Unofficial Portkey Archive

Wherein Draco has an accident, Viktor goes, but is seen again, Hermione experiences pure evil, survives, then doesn't, then does, Harry intends to die, but doesn't, Bellatrix succeeds, but doesn't, Luna and Ron assist, and a house call is interrupted

When reading this chapter, please be advised that the two sets of Hermione-centric and Harry-centric scenes overlap, with Harry's chronology beginning before the end of Hermione's

Thanks once again to betas Mark Gardiner, Shane, Mathiasgranger, and Chris Backus.

Disclaimer: I neither own nor claim any other rights in the characters and other concepts created by J.K. Rowling. I make no money, nor do I seek any commercial advantage from this work. As such it constitutes "fair use" as defined in 17 U.S.C. §107.

Chapter 85 - The Revenge Of Bellatrix Lestrange

The most important night so far of his still young life was upon him. Draco's heart raced, and his hands were clammy, as he tried to keep himself calm. It was finally time to act. To prove that the Malfoy family were loyal serv… no, supporters….

The last couple of hours, spent on pins and needles, had been both physical and mental torture - hidden under his Invisibility Cloak in a too-small and too-full storage cupboard just below the top of the Astronomy Tower. That cubbyhole had nothing to recommend it save a felicitously located window - one with an unobstructed view of the Headmaster's office and its adjoining balcony.

His instructions were clear. Watch the Headmaster's office closely. As soon as Dumbledore left - probably accompanied by at least one other person - Draco was to send a message to Burke. If the Headmaster had not left by eleven, Draco was to use the Parseltongue translator to send a message to Voldemort himself.

In either case, after sending the message, Draco was to commence preparations immediately for his own mission.

So Draco had watched - both the tower topped by the Headmaster's office and his map, since his target's planned means of egress was unknown. Draco doubted that Dumbledore would leave on foot, but if he did, Draco's message would include exactly who was with the Headmaster.

Draco's map of the Castle, whilst sufficient for most purposes, had some gaps. Critically, it omitted Dumbledore's office, as the Slytherin had not set foot there since obtaining mapmaking tools. Only fools like Scarhead were caught often enough for regular appointments. Likewise, whilst he had obtained the Gryffindor common room and girls' dormitories, thanks to a sensor hidden in the Weaselette's robes, their boys' counterpart was lacking. Scarhead had not entertained her there - at least not when she wore those robes.

Despite his map's imperfections, Draco knew that Potter was somewhere in those dormitories. The git had entered and apparently stayed put. Except for Filch and Longbottom, both briefly, nobody entered or left Dumbledore's stairway. Neither was significant enough to worry about.

The Headmaster might have a Floo connexion or even a hidden Apparition point somewhere in his office. If so, Draco would be required to report that, for all he could tell, Dumbledore had stayed put.

That had not happened.

Fortunately for Draco's cramping arms and legs, his top-of-the-line, night-vision enhanced Omnioculars detected two Thestrals flying to the Headmaster's balcony. Within a minute Dumbledore and someone else - shorter than the Headmaster was all he could say for sure in the dark - flew off to wherever.

Longbottom? Draco could hardly believe it.

Since Draco's true loyalties would be revealed to the world tonight no matter what happened, he used his own eagle owl to deliver the critical message to Burke. Keeping his role as a spy a secret hardly mattered anymore.

From the owlery, he had practically sprinted back to the Slytherin common room to collect Cambo and Spott. This mission was so important and so secret that Draco had not told his minions what would happen. But Draco had chosen wisely. Cambo and Spott were no more intelligent or independent than Crabbe and Goyle had been. Like them, they followed him blindly.

This time they followed him unthinkingly to a certain second storey bathroom usually haunted by Moaning Myrtle, the ghost of one of Voldemort's first victims. In less than five minutes Draco and his two accomplices had reduced the easily offended ghost to tears and driven her away - faster than Draco could usually manage with living females, and in less time than it took to clean up after Myrtle's rather sodden exit.

Draco employed his Parseltongue translator to very dramatic effect.

"Holy shite…!"

Cambo shrunk away at the scrape of massive stone upon stone.

"Merlin's balls, what the hell is that…?"

"That my friends, is where I'm headed in a minute or two," Draco announced proudly. "Finite!" His shrunken broom returned to normal size.

"This is the original entrance to the Chamber of Secrets," Draco began explaining Cambo's and Spott's role in the mission the Dark Lord had tasked him with. "My job's down there, best you not know more…. All you're supposed to do is guard this pit until I get back. After that, you're done and what you do is up to you. Now whilst I'm…. Oh, bollocks!"

It had to happen right then.

Something vibrated inconveniently in Draco's trousers' pocket. He fumbled beneath his robes and drew out a largish button. It glowed bright red.

"Dammit!" Draco swore. "I don't need this!"

Cambo asked, "What is it Drake?"

"That wretched Weaselette, that's what," Draco spat angrily. "Thank Merlin I…. Anyway, Merlin knows why she's picked now of all times to come looking for me…."

"Well, she won't think to look for you here, will she?" Spott commented. "We've put the `Out of Order' sign back up."

Draco rolled his eyes. Preston Spott was definitely no improvement over Gregory Goyle. "Except that these blasted buttons have a homing function - which you'd know if you'd ever tried yours out. Blast it! I should have taken it back…."

At their quizzical looks, Draco stopped again. Ginny Weasley was another subject he had never mentioned to the two Slytherin fifth years. "Anyway, I'll have to meet her out in the hall or else she'll barge in here. You two stay put. I'll be right out front…. You can even watch through the keyhole - but no bloody noise."

Draco gave his button a responsive twist and stepped into the corridor. A distraught looking Ginny Weasley hove into view much faster than he anticipated. Either she was moving more quickly than usual or she had been considerably closer than usual when she signalled him.

The answer was both.

Distraught did not begin to describe the redheaded witch. "Hysterical" was much more accurate.

"Draco! Draco! You've got to help me!" she wailed. "Something's happened. Harry's left!"

"What! Left you? For whom? Not bloody Daphne Greengrass, I hope," Draco answered. "Now, calm down…."

"No!" she continued shrieking altogether too loudly. Even in this usually deserted corner of the Castle, all the noise risked drawing attention.

Draco had to act fast. Violating the no-magic-in the hallways rule was infinitely preferable to being discovered. "Impertubatus!"

That spell was a good idea.

"He's left for Hermione … that bitch!" Ginny screeched even louder.

Draco almost froze. A Potter-Granger reconciliation would not please the Dark Lord. "How? That makes no sense. I heard Dumbledore at dinner, she's not even…. Shite! You mean they've run off together?"

Ginny's face went almost as red as her hair. "No! He's gone haring after her. I tried to stop him and … something happened…! Oh, Merlin!"

Only Draco's steely self-discipline prevented him from breaking out in a large - and Ginny would have thought wholly inappropriate - grin. The Great Git was not in the Castle! One major potential stumbling block had just been removed from his path….

"…And I need your help," Ginny beseeched the Slytherin. "I think something might have gone wrong with the potion. He's never been that short with me!"

Draco blocked out the Weaselette's whines and woes…. With Potter and Granger both out of the way, that stupid D.A. of theirs would never fight. It would be leaderless…

"Draco! I need help! I'm afraid of losing Harry!"

Ginny's laments brought him back to the here and now.

"Yeah, I'll help," Draco answered quickly, if untruthfully. Her despairs concerned him not one iota. If he could get - and keep - the bloody redhead out of his hair for a few more hours, he would never have to listen to her whingeing ever again. "In fact you're in luck…."

"I could damn well use some right about now!"

Draco improvised. "I've two more phials of Potion right here…."

That, at least was accurate. Because puttering calmed his jangled nerves, Draco had fortuitously finished another follow-up batch earlier in the day.

"…and I've added an improvement to it," he lied through his teeth. "I included a bit of … umm … Puffskein musk extract, to make it even more powerful…."

"Oh, Thank Merlin! He didn't eat what I wanted to give him tonight…."

Draco could almost feel Ginny's wave of relief. She practically lunged at the proffered potion as Draco held it out to her, grabbing for it as if she were drowning.

Suddenly, to Draco's surprise and dismay, a red bolt of magic emerged awkwardly from the keyhole in the bathroom door. Thanks to the Silencing spell, Ginny neither saw nor heard the Stunner, which hit her squarely in the back.

She flopped unmoving onto the floor.

Draco Malfoy's fury was incandescent. "What the hell was that for?!" he yelled. Hearing no response from whichever of his knuckleheaded minions had hexed Ginny, he angrily flung open the door - passing through the boundary of his earlier Imperturbable Charm.

"What the hell was that for?!" Draco repeated himself, losing none of his earlier bite or volume.

"Drake, she looked like she was trying to attack you," Cambo attempted to defend his actions. "I couldn't hear anything. I had only a split second to react."

"Ten seconds more and she would have been gone, dammit," Draco seethed. If time were not so short, he may well have cursed the perpetrator.

He would simply have to make the best of a suddenly more complicated situation.

Taking a deep calming breath, Draco took control of the situation. "All right, shite happens. Just forget about it. Drag her in here and stuff her into one of the stalls. And for Merlin's sake, lock the bloody door."

* * * *

Try as she might, Hermione could not move Viktor Krum. He was not merely in love with her; from their discussion she believed he was truly besotted. But critically, Krum was just as thoroughly Imperiused, and no better now than before at resisting that Unforgivable Curse. He would not, could not, allow her to escape. Even telling Viktor that helping her escape was the only way she would ever speak to him again did not move him an inch in that vital direction, however much he might have wished.

Viktor had made the proverbial deal with the devil. Attempting to win her love, Viktor had destroyed any chance of that ever happening. She would never, not voluntarily, have anything to do with anyone in league with Voldemort. Her mind was closed on that subject, but only this morning she had gone into her date with it open….

At least she told herself that.

Their allotted hour drew inevitably to a close. Viktor was convinced that whatever Voldemort (whom he infuriatingly called "the Dark Lord") was planning would not do her significant harm. "The Dark Lord has promised," he repeated over and over again.

Hermione was absolutely certain otherwise. Once Viktor mentioned Bellatrix Lestrange everything clicked - an entire roll of pennies dropped. Completely at odds with her long-standing reputation as the Death Eaters' most flamboyantly cold-blooded killer, Lestrange had dropped from sight after Stonehenge.

Harry had told her, and also the confidential part of Shak's enquiry, that Voldemort's Killing Curse might have been deflected in Lestrange's direction by the Bose-Einstein condensate. But Harry had been on the verge of unconsciousness, and conventional wisdom was that the Killing Curse could not be deflected short of blocking it with a solid object. His muddled memory was not taken seriously.

But if true…?

Lestrange could have made a Horcrux of her own….

Voldemort would have to use the same spell to restore Lestrange that he had used to restore himself.

Aside from Voldemort's followers, Hermione was probably the only witch in Britain to have researched that spell.

The spell's donors would have to be female.

The bones of Bellatrix Lestrange's ancestors were here. She was a Black. The Black family's ancestral graveyard was hard by the Château's south side.

Hermione knew she was a logical choice for the "enemy" whose blood would be used to restore Lestrange. But for the regeneration magic to work properly, it had to conclude with the "enemy's" death.

Hermione desperately tried to get that through Viktor's Imperiused skull. She explained the complete sequence of the spell to him - how each piece of it fit together.

He would not believe. All Hermione could extract from the recalcitrant Bulgarian was a promise that, if Voldemort tried to kill her, he would curse Voldemort first.

Viktor was not Harry and never would be. He was not capable of throwing off the Imperius Curse.

At the end of the appointed hour, without even the courtesy of a knock, several Death Eaters barged into the Proprietor's Suite. Had they hoped to satisfy their voyeuristic jollies, they were disappointed. Hermione was fully dressed in the discrepant outfit Viktor had collected.

"Hands behind your back, Mudblood," one of them ordered through his mask.

"Go to hell, Deater," Hermione shot back. She would not voluntarily do anything that might reduce her chances of escape.

"Bitch," the Death Eater spat. Had Viktor not intervened, he would have backhanded Hermione across the face.

"Ne," Viktor stepped firmly between Hermione and the Death Eaters. In a move appearing rougher than it was, he spun the recalcitrant witch around by one arm and grabbed her opposite hand. Then he drew them together behind her back.

