Unofficial Portkey Archive

(A/N: Ok, so I've had quite a few requests to get my arse moving along on this story, and I can't say I blame you guys! *blush* So, I've decided rather than make you wait longer, I'll make the war into three chapters rather than two, so I can get some out to you now. I think I've left it in a good spot, as what happens after seems to be enough for the last and final war chapter. Please don't flame me for the long wait! As I've said, the muse slaps me across the face at the strangest of times! Hee hee… that being said, here's part two.)

Chapter 36: All Day Permanent Red: (Part Two)

"If We Must Die"-Claude McKay

"If we must die--let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die--oh, let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed in vain.

Then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honour us though dead!

Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;

Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!"

The immediate pandemonium erupting within the once relatively quiet woods was violent and fraught through with wild roaring, wailing of the first wounded, screams of curses and spells, the sharp sounds of clanging blades, and travelling fresh on the wind, the bitter, metallic tang of blood.

The sudden rushing forward and clashing of both sides had ended the separation of one side from another, and as a result, had effectively come between and separated Dumbledore and Voldemort from one another just as they had raised wands to begin their own battle.

In the midst of the confusion, Harry quickly lost sight of those he wished most to keep his eyes on. He hadn't much time to think on it though before he found himself tossing curses at the charging Death Eater in front of him, and immediately after, crashing swords with another behind him.

Dementors suddenly glided forth from the trees where they had apparently been hovering in wait, sucking on the morning air and swooping in and out of the madness, looking for the weak and those who straggled on the edges of the encampment. The dampening charms Voldemort had placed on them continued to waylay most of the dark creature's side effects, but did little to help the dreadful gloom and icy chill their mere presence brought with them, or the awful screams of their victims as they were born down upon. The dark creatures being there amidst what was already a horrific battle served to bring even more panic into the mix.

Chaos soon turned to pandemonium.

Harry was awarded brief glances of those he loved amidst it all. While cutting fiercely at a Death Eater in front of him and trying his best to avoid bumping into the mesh of flailing bodies battling round him, he caught a quick glimpse of Hermione through the throng. She was some twelve yards away from him leaning on the ground over an unconscious Kingsley Shacklebolt. Somehow, amidst the havoc surrounding her she was managing to find a way to concentrate her healer skills on the wounded. She ignored the screaming and the centaur's hooves that nearly trampled them both, ignored the spells that passed perilously close-by, and closed her eyes. A brilliant amethyst light spread outward from the small hand pressed onto the Aurors dark head and travelled like some type of ethereal purple-glowing rope throughout his body.

The moment he opened his eyes and took Hermione's helping hand to help pull himself up he was off again, looking somewhat stunned but alright enough to continue the fight.

Hermione took off again as well, finding another to help, and Harry found himself chanting a mantra to her inside his head as he whipped about and chopped his sword into the momentarily exposed side of the Death Eater he had been duelling, slicing it out just as quickly and watching him crumple to the ground.

Becarefulbecarefulbecarefulbecareful...

Near him, Charlie Weasley had immediately honed in on Bellatrix Lestrange, almost as if he had rushed forward to meet her at the onset. He was battling her fiercely, tossing curses and jinxes so quickly his wand was almost a blur. The fierce, unforgiving expression on his ruddy face told what he was thinking as clearly as if he was shouting it out for everyone to hear. He wanted her dead for what had happened to Bill.

Harry could hardly think to blame him for it.

On the other side of the camp, Ron was already bloody and covered in dirty cuts and scrapes as he took a hard crack to the arm from the goblin he was fighting, the hard knobbly staff striking him so hard he felt the bone might be broken.

Howling aloud he stumbled back a few steps, tossing his wand from that hand to his other and simultaneously waving away an anxious, swiftly approaching Madame Pomfrey, who looked as if she had already fought a few battles, herself.

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" He bellowed.

She took him at his word and whirled away to find another.

The short, stubby goblin was approaching again, his staff raised, his lined, horrid face livid, and his wide mouth pulled back in a feral, sharp-toothed grimace. Ron caught the brunt of the swipe with the hand of his injured arm, doing his best to ignore the agony and yanking hard on the staff. Goblins were known for their skill at the staff, but Ron had more weight and muscle on his side. He managed to yank it hard enough that the goblin was pulled off kilter and stumbled forward.

