Harry Potter and the Silent Siege

Chapter 20

The Two Sorcerers

"No, Ginny!" Harry cried desperately. "Get away! Get yourself out of here!"

"No, Harry," Ginny cried back not daring to turn her head away from Voldemort for even an instant. "It's my choice, remember?"

Harry did not respond. He felt as a spider must feel when a malicious child has pulled off all of its legs but one. He was certain that at any moment he would hear Voldemort's horrid high-pitched laughter and Ginny's fatal screams. He knew just as surely that as soon as he did, he would have no strength left to fight.

But neither screams nor laughter followed.

Ginny continued to keep her wand pointed at Voldemort, fighting to keep a grip on a handle slippery with her own sweat. She hoped the dark wizard could not see how much her hand was shaking.

"Don't pretend you don't know who I am!" she hissed at him across the room.

Perhaps it was Ginny's imagination but she was certain she saw Voldemort take a half step backward. His eyes narrowed for a moment in surprise, then the practiced mask fell again and his lipless mouth formed into a hideous smile.

"Why do you think I would want to pretend such a thing, Ginny?" he answered. "You may not enjoy my appearance as much as that of my younger self but as I told you before, we are still good friends."

"I thought your younger self was a toad-faced prick," Ginny spat. "If anything, your appearance is an improvement."

Voldemort laughed in response, though his laughter no longer seemed as high and chilling as before.

"Surely now, Ginny," he said. "You didn't always find me so loathsome. My younger self remembered things differently."

Ginny took a large step toward Voldemort in response.

"It won't work," she told him between clenched teeth. "Nothing you say or do will draw me away from this spot."

Voldemort twirled his wand absently in his hand as if considering whether he intended to use it.

"Be careful now, Ginny," he chided, his lower jaw beginning to set in a way that his resemblance to Tom Riddle became noticeable for the first time. "Naturally, I wouldn't want anything to come between the two of us but Harry did make me suffer for a very long time. Killing his friends is not enough for me, Ginny. I know you understand and I wouldn't want it to come between us. That is why I need you to get out of the way."

Ginny took another step forward.

"I must confess. I'm somewhat surprised to see you standing here right now. You were never this brave in your dreams."

Ginny's mouth broke into the ghost of a smile. She knew that the monster standing across from her would never understand how or why things had changed. Ginny wasn't sure she understood herself. All she knew was that the surge of warmth that had lit like a fire in her belly the moment Harry's lips had touched hers still seemed to flow through her soul, heightening her every sense and feeling. There was no place within her that was afraid of Voldemort now.

"All those dreams," she said evenly. "Different each time but always the duel with Harry. You wanted to make sure I didn't interfere, didn't you? That was what obsessed you about me, wasn't it? You hoped I could lead you to Harry, yes, but you also knew I was the one person who could stop you and you wanted to make very sure I wasn't here at the end. That's why you told Snape to find and kill me. But here I am."

Voldemort laughed again, long and hard, but Ginny did not flinch.

"You suppose a great deal, Ginny," he said finally. "Could it be that much of Harry's arrogance has rubbed off on you already?"

Ginny gripped her wand more firmly.

"If you want me out of the way, you're going to have to kill me, and we both know that is something you cannot do."

There was an indeterminable moment of silence. It was all Ginny could do to resist the urge to turn back and look at Harry who, to his credit, remained silent. She knew that in a few seconds she would either be dead or right.

"I see now, Ginny," Voldemort finally said as though trying to come to terms with the logic of a truculent child. "You believe that if you sacrifice yourself for Harry, then I will be killed - or banished - as I was when his mudblood mother forced me to end her interference by taking her life. But I overcame that obstacle once and for all when my Death Eaters attacked Harry's home earlier this year. I would hate to see you sacrifice yourself for nothing."

"As I said, if you want me out of the way, you're going to have to kill me."

Voldemort's jaw set again and fire burst to his eyes. Ginny held her breath as he raised his wand and opened the slit that passed for his mouth to curse her. But then, as if winning a struggle with his own internal passions, he lowered it again.

"You can't kill me," said Ginny with greater conviction. "You can't even disarm me. That's how you made that diary, wasn't it? The Synchronis Totalis charm? The students in the class were only linked for a few seconds but the diary was much more powerful. I imagine you and I share a link that is somewhat more permanent. Any spell you cast against me will be shared by us both, won't it? How does it feel, Tom? You made yourself my nightmare but now I have become yours!"

For a moment there was only the sound of Ginny's sudden fury echoing through the broken walls of the room. Then Voldemort managed an extremely forced smile.