Using a spell unknown to Hermione, another Death Eater bound her hands with a silver chain. Before anyone else took charge of her, Viktor did. Shoving her in front of him, he frog-marched Hermione through the Château's halls with two other Death Eaters leading the way. "You must trust me, Her-my-o-nee, it is the only vay," Viktor whispered in her ear. "I have a deal."

The Death Eaters were thorough. Not the slightest escape opportunity presented itself before Hermione was pushed through a side door, into the night - and back into the malign presence of the Dark Lord himself.

"Ah, yessss," he hissed. "The clever little Mudblood…. You have done well, Viktor. I shall take over now." Voldemort returned his attention to his attending minions.

"Tie her to the gravestone!" he ordered. Two Death Eaters grabbed Hermione from behind, under each of her arms.

"Let me go, you scum!" she screamed. It was no use.

Lifting a struggling Hermione completely off the ground, they carried her to a pre-prepared obelisk-shaped tombstone. She concentrated so much on resisting what could not be resisted that Hermione did not notice the runes carefully laid about the stone - precisely on the four points of the compass.

She did see the name on the monolith - DRUELLA BLACK.

Mother of Bellatrix.

Hermione had learnt that much from the Black tapestry at the former house on Grimmauld Place.

Hermione was soon trussed so firmly to the cold stone that she could barely move a finger.

But she still had her voice.

"Viktor, this is your fault!" she howled at the Bulgarian personally responsible for her in extremis position. "You were never fit to clean Harry's wand!"

Her last-ditch effort to goad Krum into some sort of action on her behalf failed. From the corner of her eye, Hermione could see him clenching his fists, but he stood by, his expression hidden beneath his Death Eater mask.

Voldemort simply smiled a wicked smile at her outburst. He turned to the object of Hermione's tirade and hissed. "She's right, you know. But rest assured; I do keep my promises…." The Dark Lord turned away from Viktor and spoke to his assembled minions, "Let us begin, shall we? But first…."

With uncommon speed Voldemort wheeled. "AVADA KEDAVRA!" The green bolt of death streaked from his wand and struck Viktor Krum before he comprehended what was happening. The world's greatest living Quidditch legend slumped bonelessly to the ground, dead before reaching it.

Hermione screamed again - this time in horror, rather than anger, at the fate of the late Viktor Krum.

"Shut her up," the Dark Lord sneered. "We need not be troubled by Mudblood commentary any longer."

Hermione felt herself being roughly gagged with some sort of cloth. An unseen Death Eater tied it tightly enough to cut the corners of her lips. The back of her head hurt where it scraped against the rough granite of the timeworn tombstone. She was now truly alone - completely bereft of any prospect of assistance - and utterly at the mercy, if it could be called that, of the monster Voldemort.

Nobody could save her now. Nobody even knew where she was. The Death Eaters were free to do every one of the Dark and dreadful things she had contemplated in her most extreme nightmares - or they could do worse.

"The fault is yours, Mudblood," sneered the Dark Lord. "With your sorry charms, you beguiled a perfectly promising pure-blood until he was no longer trustworthy. I had no choice. Viktor Krum's blood is on your filthy hands. But your beguiling days are at an end…."

Voldemort was obviously enjoying himself. "You see, little Mudblood, cleverness and wisdom are completely different. I know everything worth knowing. I knew what motivated your late, lamented Krum. I could tolerate his loving you more than I, because this vaunted `love' is weak and puny. With control assured, love means nothing. Potions can manipulate love whenever necessary. Only control matters … as Mister Krum found out too late for his - and your - own good."

"Now, for Act One."

Under the Dark Lord's orders, the Death Eaters proceeded with near sadistic efficiency. Bellatrix Lestrange would be restored from that pathetic half-existence she had endured ever since being struck by that deflected Killing Curse that ironically Lord Voldemort had intended for the one unwilling member of the audience.

And for the unwilling, some fates were worse than death - at least from the perspective of those who had not embraced death with the full-throated fervour of Tom Riddle, once he assumed the mantle of Lord Voldemort.

And so, partially within Hermione's sight and partially beyond it, the tripartite spell of bone, flesh and blood was carried out.

She heard, but could not see, the splash as Lestrange's grotesque and disfigured remnants were consigned to the huge cauldron that this spell required - a cauldron moved to its present location by the Château's quiescent elves.

From beneath her feet, Hermione heard, and fleetingly saw (or imagined she did), the hiss of the powdered bone of Lestrange's Black ancestor rising to restore her daughter.

She heard another yowl as a witch Hermione had never met, named Candace, sacrificed her hand to bring Bella back to something approximating life.

Then Lord Voldemort was before her. "Yesssss…," he hissed. "I've waited for this for quite some time. You may have outscored me on some meaningless test, but from this night forward … I will own you … whether you like it or not…."

He reached into his jet black robes.

"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken…." As the Dark Lord spoke the incantation, he brought a silver rondel up to Hermione's eye level. She could see it glinting dangerously in half-light cast from the Château's looming, partially lit windows.

"…you will resurrect your foe."

As Voldemort emphasised the final word of the incantation, his blade flicked upward, slicing a neat lighting-bolt-shaped gash into Hermione's forehead. The blade was so sharp, and the Dark Lord's movement so quick, that she hardly noticed - until she felt warm blood dribbling down her face.

With Hermione's blood spattering the front of her jumper, the Dark Lord mocked his helpless victim. "How appropriate … it will be a perfect fit…."

The Dark Lord turned to the audience of his followers. "And where is the vaunted Boy Who Lived, anyway? Cavorting with another? Indeed, before this night is through, this Mudblood and the pliable Miss Weasley shall share something more than an affinity for carnal relations with the Chosen One…."

He drew out Harry's hated nicknames until they sounded like an epitaph.

Despite being nearly petrified with fear, Hermione's mind still functioned. She wondered what the Dark Wizard standing before her could possibly mean by that.

She would not have long to wait to learn.

"Yesssss, to restore Bella," Voldemort changed subjects. He produced a glass phial and filled it with the blood dripping from Hermione's chin.

"I shall perform the final stage of this ritual personally," the scaly white Dark wizard told everyone. Holding the phial of Hermione's blood, he stepped past her and out of sight. Within seconds she heard the WHUMP of a muffled explosion accompanied by a blinding white light that, for a moment, illuminated everything she could see with the brilliance of a lightning bolt.

"Robe her," Hermione heard Voldemort order. "Candace, come with me."

Once again, the Dark wizard's pale visage of death loomed before the helpless young witch. Voldemort was attended by a witch not much older than Hermione - a witch with a brand new, glowing silver hand.

Her argent digits clutched something disgusting, something dark and wiggling that looked like a cross between a centipede and a vinegaroon.

"…And should your lamented Mister Potter be so unfortunate as to survive this night," the Dark Lord gloated, "he shall learn the truth … how my faithful servant played the both of you for fools…. Candace, provide the Mudblood with her first little present."

The witch named Candace stepped forward. Using her normal hand, she put two fingers between Hermione's loosely belted khakis and her waist and pulled. Before Hermione knew what was happening, the witch had dropped the squirming creature into her pants.

Hermione writhed, straining helplessly against the silver chains that bound her.

"So that you will treat the gift you are about to receive with appropriate respect." Lord Voldemort spoke coolly.

"Illuminati!" he incanted. The runes surrounding Hermione's colonnade began glowing a soft, chalky white. She could see two - an ankh and a pentacle.

"And now, to ensure that the seer's reading never comes to pass, you, Mudblood, are to be granted a singular honour…. You will be the receptacle for a piece of my cosmic essence…."

Hermione's eyes nearly left her sockets in horror. Voldemort was not about to kill her. No! He meant to make her into a Horcrux - on the occasion of Viktor Krum's death.

"Look into my eyes," the Dark Lord hissed.

Hermione tried to do something, anything else.

It was no use. Her head was pinioned to the tombstone. She could not look away. Some unknown spell suddenly paralysed her eyelids. She could not even close them. Lord Voldemort's wide, livid scarlet eyes bored into hers.

"Look into my eyes," he repeated, "and sssssee my sssssoul."

The Dark Lord's mental embrace was suffocating. Hermione saw, smelled, and felt death in all of its horrid forms. Not even Dementors ever caused such awful feelings. She felt the blood lust of the vampire, the blind hunger of the zombie, the mindless and hopeless actions of the Inferi.

Hermione tried to shield herself. She attempted to resist the vile assault upon her mind - but to no avail.

The Dark Lord drew her in more deeply. She experienced the fœtid slaughter of innocents machine-gunned in freshly dug pits, the aloof malice of turning a valve to open gas jets disguised as shower heads, and the animalistic rage as neighbor hacked neighbor to death in steaming jungle massacres.

Under Lord Voldemort's assault, the barriers of Hermione's mind began to collapse. She could see nothing save his burning, rufescent eyes. Everything, everywhere was red … blood red….

Despite her gag, Hermione began screaming, screaming inside her own mind. With her consciousness being beaten into submission, pure instinct came to the fore. She screamed until her voice failed and the screams became incoherent screeches.

"Tantum per nex est principatus super nex…."

As the scene before her dissolved into a ruddy, blood-soaked fog, Hermione never saw Lord Voldemort raise his silver rondel yet again….

* * * *

Ron had never flown so far so fast. Hermione's Valkyrie was the most amazing broom he had ever piloted. Especially with Luna hanging onto him for dear life, the flight should have been a tremendous experience.

But the reason for their breakneck speed was anything but tremendous. Terrible was more like it. Awful…. Atrocious….

And quite possibly futile.

Hermione was in trouble. She might be dead already, for all they knew. Harry plainly had the same thoughts. He was flying on the edge, a wild wizard. At times Ron's best efforts could barely keep him in sight.

Finally, Harry started to descend. Ron, still shaking from the windswept journey, followed. Harry put down in a copse of beeches on the north side of a small hill.

Harry was intensely studying something resembling the Marauder's Map when Ron and Luna approached. "Just on the other side of this ridge is the Château's boundary line. There's a secret passage through the wards, right here," Harry stabbed at the map. "The map's not working right, but that dot right there's Hermione."

Ron saw quite a few dots - at least thirty of them, all nameless - in that general area. But when Harry touched a finger to that area of the map, all of them flickered and seemed to jump about. Briefly, one name - Hermione's - blinked and was gone again.

"Why her and none of the rest?" Luna asked.

"No bloody idea," Harry responded. "The important thing … this means she's still alive. Now let's go. Disillusion yourselves."

Ron and Luna obeyed. Harry was in full command mode.

Harry shrunk his broom. Since the other Valkyrie did not belong to Ron, they had to leave it behind. Harry led them through untamed tall grass and brushy undergrowth until they reached the actual boundary, marked by a low stone fence.

A familiar querulous voice arose from the shadows.

"Harry Potter, sir … you've come!"

"Dobby, quiet," Harry ordered. "As if anything could keep me away. Did you tell the goblins not to intervene until my signal?"

Dobby nodded vigorously. "They's being unhappy and nots liking it, but they's waiting for your signal."

Harry cautiously approached the fence, walked along it for about ten metres, and stopped. "This should be the way through."

"Mas … Mister Harry," Dobby pleaded. "Let me be checking first. I's learnt how the Château's wards be feeling….:

"Go ahead, then."

Dobby crept over the fence. "It's still being clear," he announced in a stage whisper. "I's a getting out this same way before."

Relieved, Harry rushed through the opening, the others hot on his heels. He saw his own dot, associated with his name, appear on the map. Only his dot only bore a name - his and sometimes Hermione's.

"This way," Harry pointed, still following the Château's features as outlined on the map. The nearest unidentified dots on the Château's grounds - Harry assumed they were Death Eater scouts - did not move towards them, so Harry concluded they had indeed entered the manse undetected.

"Dobby, wait here until I call for you," Harry ordered. Ordinarily, he tried not to command his favourite elf, but this mission left no room for pleasantries. "The goblin tunnel is just below us. I'm going to dig our way in. Ron and Luna, stay close. Dobby, I'd like you to clean out the dirt and cover our tracks. When we get into the goblin tunnel, I'll call you."

Grateful to both Professor Flitwick and Brikwal for his mastery of Tunnelling Charms, Harry pulled out both of his wands and set them to spinning. Barely making a sound, they bored into the soft earth, digging a tunnel more than a metre in diameter. Harry's whirling wands sent loose dirt flying everywhere, which Dobby disposed of efficiently.

After a couple of nervous minutes, as Harry observed the movements of what he presumed were Death Eater patrols on his map, the wands clattered upon encountering something solid.

"Ron, light your wand, since mine have other things to do."