Ron aimed his wand.

"Propulso!"

The goblin launched backwards as if punched by some giant fist, his staff soaring from his hands, and his flying body knocking five others down behind him.

However, there was no time to dwell on the victory. Ron was immediately assaulted from behind by a centaur's hooves and turned abruptly with wand outstretched to begin it all again.

Mr. Weasley was duelling Lucius Malfoy at the wand, the latter of whom had such a look of smug reassurance on his face that it was all Arthur could do not to let the overwhelming urge to permanently wipe away that smirk away distract him. Already he was having to push thoughts of Bill out of his mind and concentrate on the task at hand, though the fact he was fighting with one of the people responsible for his son's death made it extremely hard for him to think objectively.

Toward the back of the melee Hagrid was wielding his umbrella/wand; now without fear of any consequence. He was engaged in a fierce duel with Igor Karakoff, the latter of whom seemed more troubled by the sheer size of the half-giant facing him than by the force of his opponent's magic.

Dumbledore was in the middle of the crowd, waving his wand at any wizard, witch or creature who dared cross paths with him and, for the most part, flinging them away as effortlessly as tossing a quaffle. His eyes stayed fixed intently on Voldemort who was currently duelling past Nymphadora Tonks and Sirius, finally blasting them both out of his way. It seemed his goal was to reach Dumbledore as well, his thoughts of killing Harry and his friends temporarily put on hold until his old nemesis was out of the way.

They drew steadily closer.

Harry's father finally succeeded in downing the giant he'd been lobbing curses at; the enormous creature finally teetering dangerously on huge jelly-like legs until he fell to his knees with a hard thud, the ground shaking for a moment almost as violently as it had done the day Hogsmeade had been destroyed. The giant suddenly toppled forward and, almost panicking, James sprinted out of the way. He watched horrified as it slammed to the ground, crushing some six people and five creatures beneath it; the impact causing great rivers of blood to pour from its open eyes, nose and mouth.

Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan and Neville Longbottom were currently engaged in a battle with three Death Eaters on the edge of the forest clearing. Each of the boys were hiding behind large dead trees, their hearts thumping wildly out of their chests as they chanced popping round the trunks and trading hexes and curses with their enemies; answering curses blasting huge, dry chunks of wood right from where they had just stood.

Harry, now battling furiously to get to Bane the Centaur, who had an arrow taut in its bow and aimed at Minerva McGonnagol, again caught a glimpse of Ron. He was hanging precariously onto the neck of a troll and trying his best to beat it round the head with his fists, while Parvarti Patil shouted frantic curses at it from behind. He had no time to help as his professor was in the most immediate danger and did the first thing he could think. Sprinting toward the large, black, half-horse, half-man, he slammed his shoulder into him as hard as he could, causing the arrow to lose it's mark and fly wildly up into the air where it thudded vertically into a giant's eye. Bane staggered sideways, too large to have been thrown completely to the ground and watched with fury as the wounded giant began swiping madly about with his ham-sized fists, knocking not only those from Dumbledore's army through the air, but also those from his own side. Bodies went careening overhead, some hurtling through the crowd to bowl into others, and still others flying into the trees and slamming into hard, dead trunks, instantly killed.

But by the time Bane had nocked another arrow into his bow and whipped about to exact revenge, Potter had disappeared into the crowd.

The tumult and confusion began to compound. Those still fighting were left to stumble across the wounded and the dead quickly littering the ground. Moans and cries of pain mixed with the sharp sounds of battle. Blood ran in small, thick rivers from sword and arrow wounds, soaking the earth and spattering up on the legs of others as they ran past. Severed body parts turned up near duellers and fighters in the most unsuspecting of places.

Harry stumbled past the wreckage, his sword coated in congealed blood, sprays of dark red droplets lining his dirty, worn face, and his own body covered in small stab wounds and cuts. The bodies of those he recognised littering the ground filled him with unending amounts of horror.

It felt as if he were witnessing the end of the world. It was the end of the one he had known, at any rate.

Padma Patil laid sprawled on her back, her head twisted in an odd manner, and her eyes wide and unseeing. Sickened, Harry did the only thing he could think of and bent down to mutter a sticking charm to her eyelids to hold them closed. Molly Weasley had been badly trampled by a centaur, and was grimacing painfully as Madame Pomfrey waved her wand over her crushed legs.

