The Man of the Moment

Chapter Thirty-Six: Purity of Blood

One lurching sensation later, Harry found himself standing with Snape in a quaint village square.

"Where's Voldemort?" he asked, ignoring the fury- and fear- in Snape's eyes.

"I don't know. The Dark Lord should be right here. Unless the magic Persephone's carrying around is messing up Apparating spells, too..."

Harry looked around at the village square. The gas lighting had clicked on, for the effects of the total eclipse were here, too. This made Harry guess that they were still in England, given that the timing of the eclipse meant only the UK would be plunged into darkness between the hours of ten in the morning and three o'clock in the afternoon. By his watch, it was half past twelve.

"It's so quiet," Harry commented. He hadn't seen a single villager walk by- surely they wouldn't be superstitious about this sort of thing? Then he noticed the bodies surrounding him.

"Voldemort did this?" he half asked, half stated; feeling angry at the mere thought. Snape knelt over and inspected one of the corpses; that of a young man in his late teens.

"Not necessarily," he replied, and the implications made Harry feel suddenly queasy. His mind flew back to what had happened to Malfoy... He shuddered at the thought.

The neat rows of trees that grew in perfectly ordered rows along the outskirts of the village square shivered from a sudden gust of wind. The small fountain adorning the centre continued to spurt out water in graceful arcs; its tranquil beauty in stark contrast to the bodies that lay strewn across its marble stonework. He noticed, a little to his relief, that there were about a dozen or so white masks being blown across the square- at least that suggested some Death Eaters had suffered, too. Harry turned his head, and saw a few village shops; a pharmacy, a sweet shop and a local pub. Their glass windows had been completely blown out. The glass littered the cobbled streets on which they stood, glinting eerily in the flickers of light the gas lamps gave out. He shook his head, as though attempting to remove the images from his head. This contrast between the quaint, picture-postcard Muggle village and the scenes of slaughter within didn't sit comfortably with him. Nor did the old, battered looking country estate that stood atop one of the hills overlooking the village. It made Harry think of those old Muggle horror films that Channel Four put on late at night. The ones he knew Dudley sometimes watched in case there was a chance that the heroines exposed their bosoms.

"Where are we?" he asked Snape, who looked at him with narrowed eyes.

"I don't know," he hissed. "Now be quiet; I'm trying to think."

A million different quips flittered into Harry's brain at that point, but he bit his lip and said nothing. There was a time and place for everything, after all.

Suddenly, a creaking sign in the distance attracted Harry's attention- it appeared, somehow, to have been blown along by the wind. He stepped away from Snape- who had conjured up a map of the UK and was trying to pinpoint their location- and moved to examine it further. It was metal, but painted white with black lettering, and had been bent out of shape. The creaking sound was clearly because it had been blasted off its hinges as well, and the metal was still in the process of buckling from the resultant temperature changes. He rubbed away at some of the soot obscuring a few letters, and read the place name out aloud.

"Little Hangleton Welcomes Careful Drivers," he said, puzzled. Snape glanced up from his magical map.

"Yorkshire," he commented, shortly.

"Why here?" Harry wondered, but somewhere, deep in the inner regions of his brain, the name sparked something.

Suddenly, a burly middle-aged man with a thick moustache and a flat cap ran out of the nearby pub and towards them both.

"Here, what on earth are you two fellows doing standing out here?" he demanded. "Did you not see what just happened?" With those words, he firmly pushed Harry and Snape towards the pub.

"Get your hands off me!" Snape ordered, but the man took no heed.

"You'll thank me soon enough," he replied, gruffly. Harry looked up at the pub in which they were guided to- the sign that swung gently in the breeze read 'The Hanged Man'.

The pub looked a lot cosier inside than the ravaged windows and singed external brickwork would have suggested. The people in the pub looked afraid, but stoic, as they sipped their drinks and attended to their small children. One little girl was being rocked to sleep by a harangued looking mother. Clearly, the child had been crying.

"Here, Marjorie; they're alright, I think," the moustached man announced, taking off his cap and hanging it on the hat stand near the door. He gestured for Harry and Snape to sit down.

"It's been terrible- just terrible," he insisted, sitting down with them. He then glanced at their attire with an expression of curiosity and suspicion.

"You're not from these parts, are you?" he said, with a note of sarcasm. The other people sitting in the pub stared as well, and Harry began to feel like an attraction at a sideshow.

"We're..." Snape faltered.

"Clerics!" Harry interrupted swiftly, causing Snape to look at him with deep disgust.

A rather rubinesque woman in a too-tight skirt and white blouse hobbled over to them in high heels that defied the natural laws of gravity.

"Aren't you a little young to be a man of the cloth?" she enquired of Harry.

"He's, erm... in training," Snape replied. The woman smiled at him.

"It's always nice to see young men take an interest in the Good Lord, Father; especially nowadays. All this teenage pregnancy and joyriding." She shook her head. "You must feel very proud, Father."

"Not a day goes by where I don't count my blessings," Snape replied in a voice so bitterly sarcastic, it surprised Harry that the lady didn't pick up on it.

"Ne'er a truer word spoken, Marjorie," the man with the impressive moustache commented, patting Marjorie's buttocks as she walked past.

"Oi, watch it, Richard," she laughed. Richard winked at her.

"Get these two honourable men a drink, would you, Marge?" he asked. Marjorie sighed in exasperation.

"They're men of the cloth!" she protested, but Richard and his moustache merely laughed.