Harry crept into the earthy smelling tunnel, closely followed by Ron and Luna. Unable to stand erect in the cramped space, they half crawled through its five-metre length as quickly as they could. Behind them, they heard Dobby filling in the entrance so the Death Eaters would not stumble upon it.

They were committed.

But Harry had been committed from the moment Godric Gryffindor had informed him of Hermione's circumstances.

Or maybe he had been committed since sticking his wand up a troll's nose back in first year….

No. Harry shook his head to dispel such thoughts. He already had more than enough to deal with….

Reaching the end of the tunnel, he retrieved his still whirring wands. Even in dim wandlight it was obvious what had stopped their progress. Black, shiny goblin-shaped obsidian glinted before him. The goblins had taken pains that their tunnel - intended (and used) as an escape route in case of Death Eater attack - would not be easily breached by wizard magic.

The obstacle was unwelcome, but not insurmountable - not for a wizard with access to goblin magic.

Harry drew his goblin Sempiternal dirk. Goblin forged uniquely for him, its Vorpal steel construction sensed what Harry needed almost before he knew. The diamond tipped blade morphed into a maul with a solid, wedge-shaped head.

Frustrated, Harry tried manually splitting the obsidian's crystalline structure. With a great grunt, he slammed the maul into the barrier, but failed to generate sufficient momentum in the tightly restricted space.

Ron's voice sounded from over Harry's shoulder. "Bloody hell, Harry, have you considered using magic? The map doesn't show any Death Eaters nearby."

Harry had to agree. "Depulso!" His strong Banishing Charm sent the maul crashing into the obsidian, visibly cracking it. He repeated the process half a metre away with similar results.

One more ought to do it.

"Depulso!"

A large chunk of obsidian gave way….

Success!

Disaster!

A blast of superheated air seared their astonished faces. The angry, florid glow of molten lava appeared through the hole at Harry's feet. Goblin armour or no, they would be fried to cinders within seconds.

"Fridigio Maximus!" Harry choked out, using the last of the air that remained in his lungs. His elemental magic cooled the atmosphere about the three wizards down to a survivable level and caused a thin, black scum to form on the magma beneath them.

"We can't stay here!" Harry spat out the obvious conclusion. The advancing lava was already cracking through its thin rocky crust. Silently, with his bare hand, Harry summoned forth more elemental magic - earth magic, this time.

About them the ground shook, and a crack appeared overhead. "Dobby!"

Instantly, the elf popped into their presence.

"Get us out of here!"

"Grab onto me!" Dobby shrieked, and all three wizards immediately obeyed the house-elf's directive. An instant later Dobby had popped them back on the surface, about twenty metres distant.

"Thanks Dobby, that was close," Harry panted.

"Is being Dobby's pleasure, Harry Potter, sir. But I's being…."

"Shite!" Ron's exclamation cut the elf short. "The Death Eaters must have felt that. Their dots are headed this way fast!"

"Over here, all of you," Harry's command voice reasserted itself. Ron, Luna, and Dobby instantly obeyed and followed Harry as he ducked behind a large tree encircled by a white sitting bench.

Harry quickly reached his right hand down to the left sleeve of his goblin armour, intending to yank it up to his elbow. His left hand made unexpected contact with … the grip of his Sempiternal dirk, snugly in its scabbard at Harry's side.

That briefly puzzled Harry. He was certain he had abandoned it to the lava, but the goblin-forged weapon seemed to have a mind of its own.

With Death Eaters bearing down, Harry had no time to ponder this good fortune. He pulled both sleeves of his goblin armour up to his elbows. As the others crowded around, he crossed his forearms and began a familiar incantation, "Karpasinat."

Nothing seemed to change.

"What dijya do?" Ron whispered.

Three Death Eaters appeared out of the gloom to their left, sprinting. Ron raised his wand, drawing a bead on a target. Harry put his hand firmly on Ron's wrist. "Don't."

Ron glared at Harry, but stayed his fire.

The Death Eaters ran by, coming as close as ten metres, but never stopped and gave no sign of sensing the intruders. Their attention was riveted on the stream of lava now bubbling out of the crevasse Harry had made.

"Goblin Cloaking spell," Harry answered Ron's question after the Death Eaters had gone. "They can't see or hear us. In fact, if you look at my Château map, we shouldn't even appear on it…."

Ron did. Harry was right. Their dots, and Harry's name, had vanished.

Now the only named dot was Hermione's, surrounded by at least thirty unnamed persons.

"Wicked," Ron approved.

"We need to get going" Harry brushed off the compliment. "Give me the map. Hermione's dot's still there, meaning she's still alive. We can't go underground so we'll have to stay under this spell. We can't outrun it. It only moves so fast…."

"Then I's needing to be going," Dobby uncharacteristically broke in. "The other elves, they's being tracking me since I popped you out. They's being ordered by Ima Hogg to catch me and lock me up. She's being lying that she still works for you, but enough elves is still believing…."

"Don't worry, Dobby," Harry reassured the elf as the party moved toward the Château at a brisk walk. "This is goblin Cloaking magic - even elves can't detect anyone under it."

Dobby looked a bit uncertain, but if Harry said stay, he would stay.

"Damn, that must be good magic," Ron signed as he quickstepped along with Harry. "Wish I could do that…. Wait a minute, just how do you know so bloody much about it, anyway…?"

"Ron, just let it go," Luna slipped her hand in his.

"Don't ask a question if you won't like the answer," Harry snapped. If Ron wanted to find out that learning goblin Cloaking magic had been Ginny's idea, to facilitate illicit adventures at Hogwarts, he would have to inquire a second time.

Ron kept quiet.

As the rescue party approached the Château itself, the underbrush vanished, replaced by the grass of the Blackwalls' well-maintained gardens. Trees, and anything else that could be used for cover in a wandfight, became fewer and farther between.

Harry plowed onward, setting the fastest pace he could manage without outrunning the goblin camouflage that hid them from the occupying Death Eaters. Fewer obstructions meant better footing, which allowed him to keep his eyes glued to the map, and on the only dot that mattered.

Hermione was unmoving - probably because she was not free to move - somewhere up ahead, near the Château. He could see the building's lights quite clearly now.

So many Death Eaters were all about her. Even more shadows were being cast on the Château's wide garden spaces than there were dots on the map.

"Hold up," Harry ordered.

Everyone stopped. Harry knelt and began playing with his sleeves again, muttering more Gobbledegook.

"What are you doing now?" Luna asked in a much calmer voice than any of the others could have managed.

"There's too many bloody Death Eaters," Harry answered, once he had completed his latest incantation. "The cloaking magic that's hiding us from them ends whenever any of us casts a spell through it. I've reset the spell so that when that happens, the goblin army automatically gets a sign to attack as soon as they can."

"Goblin army?" Ron echoed incredulously. "Why the hell wait so long for reinforcements? We could all be dead before they get here."

Harry gestured towards the Death Eater conclave. "The Death Eaters have Hermione, Ron. I'm absolutely positive that, whatever else they're doing, they'll kill her the moment they know they're under attack. That's not going to happen until I've…."

Harry fell abruptly silent at the sight of a blinding white flash, followed by a cloud of steam.

"Shite! That's it…."

"What's it," asked a confused Ron. "Don't fool…."

"They're going to kill Hermione for sure," Harry replied with panic creeping into his voice. "That's the same damn spell they used to bring back Voldemort - I was there for it. It must be effing Lestrange, and that's why they had to come here…. I'm sorry I got you into this mess…."

"Whoa there, we agreed to come. You had bloody little…."

"Sorry, but that that doesn't matter anymore," Harry hissed, a desperate plan gelling in his head.

"You can't go back on us now," Luna joined Ron.

They dodged another passing Death Eater patrol, oblivious to their presence.

"If I could, I would, but I can't," Harry hissed. "I'm afraid there's nothing you can do now…. Head for those tombstones."

"Don't give me that crap, Harry. We can fight," Ron protested.

"And get killed," Harry shot back. "Dobby, how much time do you need to pop Hermione away from here? I don't care where - just to get her out."

"Depends, sir. If she's being stuck to a big, heavy gravestone, maybe as much as ten seconds, Harry Potter, sir," Dobby answered. "Less if Miz Myown's not."

"You're sending Dobby in there?" Luna was incredulous.

"Not alone," Harry clarified, his voice shaky but determined. They reached a line of tombstones. They could now see Voldemort standing less than two metres from a stone obelisk with silver chains glinting against it. On the other side, Harry presumed, was Hermione.

She was still alive. Her dot continued flickering on the map.

Voldemort, as was his wont, appeared to be monologuing. Another Death Eater, next to him, reached for Hermione's midsection, but Harry could not tell why.

Harry drew his goblin dirk. "Dobby, I want you to pop me in there - between Voldemort and Hermione. With this thing, and some surprise, I should be able to give you at least the ten seconds you need."

"Harry, that's suicide," Luna protested.

"And absolutely necessary," Harry dismissed her objection. "Ron's been right all along, and it's time for me to do something about it. If I hadn't started with Ginny, this wouldn't have happened. It's my fault she's there, so I have to fix it. This is the only way…."

"Harry, you're mental. You can't just go in there by yourself," Ron started in angrily. "Think about that damn prophecy." Ron regretted not cluing Luna in to this, but right now keeping Harry alive was more important. "You're the key bloke in all this. Hermione would say the same thing, you know it…."

"Fuck the bloody prophecy, Ron," Harry seethed, without looking at his erstwhile friend. "D'ya really think, with her death on my head for not controlling my stupid self, that I could carry it off anyway?"

Harry mentioned no names, but all his listeners knew exactly who he meant.

He was staring intently at the map, and the dots nearest Hermione, praying for an opening. "Dobby, come here. It's death or goddamn glory time."

"M-M-Master, Dobby's being thinking this isn't a good idea."

"Dobby - here," Harry ordered. "You two, Disillusion yourselves … no, here, take this…." Harry started undoing one of the armour fasteners on his chest, intent on giving Ron his Invisibility Cloak.

"Bloody, effing hell," Ron swore. "You're so damn alike. How this whole bloody mess happened, I have no frigging idea because you both still fucking lo…."

"NOOOOOOOO!!!" Luna screamed at the top of her lungs.

Harry, whose eyes had not left the map, looked up. Voldemort had a dagger raised over his head, poised to strike.

Instinctively, Harry rolled to his left, wand out, bellowing, "EXPELLIARMUS!!"

With a sound like a shotgun blast, the Fifth-Element aided bolt of fiery red magic streaked towards Voldemort. At the same instant - too quickly even for an echo - a second loud bang heralded a brilliant red flash that illuminated Voldemort himself. It came from the far side, Hermione's side, of the obelisk to which she was fastened.

Voldemort staggered back a step as the entire monolith, chains and all, lifted straight into the air. A mighty screech split the night.

As he faltered, Voldemort did not see Harry's spell. It hit him flush in the side. But the Dark Lord had protected himself with some enchantment that prevented a mere Disarming Charm from relieving him of his wand - although the same could not be said for his ceremonial dagger.

Instead of Voldemort's wand flying towards Harry, Voldemort himself - wand and all - went sailing through the air at an odd angle, falling somewhere out of Harry's sight.

The dagger bounced off Harry's armour, unnoticed. As the Death Eaters turned and began opening fire, Harry could scarcely believe what he was seeing. The dark stone obelisk to which Hermione had been chained pivoted in midair, revealing a brilliantly scarlet phoenix, its wings flapping furiously as it soared into the night.

With another earsplitting screech, the angry firebird burst the chains binding it. Phoenix Hermione shot up into the sky, and the heavy tombstone fell away. It landed, with a dull, sickening thud, directly atop one of the Death Eaters who had been closest to her. Nothing save a motionless silver hand could be seen.

By then Harry had to focus his attention elsewhere, as streaking spells of all colours began arcing in his direction.

As Harry dove for cover, more than two score Death Eaters, those assembled in the graveyard and others observing from the Château's windows, simultaneously began firing a cacophony of curses.

As he had during the Malfoy Manor firefight, Dobby threw up a shield of elfin magic that blocked most of the initial fusillade, buying Harry and his outnumbered friends precious seconds to duck behind nearby tombstones.

Combat focusses the mind like nothing else. Time seemed to slow down. The senses Harry needed - sight and enough hearing to detect spellfire - sharpened, whilst everything else went conveniently numb.

After cursing Voldemort, Harry had rolled over twice more and huddled behind another gravestone. "Incandens!" he conjured a shield of fire to obstruct the Death Eaters' view of him. Wild hexes streaked in every direction.