Emmaline Vance, a stately looking witch belonging to the Order laid dead on the ground, her normally pristine robes torn and covered with wand ash. Dedalus Diggle, another Order member lay nearby, obviously dead, one arm missing below the elbow.

A sobbing Ernie Macmillan, whose grasp was being forcibly removed by another Ravenclaw boy Harry did not recognise, was sobbing as he cradled the body of Hannah Abbott.

Otto Bagman, brother of Ludo, had had his Death Eater's face mask ripped from him and was duelling fiercely at the wand with a filthy Mundungus Fletcher, the latter of whom seemed to be gaining a small advantage.

A panicky Katie Bell used her own hands as a tourniquet while holding Angelina Johnson's bleeding arm in a vice-like grip until Hermione, nearby, could get to them.

Miles Bletchley, a member of the Slytherin Quidditch team until he was recently taken from school by his parents to join Voldemort's side, was sprawled over another body, a surprised look forever frozen on his face, and a large goblin's spear protruding from his neck.

Not far to the left, Neville was now kneeling sorrowfully over the body of Susan Bones, a Hufflepuff he had recently taken a shine to. He also seemed to be applying some charm to shut her eyes.

Terry Boot of Ravenclaw lay dead nearby, with Mandy Brocklehurst of the same house sprawled directly beside him. Eddie Carmichael was sobbing over them both.

To Harry's surprise and for the first time that morning, he saw Percy together with his long-time girlfriend, Penelope Clearwater, battling a troll.

Vincent Crabbe and Theodore Nott of Slytherin were running terrified from a Dementor who was gliding fast behind them sucking and rattling on the morning air, apparently so crazed with its own desire to feed that it did not care whose side it attacked.

Roger Davies of Ravenclaw lay sprawled so close to Harry's own feet as he stumbled along that he nearly tripped over him.

Harry began to feel despondent. The tip of his sword dug a thin, bloody trail in the ground behind him as he staggered past the carnage around him with a dazed, nauseated expression on his face.

Interspersed among the bodies of goblins, trolls, centaurs and various Death Eaters were those he had known and those he recognised.

Hestia Jones from the Order; Madame Pince, the librarian; Professor Sinistra; Zacharias Smith of Hufflepuff; Pansy Parkinson, Gregory Goyle, and Marcus Flint of Slytherin; Marietta Edgecomb from Ravenclaw; Jack Sloper and Patricia Stimpson from his own house, and others he recognised but had never got the chance to really know... all stared with glazed eyes up to the morning sky, unseeing... never to see again.

Despite himself, Harry dropped to his knees and vomited.

Some fifteen yards away Hermione was bent over professor Snape of all wizards, her eyes tightly shut and both of her hands pressed to a massive bleeding wound in his chest; that unearthly purple light wending in and out of his body. The Potions Professor was somehow still conscious and goggled at her in a way that Harry recognised as utter shock before being helped up by her. He moved on to join the fight once more, a wound that might have been fatal completely healed.

Still on the ground but beginning to pull himself up and together, Harry caught Hermione's haunted eyes for one blessed instant in that moment, and a look of bone-deep relief that spoke a thousand words without uttering one passed between them.

She was still alive...

He was still alive...

They could go on.

But something else caught his eyes directly perpendicular to Hermione and he froze; a look of utter abject horror washing over his face.

Ron was lying on the ground with Lucius Malfoy on his knees and leaning over him; that golden hand crafted in hell squeezed tight about his neck.

Harry's vision kept being obscured by the crowds battling between them but there was no mistaking what he had just seen.

Ron was dying.

Ron's fingers clutched convulsively at the hand round his neck, his face slightly purple with loss of oxygen, the heels of his feet kicking at the ground, his mouth stretched open and desperately trying to draw in air. Turning swollen eyes, he saw rather than heard Harry howling with rage and rushing toward him before his best friend was accosted again by a huge, muscled Death Eater wielding a sword and immediately slashing away at him with it. He watched Harry fight with him for a moment, their swords flashing in the sunlight as they crashed blurrily together over and over, Harry's sick, worried expression glancing past his burly opponent every time he was able.