"They're C of E," he said, pointing at Snape's left hand. "No Catholic priest would be allowed one of those!"

Harry had absolutely no idea what Richard was talking about- Snape, even less so. However, Harry got an idea when he asked Snape how long he had been married. Snape looked as though he'd rather stab the man in the eye with a cocktail stick than engage him in small talk, but he clearly realised it would arouse less suspicion if he just got on with it.

"Six months," he replied, and Harry tried not to smile. This was bound to be the only part of their entire conversation that would prove to have any basis in reality.

Two of the older ladies sitting nearby nudged each other and giggled.

"Ooh, you wait until it's been fifty years, pet," the one said, "that's how long me and my Edward have been together."

"Wow- that's quite an achievement," Harry said, as warmly as he could considering his stomach was tying itself up in knots over Persephone- and Voldemort's- possible whereabouts.

"It's nothing," the old lady said modestly, patting her white-blonde bob. "All it takes is understanding, patience..."

"And a regular bridge club to get away from him now and then!" her friend joked. Harry smiled. The woman, who wore her salt and pepper hair up in a bun, stared hard at Snape.

"Do you know who you remind me of, Father?" she pointed out. Snape looked at her blankly.

"I haven't a clue," he replied coldly. She ignored- or didn't notice- his frosty response.

"Caroline," she said. Her friend looked askance at her.

"Caroline? You've gone soft in your old age!" she replied, acerbically. The other woman shook her head.

"I mean in the eyes. Around the eyes, he's the spit of Caroline," she insisted.

"Who's Caroline?" an elderly man further along the table asked.

"You know Caroline- retired now, used to work in the wool shop. Married the GP with the lazy eye; had twins," the woman explained. The elderly gentleman scratched his balding head to demonstrate his confusion. The woman clicked her tongue against her cheek.

"Caroline- Peter and Ethel's daughter- you know, Ethel with the plastic hip. Her sister ran off with a Gyppo, brother's a vet..."

"What happened out there?" Snape asked Richard, who appeared deep in thought. He shook his head sorrowfully.

"Terrible sight," he said, solemnly. "Nobody really knows. It wasn't..." He appeared deep in thought, as though he was carefully choosing his words. "I suppose, being of the Church and all, you probably hear a lot of odd stories. You know, about ghosts and the like. Poltergeists," he explained. Snape nodded.

"We've both had... some experience," he replied coolly. Richard nodded.

"Well, it was stranger than anything I've ever seen before- and I've owned this pub for twenty-seven years. My father owned it before me, and my father's father..."

"Get on with it!" Snape hissed. Richard looked a little taken aback.

"Here," he said, nudging Harry, "he's a bit highly strung, isn't he?"

Harry decided from the furious look in Snape's eyes, that it would probably be for the best if his reply was non-committal.

"It was a terrible ghost, Father," one old man announced, from a few tables away. "Some call her the White Witch. She flew through here, just a few moments ago, and everyone fled in terror! Ooh, it was horrible- all red, white and black, with terrible eyes! It was like something out of a horror film!"

"At least it got rid of those madmen, mind," another younger man pointed out. "There were a group of people, all in black- much like your good selves- except they were wearing masks. Now, it isn't Halloween, I'll tell you that for free. They started harassing some of the young girls. Then it got violent. I don't know what caused more damage- the White Witch, or those psychos running around before her. They soon scarpered when she came on the scene, I'll tell you that for nothing!"

A group of other locals murmured their agreement. Another older woman, with glasses and a powder-blue raincoat, surveyed Snape with suspicion.

"I think it was Ultionis, Father," she said, and the mention of the phrase startled both Harry and Snape.

"The... The what?" Snape managed to stammer. The old woman looked at him.

"You've heard of it, Father? Anger in human form! Worse than any poltergeist- it destroys everything it its path, all the time seeking out one adversary... Funny thing is; it headed straight for the Riddle House- and we all know what strange goings on that place has attracted..."

Harry didn't have time to react, for everyone in the pub had murmured their agreement.

"It's true," Richard explained. "My mam told me all about it. She was only a little girl when the Riddles' were found, you know. She said their deaths were most peculiar. Not a mark on them. No signs of suffocation, stabbing, bullet wounds or poisoning. Apparently, they just died of fright. Now, that doesn't make any sense!"

"And everyone thought it was poor old Frank," Marjorie added, as she placed two small glasses of amber-coloured liquid in front of Snape and Harry. "But it can't have been. They found him just three years ago, dead exactly the same way. I'm telling you, that house is cursed!"

"He must be there," Harry whispered to Snape. "I saw that place! It's on that big hill!"

Snape nodded, and looked at the small glass in front of him. He downed it in one and grimaced slightly, before nudging the second glass towards Harry.

"I've never drunk alcohol before in my life," he pointed out. Snape smiled humourlessly at him.

"Well, Potter; now might be a very good time to start," he replied.

The locals of Little Hangleton gave Harry and Snape quite a warm farewell- which happened very speedily after they had heard of the 'White Witch's' appearance. They had also given them directions to Riddle House, a hip-flask of brandy and two packets of pork scratchings. Harry put most of this down to the fact that they had claimed to be going up to Riddle House to perform an exorcism. Which, in a way, was entirely truthful.

"Clerics, Potter?" Snape asked, as they trudged their way up to the entrance of Riddle House.

"It was the first thing that popped into my head!" he protested. "I thought, the black robes, the tribal crosses- it seemed the best cover."