Unfortunately, the fire did the same to him. Essentially blind, Harry let loose with a Limb Removing Curse cut five ways. Throwing aside his goblin dirk, useful only in close quarters, Harry grabbed his second wand from its holster and began firing off curses with both hands. "Confringo!" "Diffindo!" "Osteo Pulvisæ!" "Regurgito!"

The Death Eaters returned overwhelming fire. Their curses blasted away at the tombstones shielding Hermione's pinned down would-be rescuers. A well-aimed Reductor split Harry's stone vertically and sent sharp chunks of rock flying in all directions.

A mirror spell cast on a nearby tombstone….

A little misdirection - bounce a Hacking Hex cut five ways off the mirror….

Harry gave at least as well as he got. He brought down the two nearest Death Eaters by surrounding them with tightly pulled barbed wire. "Cephalus Fricassus!" he used a Lesson 128 curse to drop another Death Eater who was taking aim at Luna. His own Reductor Curse, cut ten ways, turned several more opponents into widely scattered raw hamburger ingredients.

Keep track of Ron and Luna … and curse everything else that moved.

Harry had to sigh, just a bit, upon hearing Ron roar out "Sectumsempra!" Ron's curse slammed into the giant stone cauldron behind which Bellatrix Lestrange had taken cover, trying to aim an unfamiliar wand at him. The cauldron rang like a bell, and the spell's force tipped the cistern over backwards. Lestrange flopped from sight as a flood of leftover Regeneration Potion swept her feet out from under her.

Even Harry was not perfect. Something angry and orange streaked in from an odd angle and hit him squarely in the right hip. Thanks to the Basilisk skin armour, all he felt was the dull pressure of impact.

Luna, for her part, faced the other way, using Idiotus Jinxes to pick off Death Eaters trying to sneak in from behind.

Suddenly, screeching like a vuvuzela powered by a lorry horn, phoenix-Hermione swooped down, grabbed Death Eaters in both claws, and soared upwards. In seconds her evil cargo plummeted back to earth - landing like fleshy missiles amidst their counterparts.

"Multiplicitus!" Harry heard Luna create multiple images of herself to confuse the Death Eaters.

Still the curses kept coming. A purple slash whipped across their besieged position. Somebody else had learnt the Dark Fire of Tu Fan, but it could not penetrate their Basilisk skin armour. Bits of grass and dirt spattered Harry as Death Eater curses - some Unforgivable - gouged fiery divots into the surrounding turf.

With his protective tombstone rapidly being reduced to rubble, Harry kept blasting away ambidextrously. "Stupefy!" "Reducto!" "Hornetentious!" "Incarcerous!" He lunged for a more substantial headstone nearby. Two curses found their marks - something icy blue that arrived exactly at eye level - blocked at the last second with his armoured forearm….

The other was a Cruciatus.

"AIEEE!!" Harry hollered in pain. Scrabbling to keep his balance, he concentrated, cupped his hands at the proper angle, and incanted, "Suturc!" to defeat the curse.

The Cruciatus briefly distracted Harry from the battle raging about him.

Briefly and fatally.

"Good-bye, Harry Potter."

Harry knew that chilling voice.

"Avada Kedavra!"

The Killing Curse came from the left. Harry turned his head in just time to see Voldemort Disillusioning himself. The Dark wizard's triumphant, malevolent grimace glowed an ugly radium green, lit by a bolt of death that Harry could not possibly dodge.

Harry knew it was all over. He was a dead man. `You didn't need me,' he reflected in his last thoughts on earth. `You saved yourself. But when it comes to you, Hermione….'

Moving without conscious direction, save its own, Harry's Sempiternal dirk pivoted at his side, its elongating blade splitting its scabbard in two. With the deafening sound of plate glass shattering under extreme pressure, Killing Curse met Vorpal steel.

The blade absorbed the curse, but the curse's impact pulverised the blade.

Stunned, disbelieving that he still lived, Harry fell to his knees, gawking as the shards of goblin metal magically regrouped into the rough outline of a new blade - still diamond tipped and Basilisk fang edged. Glowing silver, the metallic swarm aimed itself and shot directly at Voldemort.

Unprepared, the Dark Lord had no choice. He Disapparated just before blade fragments turned him into a pin cushion.

The reconstituted blade lost its purpose for existing and fell to the ground in jagged scraps.

The battle raged on.

Luna screamed when a curse lit her up in a shower of yellow sparks. But her armour protected her. She had never really been under fire before.

Another Death Eater curse slammed into the stone against which Harry had been leaning. It pelted him with slivers of granite and brought him abruptly back to the only slightly less desperate here-and-now.

Only the three friends remained, with a surviving few of Luna's doppelgangers. Dobby had vanished after providing his initial shield. Although perhaps half their number lay as casualties on the ground, more than a dozen Death Eaters continued fighting in the Black family cemetery between them and the Château.

Almost as many more were behind them, those who had been patrolling the grounds. Additional Death Eaters occupied the high ground of Château's upper floor windows, commanding superior fields of fire.

The goblins would be here soon. They needed more than ten minutes….

Harry needed to equalise the odds - quickly. Could Hermione possibly…?

That was it.

"DEVOLVUS!!" he roared. With a series of pops, thirty metres of turf, tombstones and all, pulled loose from the earth between Harry and the Death Eaters - from the Château doorway on the left to the overturned cauldron on the right. Slowly, but with accelerating speed, the turf rolled over itself like a snowball on a downhill run. Harry had used the same spell, on a much smaller scale, when he had dueled Hermione.

Over the next five seconds, all the Death Eaters between Harry and the Château either fled in panic, Disapparated, or were swallowed up and crushed in an onslaught of the earth beneath their feet.

Before the results of his first spell had come to rest with a splot against Blackwalls' stone ramparts, Harry had turned and repeated the process in the opposite direction.

"Protego! Now that was bloody brilliant," Ron exclaimed as he tried to stand up. "I only wish you'd have thought of that sooner. Now where's … AAAHHH!"

A wild Bonebreaker Curse from somewhere to their left ricocheted off a tombstone behind them, bounced off a rock on the ground, and struck the top of Ron's ankle, where his ill-fitting armour provided no protection.

Even after multiple deflections, the Death Eater Bonebreaker lived up to its name. Ron fell heavily forward, both bones of his lower leg shattered. He landed flat on his face halfway into the depression where the turf had torn loose. Ron became an inviting, and utterly unprotected, target for the Death Eaters still perched in the Chateaus' upper storey windows.

"Ronald!" Luna angrily fired a Disorienting Hex in the direction of the curse's origin, and ran towards Ron as curses flew all about her.

Conjuring balls of fire with two wands simultaneously, Harry tried to suppress the Death Eaters' fire with mediocre results.

A screech rent the night. Phoenix Hermione swooped in to gather up Ron. She dove in low from the right, on a path that gave both Harry (and Ron had he been looking) a full face-on view of her magnificent flying form.

"Go, Hermione!" Harry cheered.

An all-too-familiar voice shouted, "AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Bellatrix Lestrange's Killing Curse found Hermione.

Before Harry's shocked eyes, phoenix Hermione disintegrated in a ball of flame as the ultimate Unforgivable forced the magic, and the life, out of the magical creature's body.

All Harry's breath left his body in a screaming, "NOOOOOOOO!!" of unimaginable grief and rage. He felt his hopes, his dreams, his … everything … being consumed along with Hermione's phoenix form. Left to their own devices, Harry's limbs went flabby. He stumbled and fell to his knees. His guts churned like someone had punched a turbo-beater through his navel and turned it on high.

"Hermione!" Luna joined Harry's roar with a wail of her own. Heedless of her own safety, Luna hurtled past Ron and threw herself on Hermione's smoking remnants.

"Ha-HAH!" a gleeful shout rang across the devastated no-man's land that had once been the Black family cemetery. "Ding dong, the bitch is dead…!"

Partially shielded by the upturned cauldron, Lestrange cackled, "Wittle baby Potty's pwaymate's gone and there's nuffink anybody can to bwing her back! Hee, hee, hee…."

Harry wheeled toward the sound of the voice, his grief rapidly being corrupted into an overwhelming urge to kill - to repay that hateful witch for what she had just done to Hermione. A million generations of evolution fell away as Harry went primal….

Six months earlier, such a scene - even without the perpetrator's taunting - would have ended with an explosion of raw, indiscriminate magic - destroying everything and killing everyone, friend, foe, or in between, within a dozen kilometres.

Since then, though, Harry had trained constantly and had been tempered by the heat of mortal combat. The out-of-control adolescent was gone, replaced with the gut instincts of a gladiator.

Lestrange was determined to test his mettle. Her sing-song voice again jeered, "Bye, bye, filthy Mudblood has died. Sent by Potter to the slaughter when another he tried…."

If Harry could have toasted her with green lightning bolts from his eyes, he would have. Hatred and revenge - raw and overpowering - tinged Harry's vision. "I'LL KILL YOU; YOU DISGUSTING BITCH!!" He trained his wand on the demented, Dark Witch and bellowed, "CONFRINGO!!!"

A brilliantly orange Blasting Curse, the likes of which surprised even Harry, emerged from his wand like a blast from Mallet's mortar.

But Lestrange timed him and Disapparated as Harry's incantation left his lips.

That curse vaporised the great stone cauldron that had incubated Lestrange's resurrection. Continuing unabated, the curse crashed into the corner of the Château, nearly parallel to the building's west wall. The curse's passage obliterated the corner of the structure and the edge of the ground and first floors. It kept going, blowing the west wall to smithereens across that side of the 255-room building.

Deprived of support, the entire west face of the Château - its remaining six storeys - collapsed in billows of rubble and plaster dust. For a blessed minute or so, the obscuring cloud prevented the Death Eaters still occupying the Château from taking more potshots at Hermione's now thoroughly dispirited would-be rescuers.

Not until later did Harry learn that, from there, his spell had ripped through a forest for half a kilometre, laying waste to centuries-old oaks and beeches, before burying itself in a hillside and creating a new cavern large enough to house the aging of the Château's entire output of wine and champagne.

As terrible as Harry's curse had been, it did not - could not - restore what the Dark Witch had taken from him. Whatever remained of Hermione lay in the raw dirt a few metres in front of him, glowing faintly blue beneath Luna's human shield.

Oblivious to everything else, Harry staggered forward, disregarding his own exposure to curses from leftover Death Eaters. He sheathed his still-smoking wand. Tears blurring his vision, he fumbled with his upper armour's fastenings. Jerking the Basilisk skin open, he reached in, removed his Invisibility Cloak, and spread it over Luna's body.

Then, numb and with nothing left to give, Harry sank to his knees amongst the bleak, battered moonscape of the Black family graveyard. His thought process followed what was, for Harry, a predictable direction.

`Merlin, what a mess I've made. I should have known Hermione wouldn't need me. Bloody hell - she learnt that phoenix transformation. She didn't need rescuing. Our … my … showing up bollixed everything. Without needing to rescue us, she could have flown away. We got her….'

"This is all my fucking fault," Harry grumbled. He had charged into this battle with no Felix Felicis Potion, and the results spoke for themselves….

"Avada Kedavra!"

A Killing Curse does wonders to concentrate the mind - especially when uttered by yet another familiar voice.

Harry dove behind the nearest reasonably intact gravestone, flicking out his wand as he tumbled, but if the spell were even meant for him, it was extremely poorly aimed.

He knew who cast it. He would never forget the voice of his traitorous, turncoat former employee, Ima Hogg. As Harry crouched once more behind a curse-scarred monument to a long-dead Black, his grief and self-pity congealed into a fierce, bitter enmity towards any and all things associated with the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black - especially its Death Eater sympathies - what motivated both Lestrange and Hogg to use the Killing Curse against his friends….

A half-dozen Death Eaters remained silhouetted in the windows or backlit in gaping holes where the Château's walls had collapsed. Harry's murderous fury returned in a red haze of hatred. They needed to be extirpated. The goblins would soon arrive, but Harry would not chance the wait.

His rage undoubtedly would have sustained a Killing Curse, but Harry had never learnt to cast Unforgivables - nor did he tend to think that way. Instead, he chose a spell that would not only kill the remaining Death Eaters but also destroy an unwanted inheritance that had brought him nothing but pain, and heartache … and death.

The malevolent spawn of Black had just taken from Harry his one truest friend - and so much more.

Never again.