"Very well, Ginny," he said. "It seems for the moment, you have earned my indulgence. The young are never as strong or as wise as they believe. I was no exception. We had learned the Synchronis Totalis spell just as Harry did and I learned to master the link for days on end. It was an excellent means of communicating with those who would later become my Death Eaters and in ensuring their loyalty. Soon afterward we learned of a potion that was based on a similar principle. I used it to enchant my diary and enable the self I had trapped within its pages to link to and control the minds of any who might stumble across it.

"But it was only in my last year at Hogwarts that I discovered my plan had a horrible flaw. Anyone who used the diary would also share a spell link with its creator - in this case, my real self. Moreover, since I had left the diary for anyone to find, I had no idea who that would be. I might strike an enemy dead only to share back the same curse.

"I quickly retrieved the diary. I thought of destroying it but I was afraid it could be re-enchanted by any wizard with enough power to understand its principles - Albus Dumbledore, perhaps, or even one of my own Death Eaters with conflicting ambitions and loyalties. So I kept the diary among my possessions.

"I did not count, of course, on my own demise. While I was banished, my possessions fell into the hands of those Death Eaters with the resources to keep them from the prying eyes of the Ministry, those, of course, who had also managed to stay out of Azkaban prison."

Voldemort's smile became noticeably hollow.

"And so the diary fell into the hands of my faithful friend Lucius Malfoy who was completely ignorant of its power and the lengths to which I had taken to conceal it. He, of course, had his own nefarious agenda and so it fell to you, Ginny. Of course, at that time, I was barely a thing to which anything could be linked. And then Harry destroyed the diary and returned it to Lucius who, this time, was finally wise enough to give it back to me."

Voldemort paused for a moment. Ginny continued to grab her wand tightly, not at all fooled by his apparent relaxed posture.

"And I read into the diary again, Ginny," he hissed, "and discovered its secrets. I knew I could use it to trap Harry once and for all but to do so I had to link again with you, a tepid link as I could only recover the ghost of my original spell. But with the help of the Monocellate crystal and our proximity, I returned the link to the strength of its original, only this time I am very much alive. And now I am left with both its curse and its blessing."

And then the Dark Lord smiled more fully.

"Shall we see which will prevail?"

There was a loud crack. Ginny was already running toward Harry who, after a moment's stunned hesitation, had started to cross back to her. A split-second later, Voldemort apparated behind Harry. He had just raised his wand to strike when Ginny ducked to Harry's side and dived behind him to block Voldemort's hex once again.

Ginny was still on the floor when Voldemort disapparated a second time. Her eyes darted around the room, spotting his bony form in one of the large candleabras that still hung above them. She shoved Harry to the ground and jumped on top of him.

The cracking sounds came hard and fast after that as Voldemort re-apparated into different corners of the room while Ginny and Harry moved and parried like fencers writ large. They flattened themselves against the back wall to cut down on Voldemort's angles yet still the Dark Lord's journeys in space continued. Once he apparated inches in front of them and Ginny was sure he was going to throw away his wand and attack them with his bare hands.

But the Dark Lord still did not strike. Though Ginny had not been completely certain before, it was now clear that were she to so much as get in the way of a curse intended for Harry, the spell would also return to its sender.

Finally, Voldemort apparated back to his original position, then let his wand fall down to his side and smiled.

So absorbed were Ginny and Harry in tensing themselves for his next strategy that neither noticed the sound of movement to their right that was the source of Voldemort's waiting game.

"Tell me, Ginny," he cooed. "How do you like our little stalemate? Is this the victory you hoped to achieve? Are you pleased at the clever little girl you've become?"

"If killing Harry is so important to you, why didn't you just take your best shot?" Ginny retorted, panting. "You didn't want to take the chance, did you? I doubt your own Death Eaters know you as I do," she suggested, angry energy lighting her face. "It's not really Harry you're after, is it? It's what he reminds you of - your own fear of weakness and death. And what good would it do to kill Harry if there was the slightest chance you would kill yourself instead? But I could think of no better way to die than to save Harry and rid the world of you!"

Voldemort did not wait for the echoes of Ginny's outburst to die from the room before replying.

"Is that so, Ginny? I must admit I respect Harry's cunning. How many wizards have ever before had so many willing to die to protect them?"

Ginny snorted.

"I wonder, Ginny," Voldemort mused, in a chilling imitation of gentleness. "Why did Harry suddenly decide to return your feelings now, when he knew how much danger he was in?"

"Don't try to talk about things you can't understand."

Voldemort could not have looked more like a Cheshire Cat if he had transfigured into one.

"Did he tell you he loved you, Ginny?" he hissed. "I was listening. I don't recall hearing those magic words. Perhaps he couldn't quite bring himself to complete the lie."