Snape looked at him, and raised an eyebrow. Harry shrugged.

"I can see now that it wasn't the best idea I've ever had," he admitted. "Given that you hadn't even heard of the Bible, much less anything inside it..." He trailed off suddenly, and Snape concentrated on the ground beneath his feet. It had suddenly dawned on Harry that today, he and Snape were having the first civil conversations they had ever engaged in, and it made him feel rather uncomfortable.

The grand, mildew-covered entrance to Riddle House lay open; the door apparently pushed so far open, that it wouldn't swing back on its hinges.

"Does that mean Persephone's here?" Harry enquired. "Or just that Voldemort is expecting us?"

Snape didn't reply. He just took a deep breath, as though to steady himself, and walked under the archway into the entrance-hall of the house. Harry followed him and soon enough, his scar began to prickle uncomfortably. He didn't need Snape to tell him who was in this building.

If the whole building hadn't been in such a state of disrepair, Harry could have imagined it to be a rather palatial house. He couldn't, for some reason, see it having ever been a home. It seemed too cold and distant a place to ever be described as a home. Huge chandeliers, covered in cobwebs and dust hung overhead, swaying slightly in the chilly breeze that seemed to be following them around the country. There were teal velvet curtains flapping against the windows, decaying at the bottom with mildew and damp-rot. The muddy-grey carpet squelched slightly beneath Harry's feet. He couldn't hope to guess why.

"Which way?" Harry asked, anxious to find his sister. Snape looked around.

"Check each room, I suppose," he replied, taking the turning on his left and creeping past a series of paintings. In the eerie quiet of the house, Harry heard Snape's breath shorten. His scar began to throb with pain, this time more exquisitely than before. He rubbed his head, and tried to ignore it. He knew exactly why it was happening.

The paintings attracted Harry's attention. Although Tom Riddle junior wasn't so much as acknowledged, he could see from the oil-paintings adorning the wall where he had got his haughty demeanour and good looks from, although he could imagine that very few other people would have noticed it, having never made the connection between Tom Riddle and Lord Voldemort. There was a large picture, a little damaged from damp and neglect, inside an ostentatious gold frame, of what must have been Riddle senior- a dark-haired man with a strong jaw line and the same expression of distaste that the schoolboy Tom Riddle had given Harry when he was just twelve. Next to him stood a cold, regal-looking woman with blonde hair and the same dark eyes, and next to her was a tall, broad man in hunting regalia. He had a waxed moustache that looked almost as though it had been drawn on, and a severe parting in his wavy hair. He had the appearance of just the sort of man who considered hunting creatures beneath him in the food chain his God given right, and a sport to rival Quidditch- were he a wizard. Harry assumed from the house in general, that the Riddles considered themselves at the very top of the proverbial food-chain and that everything was beneath them- including Riddle junior's mysterious witch mother.

"They're the Muggle answer to the Malfoys!" Harry gasped. It took him a few moments, and Snape's sudden glare, to realise that he had spoken out loud. He stepped forward, and then jumped back as the floorboards in front of him collapsed into the ground beneath him with a wet crack.

"The whole house is rotting away," Harry thought to himself.

Suddenly, a cold, high-pitched voice made Harry's body jump, and his skin crawl.

"You're getting colder, Severus. I'm up here; and so very tired of waiting. First door on the right, you really can't miss it."

Snape froze momentarily, before he slowly turned his head towards the elaborate staircase in the centre of the entrance-hall. Harry turned on his heel and ran towards the stairs, taking care not to touch the slimy-looking banister. Half of him thought that if he did reach out to touch it, the once-polished oak would crumble away from his hands. Snape followed him, and swiftly overtook him on the bottom staircase.

"I'll go first," he ordered quietly. Harry didn't see any point in objecting. He couldn't see what difference it would make, anyway. Instead, he followed Snape up the rickety staircase, taking care not to try and walk on any part of the wooden stairs that looked remotely damp. There was always the risk that they would disintegrate, let alone merely split from his weight.

Somewhere, a distant rumbling of the earth caused Harry to lose his footing briefly. He grabbed onto the banister instinctively, only for half of it to fall away and crash onto the floor below.

"What a stupid place to hide out," Harry muttered to himself, trying to ignore the now searing pain in his forehead, the pain that threatened to rip his skull apart. "How did Voldemort get up here without destroying this entire staircase? Anyway, surely this would be the first place anybody who knew anything about him would think of looking?"

"You forget, Potter, that the Dark Lord does not need to hide away anymore," Snape countered.

"You know, I'm starting to wonder," Harry commented. "You still call him the Dark Lord, after all this time. Why?" Harry asked, stopping mid-way up the stairs. Snape turned to face him, his eyes blazing with fury.

"Potter!" he hissed, "Keep moving!"

"Not until you tell me," Harry said, folding his arms. The last thing he wanted to do was walk straight up to Voldemort with someone who once swore allegiance to him, and might never had renounced it, as his only companion. At least, he didn't want to do it without prior warning. Plus, he was also rather curious. Snape sped stealthily down four or five steps, until he was face to face with Harry.

"You want to know? Fine- I'm afraid, Potter. Terrified. You may be too young to remember, and too arrogant to heed the blatant warning of your parents' death; I'm not. I'm scared. There are worse things than death, believe me."

Harry felt flames of anger lick at his stomach from Snape daring to even mention his parents, but it didn't last long.

"Then, why do it, if you're so scared?" he asked. Snape shrugged.

