total abandon.

They both fell, slipping twenty feet across the ice. Volshebnik shouted "Punctum!" but Harry dodged the spell, and it blasted away harmlessly into the deep darkness of the vaulted ceiling above them. Harry fought blindly, casting curses that pitted the floor with holes, clawing desperately at Volshebnik every chance he got. He had never been so lost in a fight, so very wild with rage and terror; he barely knew who he was struggling against, or why he needed to win. Everything inside him was collapsing, and he had nothing, nothing left.

Something cold and hard slammed into Harry. Volshebnik had thrown him face first into the wall and his left cheek immediately went numb, pressed into the glowing ice. Volshebnik's elbow jabbed into Harry's back, pinning him in place.

"Enough of this," Volshebnik whispered and he forced the tip of his ivory wand against the tender skin of Harry's temple. Harry expected him to scream the words of the Killing Curse, but Volshebnik said nothing at all. It took Harry a moment to understand why.

Then great bursts of pain erupted in Harry's mouth. There were knives cutting at his gums and his tongue was suddenly deluged in sour blood. Harry gagged and coughed a gout of blood onto the ice wall.

"Are you convinced yet?" Volshebnik asked. "I would like to do the thing properly, to end our partnership with a handshake and your sworn guarantee that she is mine. I would hate to simply kill you and steal her away. Bad manners."

"Guh -- no..." Harry choked, the firmest denial he could muster with his mouth a burning wreck. His chest heaved reflexively and his throat gurgled out bizarre noises Harry never realized he was capable of making. He screwed his eyes shut -- he had to master this pain. He needed to keep fighting, to save Hermione from this horrible man.

He opened his eyes, and stared through his haze of pain into the depths of the bloodstained wall of ice. A ghostly face hovered inside the wall; it was the pretty girl who had a shared a night of dreams with Volshebnik. She was mere feet away from Harry, with nothing but harsh, immovable ice separating them. She seemed to be staring directly at him with her still and empty eyes, and Harry could not look away.

The scar -- his scar -- which had for better or worse defined him all his life, which had always represented everything about him that was special, unique, cursed -- here it was perfectly replicated on the frozen skin of this strange girl.

Harry felt some large and inescapable truth closing in on him, and suddenly he couldn't fight anymore. His will drained right out of his body, replaced by a slow and soporific horror that enclosed Harry like a thick wool blanket. All he could concentrate on was this girl -- that scar. This was Harry, his life, his bitter existence. Not dead, but not properly alive either, simply frozen in hollow stasis, his life irreversibly yoked to Voldemort. And what was he next to the Dark Lord? Nothing, just a pale reflection in a funhouse mirror, a body under ice.

Harry's head began to swim, and his own agonized chokes began to echo dully, as if he were speeding away from his own pain. There was a funny rumbling in his ears, and it grew louder and louder. He was suddenly awash in brilliant white light, and Volshebnik's grip loosened upon him. Harry was able to turn around, away from the girl in the wall, and he found himself staring into the luminous nebulae of two twin stars, which were blindingly bright and roaring like an engine.

This probably had something to do with the fact that it was an engine. It was the motorbike, and it swept at Volshebnik like a charging bull, its wheels shrieking over the ice. Volshebnik vanished with a booming crack -- Tormendenta stopped abruptly and Harry's vision cleared enough to see the bike make a decidedly steep turn right in front of him. Hands reached out and grabbed at Harry's jacket, pulling him forwards so that he was lying across the bike on his stomach, his smarting mouth banging against the shuddering leather of the backseat.

He heard Hermione shout, "I've got him, go!" and the engine gave a joyous growl as the bike barreled hard for the black trapdoor in the middle of the floor.

"No -- wait -- I -- " Harry wheezed. He didn't want them to spirit him away, out of danger. Harry needed to do something. He could never run away from what had happened here; these people in the ice would hound him forever. Harry attempted to roll off the back of the bike, but Hermione's arm fell across his shoulders. With difficulty she managed to pull him upright. "It's all right, Harry!" she screamed at him. "It's okay! We've got you! You're safe now!"

"The walls, look at the bodies-- " Harry choked, but Hermione didn't hear him. There was another loud crack; Volshebnik had Apparated back into the room. Harry could hear him shouting something, and suddenly Hermione shrieked, "Look out!"

The ice glowed red all around them, and it began folding itself up on either side of the motorbike like steep waves about to crash in upon them.

Ron swore at the top of his lungs. Harry was just able to see the tense slant of Ron's back as he hunched himself over the handlebars, putting on speed. But it was useless. They were about to be overwhelmed by the furious ice, trapped forever in its depths.

"Get in the air!" Hermione ordered. "Do a loop!"

"A what?" Ron shouted.

But there was no time for Hermione to repeat herself. She threw herself forward, reached over Ron's shoulders, and jerked hard on the handlegrips. The bike flew upwards, nearly throwing Harry clear off, and then it performed a neat loop into the trap door. Harry heard the ice thunder down upon them, but they had made it into the safety of the long, dark staircase.

Volshebnik's deep scream echoed after them, as if his voice had detached itself from his body to continue giving chase.