His mind swimming with poisonous visions of revenge, Harry stood. He pointed his wand at the loathsome Hogg and began to roar, "Infla…!"

Thunk! Something seemed to hit her from behind.

Harry's narrowed eyes went wide, and the spell that would have immolated the Château was never completed.

Propelled by some unseen force, Ima Hogg lurched from her fourth storey perch and appeared to attempt flight without wings.

Over the next few seconds every other visible Death Eater followed suit.

Had Voldemort taught his followers to fly like he could? Harry altered his aim to account for that awful possibility.

The answer, thankfully, was no.

Ima Hogg completed a swan dive into solid ground, the splat of her landing leaving no doubt that no magic had broken her spell. Just before she hit, Harry heard a popping sound.

Dobby appeared beside him, a triumphant grin on his face.

"Harry Potter, sir, there's being no more bad wizards inside. We elves, even being without magic, has gotten rid of them."

Harry's last dregs of adrenaline evaporated with the news. He paused before finally choking out, "Thanks, Dobby." His weak response left the elf standing there wondering what else had happened.

Robotically, Harry tried to Levitate the now-unconscious Ron. Nothing happened. He looked at his wand - it was his father's, and like the day his father died, it was hollow. Harry's last spell had managed to burn out the core entirely.

Too numb to think, he sheathed the destroyed wand and removed his original wand from its invisible holder. He floated Ron's body next to Luna and covered them both with the Cloak. He plopped down in the dirt beside them and rocked dejectedly back and forth, whilst he muttered over and over, "What have I done?"

Dejected … angry … Harry blamed himself for an amateurish, botched and totally unnecessary rescue. Had they not drifted apart - another fault lying squarely at his feet - he would have known Hermione had succeeded where he had failed, mastering her phoenix whilst his golden griffin remained out of reach.

She had escaped.

Then she had come back.

She was AKed trying to help Ron.

"AAIIEE!!" Harry's anguished cry rent the night. In despair he raised his remaining functional wand, dagger-like, and stabbed it as deeply into the earth as he could.

With the fight over, Harry's tears finally came. Once his façade cracked, choking sobs wracked his chest. He could barely see, barely breathe, and he barely cared. He had lost. The anchor of his life was gone. His tears watered the raw earth.

Voldemort had won … how could he go on…?

Or had he?

What did it matter at this point, anyway?

The only way left to win was to go Dark - maybe kill more Death Eaters and make his own Horcruxes…. With an ominous groan, Harry realised that he could. The Dark Lord's followers had abased him. He had tried to kill them … especially the bitch Lestrange … not to capture, not to disable, but to kill.

Damn them! Damn her! Damn them all!

Still clutching his wand by its hilt, Harry exuded despair and rage. The soil itself began to bubble and boil.

The only way to survive was to become as unkillable as Voldemort….

No!

That would only defile Hermione's memory.

All he had left was her memory. Harry wept anew. He had lost. Even if he won, he lost.

The goblin army rolled in a few minutes later - having been delayed more by malfunctioning wards, molten magma, and a turf tsunami than by enemy action. To them, almost two score of Death Eaters dead and wounded scattered in the still of the night meant that their valiant Prince Harry had won another great victory.

Instead, they found their Prince, on his knees in steaming, putrid mud, unaware of his surroundings, inconsolable, and ruing the most catastrophic defeat of his life.

Without any restraining influence from Harry, who was beyond caring, the goblins proceeded to butcher every Dark Mark-bearing human they came across.

* * * *

The void was calm, warm, and inviting - all in remarkable contrast to the hellhole her life had become over the past several hours … days … weeks…?

Did it matter? Time did not seem to pass.

Hermione perceived herself - assuming that she retained anything that passed for a "self" - floating weightless in a vast, formless expanse, devoid of discernable direction. "Up," "down," and the like had no meaning.

She felt like one of those astronauts in zero gravity, except they could see stars and planets. The void had nothing for her to see.

But on more thorough inspection, that was not quite right.

Amidst the infinite gloom shone a single exception - a small spot of achromatic light persisted, glowing yellowish white. It was no larger than the full moon, if that, as Hermione had no reference point from which to judge. It resembled, as much as anything, light shining from the far end of a very long tunnel.

Was this death? Some gateway to death? Limbo? Hermione could not tell. She knew only that her present - assuming this was some version of "present" - state was vastly preferable to her prior circumstances.

All the pain, the threats, the terror, that had haunted Hermione's earthly existence had fallen away - dwindling to a faint, indistinct buzz that tickled her … her … her navel.

That was odd. She reached down and felt … something even odder. Her fingers slid along a stringy, irregular, and rather prickly umbilicus. Hermione wriggled and managed to shift herself until dim light from the single source illuminated the strand. It seemed to consist of a multitude of feathers - red phoenix feathers, she surmised - twisted and woven together into something like rope. The thin filament had neither tension nor terminus. It meandered through the gloom until disappearing … somewhere.

But "gloom" was not an adequate description. It was too pejorative. Peace was more like it. The void was soothing. None of Hermione's prior afflictions existed here. That was a huge plus.

The void was tranquil.

The void was painless.

The void was empty. It utterly lacked the eye-popping fear created by monsters all too ready to inflict unspeakable evil on her simply because of the accident of her birth.

No, that was not quite right, either. She was hardly the only Muggle-born - she could name four others in her Hogwarts class alone - and none of them had been chosen for the macabre honour of becoming the unwilling repository for an evil fragment of Voldemort's soul.

To the Death Eaters, her transgressions extended well beyond ancestry. Her true crime was that she … was in not stopping herself when she - no use denying it now - fell in love with Voldemort's mortal enemy, Harry Potter….

The void had no magic, and thus no Dark magic.

…She had fallen in love with, and - in limbo veritas - was still in love with … Harry Potter…. But he had discarded her in favour of someone prettier, more athletic, and pure-blooded. For all her intellect, Hermione felt like the stupidest, most useless person ever to have lived.

If nothing else, despair intruded upon the cosmic depths of the void.

But her despair…. It was trivial compared to the death, destruction, defilement, and debasement she had endured since the Death Eaters kidnapped her from Hogsmeade.

But for a stupendous stroke of good luck - her entirely unplanned first phoenix transformation ever, after months of unmitigated failure - Hermione would now be a living Horcrux, her mind and body forever possessed by an active fragment of Voldemort's odious soul.

The only escape from such a possession was death. Unnervingly, Voldemort had seemed remarkably unconcerned with that possibility.

`I would have killed myself, surely, at my first opportunity,' Hermione sternly told herself, `before I'd have ever let that go on….'

However, if not for an equally stupendous stroke of bad luck, Hermione's phoenix transformation would have made good a most remarkable escape.

But amazingly, naïvely … heroically … Harry had somehow located her - unfortunately just a bit too late to do any real good. Rather than flee as rapidly as possible, Hermione, as a phoenix, found herself participating in a furious battle. No more than three of her friends (she saw only Ron, Harry, and Luna) had fought literally dozens of Death Eaters, including Voldemort himself.

And so she came to the void - struck by the Killing Curse in phoenix form whilst attempting to rescue one of her would-be rescuers. One of her first real friends.

Hermione did not regret sacrificing herself for Ron - she was fairly certain he would have done the same for her.

There were other regrets in the void, but no more hatred, torture, fighting, or killing.

Compared to the horror show Hermione's life had become, a semi-existence in serene repose seemed downright inviting.

So Hermione waited, relaxed if regretful, for whatever might be her final act in the course of human events. She considered her mind well-organised….

A non-believer to the core, Hermione expected neither winged choirs of angels nor legions of demons. Indeed, nothing of that sort happened, no bearded deities nor horned devils, no celestial host of cherubim or seraphim. Harry and Luna had mentioned encounters with the spirits of loved ones whilst unconscious, but Hermione had not prised into such personal matters.

She expected nothing of that sort, either, since none of her loved ones (to her knowledge) had died.

A minute, or a month, may have passed until a surprising voice broke the void's comforting silence.

"Hermy-own-ninny! Finally, I have found you!"

"Loved one" meant different things to different people.

Surprised but not frightened, through sheer force of will Hermione floated in the direction of the voice.

She came face to face with Viktor Krum. This Krum, however, was not the torn, tortured man of their last encounter - someone who had unsuccessfully attempted to navigate a knife edge between the lesser and greater of two evils.

No, this was the adolescent Krum - Durmstrang Champion, Bulgaria's pride - astride the red, white, and green trimmed broom he rode in the 1994 World Cup.

He wore the same crimson, fur-lined robes of that long-ago day - burnt into both of their memories - when after weeks of hemming and hawing he had requested her to walk with him. They had meandered to her special secluded place on the backside of Hogwarts Lake. There, he had confessed that she made him feel like nobody else ever had. He had asked her for two things, first, a date to the Yule Ball, and second, a chance, a fair chance, to compete for her affections.

She had happily granted the first … but, Hermione realised, she had never really delivered the second. Her heart was already spoken for….

"Viktor," Hermione replied, sounding out of breath even in the void. "Why are you here? You died. Am I … dead?"

"Dat, my alvays perceptive obicham prijatel, ist the ultimate question," Viktor smiled at her. "For you, the ansver ist vithin your control…. In dat, you are more fortunate than I." His smile, still bright, bore a distinctly more wistful cast than before.

"If I'm not dead, then what are you doing here, Viktor?"

"Again, only you can ansver dat," he unhelpfully answered. "Vot happens ist vot you vant to happen."

"Then I don't want to be dead," Hermione immediately declared.

"From personal experience, I vouldn't be so sure," Viktor responded thoughtfully. "I know dat, at the end, I could not have said dat … not and remain truthful."

Hermione thought more deeply, contemplating the recent days and weeks. Although she and Harry were no more, the Death Eaters nonetheless pursued her. Despite the end of their romance, her friendship with Harry remained. Friendship alone had motivated Harry to find her somehow, and to come for her despite his usual, impossible odds.

Would it be better just to get on with the inevitable, so Harry would no longer be endangered by her continuing vulnerability?

In short, would both of them be better off with her dead?

"Hermy-own-ninny?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Viktor," Hermione apologised. "Lost in thought, I guess."

"Don't be sorry. I have all the time in the vorld," Viktor temporised. "But Hermy-own-ninny, shouldn't you at least consider vot ist best for you, instead of vot ist best for him…?"

Hermione could not bear looking at the first man ever to say he loved her. "I'm … I'm not sure there's a difference…."

"And dat ist vhy I never had a chance," Viktor sighed, sadly but without any trace of reproach. "But my clever one, you should consider your course both objectively and subjectively…."

"In what sense…?"

"Even if you believe dat he vould be safer vithout you being alvays their target," Viktor recommended, "consider carefully how, subjectively, he vould feel in dat event."

"Ah, yes," Hermione understood. "Would his objective safety outweigh his tendency to blame himself for anything bad that ever happens?"

"That ist … consideration," Viktor neutrally allowed, "but your fate ist ultimately in your hands."

Viktor reached inside his robes and withdrew an oversized pair of scissors that, even in the dim light, almost shone from within. Smiling wanly now, he offered her the shears.

Making no move to accept, Hermione immediately grasped the metaphor. "Now, this is rather much of a cliché, I'd have to say."

"Don't blame me. Ist all from your own mind," Viktor pointed out. "It ist the vay you, in your heart of hearts, vish for this to play out."

Again he held out the gold-coloured implement to her. This time Hermione accepted them.

"Vell, there ist a limit to vot I can do - as alvays," Viktor spoke as he prepared to take his leave. "If you vant me, you know vere I am. It vould be an honour…."

Without completing the thought, Viktor pointed his broom away from her and flew off.

Alone again in warm, safe isolation, Hermione stared mutely at the tool she now held. Idly, she opened and shut the scissors' blades. Their sharp snipping sound seemed quite loud in the otherwise silent void.

It was familiar. Once before Hermione had done something similar, for similar reasons. Then the cautionary sound had been the click of the safety on one of her father's pistols. Hardly mythological, that.

Could she make the same choice now?

Could she go back … to that? To constant fear and even more pervasive heartache?

She pondered her choice. Seconds passed … or perhaps hours … or perhaps days.

Again Hermione's recess was interrupted.

A searching. An invitation. A promise of … sanctuary…?

Initially far away … it felt tentative, even confused … but by degrees it grew stronger and more emphatic.

Hermione resisted. Could she trust what she now sensed? Was it a ruse? Could the Death Eaters have sent Krum? Might this be another of their blandishments? In the void she was safe. In the void, she knew peace.