"What else is there to do?" he replied, before creeping back up the staircase. This time, Harry followed.

They reached the top of the stairs, and the whole building shook violently. The staircase crumbled away from the floor and crashed into the entrance-hall, a mass of splinters, timber and quality, hardwearing carpentry. Only two steps remained at the top of the ex-staircase. Another tremor, and the cobwebbed chandelier crashed onto the mess of wood. Harry saw a seething mass of black dots spread across the floor from within the chandelier.

"Spiders," he thought, absently, as Snape prodded him sharply in the ribs.

"Stay here," he mouthed. "He might not know..."

"Severus, don't stand on ceremony," Voldemort's cold, high voice called. "Please, bring your guest. I haven't seen him for three years."

"You were mouthing?" Harry whispered, sarcastically. Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to react in any other way. Snape said nothing. Instead, he walked the last two yards up to the first door on his right. Harry followed him, and they both entered the room side-by-side.

"Good afternoon, Severus," Voldemort whispered. "It's so nice of you to spare me the bother of coming to you. I must admit, by around one o'clock, I was beginning to think I might have to. But you didn't disappoint."

Snape said nothing, he just looked at Voldemort's left eye- or rather, the black patch that covered up his lack of left eye.

"And you brought Harry Potter!" Voldemort continued, in a louder voice. "How delightful. I can finally be rid of him. Now that the muggle-loving fool you turned against me for is out of the picture, these shall be mere formalities. Finally, the wizarding world will be the way it ought to be..."

"What, completely under your thumb?" Harry mocked. Voldemort looked at him, and Harry felt his scar burn ever more wildly.

"Why, yes, Potter," he replied. "Of course, a pure-blood nation will benefit us all; but what good is that if I'm not dominating it? I have great plans, Potter- first stop, the British Isles- next stop, Europe. After that, who knows?" He smiled coldly at Harry. "But, first things first..."

Harry felt Snape's right arm curl around his body, pushing him behind Snape as though he were acting as Harry's personal human shield.

"I don't need protection from you," Harry hissed.

"Believe me, it isn't out of personal love for you, Potter," Snape spat, quietly. The whole spectacle seemed to greatly amuse Voldemort.

"Severus? What happened? Acting like a serf to a boy you can't bear the sight of?" He shook his head. "I don't understand, Severus. You despise this boy, and yet you would die before him? Help me out here, is it some misguided sense of duty- for trust me, Severus; he will die just when I want him to. Is it sentimentality? I gathered some information concerning your vicious half-blood daughter. Her mother never loved you..."

"Nor I her," Snape replied evenly. This, to Harry's amazement, seemed to genuinely confuse Voldemort.

"Then why? What could you possibly gain from this, Severus?" he enquired. Harry saw, from the reflection of a mirror in the corner of the room, that Snape's lips curled into a malicious smile.

"I don't particularly feel like satisfying your curiosity," he replied. Voldemort looked at him in disgust for a moment, before briefly inspecting his fingernails.

"You have precious little else left, Severus," he commented. "Except perhaps to witness your adorable wife Alexandra, an ill-bred little wretch in every sense of the word, drop down dead. Which, by the way, she already has..."

"You liar!" Harry shouted out, in fury. Voldemort smiled, and blinked his one remaining red eye.

"Lord Voldemort has no need to lie when he personally witnessed two Killing hexes smash into her face," he replied. Snape's reaction was guarded.

"In fact," Voldemort continued, "All that's left for me to do is make you watch whilst I slaughter Persephone- it is Persephone, isn't it? A charming name, I must confess... Of course, I will have to pass the time until she is brought here by torturing you."

The house shook again, and the pictures that still remained on the walls crashed onto the floor. The mirror Harry had been using to gauge Snape's expressions had landed, vertically, against the corner of the room, and had shattered into five pieces.

"You're too late," Snape said softly. "She's already here."

Voldemort looked up at him and smirked.

"I think not, Severus," he replied. "My loyal Death Eaters have yet to arrive with her. You should know my power- this house is warded. Nobody enters without my expressed permission."

Suddenly, another tremor shook the house again, and a few more floorboards collapsed and slid away. A loud blast quickly followed, at which point a huge slab of the limestone that made up the Riddle House was flung from one side of the room to the other, leaving a gaping hole where the slab had been moved, and a great big dent where it had landed. The house shook once more, and part of the ceiling crumbled, falling into the room and exposing it to the dark outside. Harry looked up at the black sky.

"She's already here," he repeated. "Looks like you're not as powerful as you think, Voldemort!" He made sure the name sounded like the worst kind of insult.

Persephone's body floated up to the room and landed gracefully, feet first, upon the floor, directly in front of a bewildered Voldemort.

"We have come for revenge, Marhime!" she seethed, all those voices ripping through her own vocal cords. Voldemort backed away a little.

"What manner of madness is this?" he demanded.

"You must pay the tribe for your insults, you are accountable for them all!"

Suddenly, Harry began to understand. The different voices, they weren't some odd trick. They were the voices of every single member of the Snape tribe, struggling to voice their collective anger. The he noticed something else. Persephone looked positively emaciated. She had always been thin, every since Harry had known her, but she had easily lost a stone of body weight in the hour or so since he had last laid eyes on her. The dark, pitiless eyes bulged further out of her deepening sockets, her cheekbones stood out like razorblades, and her cheeks looked even hollower than before.

"It's destroying her!" Harry whispered. Snape made no reply, but Harry saw all he needed to see in the cracked mirror that now lay against the corner of the room. Snape knew it, too.