Ron was simply waiting to die. He knew that now. So he watched.

He saw Hermione catch sight of him some ways away from Harry. She screamed in terror, tears streaming down her face as she rushed toward him, though even in the state he was in Ron found the strength to hold up a hand at her, his expression begging her not to come to his aid. It did not matter anyway. She was instantly drawn into a duel with a Death Eater.

Craning his neck upward, he could barely see Lavender behind him, sobbing hysterically as she tried crawling toward him, the curse she had taken sapping most of her strength.

"Ready to join your brother, Weasley?" Lucius Malfoy hissed madly through gritted teeth into ears that had already begun to lose their hearing. "You're bastarding family has stolen my son's allegiance from me... My master may wish you to die by his hand, but today you will die by MINE."

Ron gagged, tears streaming from his eyes, his vision darkening, and his mind suddenly, quite clearly recalling the dream he, Harry and Hermione had shared this past year. True, he knew now the dream had come from Voldemort, and that the dark lord had somehow, by way of their link, been able to plant it into all three of their minds as a way to make them all fear it was some vision of the future. It was also true his own death was not coming to pass the way the dream had shown it, although he was, as the dream had divined, being murdered by Lucius Malfoy all the same. And only weeks ago, Ron himself had vowed aloud to kill this very same bastard along with Bellatrix Lestrange, and whoever else it had been that had attacked his father and brothers.

How fucking ironic.

He turned his bloodshot eyes and they finally came to rest on Ginny who was blessedly still alive, and who had just caught sight of her brother.

Her eyes widened from some five yards away, a Death Eater clawing desperately at her torn jeans as he finally sagged dead to the ground.

"RON, NO!"

She had lost her wand during this last duel. She had no way to help him.

Her gaze turned left to right frantically, hands fisting in tangled hair and clawing at her dirty face as she searched for someone to help her. A spell from out of nowhere quite suddenly catapulted a goblin from behind her off his feet and over her head as the creature's spear came inches from stabbing her through. His short, thickly muscled body slammed to the ground in front of her, rolled, and lay still.

Stunned, Ginny whirled about.

Draco Malfoy stood behind her dirty and bloodied, his wand slowly lowering, his expression one of fury mixed with alarm and his chest heaving at what had almost happened.

Ginny launched herself at him and grabbed his arm before he could even reprimand her for losing focus.

"Help him.. HELP HIM, DRACO!" She begged aloud.

"Help who?"

"Hurry, he's dying! Ohmygod..."

"WHO!?" Malfoy grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard. "Who's dying, Red!?"

"RON!" Ginny wrenched from his grasp and flung herself around. "Your father's killing him! Help him! Oh gods, please, I've lost my wand! HELP HIM, PLEASE!"

Draco instantly moved forward and shoved past Professor Grubbly-Plank, who was momentarily distracted from conjuring a Patronus Charm against a large Dementor bearing down upon her.

There on the ground only yards away laid Weasley, his face discoloured and looking almost bloated with lack of oxygen. He was moments away from losing consciousness, Draco's own father squeezing the life from him with that massive golden paw from Voldemort he called a hand. He noticed Lucius had not to use much pressure as whatever magic the hand possessed seemed to do all the work for him.

"LUCIUS!" Malfoy commanded loudly, his wand extended and aimed at his father.

Surprised, the elder Malfoy turned his head slowly, his silvery hair gleaming in the sunlight, and Ron was afforded one brief, very much needed gasp of air before the hand began squeezing again.

The narrowed, grey eyes, so much like his own bore into Draco's and the snarling expression on his father's face turned feral.

"Hello Draco... so it is 'father' no more, I see..."

"Let him up," the younger Malfoy demanded, and although his voice came out strong, his hand shook a bit.

"Blood traitor…you always were a disappointment," Lucius hissed furiously, the golden fingers squeezing so powerfully now that Ron flailed. "I should have known you were too weak to join the side of the powerful. I should have killed you along with your mother when given the chance."

Draco's jaw dropped open despite himself; sharp prickles of fear and dread suddenly radiating through his body.

"Mother..."

"Dead. I killed her before you returned home for holiday during Christmas. She was weak as well, too bloody soft," Lucius sneered contemptuously, "too afraid of the changes my master intends to bring upon our world. However, there is no need to fret son, you will be joining her soon."