Was her ordeal really over, as the sensation promised?

She felt peace - the peace of the dead…. Still, was a life - her life - amongst the living preferable?

The mute invitation she had been receiving ripened into an appeal … for her to follow. Could she trust it? Was she honestly being offered refuge?

Then she felt it.

No one who has ever been well and truly loved ever forgets that feeling. Hermione certainly had not.

That could not be Voldemort. Love, Hermione knew - convinced more now than ever - was the power he knew not.

The comforts of the void were thin gruel indeed, compared to the heartfelt warmth that was appealing to her.

The dark depths of the void held no answer. For all her cleverness, Hermione could not fathom what was happening, or why.

If he truly felt that way, how could the last month from hell have happened?

Only one person had ever made Hermione feel this way. But Harry no longer possessed such feelings for her. He had left her, chucked her, humiliated her … abandoned her. He - that - had caused, why, everything….

Harry's love, wonderful as it had been, was a fond but distant memory.

Beside Harry, only one person had ever felt that way about her. Could he be sending those feelings to her…?

Should she, literally at the thirteenth hour, finally give him the chance he had merited when they first met?

Nobody who has known a great love would turn it down, certainly not for nothingness.

Instinctively, Hermione moved towards the feeling. It was beautiful, so much more satisfying than the void.

"Viktor, where have you gone? Viktor?"

Leaving the aureate shears to float aimlessly in the void, Hermione followed the beckoning feeling. Either back to her last great adventure, or on to the next, she would finally follow her heart.

No one who has known love - true love - ever wants to be without it.

Hand over hand, creeping along the phoenix feather umbilicus, Hermione pulled herself closer.

Pursuing the source of the euphoric feeling, Hermione's soul moved, slowly but surely, towards the distant light - be it the light of the past world or the next, she neither knew nor, at that moment, cared.

"Viktor, is that you?"

So intent was she on following the blissful sensation, Hermione did not notice as the surrounding darkness of the void lightened and began fading to dawn.

That music … she'd heard it before….

How could Viktor have known?

* * * *

Many years had passed since either Hlr. Paracelsus Huxley or Hlr. Hypatia Bosworth had made a house call not involving Harry Potter. That record stayed intact, if barely. For related reasons, the name "Hermione Granger" also carried a bit more cachet than the usual witch or wizard.

Harry's signed personal note all but begging for their immediate presence provided additional incentive. The note was vague - admittedly and intentionally so - alluding to Dark magic and serious injuries. His specific request for Hlr. Bosworth's specialty lent an additional air of intrigue to Harry's mysterious summons.

That the message was personally delivered by a familiar house-elf, accompanied by a well-known goblin, only underscored the urgency of the request. That urgency was hard to miss in any event, since Roxtar the Lost Finger was imposingly armed and did not look likely to leave without the Healers.

Properly motivated, the two senior Healers gathered their kit and allowed Dobby and Roxtar to lead them. Dobby immediately popped them to the battle-damaged hulk of Château Blackwalls. There Roxtar took over and guided them past the numerous goblin sentries that now guarded the building's remaining halls and corridors.

Heavy, unrepaired spell damage was visible almost everywhere - both on the Château's grounds and inside.

At some point, they would receive answers. For now, they had only questions, and nobody to ask save taciturn goblins.

Halfway down a corridor - sumptuously carpeted but littered with lumps of plaster and stone chips - the goblins halted. Hlr. Huxley found himself directed inside some sort of bedroom where he came eye to eye with a pale and gaunt Ron Weasley. Wordlessly, the goblin Healer in attendance turned back Ron's bedsheet, revealing the boy's severely mangled leg.

Hlr. Bosworth was not allowed to follow. Instead, Roxtar grunted, "No, madam. For you a more difficult case, have we. Needed is your specialty … badly. If … if please, if you…."

`This must be extremely serious, indeed,' Hlr. Bosworth thought, as she let the goblins lead her onward. `I've never known a goblin, and a warrior at that, ever to be so polite to a wizard.'

Hlr. Bosworth's speculation ended abruptly as she passed through a partially splintered oaken door and into a large room. Its formerly palatial trappings were reduced to fragments of destroyed furniture piled in corners and curse-scarred paintings hanging haphazardly on the walls.

Hlr. Bosworth spotted Harry standing next to an older, apparently exhausted wizard flopped in a once plush chair missing an armrest.

The room's only other occupant, a blonde witch, was seated Indian-style on a vast bed, a four-poster with its torn-off canopy lying in tatters against the near wall. The blonde girl seemed oblivious to her surroundings - to everything - save something in her arms that she held like a baby, although this unknown object of her affections was too small for that.

Harry looked agitated - gravely worried. The older man was wan and weak. They were deep in conversation.

"…Oh, it's really lucky that I didn't try to Apparate anybody to St. Mungo's, then," Harry sighed.

"Yes, sir, sorry but that would have been exceedingly dangerous," the older man spoke deferentially. "I should have let you in on my secret…."

"Impratraxis, sir," Roxtar reluctantly interrupted. "As wanted you, the Healer Bosworth have we."

Ignoring the older man, Harry jumped up and bounded over. "Thank Merlin! …And Healer Huxley?"

"Is with, I presume, your friend Ronald, I believe that's his name," Hlr. Bosworth replied.

With the Healer's presence announced, the blonde woman on the bed emerged from her apparent trance. "Wonderful, then let me introduce your patient, Miss Hermione Granger." Lowering her arms, she revealed a quail-sized bird with a prominent yellow beak and large brown eyes. She … it … the patient was covered in hairy, copper-coloured feathers, and smelt faintly of cordite.

"My word," gasped Hlr. Bosworth, momentarily taken aback. Recovering quickly, she added, "What happened? How did Miss Granger acquire this symptomatology?"

"Hermione had … has the ability to become a phoenix," Harry spoke up haltingly, before urgency quickened his speech. "Whilst in that form, she was hit by the Killing Curse and forced through a burning."

"I'd best examine," Hlr. Bosworth declared somewhat dryly. "The longer such a condition persists, the more difficult it is to treat successfully."

Harry barely heard her. "I - I thought she was dead…. I'd forgotten…. I almost fainted when Luna told me she wasn't. If only I hadn't…."

"Harry, let me handle this," Hlr. Bosworth moved to take control of the situation from a young man who had plainly been through too much, himself, that night. "You've suffered enough for now. Let me take some of the weight from your shoulders."

Still in a daze, giddy that Hermione lived, but utterly devastated at her current state, Harry wandered back to a chair by the wall and sat heavily, betraying a faraway stare. Before he learnt that Hermione lived, he had been on the verge of collapse. In the heat of the moment, he had forgotten how the same thing had happened to Fawkes.

He still had a hard time grasping that Hermione lived. He had seen her die, or so he thought. Harry believed in fate, if not in God. He felt he deserved to be punished, not rewarded. What had he done to deserve Luna's good news?

Hermione deserved to live because she was good … the best - not because of him. He deserved….

"Harry, I need your help." Hlr. Bosworth's voice cut through his jumbled thoughts. "I need you to find out as much as you can about exactly what happened to Miss Granger tonight. Can you get that done for me?"

Harry jumped upright, looking for and finding Jerry McAllister. "Thanks for risking your life like that, Jerry. I wish I could let you rest after what they did to you, but you heard the Healer. We need all the evidence that anyone can possibly locate about what happened to Hermione. Get the house-elves to help."

"Clothing bits, too," Hlr. Bosworth called from her position at the edge of the bed. "Anything imbued with phoenix resonance will aid the diagnosis." She opened up her black bag and pulled out several phoenix feathers. "Use these. They will be attracted to the resonance."

"I'm on it." With effort, Jerry pulled himself from his own chair, grabbed a feather and began hobbling off.

He had yet to reach the damaged door when Harry had an idea. "Jerry, what was, umm, Bellatrix's mother's name?" He uttered the Dark witch's name with deep distaste, as if it fouled his mouth just to form the word.

"Druella."

Harry turned to another onlooker. "Roxtar, I need your warriors' help. We need Druella Black's tombstone. It's somewhere in that dirt piled against the side of the Château. I'm afraid I made a right mess of the graveyard when I rolled it up … but anything out of the ordinary…. Anything at all…. Please."

If a goblin could blush, Roxtar would have. He, too, took a feather and followed McAllister out of the room.

Harry and Luna watched the remainder of Hlr. Bosworth's examination of Hermione's post-burning phoenix form with bated breath, not wanting to disturb her.

After running a complete battery of diagnostic tests, the Healer turned to Harry. "Your observations are spot on, as far as they go. How much experience does Miss Granger have with this sort of Animagus transformation?"

Harry felt miserable. "Umm … she'd never done it, at least as of several weeks ago," he answered slowly. "But we haven't exactly discussed it much recently, so she might…."

Luna, sensing Harry's hesitancy, broke in, "I don't believe she'd ever done it before. Earlier this week, after a practice session, she complained that she was regressing…."

"Practising? When? Under whose supervision?" Hlr. Bosworth demanded.

"Dumbledore," both Harry and Luna answered in unison.

"Oh my," Hlr. Bosworth groaned. "This is important, even critical. Healer Huxley asked me to peer review a paper he's written about Dumbledore using rare magic, the Sacrifice of the Phoenix, on an anonymous…."

"That's Hermione," Harry declared immediately. "Dumbledore's told me this. It happened last September, when she almost died."

"Then, this form … her phoenix," Hlr. Bosworth gestured towards Hermione, "has its own soul, and is far more powerful than any ordinary Animagus transformation. It's harder to attain, but also harder to revert once she's been accepted by the phoenix. If this is her first…." The Healer's sentence hung there, uncompleted. "Something traumatic, something terrible, must have triggered it."

"I'll say," Harry answered grimly. "I know what she went through, because it's happened to me. Voldemort used her blood to bring back Bellatrix Lestrange in a Hor … umm … you know what Horcruxes are…?"

"Yes, I'm more familiar with them than I care to be," Hlr. Bosworth affirmed.

"Well, there's a ritual, called `Maledictus omnia resuscitum.' Hermione found it in a book. That's why Voldemort had to come here. He needed an ancestor's bone, the closer, the better…."

At Harry's revelation, both Hlr. Bosworth's and Luna's faces paled in horror.

"…To finish this ritual properly, the caster must kill the `enemy' whose blood is taken. Voldemort was about to stab Hermione when she … umm … transformed, I guess. I saw a bright red flash, and she pulled the whole tombstone - she was chained to it - right out of the ground and flew off…."

"Stab, you said … and chains," Hlr Bosworth picked up on what Harry revealed. "Where are the knife and these chains?"

"Dunno," Harry admitted, looking and sounding perplexed. "When I saw Voldemort raise some sort of dagger, I hit him with a Disarming Charm. Maybe the dagger rebounded towards me, but by then I was too busy dodging curses to pay attention to it…."

"And the chains?" Hlr. Bosworth repeated.

"Hermione burst them," Luna put in. "As she flew away she simply shed the chains and the gravestone. The stone squished a Death Eater." Luna looked frankly awestruck as she recounted the scene.

"Were the chains by any chance silver?" Hlr. Bosworth inquired clinically.

"I do believe so," Luna reported.

"Why does it matter?" Harry inquired.

"Ordinarily, I would not discuss a patient's diagnosis or prognosis with a non-relative…."

"But I have her bloody living will," Harry countered, "umm … somewhere…."

"Point, that," Hlr. Bosworth conceded, "at least as to you, Harry. But as you were both witnesses, this discussion also counts as therapeutic. Suffice it to say that Dark rituals can be quite specific, and it would be useful - extraordinarily useful - to know exactly what tripped her phoenix transformation, and thus led to her present state…."

"I already told you. She was hit by the Killing Curse, whilst transformed as a phoenix," Harry peevishly cut across. "Isn't that damn well plenty?"

"And I'm telling you, that if as … I'm sorry, I don't know your name…."

"Luna."

"…Now listen. Luna believes that this was Miss Granger's first experience with a phoenix-mediated transformation. You tell me that her transformation results from the Sacrifice of the Phoenix and not ordinary Animagus magic. So I'm telling you … it could be difficult - damn difficult - to induce retransformation. Her phoenix alter ego is quite strong, particularly since it's now accepted her fully. And her human form, well, that depends upon exactly how traumatised she was … and the rituals…."

"That's why you must examine the knife and the chains," Luna summed up.