"Persephone!" Snape yelled. "Persephone, can you hear me?"

Persephone's body turned to face him, its eyes ablaze with hatred.

"You dare to challenge us, Alessio?" she spat. "Persephone is gone, she gave herself for our revenge."

The body that once belonged to Persephone lifted up its right hand and held it in front of Voldemort. It screeched something unintelligible to Harry's ears, and then a thunderous gush of air pulsed from the hand, pushing against Voldemort's face so fiercely, the skin began to ripple, as though he had been spun around in a G-force machine that NASA use to train their astronauts.

"Interesting," Voldemort jeered, although Harry thought he could detect a note of fear in his voice. "How long will you be able to keep this up? Possession is very difficult- I should know. The bodies just don't last that long..." He paused for effect, and Harry knew if was for his and Snape's benefit.

"Proserpine!" Snape yelled, desperately. Voldemort laughed.

"I don't think I've ever seen you so desperate, Severus," he commented, causing Snape to stare at him, in a mixture of fear and fury.

"Please, don't stop," Voldemort encouraged. "I'm rather enjoying it. I couldn't have come up with a better way of torturing you that your own daughter has! You must be so proud of her- if you were a true, loyal Death Eater, you most certainly would. So would I, if it weren't for her mother..."

"Leave her alone!" Harry roared, and he didn't know if he meant Persephone, or his own mother. "Dextera; Sectumsempra!"

A jet of light flew towards Voldemort, who merely watched it with interest, before plucking it out of thin air and disintegrating it between his fingertips.

"I shan't even dignify that with a response," he said coolly.

Harry felt his blood boil with rage.

"Dextera; Crucio!" he bellowed, and this spell hit Voldemort square in the chest. He winced a little, but no more.

"I'd stop that, if I were you, Harry," he said, in cold, calm tones. "You're wasting your energy, and my time. And that makes me angry..."

A flash of green light thundered towards Harry- he moved to block it- but it hovered in mid air, inches from his face, and looked unlikely to move any further. Slowly, he rolled his eyes towards Persephone's body, which stood proudly, its right hand raised, apparently stopping the movement of the spell.

"That makes me angry, too- that's my brother!" Persephone yelled, and Harry's heart filled with glee. All too soon, though, the seething mass of voices returned.

"We shall see you pay!" they shouted, pushing the spell back towards Voldemort. He stiffened momentarily, as though concentrating the spell away from him, but it continued to move steadily- if more slowly- towards him. In the end, he conjured up a particularly robust Shield charm, and the spell bounced off into the nearby wall, scorching the masonry. His eye full of hatred, Voldemort fired spell after spell- some Harry couldn't even begin to identify- at Persephone's body, which merely resulted in her outstretching her right and left hands. The spells all bounced off some kind of invisible force field, or were absorbed into nothing. Harry could see blood begin to trickle from Persephone's nose, and her left ear. Voldemort looked a little surprised that she was still standing, unmoved and relatively unharmed.

Then, Persephone's face began to contort a little in either pain or struggle, and Harry thought that perhaps she was returning to them again. A quick glance at Snape told him he thought the same thing.

"Harry!" Persephone's voice called- only it was deeper, gruffer, somehow. "Harry, can you hear me! It's Sirius!"

"Sirius?" Harry asked, his heart lifting at hearing what was unmistakeably his manner of speaking. "You're dead, aren't you?"

Persephone's face warped into a grin very similar to the way in which Harry's godfather used to smile.

"So is everyone else in here!" he shouted back. "I managed to get through..."

Snape looked positively furious.

"Black? What in Merlin's name are you doing in my daughter?"

A barking laugh came out of Persephone's mouth.

"Oh, Snape, if I had a galleon for every time I had somebody's father yell that at me!" Sirius teased. Then he frowned. "I'd have two Galleons, including just now." Persephone's face winked at Harry. Then, it fell into an expression of confusing.

"Your daughter? Who did you have to stun to get that close to them?" he mocked, before peering down at the body he was currently inhabiting. "It must have been somebody rather attractive," he mused. "Course, I haven't seen her face..."

"Go back to the hell where you came from, Black," Snape sneered. Persephone's eyes glowered at him.

"I haven't come to waste my lack of breath on you, Snape," he spat. "I've come to speak to Harry!"

Snape bared his teeth.

"Get out of my daughter's body!" he demanded.

"Make me!" Sirius goaded. Snape glowered at Persephone's body, apparently deliberating his options. If he tried to hex Sirius, he would end up hexing Persephone's body. Impotent frustration clouded his entire face.

"I don't believe this," Snape spat, "I refuse to be drawn into an argument with a dead man!"

Persephone looked at Snape, wearing the sardonic expression Harry could easily attribute to a surly Sirius.

"People in mirrored houses shouldn't cast hexes, Snape. Besides, I rather think there isn't anybody- living or dead- you couldn't have an argument with," he replied, casually, before looking at Harry.

"She's dying, Harry. I can't reach her." He paused. "I'm sorry, Harry. I know how much you both bonded- well, I do now, anyway. Porphyria is very talkative, even though most of her conversation revolves around chastising me..."

Harry wasn't listening. Sirius had reminded him...

"You're right- it is blood. But look more closely- it's the same... She's going down a path you have yet to tread. If you ever go there, bring her back."

He looked down at his hand. He felt the sword he had stashed in his robes beneath his belt. He heard the rustling of a piece of parchment fluttering towards his feet. He knew what he had to do.