Narcissa... dead...

It's official, now. I have no one.

Draco glanced down at Ron and then back at Ginny who was jerking convulsively as she sobbed, her fingers curled tightly into her mouth.

Past Grubbly-Plank and the two Dementors her boar-shaped Patronus now fought, past Dumbledore as he battled with two Death Eaters and a troll, and past numerous others he saw Potter ferociously blazing his way toward them as fast as he could, his movements hampered at every turn by a new battle, his sword cutting and slicing and crashing against another with frenzied blows, casting wandless curses about him when he was able to get a free hand.

But Draco knew it was not Potter who was going to end this. He would never reach them in time. Granger was still duelling with another Death Eater some ways behind him. No one else was fighting to get to them, they were all otherwise occupied or had not noticed. It was he himself who was going to end up dealing with Lucius. Much as he hated him, the thought of killing his own father left him feeling cold and empty. Fate had dealt him another cruel hand.

"Don't make me do it, Lucius," Draco said in a voice that came out emotionless and dead, though his wand hand trembled.

"He's stopped moving!..."

He heard Ginny behind him screaming into her hands, and she began to rush forward

Draco whirled about and grabbed her around the waist as she tried to rocket past him. She screamed and struggled with him but he steadied her, grabbing her arms, his eyes boring into hers, grey on blue, reassuring.

I'll do it... I'll do it, I swear...

"You are worthless!" Lucius laughed, turning his back on his son to concentrate on his task. "I have nothing to fear from you. From the very day you were born you were never worthy of the name Malfoy. Watch the Weasel die and do nothing, you weak little bastard..."

He continued belittling him, Ginny continued whimpering, Lavender Brown sobbed louder, her limbs disobeying her command to move forward, but Draco heard none of it. It was as if every sense in his body had suddenly attuned to one lone, solitary factor. Lucius Malfoy had to die. There was no cursing the man and sentencing him to Azkaban. There would be no long incarceration in the hopes he might one day change his thinking. The madman had long ago given himself over to evil, embraced it whole, and his entire body now coursed with it. If given only a slight chance he would try to escape and kill again; it was part of his depraved nature. And as the fates had decided, Draco was to be his judge and executioner.

He steeled himself and mentally placed his emotions under lock and key.

So be it.

"I'm sorry father," said Draco almost absently, not even realising he had, for the last time, called Lucius Malfoy the name he had vowed never to use again.

Ron, with eyes rolled back into his head, seemed to have finally lost consciousness as he had stopped fighting the strangle-hold the elder Malfoy had on him. Draco knew he had to act fast.

Lucius smiled as he continued squeezing, his teeth bared in a mad snarl as he craned his neck to look back at the younger Malfoy.

"Weakling," he spat out contemptuously. "You were NEVER my son."

Draco aimed his wand and let his mind recall Lucius Malfoy's evil toward him throughout his entire life. He summoned up every last bit of rage and hatred he had within him, and directed it pointedly at the monster in front of him.

"You're right… I wasn't. Avada Kedavra!"

Instantly, the grip the elder Malfoy had on Ron slackened, and with an expression of hatred still frozen on his face, he slumped to the ground.

Ginny wasted no time rushing over to her brother. She dropped to her knees beside him, using an adrenaline-aided strength to shove Lucius Malfoy's body aside, and immediately bent over and began breathing into him.

Draco stared ahead numbly, his wand as yet still aimed where Lucius had been kneeling, his whole body slack with the odd feeling of having been anaesthetised. For him, time had abruptly gone still. He felt suddenly displaced; transported to some bizarre alternate reality...

Funny thing about the Avada Kedavra. The spell gave no time for preparation. One moment the victim was alive and in motion; next split-second, he was forever laid still.

Suddenly Draco wanted to scream... or laugh... or cry... or continue to stand there as fucking paralysed as he was now, staring at what he had just done.

And it had been surprisingly... easy.

Model of a future Death Eater, was he? Perhaps they had been right all along.

No one saw him as he walked away.

Ron spluttered back into life, Ginny kneeled beside him with an expression of giddy, crazed relief. She threw herself bodily onto her brother, sobbing and effectively crushing him once more.