"Then, by Merlin, you'll have them!" Harry decided, not waiting for Hlr. Bosworth to confirm. "Dobby!"

POW!

Dobby popped into the room. Hardly his usual voluble self, he seemed downcast before Harry said a word.

"Dobby, I need you…. Are you alright?"

"Dobby's being fine again soon enough, Harry Potter, sir. Just … I's been burying elves who's being dead."

"Dead…?"

"They's a-went and pushed Death Eaters out windows, like Dobby, but their magic was still being bound … not being able to pop off like Dobby. They's a-been killed by the fall."

Hlr. Bosworth interrupted. "Whilst you're doing this, I need to consult Healer Huxley. Miss Granger is stable, perhaps too stable, so there's no…."

"What do you mean, `too stable'?" Harry whirled around, his eyes flashing. Dobby only gawked.

"Her prognosis is difficult," Hlr. Bosworth stood her ground under Harry's glare. "I'm afraid her human form may be hanging by a thread. Even our most powerful magic might not be enough to induce re-transformation. There's a real possibility that she could be trapped in her phoenix form indefinitely. So I must consult. Here…."

Hlr. Bosworth handed Harry the last of the charmed phoenix feathers and left the room.

"Harry," Luna called from the bed where she continued to cradle Hermione's baby phoenix form. "You're the most powerful wizard I know."

"What's Master Harry being needing Dobby to do?"

Harry shook a growing web of guilt from his mind. "Dobby, forget about repairing the Château right now. Take this feather and every elf you trust, and go find a thin-pointed silver dagger and all bits of silver chains that are somewhere in what's left of the Blacks' graveyard. This feather will be attracted to phoenix resonance from Hermione's transformation. It's critical that you find them. After that, anything else of Hermione's that's out there - find it, collect it, and bring it to me, okay?"

"Yes sir, Harry Potter, sir!" Dobby almost shouted. "Everything!" Grabbing the feather, the elf popped away, leaving Harry and Luna alone with what remained of Hermione.

"I … we … should never have come," Harry kicked at the curse-scarred carpet. "She would have, almost did, save herself…."

"Stuff and nonsense!" boomed a scornful retort from behind Harry. The distinctive Tenth Century accent of Godric Gryffindor resounded from his damaged portrait, his image contorting itself awkwardly to avoid several spell holes blasted through the canvas. "You had to come here, if only to finish what you started - and you're not finished yet, not by a long shot."

"What do you want?" Harry almost sneered. "You're almost a thousand years dead."

"And you've yet to live," the founder scornfully dismissed Harry's comment. "Just … finish what you've started." With that, the scarlet-bedecked image limped off, ducking to avoid the scorched oils, leaving the bare, pockmarked frame behind.

Just as one person (broadly construed) left, two others entered. Hlr. Bosworth returned with Hlr. Huxley in tow. Hlr. Huxley had good news on one front. Ron was out of danger and would recover fully the use of his left leg and foot, provided he let it heal. For the moment, Ron was resting comfortably in the adjacent room.

Harry cast a furtive glance at Luna, who had not moved from the bed. He had expected her to bolt for the door - to be with Ron, her boyfriend - but Luna stayed put. Luna had plainly concluded that Hermione needed her presence more than Ron did.

Luna's steadfastness both heartened and worried Harry.

Hlr. Huxley approached Luna, and with a few well chosen, and impossible to overhear, words convinced her to relinquish Hermione for another physical examination. The physical did not take long, and soon Hermione was returned to Luna.

Hlr. Huxley then turned to Harry with a carefully calibrated look of concern on his face. "The phoenix, Fawkes' soul, is strong within her, Harry," he began. "I suspect that strength was why she was unable to effect the transformation for so long. I can only hope that her soul is equally powerful within the phoenix. Fawkes, as I'm sure you know from your now well-publicised Basilisk encounter, is extremely strong-willed…."

"So is Hermione," Harry responded. "I know that even better."

"A month ago, I would have believed you without question," Hlr. Huxley chose his words carefully. "At this juncture, I will require convincing."

Harry reacted as if he had been slapped. He better than anyone knew how badly he had behaved. But she could not possibly prefer…. He had to do this - he had to. Harry took a deep breath. "I'll convince you," Harry hissed. "I'll convince anyone…."

The goblins' exertions for their Prince, and those of the Château's elves for their Proprietor (Harry would not admit to "master" - especially not now), soon produced the desired results. Roxtar's braves needed only a few minutes before returning with Druella Black's marker held high. Hlr. Huxley's confirmatory test for phoenix resonance established the stone as the epicentre of Hermione's transformation.

Other discoveries followed in short order. Another goblin brought in Hermione's wand - found on the corpse of a dead Death Eater. Several elves returned with greater or lesser sections of the silver chains that had bound Hermione to the accursed stone. With a triumphant, toothy grin, a goblin presented the glinting silver rondel, covered with miniature runes, which Harry's Disarming Charm had separated from Voldemort. Even the grass that had covered Druella Black's grave was harvested and retrieved.

Hlr. Huxley took the dagger from Harry and started sketching the runes.

Hardest for Harry to accept were fragments of Hermione's clothes. Even though he knew from his own uncontrolled, partial Golden Griffin shape shifting that spontaneous transformations destroyed clothing, handling the shredded remnants of Hermione's clothing caused Harry extreme discomfort.

Hermione had worn those clothes whilst enduring Voldemort's ritual.

When Dobby popped back into the room and presented him with a large chunk of what had been Hermione's unmentionables, Harry immediately tossed them in Hlr. Bosworth's general direction as if the cloth were on fire.

"Oh, Circe's cervix, what the hell is that?" he heard the Healer wail a few seconds later. "Perry, look at this. We've got an issue here…. Petrificus totalus!"

Harry pirouetted, his remaining wand in hand. He saw only the two Healers' backs. They both had their wands pointed at something in the damaged plush chair.

"Do you think…?"

"It sure looks like the photos and descriptions that have been circulating."

"They've been quite a problem in some parts of Central Asia, and in the Maghreb … but never here…."

"What is it?" Harry loudly demanded.

Hlr. Huxley turned; his face grim. He responded with forced calm in his voice, "Harry, this clinches it. The Death Eaters were not trying to kill Hermione Granger…."

"But, the spell…."

Hlr. Huxley eyed the room. "Can you ask everyone else to step outside? This should be for your consumption only."

With barely a word from Harry, the elves made themselves scarce. All but two of the goblins departed, and that pair almost instantly became grey boulders on either side of the door. "Should I take Hermione, or leave her here?" Luna wondered.

"No, you can stay," Harry directed.

"Are you sure about that?" Hlr. Huxley questioned. With his hands, he pantomimed someone scribbling with a quill.

"Yes," Harry reiterated. "When it comes to anything involving Hermione, Luna Lovegood is completely reliable."

The conversation paused as Hlr. Huxley waited for an explanation from Harry that did not follow.

"Very well," Hlr. Huxley conceded.

"See this?" Hlr. Bosworth took over, pointing to a revolting multi-legged something-or-other stuck in the folds of what was left of Hermione's knickers. "I'm ninety-nine percent sure that's a Tartaran Flobberworm. I've never heard of one in the UK before, but I've read several disturbing journal articles about these being bred specifically for mind control purposes in other parts of the world…."

"M-m-mind control?" Harry stammered. "Why?"

"The key question, Harry," Hlr. Huxley seconded. "All I can say is that Miss Granger was extremely fortunate to have worn anti-rape knickers tonight…."

For the first time all evening - an evening where he had witnessed the Killing Curse several times - Harry consciously used Occlumency to restrain himself.

"…because they entangled this thing before it could, well, do what it does…. Hype?"

Hlr. Bosworth took over the explanation. "This … vile thing … gains access, through any orifice it can, then it molts and penetrates the spinal column. It's a mental and physical parasite. It migrates to the brain stem and wraps around it. Then, if the victim attempts to … usually to commit suicide, it reacts, squeezes, and causes intense, debilitating pain. Either the victim gives up, or the worm keeps squeezing until paralysis or unconsciousness results."

"If the Death Eaters were just going to kill her, Harry, they would not have taken pains to use something as rare and difficult to acquire as a Tartaran Flobberworm," Hlr. Bosworth continued. "The rest of this - the silver chains, this silver rondel, these runestones - they all point to one thing … Voldemort intended to make Miss Granger into a Horcrux…."

At that news, Harry slammed the gates of Occlumency down hard across his boiling Fifth Element core.

"…That's what you interrupted here, Harry," Healer Huxley reassured. "If they had succeeded, it's fatal. There's no cure. Don't let anyone, especially yourself, think that you weren't on the side of the angels tonight."

"How … how did you know?"

"Dumbledore," Hlr. Huxley indicated. "He asked me to study certain notes - notes that I gather you obtained - about Horcruxes, on the chance that I might be called upon … well, to do what I'm doing now…. These runestones are currently blank, but I'd wager anything that they had symbols of the four compass points chalked on them. The runes on this rondel…. They match almost exactly a pattern in the material Dumbledore gave me."

"She's … she's not a Horcrux, is she?" Harry asked the unthinkable question.

"Perish the thought, no," Hlr. Huxley hastened to answer. "Between her own inner phoenix - utterly incompatible with a Horcrux - and your fortuitous intervention, I believe that Voldemort was thwarted before he actually split his soul. He intended to use this rondel to cleave his own soul, not to kill Miss Granger…."

Harry breathed a huge sigh of relief.

That relief lasted only until Harry posed his next question.

"Now what?"

"Unfortunately one consequence of Miss Granger's exposure to Voldemort's soul probably was to drive her essence deeper into hiding than the mere prospect of dying," Hlr. Huxley explained. "Fawkes came forward, and Fawkes is a fighter."

"No kidding," Harry commented. "But how can we get Hermione back?"

Hlr. Huxley had a plan, but it came with no guarantees. "I've been thinking. There are parallels between her situation and what happened to you when the goblins rescued you from the Death Eaters last September. You were trapped, albeit only partially, in your Animagus form. Albus did something … some spell involving the laying on of hands … that caused you to relax a shield you unconsciously had guarding you…."

"Yeah, I remember," Harry recalled. "He called me back with … with trust. Sometimes I can't stand the man, the way he manipulates everyone, but when the chips were down, I still trusted him with my life…."

"With your permission, I'd like to bring Albus here and have him try the same thing with Miss Granger…. It may be our only chance."

Harry swallowed, hard. "Won't happen. He's not … I don't know where he is…."

"Indisposed?"

"No, Horcrux hunting," Harry decided to tell the whole truth. "Someplace by the sea - affected by tonight's low tide. But for this coming up, I would have been with him."

"That's certainly inconvenient," Hlr. Bosworth allowed.

"If you mean that it might be a trap, or a diversion, yeah, I've had the same thought," Harry agreed.

"What the hell to do, then?" Hlr. Huxley ran his hands through his hair. "I can't do what he did. I don't even know exactly what Albus did. When will he…?"

"Harry's the most powerful wizard I know," wafted Luna's declaration from behind them. She had made the same observation before.

Harry turned to face her. "You think I…?"

"Who other?"

"But I caused all this…."

"Doesn't matter," Luna insisted. "At least you know what it feels like."

"But you're the Empath."

"I didn't say I wouldn't help." Luna was insistent.

Harry turned back to the Healers. "What do you think?"

"She's right about your power," Hlr. Huxley observed. "All Albus has on you is skill. I don't think you could possibly hurt her in her present condition. The worst that happens is that it doesn't work."

"Time is of the essence," Hlr. Bosworth added. "The longer Fawkes remains in charge of Miss Granger's form, the less likely we are to have a successful outcome."

Harry instantly made his choice - not really a choice at all. "Okay, then how?"

"Albus did it with his bare hands," Hlr. Huxley stated. "He mumbled things like `It's over' and `you can come back, it's safe'."

"That was Dumbledore," Luna pointed out. "I think Harry needs to be Harry. That's who Hermione knows."

"I agree that Harry should do what he feels is best," Hlr. Bosworth chimed in. "The magic will be strongest that way."

Harry straightened his shoulders, his mind already made up to proceed. "I remember how it felt," he echoed Luna's prior observation. "I'll just try to reverse engineer it."

He climbed on the bed. Between him and her, Luna gently placed the blinking baby phoenix that tethered Hermione's soul to this world. "Put your hands on the other side," she instructed.

He laid hands on the acquiescent phoenix. It was so small that he could not avoid touching Luna's fingers. The Empath's urgent yearning came through like the jolt of an electric shock. Harry almost pulled his hands away.