The stairway was too narrow for the enormous motorbike; the wheels bounced haphazardly off the steps, the soft walls showered everyone with crumbling dirt, and the engine began making decidedly unhappy noises.

"Get off me, Hermione! I can fly it myself!"

"You've got the controls reversed, Ron! Even us out or you're going to scalp us on the ceiling!"

"I'm trying --"

Harry tried to speak above the roar of the bike and the shouts of his friends, but his mouth ached terribly and his throat wouldn't permit him to shout. "Gotta go back," he muttered. "Those people, you didn't see..." He twisted around, but Hermione increased her grip on his jacket.

"Stop it, Harry! It's okay! We're getting out of here!"

"No, you can't-- "

But then they hit the ground at the end of the staircase with a terrible lurch. The engine groaned as the bike bounced upright again, and then it shot off down the icy hallway, the tires chucking dirt in every direction. They were back in the gray corridor, its length marked off by wooden doors. And out of every door came lumbering a thick-limbed golem.

Hermione shrieked, "Put your foot on the gas and run them down!"

"What gas!?" Ron shouted. "It's magic, Hermione!"

"Oh, you know what I mean!"

The golems approached the bike, their thick and deadly arms outstretched, and Ron smashed right into them. Golem after golem exploded all around the bike like fat fireworks, pebbles winging past like bullets.

Harry strained in Hermione's grip. He looked back the way they came, at the dark entrance to the stairway, and for an instant he was certain he saw a pale, bearded face lurking in the shadows, watching him.

"Faster..." Hermione moaned.

Ron pulled into an abrupt turn that nearly unseated all three of them, and suddenly their surroundings changed. They had reached the dark chasm, and the bike rained dirt and rock onto the delicate ice bridge.

"Nearly there!" shouted Ron. "Come on, bike!"

But suddenly Volshebnik was right there in front of them, standing at the very center of the bridge. He hurled a blazing jet of blue light, and it collided with the side of the motorbike. Both the engine and Hermione screamed. Harry felt something buck underneath him, and then, with no warning, he was completely weightless. He flew right off the moaning motorbike, hit the ice bridge at top speed, slid right to the very end and toppled off. His hand latched on to the latticed edge of the bridge just in time, and he dangled helplessly, his legs kicking at a bottomless drop.

He could still hear the bike's anguished death rattles and his friends' panicked shouts, but they seemed to be fading into the distance. Harry prayed the bike had enough life in it to carry Ron and Hermione out of this place.

It hurt to grip the searing ice. Harry's fingers began to slip, one by one.

Then a hand reached over the side of the ice bridge and curled itself around Harry's wrist. Harry looked up into Volshebnik's looming face; the Dark wizard's eyes glittered with malice and mirth.

"Fighting to survive, Harry? But why bother? You know it is pointless. Or do you share, along with everything else, Voldemort's determination to cheat death?"

"I don't -- share anything -- with him!" Harry howled, and he dug into his pocket with his trembling free hand, in frantic need of his wand.

Volshebnik raised both his eyebrows. "Except your body," he said, smirking, "and your soul."

Then he let loose his horrible, amiable laugh, and in that moment Harry hated him. It was a hatred so powerful it drove all reason out of Harry's mind. All he knew was this man was gloating in a terrible truth, a truth Harry wished he had never heard, a truth that had destroyed everything Harry thought he knew about himself. Again he saw those people, those poor, forgotten people doomed to rot under the ice, still alive. And Volshebnik called it love.

"I'm different," Harry breathed. "I know I'm different." And suddenly his voice was calm and firm again. "I know what Voldemort will never understand. There are some things worse than death!"

Harry knew what had to be done. He would save those people under the ice, those people who were more like him than anyone in the world save one. He had the power to set those people free from their purgatory, and he would use that power no matter the cost.

Volshebnik frowned down at Harry and raised his own wand, but he was too late. Harry extended his free arm and pointed his wand at the wall across from him, aiming at the crucial center brick that Volshebnik had warned him about in what felt like another lifetime.

"Lapideus Animare!" Harry screamed. The brick writhed in place, freed itself from its fellows, and then toppled forward into the abyss. The entire wall followed its example. An ear-splitting rumble echoed all around the chasm. The very air seemed to vibrate with oncoming collapse.

Harry looked back up into the face of the oldest man he'd ever met and saw raw accusation burning in Volshebnik's eyes.

"I always knew it would be you who'd kill me," he said.

And then an enormous boulder fell on the ice bridge and it shattered like fine glass. Harry lost sight of Volshebnik; he could see nothing but darkness and rock. He was falling, falling fast into nothing, he might very well fall forever. He did not mind. There were worse ways of going out.

"Harry! Harry!"

The motorbike was back, swooping under him like a glorious bird of prey. All the wind was knocked out of Harry as he collided with the backseat. Hermione was there to steady him, anxious concern written all over her pale face.

"Go," Harry breathed.

Up revved the engine; the bike shot forward like a dart.

And the chasm collapsed all around them.