"Oh gods Ron, you're ALIVE!"

Ron croaked weakly, his words muffled by her hair. "Mffgg... Gin... geroff..."

Lavender, having finally made it to his side clutched at Ginny's arm.

"He won't be for much longer if you continue to suffocate him!"

"OH! Oh, oh Ron I'm s..sorry!" Ginny wailed as she sat up, swiping at the tears that had marked clean trails down her face, and leaving great muddy smudges where there had once been just dirt.

However, as sounds of battle suddenly reintegrated themselves into their consciousness', they knew there was little time to celebrate.

Ron sat up weakly, and was about to try speaking when Harry finally sprinted up to them and threw himself to his knees, his clothes ripped and bloody over wounds on his torso, face and hair hopelessly filthy with dirt and blood, and his sword, coated with congealed blood, still in hand.

"Ron, thank bloody Merlin!" he rasped, clearly out of breath from his last battle. He hung his head as if to cover up his obvious emotion and grabbed onto his friend's arm.

Ron thought to himself the only time he had seen Harry equally as pale was when Hermione had gone missing last year.

"Are you alright, mate?" Harry continued, helping Ron sit up fully.

"I will be," Ron rasped out, clutching at his throat.

Harry nodded then, and immediately wasted no further time.

"Ginny, you and Lavender grab Ron, move into the trees and lay yourselves low..."

"NO!" Ginny protested immediately. "We're just as capable as..."

"It's not about that!" Harry exclaimed abruptly, grabbing her arm. "Ron can't fight any more. He'll need help getting out alive from the middle of this. You two need to help him into the woods and hide yourselves with him until it's all over. Help protect him in case anyone comes after you. Understand?"

Ron looked angry, ready to argue and fight with Harry even in the state he was in to within an inch of his life, but Harry levelled him with a hard gaze.

Ron narrowed his eyes defiantly and shook his head. "I'm NOT LEAVING, Harry."

"You're in no shape to fight any more Ron," Harry interjected strongly. "You won't do anyone good chucking weak spells and getting yourself into worse shit..."

"It's supposed to be all THREE of us, dammit!" Ron screeched angrily through damaged vocal chords as hard as he could. "You've got to stop ignoring what Trelawny said!"

"I'm not ignoring it! But you're in no bloody shape to keep on fighting!" Harry retorted through gritted teeth, ducking his head and narrowly missing the errant, decapitating swipe of a blade as Kingsley Shacklebolt stomped past them fiercely battling a Death Eater.

Ginny screamed, clutching onto Lavender for support, who was frantically patting the ground around her for her wand.

Ron pounded a fist into the dirt and started to stand. "You NEED Hermione and I to win. If you think I'm just going to crawl off into the trees and wait it out you're bloody off your nut!"

"You know I'm right!" Harry pleaded, though for a moment, he lost focus on Ron as he caught sight of his father, some twenty metres away, who had just blasted two centaurs off of their hooves as they had been charging toward the small group on the ground.

Only yards away from their intended targets, the half-horses stumbled down onto their knees, strong, thickly muscled legs not able to hold them up against the force of the blasting spell James had wielded on them.

Dirt clods flew upwards from their hooves as the centaurs' whole bodies suddenly crumbled to the ground and skidded almost twelve yards to come to a halt directly in front of Harry; great clouds of dirt billowing upward where they had just slid to a rest.

Still kneeling beside Ron, Harry turned wide eyes upwards to meet his fathers own.

James pointed his wand at Harry for emphasis and, from the distance away that he was, shouted out angrily.

"Don't waste bloody time talking, son! Watch yourself!"

He turned away instantly to help Sirius who was duelling at the wand with two Death Eaters.

By the time Harry turned his gaze back down onto where Ron and the rest had been, he realised they had gone.

"DAMN IT!"

He jumped to his feet, his gaze sweeping the camp until he finally spotted one familiar head of blazing, red hair.

Ron was near Hermione, helping her duel with Bellatrix Lestrange who's black, Death Eaters hood had either come off during the fighting, or who had removed it herself.

Hermione had soon seen someone nearby who needed her healer skills and had sprinted off to help them, leaving Ron duelling the horrible witch, and looking thoroughly satisfied with the arrangement.