Ginny paused. She knew that Harry had not told her he loved her. But she also felt sure he had meant it. There was nothing and no one who could convince her that his kiss hadn't been real. She knew that Voldemort was trying to twist and manipulate her and she was determined not to let him.

But Voldemort did not need to convince Ginny of anything this time. He only needed the tiny moment he had taken to make her stop and think in order to point his wand to her right and cry:

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

Ginny froze. She watched the charm leave his wand and strike three large rocks that had held in position a suddenly conscious Severus Snape, a new wand out of his cloak and in his hand.

Harry's wand was raised in a flash.

"Stup - "

"Expelliarmus! Immobilus!"

Snape was not even yet standing when Harry's wand could be heard flying off the wall behind him. Harry tried to move for it but found himself stuck to the spot.

The room was filled with the Dark Lord's high cruel laughter again.

"I trust you do not share a link with Professor Snape, Ginny?"

Ginny did not respond.

Voldemort turned to Snape.

"Dispose of her," he said dispassionately. "Then leave Potter to me."

Ginny heard Harry's helpless cry from somewhere just behind her but she did not turn to see the anguished look on his face. Nor did she see Snape's unusually full smile as he slowly walked toward her, limping slightly at first but then with more confident strides. She had no intention of taking her eyes or her wand away from Voldemort's wide thin mouth and hungry eyes, knowing as he did that he hadn't been able to defeat her himself. That if it were not for Snape's timely reappearance, he would still be tasting the helplessness and failure he had always inflicted on her as he had for the time she'd resisted him. In the end, her body and mind had not done his bidding.

But Ginny also knew well before she heard the swish and flick of Snape's wand drawing the air around it that on this, the happiest day of her life, she was going to die. In the moment the curse that was sure to end her life seemed to linger on Snape's lips, Ginny finally realized what Harry had meant an eternity ago that morning when he had told her that he was not afraid to die. Like a firefly burning the night's sky for a few short days of life, Ginny knew that she had lived one perfect moment, however fleeting, in the passion of Harry's kiss and the courage to face the architect of the demon spirits that had haunted her since the day she had first opened her diary half a life ago.

Ginny tensed her hand on her wand one last time and, smiling at Voldemort, barely heard Snape when he said:

"Apprecium Restorem."

Voldemort staggered backwards in horror, Harry gasped, and Ginny turned her head around just in time to see Severus Snape transform into Albus Dumbledore.

Ginny's jaw had not fully dropped when Dumbledore's face filled with an uncharacteristic fury. He pointed his wand at Voldemort and cried out again.

"Disapparatus Impedimenta!"

Voldemort tried to twist his away but both his body and will seemed to lack the strength with which he had so deftly dodged the hexes of the others. At the last moment, he appeared to throw up some kind of a shield but Dumbeldore's curse broke through it and clipped what on an ordinary human would have been a left shoulder.

A loud cracking noise filled the room and then another but Voldemort remained where he stood.

Dumbledore flicked his wand in Harry's direction. Harry found himself free to move and saw his wand flying back toward his open hand. He and Ginny did not need to be told to make themselves scarce as the two most powerful wizards of the age began to circle each other. But in the instant of flight, they chose opposite walls to flee to. Ginny started to run back toward Harry, but the latter raised his arms and shook his head. Reluctantly realizing it would be far too dangerous to move now, Ginny retreated and flattened herself against the wall behind her.

"Good afternoon, Tom," said Dumbledore calmly, holding his wand between the tips of his fingers. "Thank you for removing those stones. I feel much more myself now."

Voldemort made a sound like a snake spitting venom.

"Your plan to kill Harry has failed," Dumbledore continued, almost apologetically. "I am here to defeat you, Tom."

Voldemort suddenly laughed.

"You overreach yourself, Dumbledore. But no matter. If you wish to try then so be it. I am not as you always remember your student. I have long learned patience. I shall be happy to take the time to kill both you and Harry today."

A green bead of light erupted from Voldemort's wand. Rather than shooting straight toward Dumbledore, the light seemed to curve and twist in the air like a lasso. Dumbledore tried to duck out of the way but the hex followed him.

Just as it seemed he would be caught, however, Dumbledore leaped up and somersaulted high into the air. Before Ginny's spellbound eyes, the headmaster hung himself upside down from a candleabra above them. When the curse came down toward him, he drew it into his outstretched wand and with a fierce crack volleyed it back toward Voldemort just as the Dark Lord had rebounded Sirius' curse earlier.