Quick as a flash, Harry grabbed the piece of parchment that had fallen from Persephone's robes. He unfolded it, glanced at it, and then walked towards Persephone.

"Harry! What in Merlin's name are you doing? They'll kill..." Sirius' voice was swiftly lost to the awesome power of the Snape tribe.

"This does not concern you, Gaje," they hissed, lifting Persephone's hand as though ready to smother Harry. "Remove yourself from our presence."

"No chance," Harry spat, pressing his left palm to Persephone's, and then thrusting the sword right the way between his hand and hers, ignoring the pain, and Snape's furious voice.

"What do you think you're doing, Potter! I said contact her, not..."

Suddenly, he couldn't hear a thing, except for the rushing of voices swirling around his head. All he could feel was a crushing, oppressive weight both crushing his head, desperate to get inside him and a great power struggling to escape his body; all pushing so intensely, he thought his entire body would be rent asunder from the force. He couldn't see anything, either. The room he was in had vanished from view- all he could see was blinding, painful white light. His very bones ached, as though somebody was lathing them to nothing. His skin was taut- too taut- and he felt far too hungry, and far too tired, all far too quickly. The pain burned more fiercely that his lighting bolt scar ever had, but all he could think about was saving Persephone...

Then, just as swiftly, he felt absolutely fine. The Snapes were buzzing around his head, pleading, demanding, screaming, or just whispering; but it no longer hurt. Something powerful, something terrible, still flowed through his veins, but it no longer hurt him. What that something was, he didn't know.

Voldemort looked at him with his remaining red eye.

"Your effort was useless, Harry Potter," he said coldly. "Gypsies and Vagabonds have no powers that can touch me. Your sister was no match for me, and neither are you. Now kneel before me, dear boy, and face the consequences of your actions!"

He flicked his hand, and Snape went crashing into the nearest wall, brickwork crashing onto his entire body. Harry stared at him, shocked.

"I don't even like Snape!" he said, incredulously. Voldemort shrugged.

"So? I felt he was cluttering up the room- and all that shouting? Most unbecoming." He waved his hand again, and Snape's back jolted, as though he had been hit by a curse.

"I would have liked to have tortured him a lot more," Voldemort admitted, looking at Snape's lifeless body. "However, I fear that would have led to more annoying screaming- and besides, he found out his wife is dead whilst he watched his only child slowly kill herself. I know how much that hurt him." He smiled, a genuine smile of delirious, twisted joy.

"You're sick," Harry spat, glowering at an unconcerned Voldemort.

"He betrayed me," Voldemort explained. "That hurt me even more..."

A sharp stab of fury hit him, flooding his body with rage and grief. Instinctively, Harry knew it was the tribe. He felt helpless- he had been expecting something; super powers, some sort of fancy way to protect himself, but in truth, nothing had really changed, except that Persephone was no longer being destroyed from within. She stirred momentarily on the cold wooden floor, but apart from that, he saw no signs of life.

Voldemort attempted to aim the Imperius curse at him, but Harry swiftly repelled it against him, at which point it merely disintegrated. Voldemort continued to smile that cold smile at him.

"What do I do?" he thought, trying to shut out the voices buzzing around in his head. One voice became much louder- he recognised it as belonging to Porphyria, although he tried not to think about it.

"Pin him to the ground and chop his head off!" she ordered, frantically, from within Harry's head.

"That's for vampires!" he shouted back, feeling increasingly less sane with every passing second. He heard a loud tutting noise.

"Think, boy- you'd be surprised how many things you can kill by beheading!" Porphyria retorted sharply, and Harry had to bite his tongue to stop himself from yelling at her out loud. This was ridiculous- if he was going to die, the last thing he wanted during his final moments were all of Snape's dead relatives and ancestors floating around in his head.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed movement. Persephone raised her hand limply, and drew a lazy circle in the air with her index and middle fingers.

"Eyes," she murmured. "Eyes."

Her hand dropped to her side, and Harry thought he heard the bones snap against the floor. However, Persephone had given him an idea. He thrust his sword in front of Voldemort, who laughed.

"After all this, everything I've done, do you really think that is going to make any difference?" he goaded. "It might pierce my skin, I'm really not sure. Feel free to try, though- I'm actually a little curious myself, to tell you the truth..."

"Oatcakes!" Harry shouted, and a sudden burst of something emitted from the hilt of his sword. Voldemort swiftly pulled his hands to his eye, and winced.

"You little..."

Thirty seconds. Harry knew he had thirty seconds before Voldemort regained his sight- but he didn't know what good that was going to do.

"Well, come on! You've got the advantage- do something!" a voice- one he didn't recognise- shouted at him.

"Why can't we control him, like the other nice girl?" another voice asked.

"I don't know," came the reply. "Things were so much simpler back then."

A voice filtered into his head; a female voice, an oddly familiar one, soft and warm and everything Harry wanted to hear at that moment.

"When he left you that scar, he linked you both. Use that link, Harry..."

It was quickly drowned out by a gruff, "Oh, what would you know?" which made Harry want to scream. He'd give anything to hear that voice again...

"Listen to your mother, boy," Porphyria's voice called again, "fight him like a wizard!"

"My mother?" Harry said, desperately, and Voldemort's high pitched laugh suggested that Harry had spoken out loud.

"You stupid boy," he mocked, tears streaming from his one eye. "I killed your mother- she can no more speak to you than the ravaged remains of your half-blood sister can..."