Harry could hardly blame him as she had been one of the one's responsible for Bill's death, and in any case, there was no more time to stand about watching.

It was time to search out his real target, and upon catching glimpse of Voldemort from across the encampment, he realised the dark wizard had been thinking along the same lines.

Voldemort had somehow separated himself from the rest of the battle, and stood tall and rigid toward the back of the camp. His arms were down and to his sides, wand in one hand, bloody blade in the other, and his unnatural, gleaming, ruby-red eyes planted fixedly on Harry.

The expression on his face was bone-chilling, even to Harry himself. It was odd how everything and everyone round the dark lord moved about in a mass of frenzied madness while Voldemort himself stood stock still; his chin in a downward tilt, evil face and blackened grin beckoning Harry forward toward him.

Harry could almost hear it in his mind.

Come forward, Potter... meet me... it is time...

At once Harry's eyes shone brilliant green with fury. His whole being began to blaze a powerful sapphire, wavering blue; the glow radiating off of him in heavy rolling waves.

He began to move across the camp toward the dark lord, somehow becoming unaware of the rest battling near him. Those who might have been in his way moved out of it with one awed glance at him anyway.

However, moment he drew more than halfway near his enemy, something completely unforeseen happened.

An enormous, opaque blue forcefield suddenly erupted in front of him; a solid, slightly humming wall of pure energy that seemed to reach as high as the trees in the dead forest.

Harry stopped short, his own surrounding, sapphire glow winking out with a loud snap; the trance-like state of focussed hatred he had been walking in, gone.

What the hell?....

He reached out a tentative finger to touch the wall, and felt a sudden electric burning ZAP. He jerked back, wincing and staring at his hand. It was when he looked up again, his gaze coincidentally landing elsewhere that he began to realise how wide the shield reached.

Harry began to turn round, his eyes searching for an end to the magical wall. He turned a full three hundred sixty degrees before he realised there was no end to it. It was a full circle.

For a brief, infuriating moment he thought the shimmery blue wall only encompassed Voldemort; that the dark lord had somehow conjured it as a cowardly way to protect himself from the fight.

But when his gaze landed on his enemy again, he realised Voldemort was staring with complete detestation at the only other person inside the barrier, and looked just as surprised, and just as infuriated as Harry, himself did.

The one hundred or so left fighting nearby had finally begun to realise what was happening, and some began to stop and gape as well; the wounded as well as those who were still unhurt.

Dumbledore lowered his wand and walked slowly from where he had been standing to the side of his and Voldemort's enclosure, standing on his side of the forcefield, and staring through the wall at Harry with piercing blue, very serious eyes.

Harry goggled at him.

"I may not be successful at what I am about to attempt," Dumbledore said to Harry in a low voice meant only for him. "I have heard the prophecies same as you have..."

"I know you have," Harry whispered quickly, frustrated. "Which is why I don't understand what you think you're doing!"

"I must try," Dumbledore said again, his eyes full of a sad sort of wisdom. "Prophecy or no, I must try."

"Why!? You know how it's supposed to end, I'm the one who has to kill him... with Ron and Hermione helping, of course..."

"A minor detail, Harry, you've been doing your best to ignore," Dumbledore cut in sternly. He sighed and gazed down at Harry again with the same unreadable look he had been giving him as of late. The one that spoke of volumes of secrets, and the one that held a puzzling emotion Harry still had not solved.

"Even if what I do serves only to buy you, Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger time to regroup, even if it is an act of complete foolishness I am determined to try ending the fight here," Dumbledore continued, "before it comes to you."

"Why!?" Harry pressed again, "I don't understand..."

Dumbledore favoured him with a small, wise smile. "I have lived a long, full life, Harry. And yet, I have known for a very long time that my purpose, my last act on this earth was to be much greater than myself... I feel I am near it..."

"Sacrificing yourself for me!? What for!?" Harry exclaimed aloud.

Again Dumbledore smiled tiredly and fingered his wand. "You have never really known your own worth, or at least your worth to me... and that is not by your own fault... As with your father, it was the way it had to be. I once told you if I were able I would take your place. I have never said anything and meant it more completely than I did on that day."

Harry stared at him. "But you won't win! Even if you do buy us some time, even if you do weaken him a bit you'll be sacrificing yourself for NOTHING!"