Voldemort leapt to his feet just as the hex blew a hole in the floor where he'd stood. He, too, vaulted high off the ground apparently without the need to cast a charm.

Ginny watched astounded as Dumbledore and Voldemort tossed and turned in the air like birds, not shouting a word, but casting hex after hex, filling the room with defeaning booms and blinding flashes of light. Suddenly, clouds of smoke erupted from each of their wands, filling the room with an acrid stench and blinding the combatants from sight. But just when either Dumbledore or Voldemort seemed to disappear completely into the swirling fog, they would return again in the flurry of a billowing cloak or the fury of a rapid flash of wand fire.

Finally the air cleared completely and Ginny was shocked to discover that where before two fierce wizards had fought, there were now two enormous birds, one the color of red on a scraped bruise, and the other a deep sea green. At the front of each were enormous talons that lashed out accompanied by the vicious snarls of each creature. One of the birds delivered a sharp hex with its talon that caught hold of the other's wing. Just when a wound seemed to spread and the bird started to pitch toward the ground, however, it suddenly changed into an enormous snake whose curled tail pooled in coils on the ground. The snake's skin glistened in all of the colors of the rainbow and changed in tone and pattern with every beat of its heart. The snake had fiery green eyes and a silvery tongue which continued to spit hexes at the bird.

The bird swooped and dived around the snake to avoid its fire. As it pitched down just in front of the snake, however, it suddenly transfigured into a serpent identical to its adversary's. The new snake coiled around the other and for several moments the bodies of both remained tangled while the heads rapidly tried to disengage themselves for a clear shot at close quarters.

Finally the outer snake dropped down from the inner and transfigured into a brilliant white unicorn whose horn shot hexes at the snake's long neck. Just as it seemed that one of the shots would hit home, however, the snake transfigured again into a haughty-looking Hippogriff that circled the unicorn with an enormous beating of its wings. The Hippogriff launched hexes from its talons that the unicorn parried with graceful ease.

Finally, the Hippogriff changed back into Voldemort who charged hard at the unicorn, his robes skimming the ground but his feet never touching. Just as Voldemort's wand seemed about to make contact with the belly of the unicorn, however, it changed back into Dumbledore, who ducked to one side and kicked the oncoming Voldemort hard in the ribs.

Voldemort landed on the ground and rolled over quickly, effortlessly dodging Dumbledore's hex. Soon both wizards were back on their feet, throwing and dodging hexes with eye-numbing speed.

Ginny exchanged a brief glance across the width of the room with Harry to see an expression that matched her own feeling of fear and awe. She could see that in the heat of battle, Harry, like her, had not been able to tell the two wizards apart. Not only that, it was difficult to say whether their now more familiar forms were any more as real.

***

The true servant of Albus Dumbledore did not pause for breath as he bounded up the final staircase to the Astronomy Tower. He knew that far too much precious time had been wasted already. He tried not to think whether those with whose care he had been entrusted had been able to survive this long. The army of aurors was awaiting his signal. He hoped that Dumbledore had managed to distract the Dark Lord's attention long enough that the army's passage would go unnoticed when it left the net of isolation he had worked to throw up around the tower.

The true servant of Albus Dumbledore could see the dim light coming from the windows in the hallway above. A few more steps and -

The thoughts and progress of the servant were suddenly cut off by a bright flash of green light that cut across his path like a deadly rope. He flattened himself against the wall, panting hard, but nonetheless allowed himself an ironic smile when the distant daylight caught a silvery mane of hair standing in front of him.

"Well," said Lucius Malfoy. "I suppose some people are hard to kill."

The servant darted back onto the steps and threw his own hex at Malfoy who quickly ducked. The hex shattered an elaborate carving of a Gryffin on the staircase railing.

"You seem remarkably agile and well-trained for the dithering idiot you have led many people to believe that you are."

The servant did not respond.

"Forgive me," said Malfoy. "But I do not believe that you are who you appear to be."

Malfoy darted back into the opening, ducked and rolled as another hex flew over his head, and came up firing.

"Apprecium Restorem!" he shrieked.

The figure of the servant shone in the light of Malfoy's counter-charm for the briefest of moments but even as its glow faded, the servant could already see on Malfoy's face a wide-eyed stare and a pallor devoid of any color.

Malfoy staggered backwards.

"Y - you," he managed to splutter.

***

Harry watched as two identically forest green Norwegian Ridgebacks circled the small space of the room. The floor and what remained of the ceiling were now black with soot. The light in the room was also much dimmer as all but two of the brass snake lantern holders had either been blasted to the floor or melted down by the fierce heat of the two dueling dragons.