"I said I'll help you," she whispered, so only he could hear. "You're not the only one who needs her. It's been two thousand years…."

Harry concentrated, letting his magic flow, trying to imitate what he remembered feeling when Dumbledore had called him back from the brink of death.

He began murmuring, "Hermione, it's me…. It's done, Hermione…. You can trust me…. You know you can…. I said I'd always come for you … and I did, and I am still…. You need to trust me. I want to help…. I won't hurt you, not anymore…. You're safe now…. We've beaten the Death Eaters…. Hermione, please let me in…."

Throughout, Harry maintained a gentle current of magic that, like water, flowed around the barriers of hurt, distrust, and separation that had emerged between them since Harry had begun what he now recognised as a series of indefensible acts.

Beside him, Harry could feel Luna's reverse flux. Whilst Harry's magic streamed in, Luna's oozed outward, drawing with it a pall of sadness and pain.

Harry did not envy Luna's empathetic powers.

"…Let me in, Hermione…. Trust me…. I'm here to help…. Let me bring you back…. You're safe with me…."

Suddenly, he heard a dreamy voice in his head - Luna's. `Harry, don't be Dumbledore; be yourself. That's what Hermione … and you … need now….'

Harry agreed. Now was not the time to hold anything back, however painful.

"Hermione, you're … I need you back…. I'm sorry…. I still can't explain what happened … or excuse it…. I can't do this without you…. That's all I know…. Hermione I-I-I … love you … now and always…. Love you… Don't leave me alone…. Please."

Luna's voice again encouraged him. `That's better, Harry … I knew you had it in you….'

"Hermione, please come back … to me…. Let me love you … again…. I can't…."

Harry found himself all but overwhelmed by emotions that had been blocked for - it seemed like forever. He could barely talk.

"I'll do…. I'll be…."

Words failing him, he switched to music - Hermione's music, her favourite, that Tchaikovsky piece she was always practising….

Harry's magic surged.

How long it continued, he could not say. Harry was no longer completely of this world. All he could do - all he could think to do - was to keep channelling his magic to Hermione and hope that it would be enough.

Once again, failure was not an option.

Suddenly, he was jostled.

"Oof…." Kicked in the stomach was more like it.

With the blow, Harry's eyes popped open. He saw - Hermione's face! And her….

…Her forehead - marred by a jagged, bleeding wound in the shape of….

What in the name of Merlin had that bastard Voldemort put her through?

And his own string of stupidities had given the Death Eaters the opening. It did not get much worse than this.

"Viktor…?" she mumbled.

Actually, it could get worse.

Her first word knocked the wind out of him more effectively than any slap in the face or kick in the stomach. How could she think…?

Suddenly Harry realised something else almost as disturbing.

Hermione had returned without a stitch of clothing on her.

"I shouldn't be seeing this," Harry choked out. "I need … to get…." He jumped up, stricken.

How could she be hoping for Viktor? He had connived in her kidnapping!

"What … Harry…?" Hermione mumbled again. "How could…?"

The Healers were already in action, rushing towards Hermione with spells and sustenance. "Episkey!" cried Hlr. Huxley. The wound on her forehead, lacking the Dark force that had permanently scarred Harry, healed itself readily.

"Stay still," Hlr. Bosworth told her soothingly, "you've been through quite an ordeal."

"But…."

"Yes, that was Harry," Luna whispered in her ear.

Harry was on his feet, stumbling to get out of the Healers' way. Emotionally exhausted, physically spent, gasping for breath, and borderline nauseous, he reacted rather than thought.

What more could he do? Should he simply…?

A stern voice brought him up short. "I don't care what you saw or what you think just happened. Don't you dare leave your friend…." Harry had never heard Luna talk to him, or anyone, like that - not a trace of her usual airiness lingered in her sharp words.

Luna's command had the desired effect. Gryffindors go forward; they do not run away. Harry stopped in his tracks.

Friendship.

Their friendship had driven him to the Château tonight. If she no longer wanted the rest, that was her choice - and he deserved it.

And so Harry stood, facing resolutely away from the bed, whilst the Healers worked their magic on Hermione.

Suddenly, he heard an insistent rapping on the door, followed by a familiar voice.

"Oy, Harry! You in there mate? Somebody is…."

"Ron!?"

The two boulders by the door became goblins again. Their hands on their swords, they looked to Harry for orders.

"A friend. Let him in."

Ron stumped into the room, still favouring his previously injured leg. Seeing Harry's ashen expression, he asked, "Blimey, mate what's wrong with you? She didn't…. Oh shite!"

"Urrp … no nothing like that," Harry wheezed. "It's … it's … Hermione's back… I think she's … she's safe."

Ron broke into a smile. "Don't scare me like that, mate. Where's Luna, then?"

"Over there, on the bed, she helped … a lot."

The Healers had a privacy screen up. Ron limped past a still rooted Harry, looking for Luna, and found her standing uncertainly by the foot of the bed whilst the Healers tended to Hermione. "What the hell?" Harry heard his friend squawk. "What did you do to Luna? She's covered in … goo!"

Ron's protest snapped Harry back to full sensibility, and he turned to see what Ron was complaining about.

Typically, Ron had exaggerated, but not by much. Although the Healers were focussing all their attention on Hermione, Luna remained nearby - seemingly dazed - her arms covered in sticky black Amoco Cadiz-style gunk, almost all the way to her shoulder blades.

"Luna, are you all right!" Ron asked with a note of panic in his voice. "What is all that crap?"

"Ronald, calm down," Luna said firmly, without raising her voice. "I'm fine, if a bit … foul … at the moment. Don't disturb Hermione…."

Ron instantly shut up. Only Luna could make that happen.

With Ron silent, Harry whispered a question, "Where did all that come from?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Luna answered, her expression cross-eyed and perplexed. "I think I drew it out of Hermione. That's never happened before…."

Hlr. Huxley put his two Knuts in, "Don't worry, either of you. As soon as I'm done here, you can be damn sure I'll be running plenty of tests on whatever that is. I've got some suspicions…."

Harry sighed. Realising just how tired he truly was, he sank into the busted chair, watching Ron lead his girlfriend outside the privacy screen. His friend conjured some towels and began sorting out a now rather passive and grotesque looking Luna Lovegood.

Harry had other things on his mind. `Viktor bloody Krum….'

Just then, Harry felt an urgent tug on his shoulder.

It was Roxtar, and the goblin had no time for pleasantries, even for a prince.

"Impratraxis, disturbing news bring I."

"Is Harry there…?" Hermione asked simultaneously from behind the screen erected by the Healers.

Pulled in two directions at once, Harry simply threw up his hands and pleaded, "What now?"

The goblin was quicker to answer.

"Over Hogwarts, has appeared the Dark Mark."

All thought of rest vanished with those words. "Oh, crap…!"

* * * *

Wherever he was, it was icy, dark, sleeting, and howling a gale.

In the invisible distance, wild ocean waves crashed loudly against an unseen, rocky coast, adding frothy spindrift to the ferocious wind.

For some unfathomable reason, Lord Voldemort's Apparition had gone badly awry.

No sooner had he incanted a few charms to protect himself from the biting, most un-June-like weather, than with a "pop," Lucius Malfoy arrived. He was soon followed by a dozen or so rather bedraggled Death Eaters.

All of them had Apparated - most to avoid being crushed by something Potter had done - and they all ended up here.

They asked the Dark Lord what he had done. For once Voldemort had no clue.

"BANG!" Bellatrix Lestrange, resurrected and now with physical attributes unnervingly similar to those of the Dark Lord, Apparated in, cackling wildly.

"What the…. Master! Thank you!" She threw herself at his feet, into a gritty coating of snow, and gravel over weathered ice.

Nothing, however, could dampen her mood. "I have wonderful news," she said from her prone position.

"Arise then," the Dark Lord commanded, hiding his bewilderment at their current circumstances behind a long-practised air of command. "I could certainly use some, in this Merlin-forsaken place."

"I killed her," Bellatrix burst out, insanely proud of herself. "I Avadaed Potter's Mudblood. She burnt up and died right before his eyes! The look on Potter's face was priceless! He tried to kill me, but I Disapparated. Too fast for him, I was…."

"You, too, then," Voldemort observed.

"Me, too, what, My Lord," Bellatrix replied, suddenly unsure of herself. "I thought killing Granger would … be … well, worthy of some reward…."

The Dark witch eyed the Dark Lord lasciviously.

"She had taken the form of a phoenix," Voldemort responded. "I would do some research into that before declaring her dead. It may be … premature. A reward may well be in order, but first we need to determine exactly where we are…."

All of the Death Eaters agreed on that necessity. Each of them had Apparated, sensing that the Château's anti-Apparition wards had been disabled, and each had ended up … wherever "here" was.

After about fifteen minutes of tramping over the barren, mostly glacial landscape, with only wandlight at their disposal, the Death Eater party came upon a barren stretch of seaside rock containing the rusted, ramshackle remains of what looked like some centuries-old Muggle buildings and the skeletal remains of a dock.

Faded out paint above the absent doors of the ruins of the largest structure spelled out, in tattered, barely legible black lettering: "BLACK STAR WHALING - BOUVET ISLAND FACTORY."

* * * *

Author's notes: Malfoy gave the coin to Ginny in Ch. 79

Ginny will not stay put

Lestrange parallels Voldemort in GoF; she made a Horcrux in Ch. 49

Hermione had located Voldemort's spell in Ch. 65

The Black graveyard being at the Château was mentioned in Ch.62

The regeneration magic requiring the death of the "enemy" is canon

The new Horcrux required Krum's death

Hermione not dying was necessary to the Horcrux reversal in Ch. 75

Candace was introduced in Ch. 71

A vinegaroon is a type of arachnid

The creature (a Tartaran Flobberworm) was introduced in Ch. 78

The Horcrux runes were described in Ch. 49

The first two scenes are from the Shoah, the third from Rwanda

Harry started learning Tunneling Charms in Ch. 74; the goblin miners helped him perfect them in Ch. 81

Harry obtained the Sempiternal dirk in Ch. 74

The Death Eaters' Magmacious Charm from Ch. 84, created the lava

The Death Eaters attributed the small earthquake to the lava

The goblin cloaking incantation was used in Ch. 67

Hermione's phoenix transformation happened the next instant after the end of the previous segment told from her POV

A turbo-beater is an automatic mixer

"Ding dong" is, of course, from "The Wizard of Oz"

Bellatrix' sing song is to the chorus of Don McLean's "American Pie"

Green lightning bolts from Harry's eyes is an old fanfic cliché

Mallet's mortar was the largest British artillery piece ever

Wine and champagne were traditionally aged in caves

Ima Hogg was introduced in Ch. 64

The burning of James Potter's wand core was in Sirius' memory in Ch. 19

Her phoenix incarnation tethered Hermione to life

In limbo veritas means "in limbo, truth"; it's a variant on "in vino veritas"

The notion that Horcrux possession can only be broken by death becomes important in a couple of chapters

Hermione was preparing herself for death

"Obicham prijatel" approximates "beloved friend"

The shears/scissors of Atropos (one of the three Fates) date at least to ancient Greek mythology

Hermione's prior suicidal ideation is mentioned in Ch. 7

The reason for the void's lightening becomes apparent by the end of the chapter, and is confirmed later

Healers Huxley and Bosworth attended Harry's rescue in Ch. 37

Harry and Jerry were discussing the Château's wards

In canon, an AK forces a phoenix through a burning, as occurred at the end of OOP

Cordite is a form of smokeless powder

Peer review is getting other experts to critique scientific papers

The Sacrifice of the Phoenix occurred in Ch. 36

Harry received power over Hermione's medical condition in Ch. 39

Harry's golden griffin form manifested itself in Ch. 35

Hermione had received the anti-rape knickers from Viktor in Ch. 84

Harry acquired the Horcrux notes in Ch. 62

Harry's rescue by Dumbledore was in Ch. 37

See Ch. 40 for the origin of the "come for you" meme

Dumbledore used trust; Harry uses love

The Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D was first mentioned in Ch. 18

Hermione thinks it's Viktor because of the Draught of Despair, which Luna is simultaneously removing

Hermione's mention of Viktor is about where the prior limbo scene ends

Why Luna can remove the potion becomes clear in a couple of chapters

Amoco Cadiz refers to a massive oil spill in the English Channel in 1978

Bouvet Island, well south of South Africa, is perhaps the most remote place on earth

67

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