Massive chunks of rock hailed down on all sides of the bike as Ron navigated out of the chasm, down a dark hallway, and then up another. The bike rattled precariously, the engine's roar was reduced to a series of guttural croaks. They flew past walls that instantly crumbled into nothing, and the bike's wavering shadow fell on floors that were fast becoming covered in veiny cracks.

Harry felt paralyzed by horror, as if all the bones had disappeared from his body. If Hermione had not been there to grab his jacket collar, half-strangling him in the process, then Harry would probably have pitched right off the bike like a discarded rag doll.

Ron hunched lower and lower over the handlebars, his white knuckles glowing with the strain. Hermione no longer shouted at him to go faster; instead she gripped his shoulder as tight as she could and squeezed her eyes shut. The bike sputtered feebly; Volshebnik's curse was slowly choking the life out of it.

They rounded a corner and Hermione let out a relieved gasp. They were back in the familiar, cavernous corridor in which they had first encountered the golems and Volshebnik. But the giant door in the mountain, the door that had first rolled back and admitted them into Volshebnik's lair, that door was now firmly shut against them. Harry couldn't even distinguish its edge from the rough stone wall of the entranceway. They were trapped inside the cave, and the avalanche was only growing worse.

"Damn it all to hell," Ron muttered.

"There's got to be a way to open it!" Hermione screamed. "Maybe there's a password -- or a concealed panel on the wall somewhere -- or, I don't know, some kind of powerful unlocking charm -- or -- Ron, slow down! What are you doing?"

For Ron was gunning the engine for all it was worth. They shot straight down the hallway -- the floor beneath them writhed with golems who reached up pleadingly for the bike -- they neared the end of the hallway -- they were going to collide with the door.

"RON, STOP!"

But Ron ignored Hermione. He piloted the bike one-handed, and rifled through one of his pockets. He yanked out a handful of lint, but instead of going back in for a second try, he threw the lint as hard as he could at the side of the door.

"Ron -- what -- "

The door exploded. They were immediately blinded by dust pouring down from the ceiling and sunlight streaming through the mammoth-sized hole in the door. The bike pelted through the opening, and icy winds immediately cut at the exposed skin of their faces and hands.

Ron gave a great, hollering whoop. "Exploding Dust Bunnies! Fred and George gave me a few of the new prototypes to test! Warned me they'd be extra-concentrated!"

"For once in their life they weren't kidding," Hermione shakily replied. "Bless them!" Both Ron and Hermione laughed loudly with relief.

Then the motorbike engine stopped its sputtering and died.

Ron gave a shout and wrenched at the handlebars, but it was too late. The bike's front tire collided with the steep, snowy slope beneath them, and the bike flipped over. Again Harry felt that odd, heady feeling of total weightlessness. Then he hit the ground, rolling madly through the snow, pointed rocks jabbing at his spine.

Finally he came to a stop, half-buried in snow. Slowly Harry raised his head, gulping down burning mouthfuls of air, the blood on his face freezing painfully.

His heart sank. The bike -- Sirius's beautiful motorbike -- hardly even resembled a motorbike anymore. It had been decimated in the crash, and was now nothing but a mound of smoking metal. Harry turned wildly, scanning the blank, white landscape for Ron and Hermione, and then he let out a pained gasp of relief. Both his friends had landed in the snow drift; Ron had a bloody gash on his chin and Hermione limped a little as she pulled him up out of the snow, but they were relatively unscathed considering they had just toppled out of an avalanche on an exploding motorbike.

Harry turned around and gazed back the way they came, at the impossibly angled cliff with the great carved door. The door was no more, and snow and rocks poured down over the cliff face, destroying everything. Some part of Harry's mind registered that the avalanche -- his avalanche -- would soon rumble down from the cliff all the way to the slope where he now stood, burying all of them with no hope of escape. But Harry could not muster the energy to gather up his friends and run away. Instead he staggered forward, spellbound by the destruction he had wreaked, and began to climb back towards its source.

Somewhere inside that cliff, Volshebnik might still be plummeting into that black abyss under the ice bridge. Perhaps he was dead. But Volshebnik had a Horcrux, after all, so there could be no guarantees. But those people in the ice -- they must be dead. Their curse was lifted. And wasn't that what mattered?

Hands closed around Harry's shoulders. He struggled fiercely -- he needed to keep climbing.

"No -- Harry, stop!"

Ron threw his arm across Harry's chest, dragging him backwards. But Harry couldn't stop fighting; he clawed at Ron.

"Let me go! Leave me alone, Ron! Just leave me!"

Harry freed one of his arms, but Hermione grabbed it from behind.

"Harry!" she cried, her voice trembling. "Harry, you're not thinking straight. We have to get out of here, come on!"

"No -- I can't -- I can't!"

Ron tightened his grip on Harry. "It's over, mate," he said.

Harry shook his head. Desperate sadness was suffocating him. Ron and Hermione had not been there with him. He had sent them away, and now they could never understand what they had missed.

"You should have left me there," Harry moaned. "You should have left me! Another Horcrux gone!"

He fell to his knees in the snow, pulling the others down with him. They all watched, in stupefied horror, as the mountain in front of them crumbled into dust.