Harry looked across the width of the room. In spite of all that had occurred and all that was going on around him, he could not help but notice the way the soft light shone in Ginny's crimson hair like the dying embers of a fire. But it was already too dim for Harry to see Ginny's face clearly and that made him worry a great deal for when Harry had last seen Ginny, she had appeared extremely pale. He had a horrible feeling that Ginny's near-death experience was sending her into some kind of shock. Harry hardly felt he knew how to feel after what had happened to Sirius, Hermione, and Ron but he knew that he couldn't bear to lose Ginny as well. He very much wanted to cross over to her but he was also afraid that doing so would make them both targets, whereas so far Voldemort's attention seemed to have been fully occupied with fighting off Dumbledore. He thought of trying to get her out but looking back to the door to the passageway they had entered, he saw that it was much too blocked by rubble for an easy escape.

A sudden crack ripped through the air and tore Harry's attention away from Ginny and back to the battle at hand. It took him a moment to realize that only one dragon remained, its hind legs perched up on top of the debris that had buried Ron and Hermione and the top of its head reaching out of sight above the hole in the ceiling. Its eyes darted around angrily as it snorted tongues of flame from out of its nostrils.

For a horrible moment, Harry feared that Voldemort had broken free from Dumbledore's de-apparation jinx. Harry began to look around to see where he might reappear, his wand held out in front of him. He hoped that Ginny was doing the same.

A loud crack announced a re-apparation. The Ridgeback's head swung around violently. Harry saw just before the dragon did that Dumbledore had re-apparated in human form right underneath the towering beast and was aiming his wand at its belly.

Of course, thought Harry. Voldemort could no longer disapparate but Dumbledore could. He must have apparated into the castle with the other Death Eaters, posing as Snape. Harry watched as Dumbledore took aim but just as he seemed poised to let off a hex, the dragon (who was now obviously Voldemort) hissed a column of flame at the ground. Dumbledore disapparated again just as the flames torched the space where he'd stood.

Within seconds, Dumbledore re-apparated again on top of the rubble behind Voldemort, this time in the form of an animal Harry had never seen before: its head looked like an oversized version of Snitch and its tail took the shape of the long sloping fin of a giant fish. The fin ended in sharp claws which Dumbledore swung like an enormous hook in the direction of the dragon's legs.

But Harry could see even as Dumbledore apparated that he had made a serious strategic error. For on this occasion, Voldemort had not looked around for him in blind circles but had narrowed his attention to the room's far end where Harry and Ginny still stood, desperately trying to remain unnoticed. With a hungry gleam in its bright orange eyes, the dragon drew back its head and bellowed an inferno of flame down to where the two Gryffindors now stood.

Voldemort screamed and reared back as the thing Dumbledore had become slashed his wings with its tail. But the damage had already been done.

The side of Harry's body facing inward to the room burned with the heat of the towering wall of fire that now cannoned toward him and Ginny, incinerating the wood-paneled walls and melting away the remaining lanterns like giant wax candles. Harry saw right away that they would be torched where they stood within seconds if they did not move. He pointed his wand across to Ginny and cried:

"Synchronis Totalis!"

Harry paused for a moment he did not have, his next charm frozen between his mind and his lips as the fury of emotion at the very surface of Ginny's thoughts came rushing into his mind with an even greater intensity than the tongues of flame that danced toward them. Harry summoned all of his concentration and fired across to Ginny again, bellowing the spell that would save her life:

"Levitatus!"

The charm had barely bounded back to him from Ginny's own wand when the fire closed in on top of them. Harry found himself thrown higher and faster than ever before. He looked across to see Ginny tossed through the air as he was. Harry shielded his face as the flames roared under them, then burned out on the stone floor and the now bare stone walls just as they started to fall back to the ground again. Harry managed to use his training with Nevins to control his landing again. His mind still burning with the raw fire of her emotions, Harry looked anxiously across at Ginny to see that she was controlling her fall in fits and starts. Her less graceful movements were carrying her dangerously far into the room in the direction of the battle between Voldemort and Dumbledore. She crashed down to the floor with an awkward twist of her ankle and a nasty cry of pain.

***

"Then - then - who," stammered Lucius Malfoy.

His eyes grew even wider as the truth began to dawn.

"Dumbledore," he hissed.

"It seems the Dark Lord may be in quite a bit of danger," remarked Snape coolly. "Perhaps you should apparate back to rescue him?"

Malfoy did not move.

"I thought not."

Malfoy managed to back out of his stunned reverie in time to avoid a hex that came close to clipping his ear.

"I always knew you were a traitor!" Malfoy bellowed, shooting a hex in return that widely missed its mark.

"You didn't seem so sure just then."