"Oh, not for nothing," Dumbledore shook his head as he backed away from the forcefield, wand out and to his side, feeling Voldemort's deadly gaze burning into his back. Again he smiled sadly. "Never for nothing. There is one lesson I suspect you learned early on in life Harry, and one over which I have spent many years making agonising decisions; some wise and, unfortunately, some very foolish... There is no greater sacrifice... than that done for family."

For a few moments Harry stared at him, completely thunderstruck. His whole body stiffened with electric shock as he stared at Dumbledore backing away from him, turning his tall, thin, and yet magically powerful frame away from the astonished gaze of his great-granddaughter's, Lily's, son... and to the burning red gaze of yet another family member.

Voldemort gritted blackened teeth as he stared at Dumbledore, Salazar Slytherin's bloody sword gripped in one skeletal white hand and his wand in the other, his ruby-red gaze even more fiery and full of hatred than it had been when directed on Harry himself.

"You have made many mistakes throughout the years, haven't you Dumbledore?" Voldemort hissed furiously.

"The first being to take one such as yourself under my wing..." said Dumbledore regretfully as he held his wand aloft. "I should have looked beyond the ties of family... I should have seen the truth as it stared at me the day I took you from the orphanage to live at Hogwarts... I should have heeded the warning signs as you delved further and further into Salazar Slytherin's teachings and ideals..."

Voldemort grinned nastily. "As I have stated before, you always were foolishly preoccupied with loyalties to 'family'. Nevertheless, you should not have tried to stop my attempts at carrying on our ancestor's glorious work, or later, to end the bastarding bloodline that should never have been."

"You forget I am part of that bloodline," said Dumbledore as he and Voldemort began to circle one another.

Voldemort sneered, full of hatred. "I've forgot nothing."

Outside of the forcefield and staring in, Harry stood stock still, his thoughts and his eyes completely focussed on Dumbledore... the last heir to Slytherin other than Voldemort and himself. The thing seemed hard to believe and yet, somehow, missing pieces were beginning to form together to make the notion somewhat plausible.

Harry had never really understood what had possessed Dumbledore so long ago to pick Tom Riddle, of all wizarding orphans, to give free room, board and Hogwarts schooling. Now, it all made perfect sense. Tom Riddle was a relative... and Dumbledore valued family above all else, apparently no matter how distant the relation.

Harry supposed Voldemort would grow to hate one who tried to stop him from fulfilling his own dream of a 'pure' world. And upon finding out Dumbledore was his blood relative, and not only that, but a blood relative belonging to the side of the family that 'never should have existed', Voldemort must have grown to loathe him even more. Furthermore, Dumbledore had aided in hiding Harry from Voldemort after his parents' deaths, therefore keeping Voldemort from killing the threat to his rule, and becoming the last remaining heir to Slytherin besides Dumbledore himself.

Harry began to understand the animosity between the two for the first time, and on a deeper level than what he had understood before to be the simple clashing of one wizard's ideals with another. The enmity went way beyond what he had always imagined... and he, Harry, had been in the middle of, and part of it his entire life... and never known it.

Beyond all of that, Harry thought with a sickening lurch of his stomach, once again he, Harry, was faced with the fact that he had family left on this earth who had decided to give him over to the Dursleys to raise.

Only when James put a heavy hand on his shoulder, and Ron spoke feverishly to him did Harry come out from his state of shock.

"Mate," said Ron aloud, breathing hard. "I don't care what Dumbledore said to you, there's still a war going on! Leave them!"

Harry stared through him for a moment, and then at his father, who continued to glance behind him to make sure they weren't about to be assaulted.

"Are you alright?" James said quickly. "I've been trying to get your attention; you've nearly been attacked several times..."

"Where's Hermione!?" Harry asked at once, snapping out of it and looking round Ron and Lupin. "Where is she, I don't see her!"

"It's alright son, she's safe," said James quickly. "She's on the other side of the encampment seeing after the wounded. She and Madame Pomfrey have been levitating them all to one side to better care for them."

Harry closed his eyes for a brief moment and nodded, hefting his sword once again and following his father and Ron back into battle. Now was not the time for having his mind elsewhere.

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(Another A/N: Reviewing is good for the author's soul! :0)