Harry, his veins burning with fury, stood and faced Voldemort.

"Duel," he demanded. Voldemort snorted.

"I will win," he replied. "Why put yourself through it, Potter? You know I will merely torture you the more..." He shrugged. "Then again, at least you fight like a grown man; unlike that particularly poor excuse," he added, jerking his head towards the half-buried Snape. He sighed, as though the whole thing were an irritation. "Very well," he replied, drawing his wand.

A jet of green light- Harry recognised it as the Killing curse- flew towards Harry.

"Sinistra; Protego!" he yelled, deflecting the beam. It bounced off the broken mirror in the corner of the room and towards Voldemort, who blocked it.

"Dextera; Impedimentia!" Harry roared, and a bright flash of light spun from his fingertips and hit Voldemort in the arm, whilst he was distracted with blocking his own Killing curse. He stiffened, as though motionless, for just a few moments. Clearly, Harry's spells just weren't having a lasting effect. But why?

"He's mutilated himself with so many magical transformations, spells will wear off him more quickly than most," Porphyria's voice told him, in curt tones. "Now, don't stop. If you pause, it'll give him an advantage..."

"How do you know?" Harry thought, in wonder.

"I'm a Gypsy, boy! I've lived in some of the most dangerous parts of Europe- I know what I'm talking about... For Heaven's sake, keep your eye on your target!"

Voldemort had fired yet another Killing curse at him; this time, Harry just ducked and rolled, the spell smashing into the wall behind him. He jumped up, and aimed another spell- the one Persephone had taught them in Defence Against the Dark Arts, which caused magical cords to fly at your opponent and bind them. Voldemort tried to evade them, but Harry managed to control their movement by using spells from his free hand, and soon enough, Voldemort was trapped within blue, seething coils.

"Don't just leave him," Porphyria urged. "He can Apparate over very short distances with ease- you've seen it! Try a Thunderbolt curse- you did those last year. Pass it through the cords..."

"Dextera; Fulminis," Harry commanded, and a bright blue bolt of pulsing light travelled through the cords, and Voldemort was soon writhing in pain. His knees buckled slightly.

"Thanks," Harry thought.

"What do you mean, 'thanks'? You know all of this, boy," Porphyria chastised.

Suddenly, Harry felt the coils slacken, and he knew Voldemort had Apparated elsewhere in the room. Instinctively, he whirled around, and he was unsurprised to find himself face to face with Voldemort.

"Crucio!" he roared, pinning Harry to the floor in agonising pain.

"You arrogant, foolish son of a mudblood," Voldemort hissed. "I'm going to keep you in this torturous pain, until I get bored and decide to kill you. Goodbye, Potter..."

The pain intensified, but for Harry, it paled in comparison to what the Snapes had put him through when he hijacked Persephone's sacrifice. He still struggled to do much of anything, though. He tried to pull himself up from the floor, but every time he tried, the pain increased. Not just from the Crutiacius, but from the scar on his forehead, which blossomed into fresh agony.

He thought momentarily of Gyaltsen, the friendly Lama who had taught him the ways of wandless magic. He also thought about the time he had witnessed him lift a curse with the power of his mind.

"I'll give you just a few more minutes," Voldemort lilted, looking at his watch as he did so. Harry knew he had to do something. Even the few precious seconds between Voldemort lifting the Crutiacius curse, and replacing it with the Killing curse would not be enough for him to recover and counter-attack. He concentrated hard on those calm, blue oceans, and the flow of magical energy...

"Use your heart, not your head!" Porphyria shouted at him, rather crossly. "That's what saved you last time!"

"Be quiet!" Harry demanded, but he knew, deep down in his bones, that she had a point.

"Think, Harry," he told himself. "What will happen if I don't lift this spell..." He thought of many hypotheses. If he died, apparently nobody else in the world would be able to vanquish Voldemort. He would then go on to kill his friends, and Persephone- the only remaining family he really had. She had almost died the last time she encountered Voldemort. Lupin; he would certainly die, too. Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, Luna... He was not going to let that happen.

The pain lifted instantly, and Harry wasted no time.

"Dextera; Accido!" he yelled, and the heavy chandelier that lay smashed on the floor of the entrance hall swiftly flew up and smacked Voldemort in the side, sending him flying across the room, and hurling him against the wall.

"Sinistra; Diffidio!" Harry continued, and Voldemort's eye patch became slashed. It fell to the floor, exposing a large scar that glowed with white light. Harry felt his face screw up in confusion. That hadn't been what he was trying to do.

"Sinistra; Sectumsempra!" he corrected, and this time, a great gash formed on Voldemort's white, thin chest. Blood oozed at the lesion, but it did not spurt. Harry wondered, just briefly, what kind of transformations could slow down blood loss.

Voldemort looked positively furious.

"Aveda Kedavra!" he bellowed, and another bolt of green light flew towards Harry. In the back of his mind, he heard somebody tut. It was Sirius.

"Does he know any other spells?" he queried mockingly. Harry felt a smile tug at his lips. Every time he had faced Voldemort, and this had to be his fifth, Voldemort always used the Killing curse. He had even used it in their first proper duel, at the graveyard...

"Dextera; Protego!" Harry countered, flinging the green jet of light into the wall again. It scorched the wall more deeply, and two great cracks began to appear, clearly the work of multiple curses being deflected into the same part of the wall.