"You tried to turn Draco, didn't you?"

"On the contrary."

Snape's icy reply was followed by a hex that shattered the step underneath Malfoy's feet, causing him to grab onto the handrail above him to stop his fall.

"I gave up on your son years ago. I was only trying to use him to get to you and find out who had given away Potter's location. He is stupidly loyal to you, something your predictable arrogance prevented you from seeing years ago."

Malfoy tried to recover to throw another hex at Snape but his precarious balance and crippled nerves caused him to miss again.

"Draco was right about one thing," said Snape in a tone that was goading in its dispassion. "Being the Dark Lord's lapdog never suited you, Malfoy. Pity you didn't realize that until it was too late."

Before Malfoy could respond, Snape landed a vicious stunning spell on the side of his head. He did not spare the Death Eater another glance as he bounded up the stairs and ran to the Astronomy Tower.

***

Ginny dragged herself to the wall nearest her and tried to stay out of the range of the battle that stormed on almost on top of her. She was in the middle of the room now lengthwise and still on the opposite width from Harry. Trying desperately to ignore the crushing pain in what she was certain was a broken right ankle, Ginny forced herself into a position to cast a crude bone-mending charm that she hoped could keep her alert and ready to move.

The charm accomplished, Ginny turned her head back to the fight to see that Voldemort and Dumbledore had returned to what passed as their original forms. Dumbledore had charmed the candleabra above him into blazing light and Ginny could see that there were now several deep scars lining the side of Voldemort's face and disappearing down his neck inside his robes from where Dumbledore had slashed his dragon form. As the two wizards threw hexes furiously back and forth, however, she was shocked to see how weakened Dumbledore's movement seemed to have become. She realized in horror that he must still be smarting from the wounds that had pinned him to the ground when he was in Snape's form, wounds that had been weakened even further by his feral battle with the Dark Lord. Worse, Voldemort seemed to have noticed this, too, and he was purposely making Dumbledore move from left to right and back again to avoid his hexes.

"You shouldn't have come after me, Dumbledore," Voldemort hissed mockingly. "We both know it isn't your time anymore. I will make sure you understand the consequences of your arrogance."

Voldemort flicked his wand and sprung a wide arching hex like a fisherman casting a hex. Dumbledore tried to run out of the way but he was a step too slow. His wand flew out of his hands and sailed back through the air toward Voldemort.

And then Dumbledore turned into a house cat and a very small one at that.

The room rang once more with the sickening sound of Voldemort's laughter. He raised his wand at the cat which mustered all of its effort to jump up high as a hex hit the floor right underneath it.

The cat cried out again and again and Ginny had the horrible feeling it was trying to make itself into something larger but was no longer able to do so. Finally, it managed to weave its way into a mountain of rubble in a desperate attempt at self-defense.

Voldemort laughed again.

"A hex I prepared especially for you, Dumbledore, in anticipation of your interference. Not only will you not be able to transfigure back again but I think you'll find you've become something very ordinary, something I can kill rather easily."

Voldemort flung a killing curse into the pile of wreckage which exploded in a shower of wood and plaster. Ginny felt her heart sink but then she saw a flash of feline movement to the right of the hex as the cat disappeared again behind another pile.

There was a pause in which an uncommon silence filled the room. Voldemort stood looking into the debris that lined the outer walls of the room.

"Afraid to show ourselves, are we, Dumbledore?" he said at last. "No matter, my score is not with you in any case."

Too late, Ginny saw Voldemort turn his wand toward Harry. She stumbled to her feet. Desperately fighting away the stinging pain in her broken ankle, she started to run toward Harry, trying to put herself once again in the path of Voldemort's hex. She quickly realized, however, that even with a healthy pair of legs, she would never be able to bridge the gap between them in time.

This time, Ginny looked only at Harry who held his wand out in front of him. She knew it would not be enough. She heard the sound of Voldemort's wand slice through the air and heard him cry out:

"Avada Kedav - aaahhh!!!"

Ginny twisted her head back around to see that a small green creature with large pointed ears had appeared out of nowhere onto Voldemort's face.

"Evil, lying, awful, bad, bad Dark Lord!" cried Winky.

"VERMIN!" shrieked a muffled Voldemort, his hands flailing away at his face.

Ginny ran faster now, tears of pain soaring down her face.

With a loud wail, the cat jumped out of the pile of stones just behind Harry that had once held it pinned to the floor, another wand in its teeth. It dropped it at Harry's feet.

Voldemort grabbed hold of Winky by the throat and pulled her away from his face.

Harry picked up the wand.

Voldemort flung Winky hard against the wall to his left.

The cat cried out once more.

Winky landed with a sickening thud and slid slowly down the wall.

Voldemort took aim at Harry again.

Ginny kept running. She was almost there now.

Harry gripped the handle of his new wand.

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Expelliarmus!"

Ginny stopped in her tracks as twin beads of light from Harry and Voldemort's wands connected at the halfway point of their shared trajectories. She took a step backward as the energy of the wand lights sizzled just as it had in her dreams. She continued to watch, her heart unable to beat as a gold link formed between the two wands.

"No!" cried Voldemort. "I cannot - I will not let him stop me this way again! H - how can this be? I - I have another wand!"

The cat let out a furious wail that belied its small size and re-transfigured as Dumbledore.

"A wand which I gave you, Tom," he said weakly. "And I also took the liberty of purchasing its pair which Harry now holds in his hand."

The energy from the wand link started to crackle more urgently.

"Ginny," said Dumbledore urgently. "I need your wand."

Ginny eyes widened. She was suddenly aware more than ever of the pain in her ankle as she watched the crackling light that separated her from Dumbledore, the light before which she had frozen in her nightmares. She thought of throwing the wand across as the light continued to seethe with angry energy but she realized she couldn't take the chance it would be hit in mid-flight and Dumbledore would lose his chance of saving Harry. She did not know what would happen if the energy touched her body but she doubted it would be anything good.

"Ginny, quickly!" cried Dumbledore. "Before they start to move away!"

Ginny watched as the wand in Harry's hand began to tremble. She recalled Harry's horrible screams in her dreams as Voldemort's death curse had slowly struck home. She also knew that if Harry was killed this time, she could never wake up from her nightmare.

Ginny clutched her wand tightly and rolled underneath the golden light that joined Voldemort to Harry. She felt the burning energy singe her skin and hair as she twisted around. When she opened her eyes again, she was on the other side. She flicked her wrist and tossed the wand straight into Dumbledore's outstretched hand.

Ginny got to her feet in time to see that Harry's wand was vibrating more insistently in his hand and his feet were starting to lift off from the ground.

"Hold on!" she cried.

Whether Harry could hear her or not, Ginny did not know, but he gripped his wand with two white knuckles.

"Now, Harry!" cried Dumbledore, as Harry and Voldemort started to move away. "Let go!"

Harry yanked up his wand. He and Voldemort stopped moving and their feet returned to the ground. The golden light returned toward Voldemort who seemed unable to let go himself. At the same moment, Dumbledore took aim with Ginny's wand and trembled with effort as he flung a hex toward the would-be Dark Lord.

Both curses hit Voldemort squarely on the chest at exactly the same time. He flew high and fast into the air the clear length of the room and slammed hard back into the large pile of rubble at the end.

Dumbledore darted across the room with surprising speed for one who had seemed he could hardly stand just moments before. He was closely followed by Harry, who grabbed Ginny against him. His shirt was soaked clear through with sweat. They hobbled behind Dumbledore and finally caught up to him as he stood in front of the rubble.

Dumbledore ended his urgent run quickly and waited calmly as Voldemort slid slowly down the rubble toward him. His expression was barely readable: it seemed he was neither triumphant in victory nor sad at the lengths to which that victory had taken them. He seemed to breathe very normally considering the battle he had just fought and the distance he had run. He held his wand calmly at his side, not yet ready to use it but not yet about to stow it away.

Ginny fought back the sick in her stomach as Voldemort left a long trail of slippery blood behind him on the rocks as he slid down toward them. As repulsed as she was, she still registered surprise that it was so red and human-looking. But then Ginny saw flecks of a viscous silvery substance swimming in clumps within the generous pools of red. She didn't want to begin to think it could be unicorn blood but somehow she already knew that it was.

Until the moment she saw his eyes blink above the repulsive grin on his face, Ginny was sure that Voldemort had to be dead. She didn't know how anyone could have survived in a collision like that, least of all with a peaceful-looking smile on his face.

"Congratulations, Dumbledore," Voldemort croaked, bubbles of blood seeping from his mouth down his chin along with a large glob of silver. "Your plan was cleverer than mine, your servants more loyal and more cunning."

Dumbledore did not respond. His expression did not even change.

"Or perhaps it was me," Voldemort went on, blood still leaking underneath him. "I was cursed, you see. The last of Harry Potter's tricks."

Voldemort paused and closed his eyes. Ginny was certain he had breathed his last but then his eyelids snapped open again to confound her.

"But you can't kill me, Dumbledore, can you? You know I will not die unless you fall to yourself, whatever the fate of my present form. You can stack the odds against me but you can never win."