Once more, Voldemort fired off the Killing curse. Harry ducked it, and thought about the graveyard again, when he deflected the Killing curse. Their wand cores, having been forced into battle, reacted oddly, forcing Voldemort's previous spells to be spat out of his wand.

"This time, Potter, you'll die!" Voldemort screeched, as the all too familiar green light of the Killing curse began to spread through his fingertips and out into the air...

Priori Incantatem. That's what Dumbledore had called it. The result of two brother wands battling against each other.

"What if I could make that happen again?" Harry thought. They weren't using their wands, but Harry still shared a link with Voldemort. His own mother had told him, just earlier. Priori Incantatem. Would it work? Was it even a proper spell? Harry didn't know. He just prayed he could do it with just their hands. Perhaps it would render Voldemort unable to cast any curses for a while, if he kept regurgitating past spells. It would give Harry time to try and find a way to incapacitate him further...

"You might as well give it a go, boy," Porphyria mused. "The two of you have been at it for ages, and neither of you have got very far..."

"Dextera, Sinistra; Priori Incantatem!" Harry roared with all his might, and sure enough, a flash of gold light flew from his very heart, along his veins, through his fingertips, and collided into the Killing curse Voldemort had aimed at Harry. His fingers burned with pain as he tried to battle against the cold green light- he hadn't even known that spells had temperatures before. His concentration faltered, and he felt the coldness of Voldemort's spell spread into his fingertips. He forced it away with all his might.

"You hang on in there!" a peculiar voice sang. Although he had never heard her speak English, he just knew, somehow, it was Ameline.

"You're brave, for a Gaje," Frederick's voice grumbled, in reluctant approval.

"Go Harry, go Harry!" the lilting, child-like voice of Angela sang in encouragement.

"Keep going, Harry," Sirius said, a tint of triumph present in his voice.

"Trust yourself, Harry," the warm, female voice- his own mother- whispered.

His fingertips felt warm again. Then, they felt red-hot. He concentrated hard- his spell was more powerful, he had more reason to win. He needed to win, otherwise he'd never see Ron or Hermione again. Not to mention Ginny, Luna and Neville. He would never get a chance to thank Lupin. He would never see Persephone recover. He would never get to tell Molly Weasley that he really appreciated the way she loved him like a mother, however stifling he found it sometimes. He would never get the chance to see if he had passed his N.E.W.Ts...

Worst of all, he would never find out who it was that bloody kissed him last night!

Suddenly, a rage of feeling, of light, sound and heat burst forth from the very core of his being, and flooded his mind. He felt the sensation of something- like steam, but not- emanate from his hands. He opened his eyes, and saw that Voldemort's Killing curse was, inexplicably, evaporating. Voldemort looked as stunned as Harry. The golden spell forced its way through into Voldemort's skin, and Harry felt the coldness touch him, and then evaporate again. Voldemort's entire body appeared to be releasing steam. Voldemort began to scream, a piercing, visceral scream that shook the entire house to its foundations. It went on for what felt like hours; the heat, the steam, the piercing screams of pain.

Then, eventually, it all ended. The force of the Snapes released Harry, and he stumbled to the floor. Blinking rapidly, he felt... well, he felt as though he had his body back, but not in the condition he lent it out. Tired, shaking with the effort, and feeling unbelievably thirsty, he managed to drag himself to his feet. He was a weak as a newborn foal, and he had to lean against what remained of the wall to steady himself.

Harry opened his eyes again, and looked at Voldemort. Or rather, he looked at where Voldemort once stood. In his place was a frail-looking elderly man, with one dark eye, and a rotting mess of scar tissue where the other should be. His hair was white and wispy, his nose long and straight... It was Tom Riddle. This is what Tom Riddle, as a seventy year old man, should look like. It had to be him.

"Tom?" Harry enquired, timidly. The figure didn't move. Harry stepped gingerly towards him, then fell to the floor. He was so weak, he couldn't walk.

"Tom?" he asked, a little more loudly this time, dragging himself over to the body.

Suddenly, the body of Tom Riddle jumped to life. His dark eye glittered with rage, and his liver-spotted hand grabbed Harry's throat, hard.

"You pitiful, filthy mud-blooded fool!" he hissed, fiercely, pinning Harry to the floor and squeezing so hard around his neck, Harry was struggling to breath. He tried to prise Riddle's hands from his throat, but he could barely lift his arms, let alone conjure up anything to incapacitate him.

"You've destroyed me! You've destroyed my transformations; you've destroyed my magic!" he screamed, violently, picking up his wand and pointing it randomly around the room to prove his point.

"You've made me less than a man!" he screamed, again. Harry managed a smile.

"Dumbledore was right, then?" he enquired. "There are worse things than death?"

Riddle sneered, and grabbed Harry's throat even more tightly.

"We'll see," he growled. "You'll see."

Around one and a half minutes before it actually happened, Harry's vision began to blur and he realised he was going to die. He wasn't as scared as he thought perhaps he should be; although he felt rather indignant that after everything he had been through, and all the times he had thwarted Voldemort- to the point that, right now, he had stripped him of any magical powers- he was going to die at the hands of a seventy year old Tom Riddle who was currently choking him to death. Even more irritatingly; there were people around; they just physically couldn't help him. Snape was out cold- judging by the blood that covered him, he probably wouldn't get up again. Persephone- her body just looked worn out and abandoned, cracked to pieces and unable to sustain any form of spirit. It was almost as though a Dementor had come and sucked out her soul.

The last thing that ran through his mind was that he hoped Persephone's soul was intact, at least. Then he died.