A red as deep as Voldemort's spilt blood crept slowly from Dumbledore's neck, flushed into his cheeks, and then spread all the way up to his snow white hairline. His lips did not part, nor did his gaze wander. He lifted his wand very slowly, pointed it at Voldemort's chest and bellowed so loudly Ginny was certain that the remainder of the ceiling would come crashing down around them:

"Spiritus Volare Mortalis!"

Voldemort's eyes widened in horror and he opened his mouth to cry out but only blood flowed out. Even though the blinding green light from Dumbledore's wand traveled a short distance at a tremendous speed, Ginny was sure she could watch it as it moved. Voldemort's body seemed to light up from the inside and when the light had vanished, his head lay at an awkward angle, cold and still.

Ginny couldn't take her eyes away from the fallen Dark Wizard. She regarded him with a morbid curiosity that did not abate as she continued to watch the red and silver blood seep out from under him. She tried to imagine that the creature who had lived in the shadows of her mind for so many years could really be trapped in this form and dead and she stared at his body as if she thought that by doing so long enough she might be able to convince herself even as part of her feared she never could.

Ginny was woken from the spell of her own making by the sound of the door to the main passageway on the other side of the room being blasted open. For a moment, she was afraid that more Death Eaters were arriving to avenge their fallen leader but she was surprised to see that out of the now open door sprang the real Professor Snape followed by Professor Nevins and about a dozen or so wizards and witches in short black cloaks whom Ginny recognized as field aurors. They were followed in turn by three wizards and a witch in white cloaks whom Ginny recognized as healers. The group of wizards and witches paid them little attention as they darted around the room, eyeing the unconscious Death Eaters warily and confiscating their wands.

Harry suddenly left Ginny's side and ran back the length of the room to where Sirius was still lying on the floor, his own spilt blood from the wound in his head now fully clotted on the floor.

Dumbledore strode after Harry, not once breaking into a trot but instantly at his side. Ginny stumbled after them and took hold of Harry's right arm as Harry's left tried to arouse Sirius' shoulder in the very same way that, unbeknownst to her, he had tried to revive her own frozen body when she had lain in the Chamber of Secrets, the last of her life slipping away to the memory of Lord Voldemort.

"Sirius, wake up!" cried Harry. "You're not - you can't be - "

Dumbledore rested one hand calmly on Harry's shoulder and with the other took hold of Sirius' wrist, nodding almost imperceptibly.

"He has survived worse and it seems he has survived this, too, but he is weak and must get help quickly."

At Dumbledore's words, two of the healers were quickly at their side. They levitated Sirius off the floor and guided him away toward the open door swiftly but carefully.

Ginny wasn't sure whether she'd expected Harry to thank all the gods in the heavens or cry tears of relief on her shoulder, but his face a mask of pain, he ran up from where he had been kneeling as if Sirius' tenuous survival had suddenly banished him from the forefront of his mind. Followed at a distance by Dumbledore and Ginny, he tore back to the rubble where Voldemort's body still continued to rest and began hauling large bloodstained stones away with his hands.

"They're still under there somewhere!" he cried. "They're not dead! Hermione's too clever for that."

He laughed very unnaturally, his eyes already wet with tears.

Ginny wanted to reach Harry again very badly even as grief for the certain loss of her own brother began to overcome her as well. But then she froze and stood up straight as if someone had shoved a rod of ice up her back.

She looked over and saw Dumbledore starting to raise his wand and gently call Harry back. Of course, she thought somewhere far in the back of her mind, Dumbledore could just enchant the stones away and Harry could, too, if he concentrated. Of course, when Voldemort -

Ginny suddenly reached the point where logical thoughts could no longer form. First she thought it was shock and then it she thought she was about to lose consciousness but neither of those things could answer to the horrible chill that felt like death gripping her heart in its heartless, frozen hands.

She looked over to see Harry start to let go of the stones he was holding and fall over, his own eyes wide in shock. All around her, aurors began to collapse. She sank to her knees and saw that Dumbledore alone was still standing but even his wand seemed frozen over the stones. The whole scene before Ginny suddenly looked as if it was coming at her from inside a glass ball. And suddenly nothing seemed real except for the frigid voices that suddenly rose in her head.

"Did Harry tell you he loved you, Ginny?"

"Do you how sick with worry your mother and I were? Just tell us why you kept that diary from us in the first place, Ginny!"

"And now we wait, Ginny. I know Harry will come down here for you. I'm so grateful you were able to tell me all about him, Ginny, aren't you? And now that I'm whole again, I can show you just how grateful I am."

The world swam one last time before Ginny's eyes and then everything fell into darkness.